I have seen your future, America, and it doesn’t work

seb

Probably right about the cohort of well-meaning but ineffectual sidekicks. But can anyone truly be as ignorant and pompous as Blair? Remember what 'Sir' Michael White of the Guardian said of Princess Tony. He 'doesn't read books'. How arrogant can you get. Tony Blair, the man who knew nothing about history, computers, science but probably a lot about guitars. Whoopee.

If he has any advantage over Blair and promises something at least a little bit better, it must be because Obama is not like the vacuous egotist and ignoramus who bequeathed us Gordon the Moron.

We can only hope it's true to say that 'it can only get better' for the US. The alternative is despair, the sort evident in our numptyocracy.

Diswiss

Well said James. Could you
write Brown's biography ? At
least it would be honest.

Patrick

Fabulous!

Archie

Oh dear, Mr. Delingpole! I fear the dreaded Obamaniacs will soon engulf you with transatlantic bile! No surprises there though, the Yanks evidently can't get enough of such Al-Beeb, leftie agenda-ridden, telly rubbish as 'MI5', so you will probably emerge with integrity intact.

Forlornehope

"its pockets empty, its savings gone, its property trashed to virtual worthlessness, its streets rife with crime and its traditional liberties circumscribed".

So not much will have changed then?

RedEye

'MI5' is the name under which Spooks goes out in the US. I suspect Archie would enjoy James' comments about said programme in 'How to be Right'.

David Bouvier

Interesting - though I guess the difference is that Blair came in with the strong steady economy, and screwed it up.

With Obama he is arriving with an economy in crisis, that gives him a great opportunity to make radical institutional changes, no short term restrictions on spending, but medium term huge issues with economy recovery, taxation, and resource availability.

But allocating a few billion here or there to what would be in reality left wing political machine infrastructure ("community support programmes" or something like that) - that could be scary.

Michael

Excellent. Never got Blair - never understood while the Charles Moores and Kelvin McKenzies wanted rid of that nice, underated Mr Major. We are in the midst of an emotional spasm. Obama has become the Wizard of Oz - though I wish him well.

biggestaspidistra

JD:"In four, or more likely, eight years time, America is going to wake up one morning — rather as Britain did in the dog-end of the Blair years — with the most terrible hang- over, only to find its pockets empty, its savings gone, its property trashed to virtual worthlessness, its streets rife with crime and its traditional liberties circumscribed by nannying bureaucrats and pettifogging regulation, and it’s going to ask itself: ‘Huh? How did that happen? "

Or they might look out of the window today, under Bush, and ask the very same question.

John Thomas

Apparently Obama has said that his first act as president is to remove laws that would protect those born alive after botched abortions - an action, as has been said, that is very evil indeed, and this is from one whom many hail as a messiah! This Obamessiah claims to be a (real) Christian, and will be swearing on a Bible - perhaps this is a new sort of Christian that is deeply into mass murder ... And this is only one reason why we should be very scared of this man.

Anonymouse

Now you've done it! The cohorts of net Orwellites signed on by the Obamamessiah political machine will find you. The coronation next Tuesday is too awful to contemplate, and I will be attempting to avoid any mention of this god who now ascends to the throne. OTOH, unicorns, rainbows and financial happiness, not to mention the end of global warming, peak oil, and war is at hand according to his followers. What's not to like?

Prairierose

Believe me, there are many in the US who are terrified of Obama. He does not love this country. He loves his power. Why the US press doesn't scrutinize him the way they have the opposition party is a crime. His appointments to high positions come with criminal activites that are called 'mistakes.' His direction is that of the Pied Piper; common sense, capitalism, and self-reliance will be a thing of the past. There are a few of us who are trying to warn the others, but it falls on deaf ears. Our legacy to our grandchildren is one of massive debt and socialism. Our health care will go blithely into the night. What service has government ever provided that was as efficient or effective as that of the private sector? History has shown every time the government puts its fat fingers into the pie, it taints it. I get sick to my stomach thinking of calling Obama my president. (Just to set the record straight, I did not like John McCain, either. He is worthless.)

Mille

I fear, as we say in America, "you've hit the nail on the head."

It distresses me to no end how easily so many fall under the spell of this poser who has accomplished....well, nothing really.

