US Election Blog | The Spectator

The greatest edit in history

, 04 Jul 2009 20:37:59 GMT

Seeing as it is the Fourth of July, I hope Coffee Housers will indulge me in a quick post on the Declaration of Independence. The document was, of course, drafted by Thomas Jefferson. But Ben Franklin ran his eye over Jefferson’s draft and made a few changes.

One of them, can I think, lay claim to be the most felicitous edit in history. As Franklin’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, explains, Franklin took, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" and changed them to the words now enshrined in history: "We hold

Palin resigns. Pundits ask, what did she mean by that?

, 04 Jul 2009 13:38:38 GMT

Sarah Palin’s decision to quit as governor of Alaska is perplexing. It is hard to see how she can be a credible presidential candidate when she failed to serve out even one term as governor.

There has been little normal or orthodox about Palin’s political career and trying to assess why she is walking away now isn’t easy. One can make a credible case that she is doing so because she has had her fill of politics, certainly that what NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell has heard. (And whatever one thinks of Palin,

Blair: Obama will face a hard power moment in the Middle East at some point

, 24 Jun 2009 19:55:23 GMT

Tony Blair is back in the news with the whole debate over the Iraq inquiry so I was intrigued to watch this interview of Blair by Graydon Carter, the notoriously anti-war, anti-Bush editor of Vanity Fair. It took place on Tuesday and what is striking about it is just how much more comfortable in his own skin than Brown, Blair is. Historians will puzzle over why the Labour party was so keen to jettison this triple election-winner and replace him with Brown. (Oddly, when Blair is asked what the best moment he spent with Brown was,

US intelligence rivalry flares over British connection

, 10 Jun 2009 17:01:40 GMT

The CIA station in London is at the center of a bitter fight between different branches of the US intelligence community in Washington DC.

For years, the CIA has had the right to appoint the station chief who runs US intelligence operations in London and liaises with MI6 and GCHQ. Now, the National Security Agency is arguing that they and not the CIA should run intelligence operations in the UK because they have more people on the ground and the work they do has far greater value to both countries.

NSA have found useful

Obama misses the problems behind the problems

, 04 Jun 2009 12:56:20 GMT

Obama’s speech to the ‘Muslim world’ in Egypt was full of necessary fictions. But more substantively it set out what Obama sees as seven areas where progress must be made if tensions are to be eased: the fight against violent extremism, Israel / Palestine, Iran’s nuclear ambition, democracy, religious freedom, womens’ rights and economic development.

Missing from the speech was a clear appreciation that violent extremism comes out of an extremist ideology. Violent extremism cannot be defeated until the ideology that lies behind it is tackled. It was also, to my mind, a

Rules of war for cyberspace

, 31 May 2009 01:16:14 GMT

The Obama administration is planning to rewrite the rulebook for warfare establishing new laws for war in cyberspace including a series of international agreements that will spell out just what actions are permissible and what will be considered an act of war. For the first time, countries like China, which launch millions of attacks every day will face the prospect of retaliatory action, including the use of a new arsenal of cyber weapons.

As this blog predicted, President Obama announced last week a series of major new initiatives designed to secure cyberspace from attack.

Obama shouldn't let his speech to the 'Muslim world' be as much of a missed opportunity as his speech to Europe was

, 30 May 2009 18:24:13 GMT

Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo next month is being hyped as a major part of his administration’s outreach to the ‘Muslim world’. One can only hope that it is a better, more realistic speech than the one Obama gave in Berlin last July setting out how trans-Atlantic relations could be improved. In that speech, Obama missed a huge opportunity to tell the Europeans that even he—a candidate who was favoured by European elites and publics by huge margins—thought they were shirking their responsibilities in Afghanistan. He should have made clear that America listening more would

The North Korea dilemma

, 27 May 2009 18:24:57 GMT

As North Korea continues to ratchet up the nuclear rhetoric, the US and its allies have publicly determined that ‘something must be done’. Barack Obama, in what is the first and most serious test of his Presidency, announced that the world must ‘stand up’ to North Korea.

But behind the bluster from Pyongyang and Washington is a recognition on both sides that the opportunities for real action are very limited. For decades, as the North Koreans have developed their own nuclear weapon and then exported their technology to countries like Syria and Iran, the

Memoir wars

, 25 May 2009 17:54:12 GMT

If M had Miss Moneypenny, General Mike Hayden had Cindy. Both were attractive and of a certain age and both were excellent guardians of the gate. While Miss Moneypenny never caused M any trouble at all,Cindy is turning out to be a focus of a major row between Hayden, the head of the CIA and the National Security Agency during the Bush Presidency, and government lawyers.

The trouble has arisen because Hayden is writing his version of a tell all book which is going to set out his story of how, after the