Comments on Aaronovitch Watch: Gaffes, McCain, Obama, and Oliver Kamm

My American ex-partner used to say that the Britis...

2008-06-15T14:31:00.000Z

My American ex-partner used to say that the British media get everything about the USA wrong

Not so different from the US media then...
Actually one of the best writers on the US, American or otherwise, is Gary Younge. The trouble with US journalists is that most of them are very parochial. They either assume that the US is all like where the grew up, or currently live, or

Alt.Dsquared's move is, I think, at least in part ...

2008-06-13T20:38:00.000Z

Alt.Dsquared's move is, I think, at least in part a pre-emptive strike against that highly Decent figure, Michael Gove. Be interesting to see if they deploy in line with Gove, Murdoch and the PolExers against Davies as they did against Livingstone. But Kelvin McCunt's involvement is likely to queer their pomposity a tad.

Re: Ledeen. My first memory of encountering him wa...

2008-06-13T20:04:00.000Z

Re: Ledeen. My first memory of encountering him was reading a comment piece on the Telegraph. I was onto the second column and "This is all shit" was banging away in my frontal lobes like an incipient migraine. So I gave up. In those days, though, I still read Stephen Pollard, who linked to said article and praised its percipience and lonely voice against the world, etc, etc. Not long after, I

1) Another Spinwatch article about Decency2) Is th...

2008-06-13T17:41:00.000Z

1) Another Spinwatch article about Decency

2) Is there a Decent line on 42 days pre-charge detention?

Moussaka Man

I can’t stand Obama, due to his horrible fake per...

2008-06-13T16:00:00.000Z

I can’t stand Obama, due to his horrible fake persona and his fanatical iPod-owning poseur moron ’sorry everybody’ ‘hay let’s re-fuck-up-Iraq’ followers.

this a comment from a site overflowing with Blair devotees? shurely shome mishtake!

it's also interesting how many decents are seemingly oblivious to what actually gets American presidents elected, ie issues domestic as

Michael Ledeen also gets a mention in a recent Spi...

2008-06-13T09:40:00.000Z

Michael Ledeen also gets a mention in a recent Spinwatch article about Labour Friends of Israel. What a coincidence!

Moussaka Man

Bill Clinton liberated East Timor? Who knew!I also...

2008-06-12T20:45:00.000Z

Bill Clinton liberated East Timor? Who knew!

I also didn't know that the rule of law was a machine you could "get up and running".

Cold track meet days, when there's a certain snap ...

2008-06-12T18:02:00.000Z

Cold track meet days, when there's a certain snap in the air, and the whole team knows they had better have a bake sale before long.

What are "cold days on the track"?

2008-06-12T17:55:00.000Z

What are "cold days on the track"?

A fascinating thing about America is that, along w...

2008-06-12T17:41:00.000Z

A fascinating thing about America is that, along with not having a youth panic right now like Britain, hoodies have very little sinister connotation to them (unfortunately, what sinister connotation they do have is probably based on racism). They're what you might wear on those cold days on the track, before you meet up with Ashley and Meredith to plan next week's kegger.

Clinton showed an interest in Northern Ireland unp...

2008-06-12T17:19:00.000Z

Clinton showed an interest in Northern Ireland unprecedented from American presidents. I don't think Ireland's example of a jaw-jaw approach to tricky conflicts registers much in Decentistan.

Marc Mulholland.

If you follow the link to the HP postings where Ma...

2008-06-12T16:57:00.000Z

If you follow the link to the HP postings where Marko made that claim, you can see that in all seriousness he consdiers George Bush's foreign policy to have consisted, exclusively, of 'The liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq'. He then goes on:

Clinton’s foreign policy wasn’t all bad; the liberation of East Timor was his finest hour. But overall, Bush’s foreign policy has been less bad

Is that another instance of the Decent usage of "s...

2008-06-12T16:21:00.000Z
Is that another instance of the Decent usage of "serious", when Marko employs the term? I think the idea that Clinton (who I loathe, so I've no particular interest in going out of my way to defend him) wasn't interested in foreign policy simply doesn't stack up unless we assume that only an aggressive foreign policy counts as being interested.

Of course it may mean "didn't militarily