As for biggestaspidistra: you need to study the history of the U.S. housing crisis a bit further. The Carter/Clinton Community Reinvestment Act (which arm-twisted banks and lenders to loan money to risky borrowers based on racial quotas) and Democrats like Barney Frank and Maxine Waters who defended the actions of the GSEs --- those are who shoulder the lion's share of responsibility for the shattered U. S. economy.

darsan

" win us with honest trifles,
and betray us in deepest consequence" . this is not the first time that people have beenfooled. darsan

Noel

I am fairly depressed by the fact that I must turn to the British press for some clear objectivity. Obama is a snake oil salesman (make that salesperson). His supporters are totally clueless to the ramifications of one party government. The Republican's on the other hand sold their souls to the highest bidder, losing their fiscal discipline after their majority status was achieved. The current crop of Democrat's don't have fiscal discipline. Couple this with the need to placate their interest groups and it all spells trouble in River City, with a capital T. It will be a long four years, maybe my wife, daughter and I should ride it out by moving to your lovely Isle of Wight for the duration. At least we will get some straight reporting about Obama-mania from your journalists when we open the morning paper.

Wedge

To add to Mille's remark:

Don't forget the financial "experts" who sold these subprime mortgages as low-risk investments because "the gov't will guarantee the loan." Bush's culpability is for failing to tear such a system apart because he liked to proclaim high home-ownership levels.

Verity

Wedge - Bush. Halliburton. Iraq. Quagmire. Cheyney.

Can you understand that we are discussing Obama's critical character defects?

shark

Excellent prognostication Mr. Delingpole.

and well said..Mille.

Verity

Noel - You won't get any more objectivity about Obama in the British press than you do in the US press. The British press were the first to swoon around the walls when the fabulousness of Tony Blair descended upon mankind. They love Obama. The Speccie is the exception.

Reaction to CLosed Minds

wow, well-said. Actually have very little, if any, negative takes on 44. Did not vote for him & he ran better campaign. But for Palin, McCain would have been trashed but she helped make it competitive to the end (which is why she is being trashed still so mercilessly including her family - she must be destroyed completely). Absolutely agree that the Alice-in-Wonderland view of 40%+ of US voters (remember that is as high as 70% in states like NY. Mass, Calif, NJ etc) and certainly bulk of media is mind-boggling. Am 50+ and consider myself reasonably objective & rational - and always aware of human failings (including my own). Not even in the late 1960s or early 1970s did I ever see such a disconnect from reality by the masses here in the US. I grew up in Chicago area & the Daley machine stuff alone was enough to cause for serious pause by anyone with experience in politics - yet the media just passed on it & populace ignored all this. Personally do not think Obama corrupt like so many others (i.e., Clintons) but just 'surfed' the Chicago-scene as he had to - but still there is enough serious stuff & own disconnect from laws & ethics which are fundamental in most other parts of USA (most Chicagoans either purposefully avoid addressing this issue as it tars their self-image or are really clueless/naive or are self-conflicted as benefitting or some family member benefits from this gross political corruption. I remember that when the police came, sometimes it was not always a good thing). No way Obama could eescape any of this (bet: more to come on Chicago front alone that any self-respecting journalist can see with little real effort). This has nothing to do with left or right politics, which the Daily Kos crowd just refuses to acknowledge or see, it has to do with the incredible delusional foibles of humanity & the human condition. Smartest thing China could do is just mind its P&Qs focusing on their domestic stability - don't challenge the US, we are always better at destroying ourselves versus some opponent. Exception: the insidious approach of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, LET, et al which IS a direct frontal, in your face, off-with-your-head attack & objective of complete annihilation of the West which is protected by the USA.

Verity

I believe I have the honour of having been the first person to refer to Obama as Tony Blair Mark II - in these very pages - around a year ago. He had it up in neon signs every time he opened his mouth. (He has the advantage that, being one half black - he is not an African American in the traditional meaning of the word, James) he was not only armoured against any criticism but also armed - in that intelligent critics were run through with the rapier of “racism”.

As all his loony messages came spinning along, all emoted with that overwrought Sarah Bernhardtesque intensity, no one questioned him. It was eerie. Any more than the bovine British questioned how some obscure little MP from Sedgefield or whatever it was, with a fat, ambitious wife and a cv that was, to put it kindly, undistinguished - a "rock star" and barrister manqué - indeed, as free of previous achievement as is Obama - had grasped the meaning of the universe that everyone else had somehow missed.

"Change you can believe in!" It took on a mystical aura. It was a mantra! What did it mean? Change from what to what? No one knew, but everyone believed it.

The only thing Obama is missing, so far, is a Princess Diana. Blair should have been laughed out of Westminster Abbey for his risible performance at her funeral (so should Elton John, but at least he was fellow royalty). Instead, his popularity soared, along with that of the deceased Diana.

What a gift!

Now, even previous conservatives - Republicans who couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain - are saying things like, "Well, I like his programme so far ...". He'll be a disaster, as James predicts. But as with Blair, he may get a second term to do even more damage.

Blair had Peter Mandelson stage managing his every move and writing his scripts. Obama has William Ayers.

The day that Blair won his first election was the day I knew I would leave Britain for good as soon as I could manage it. I could read the roadmap.

David Short

the election of Obama has changed the world. The readers of the new Spectator possibly don't ever meet Africans or Afro-Americans. If they did, they'd understand.

Susan

Obama most certainly is a vacuous egotist, seb. Remember, this is the man who wrote TWO autobiographies before he turned 46...shouldn't you actually do something first? He is also a racist. He was raised by a white mother and grandparents after his Kenyan father abandoned them and he never met the man until the 80s...and he threw that poor grandmother under the bus when she was dying, couldn't be bothered to attend her funeral and didn't get around to scattering her ashes until he went to Hawai'i for Christmas...over a month after she died. And all the press here can do is talk about his pecs.

Ray McErlean

A wonderful article. What I remember most about the post-Blair years was the number of 'luvvies' and other people who should have known better moaning about how disappointed they were in 'Tony'

Nigel Ford

I don't believe the analogy with Blair and Obama is authentic.

I knew Blair was a charlatan from the outset by his track record.

A man who wore his Christianity on his sleeve yet had voted in parliament to reduce gay consent from 21 to 16 and had also voted against reducing the upper limit on abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. Both actions reeked of hypocrisy.

Blair and his wife also sent his eldest son to a Grant Maintained school miles away from his home yet he and his party were prattling on about community values. As soon as he got into office he then abolished GM schools.

As one of the previous contributor mentions, right wing journalists like Kelvin Mackenzie and Charles Moore were deluded by this trickster. He could have added Max "Hitler" Hastings and Simon Heffer as another couple of gullible idiots.

I don't believe Obama has Blair's baggage, and in 1997 I voted Conservative with more conviction than ever. However if I was forced to vote in the US elections it would have been for Obama after the appalling Republican legacy left by George Bush.

Verity

David Short - And those thousands of Somali "asylum seekers" in London are from what continent, pray? And (black) Commonwealth citizens from Kenya are from what continent? How about those people from Zimbabwe? Could you identify which continent their country is on if we showed you an Atlas with large typeface?

Those from Ghana? Botswana? Cameroon? Lesotho?

If you count the W Indies as in N America, then, of course, we have Jamaicans and Barbadans in Britain. Your ignorance is astounding.

Also, David Short, to what do you refer when you mention "the new Spectator"? I believe this esteemed publication is almost 200 years old. In American terms, that is prehistoric.

Verity

Nigel Ford - Obama professes to be a Christian and he twice voted for not saving aborted babies who had somehow managed to survive abortion.

Obama's wife's on the "diversity" teat to the tune of quarter of a million dollars a year. Like Cherie Blair was on the EHRA teat until Tony hit the big time with international jobs. (Is he still acting in an advisory capacity to ... was it Goldman Sachs? Need we look any further for the seeds of the global financial meltdown?)

Obama went to a known black racist church for what, 12 years? - before he threw the Rev Wright under the bus. That was the same bus he threw Tony Retzo under - the Tony Retzo who had "loaned" him almost a million dollars to buy a swank house. The space under that bus has quite a cast of characters.

Verity

For a roadmap to the Obama presidency, just consult Tony Blair's 10 years of destroying Britain. I think Obama is even motivated by the same hatred of his country that motivated Blair and his consort, the manatee.

Steve Little

Wow this article flushed out the Obama-doubters better than anything I can think of!
Clever piece of writing from a pro, mind you there is absolutely no substance to it mainly because we just do not know what kind of president Mr Obama will turn out to be?
The article should be shown to creative writing students how you can write a long piece about nothing and get paid for it!

Verity

Steve Little - James Delingpole is speculating on how closely Obama is cut from that template of greedy, egotistical vacuity, Tony Blair.

And are you implying that the "Obama doubters" (I would have written "naysayers" myself) have not been "flushed out" before? As in the tens of millions of words they committed to posts on blogs for the 18 months running up to the election? And why do you think people who harbour an intense mistrust of Obama have to be "flushed out"? People who mistrust Obama have been rather front and centre.

Obama is going to be almost as disastrous to the United States as Blair has been to Britain. The United States will be saved by its wondrous written Constitution. Blair trashed ours. And our Bill of Rights. And our second chamber. And,his hatred of Britain knowing no depths, intentionally diluted our ancient society with open borders to people with an intolerant, primitive belief system - and accorded them rights over the indigenous British. And he destroyed an education system that once was the gold standard. All this in a mere 10 years.

Obama won't be able to follow this template because the constitution (small 'c') of our societies is different, but he will be destructive in whatever manner will work. He will have Williams Ayers to guide him through with malice. Blair had a practitioner of the black arts called Peter Mandelson, now reincarnated as a lord.

David Short

Verity, I think of the Spectator as 'new' for reasons that might get me banned from writing here.

The only African countries I know that I have lived in are Angola, Burundi, Kenya and South Africa. I have visited about ten others of the 54.

Observer

The funniest part will be after his foreign policy starts to get heavy and his domestic policy starts removing even more civil liberties - watch when the Bonos and the Thom Yorkes and the Stevie Wonders start exiting stage left, creeping back into the shadows quietly hoping no one noticed their previous endorsement of this dangerous man.

Verity

David Short, I don't care where you have lived. You wrote: "The readers of the new Spectator possibly don't ever meet Africans ...". I told you we have Africans all over the place in Britain.

Josie

Brilliant article.

Dwight Vandryver

It's a little premature to be condemning Obama before he's even been sworn to office, don't you think? It would be stupid to believe that Bush had mastery over the American domestic and foreign policies during his term of office. For the last 8 years, American foreign policy has been determined by the Neo-Conservatives. Would you like more of the same? And when Clinton came to office, the first thing he was told was that the country could not afford his domestic policies. As so much goes on behind the scenes, it's just too early to judge Obama, wouldn't you say?

Alan Bishop

Hussein Obama and his wife are as anti-American as any in the Arabic countries. They dressed their girls and themselves in the colors of Africa when they won the election.
This person is an out and out liar as well and to prove it, he will take the oath of office on Lincoln's Bible and that oath is very short, it states that he will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That will prove to be his biggest lie ever as will be seen throughout his tenure as President.

God Bless America

Baz

This is what I have thought , but lacked the written skills to put it to print.

David

Presumably you are all talking about the Blair who was such a loyal ally of the US and its Republican administration?

Seems a litle churlish to me.

richard allan

You just have to read Obama's "Dreams from my father" written 10 years ago to realise that James Delingpole is absolutely right. He gives no thanks at all for his white mother and her parents who brought him up, but praises his Kenyan father and his dysfunctual family who had nothing to do with his upbringing at all.

Anthony Mario Piepe

Mr.Delingpole`s article is high on rhetoric,short on analysis.
Economically,we are living on a volcano, and these are the issues President-elect Obama has to face.
Try to think strategically and you may get closer to the mind of the next administration.

Tony

If you enjoyed this article, do check this essay out, too:

http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/english/articles/081118lf_en.html

The whole thing is beyond parody. An MTV inauguration ball, a letter to his daughters (oh, that the rest of the world must read); this isn't politics at all. It is a brand, a lifestyle, a coffee table book.

What's the point of his taking the oath when he hates the Constitution so much? Obama calls it 'imperfect' - quite unlike his deified self, of course.

I read this in the Ephraim Hardcastle column this morning:
"Funded by nearly £1 million from the Arts Council, the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North London, will stage an 'Obama chant' next Tuesday by cheerleaders from the American School in London.

"The specially commissioned incantation goes: 'United for change, Our people stand tall. Their ballots made history with a vision for all. Obama — our President, we welcome him in. The future is here, let history begin.' Mustn't laugh."

David Jones

We are talking about the same Blair who was such a loyal ally of the US and its Republican administration, aren't we?

Seems a little churlish to me...

John Thomas

Comment by Nigel Ford: "A man who wore his Christianity on his sleeve yet had voted in parliament to reduce gay consent from 21 to 16 and had also voted against reducing the upper limit on abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. Both actions reeked of hypocrisy." - at long last, some truth spoken about Blair. Let's hear it for Mr Ford - good on yer Nigel. I would just add one word, "gross" - gross hyocrisy.

John Thomas

Comment by Nigel Ford: "A man who wore his Christianity on his sleeve yet had voted in parliament to reduce gay consent from 21 to 16 and had also voted against reducing the upper limit on abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. Both actions reeked of hypocrisy." - at long last, some truth spoken about Blair. Let's hear it for Mr Ford - good on yer Nigel. I would just add one word, "gross" - gross hyocrisy.

Dallas Beaufort

James, You have just described all Australian state labor governments over the past 12 odd years and we wait with guarded anticipation for the new Rudd federal green-left labor push to deliver the same rubbish in rubbish out.

neil curtin

i liked, then didn't like, then liked again, and now dislike intensely - obama.

i liked him because he was brave and i didn't want hillary. i then didn't like the sound of his policies; they sounded too socialist. i then got swept up in the euphoria of the win, and now i dislike what i am seeing and hearing.

i think this article is bang on the money.

elfraed

Has the author factored-in that Obama is not only a man of mixed race, but as the son of an immigrant, he was brought up with broader and deeper personal experiences than mere American cultural references could provide? Being of mixed race is enough of a distinguishing factor for him not to make any further effort to distinguish himself. But, as these are not ordinary times, and he was raised with an open mind and wide horizons, he may be expected to perform beyond the norm. As for Americans waking up in that nightmare which all conservatives dread, I say that all which remains of American exceptionalism is the facade. When America was a nation of independent, capitalist, democratic,[b]yeoman farmers[/b], it was truly a light unto the world. Now that fewer than three percent of Americans are in that category, and the rest as dependent on wages and salaries within the global market as any other first world country, it is just another place to make a buck. When our forebears left the land, where for thousands of years they had earned their bread by the sweat of their brow, to become what they are today in an uncertain world of mulinational commerce, they became subject to socialist tendencies which have been the only substitute for the community and solidarity they had experienced as equals in society. What is the alternative?

David J

So, what the author seems to be saying - in a book that he frankly admits is rushed-out cash-in, and a long puff piece to plug said book - is that a politician may be elected on a wave of euphoria, but that time, 'events' and the intractible problems of government may well knock the shine off them by the time they lose office.

Or as Enoch Powell once more succinctly put it: "all political lives end in failure".

Eugene Valberg

This looks very interesting and I would like to read it. But I refuse to read a short piece that is BROKEN UP INTO SIX PARTS!! Rather, I will simply delete the entire issue. I ahve no patience for such outright STUPIDITY!!! It is also hard to have very much respect for someone who will allow his article to be butchered in this particularly useless, unnecessary and pointless way. I know that I would rather be unpublished.

David Stern

Oh! so you mean the Obama regime will be the same if not worse than the disasterous Bush administration and the scuzzballs of Bush will simply be replaced by pro-Israel nutters and loony Zionist scuzzballs? Well you may be right because it certainly looks that way.

Verity

No, Dwight Vandryver. We have watched Obama's feints, evasions and recoveries from lies and evasions for 18 months. We in Britain have seen this precise behaviour before. The words, the gestures ... He is an identikit Tony Blair, the most loathesome, destructive prime minister Britain has ever had in its long, long history. (We've been at this game for centuries longer than you.)

David - what is your comment supposed to mean? "Presumably you are all talking about the Blair who was such a loyal ally of the US and its Republican administration?

"Seems a litle churlish to me."

Are you under the impression that James Delingpole and The Spectator are American? Blair, as James pointed out, has been loyal to himself and his greedy wife. Blair used the office of prime minister for self-promotion, to lay the groundword for his future career giving after-dinner talks in the United States and getting "special envoy" positions that carried emoluments of millions of pounds. Blair tore up our Constitution. I hope you can understand how the British would be outraged by this. Look for something similar to happen to you under Obama. Your civil rights will be slashed back incalculably - for imaginative, deceitful reasons.

Anthony Mario Piepe - Obama's lies and deceits (and his voting records), and his sleazy friendships have been consistent since long before anyone noticed there was a global meltdown brewing.

Elfraed: "Has the author factored-in that Obama is not only a man of mixed race" ... so? what? Are you implying this makes him inferior so people should cut him some slack?

Elfraed continues: "but as the son of an immigrant, he was brought up with broader and deeper personal experiences than mere American cultural references could provide?" Do you know anything about this individual you are defending? His father wasn't "an immigrant". He came to the US because he got a scholarship for a degree. When he got his degree, having married or whatever Obama's mother, he scarpered back to Africa. Obama was brought up by his mother, grandmother and his stepfather in Indonesia (where he obtained whatever foreign references he has) never having known his father. See, that's why there's this book called "Dreams of My Father" that William Ayers thoughtfully wrote for him.

Nicholas

David Short, what's the weather like up there on that high horse?

You stand in a Coffee House, look round at the diversely chatting occupants and declare enigmatically "I describe this place as 'new' for reasons that might get me chucked out".

Tells us all we need to know about your bigotry, prejudice and very, very closed mind.

PS Many of us have been all over the world, not just to visit, but to live and work.

John McCarthy

Frighteningly convincing indeed - but where else does one hang one's hopes?

Tom Wnek

It's not often that a magazine contrives to rewrite the past and the future in one edition, as James Delingpole and Con Coughlin have done.

pcollier

So nice. Beautifully put. Bravo.

elfraed in reply to Verity et al.

Mr.Obama's Background or "color" has significance within the American context, as the civil rights movement occured within living memory. That is why I mention it. As a Brit, you could not be expected to know this, but by assuming the worst of me implies that you equally deficient (assume makes an ass of u and me)
Though Obama's father or even stepfather is not an immigrant per se, still they are significant foreign influences in his life which are not to be discounted when considering depth and breadth of the man.
As for leaving the country bankrupt, Mr.Bush's wars and cutting taxes has already done that. It would not surprise me if off-shore drilling became the sole prerogative of a national oil company in order to pay off the national debt and keep the government running. In that case, British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell will not be pumping millions in oil revenue into their respective national treasuries. Where will the "special relationship" be then, when you will not fight for oil, but not pump it out of America, either?

nobby

i saw an obama interview in which he was defending his redistributionst tendencies.

being the master of spin, he said look, when i was a kid, i shared my toys. that's redistributionist, so what's wrong with that. my initial thought was yeah, i guess he's right. nothing wrong with that.

on reflection of course, what socialist redistributionists do is to SHARE OTHER PEOPLES TOYS. which shows up his analogy for the deceit it is.

socialists have to be good at spin (lies) because nobody wants their product.

it took people years to twig blair in the uk. he was initially greeted obama like. now he and his money grabbing wife are despised.

Alidë Kohlhaas

It's a sad truth that Americans, and the rest of the world, have a need to recapture "Camelot", which never really unfolded. They are looking for another JFK, who never had a chance to show what he could or couldn't do. This places heavy expectations on Obama, which will set him up for a fall, whether he wants to or not. You are quite right about his chameleon-like changes: even his speech-pattern changes, and his walk, depending on whom he has in front of him. - But one thing I find strange about you: this strange obsession with "communists" etc. I think that what you seem to see as the left is actually a trend toward more social responsibility, such as good health care, badly needed in the US. As for Al Gore, who says he has been discounted? Climate change is definitely happening and our actions have contributed to it.

Steve Little

Sorry I still do not see the connection between Blair and Obama other then making a few bucks by the author for a speculative article.
Blair was a sucker upper to Bushie (I know I know all the other things that he did wrong in the UK) and a person that acted out his ego and "faith" rather then listen to advisors or logic, but Obama may actually turn out all right. He seems to me pretty pragmatic...
You "neysayers" you may come to like him!
Just give the man a little time.

Verity

elfraed - Your post was a failure on many levels, but that won't stop me drawing attention to all of them.

First, please spare us the little American schoolma'arm homilies. "(assume makes an ass of u and me)" Gag.

Next up: "Though Obama's father or even stepfather ... I assume you mean the one in Jakarta?... is not an immigrant per se," his father wasn't an immigrant at all. He was a foreign student. His stepfather was Indonesian and Obama lived in Jakarta in his household "still they are significant foreign influences in his life which are not to be discounted when considering depth and breadth of the man." His stepfather was not a "foreign influence" given that he was an Indonesian living in his own country.

He never knew his father.

"... as the civil rights movement occured within living memory. That is why I mention it. As a Brit, you could not be expected to know this,". No. The world saw the Civil Rights movement on TV. In addition, as a Brit who lived in the US for several years, I'm familiar with the major players. Obama has milked a movement that none of his family played any part in. His father was a foreign student who went back to wherever and his mother was from Kansas. Not too many slave-owners in Kansas. Lots of corn, though.

BTW, there is no "special relationship". Not since Maggie and Reagan. The only person who had a special relationship with Bill Clinton was Monica Lewinsky.

Nichael W Stone, Peterboorugh, UK

One thing is clear.

The authors of the 22nd Amendment were Divinely inspired,

jacky dite

my thoughts exactly on you articulate them much better than I ever could.

James Delingpole

Hello my Speccie-reading chums. I know I promised in my New Year TV column not to upset myself by reading the reader comments at the bottom of my article but I'm afraid on this one I just couldn't help it. Naturally I particularly appreciated the comments from people who enjoyed the article or agreed that I was right - what clever, discerning lovely chaps and chapesses you all are. May I say also how bucked I was by the admirably uncompromising stance of Eugene Varlberg, the principled fellow who felt able to damn all my writings as worthless on the basis that I allowed them to be split in the online version into six awkward gobbets. Mr Varlberg you take no prisoners and I salute you. But you ought perhaps to be aware that we Speccie hacks get no say in how our articles are published on this site.
Will you indulge me, though, if I take issue with just one of the comments below. (or rather above, since this is going to appear after it). I know one shouldn't get it into arguments with readers, but I'm going to do it just this once - well twice if you count the young hot head I nearly got into a fight with last year at the Oxford and Cambridge club -because his remarks seem to embody everything that's most annoying and wrong with some of the comments on these sites. I mean the person called David J, whose glib comment is objectionable on so many levels I'm not sure which is most nauseating. So David J, let me count the ways:
1. Your implicit assumption that it is somehow wrong or unethical for a journalist to "cash in" on a news event. Presumably you have a private income and have no need to do anything so vulgar as earn a living.
2. Your glib - though again implicit - assumption that because the book is a "rush-job" this somehow invalidates it. Try buying it and then make your judgement. It's good. Really good. Maybe the best thing I've ever done and if I'd been given nine months to write it or even three years it wouldn't have been half so strong. Sometimes with professional writers things work out that way - though I wouldn't expect you to understand since you clearly hold what we do in such low esteem.
3. Your assumption that because you imagine you can sum up an 1800-word article in one sentence, the whole enterprise has been utterly pointless. By your reductionist criteria, it would hardly be worth any journalist ever putting pen to paper ever again. Luckily though for us hacks, there still a few readers out there capable of appreciating an article not just for the number of totally new, utterly original ideas it contains, but also for the way it's turned out - the style, the jokes, the voice, the tropes. Sorry if you can't appreciate any of these nuances. Or maybe you can and think I can't write either - but if so, say so, and show me some evidence to support it.
4. Your de haut en bas tone. This is the thing I really don't get - the thing that made me go to all the trouble of responding to your comment, no doubt shooting myself in the foot by making you feel big and important. Why so grand? Are you an incredibly brilliant writer? A fantastically astute political commentator? If so, show us the money. Otherwise you just look gratuitously peevish.
5. If you are going to go the trouble of commenting on other people's articles - and in a de haut en bas tone to boot - mightn't it be an idea first to make sure you've understood them. Your supposed precis completely misrepresents what I said. No I don't at all think, as you put it,that Obama is a case of how "a politician may be elected on a wave of euphoria, but that time, 'events' and the intractible problems of government may well knock the shine off them by the time they lose office." Nor did I say so in my piece. My problem with Obama is that he is a socialist who is about to introduce socialist rule to a country whose values are wholly inimical to socialism. When Obama and his lot ruin America it will certainly be no accident.
6. Please don't read anything I write again David. It will make you much happier. It will make me much happier. So win win.
7. There. I feel so much better. This on behalf not just of me but all the other hard-working writers out there who are sick to the teeth of people sniping at them with comments which aren't clever or fair or interesting, just nasty and pointless and wrong. So there.

Fluke Greville

Jimmy

You weren't the only one to spot that Toni was a fraud.

Many years ago the little creep's face appeared on my TV when he became Shadow Home Affairs spokesperson.

I turned to my wife and uttered the immortal words:

"That guy's got wanker written all over him."

And so it proved to be !

A. MacAulay

All politicians make compromises on their way up which means they always have a past just waiting to catch up with them. The ability to stay up is dependant on the strength of the public persona which keeps the ragamuffins from the press, opposition and own party friends at bay. Once sufficient scratches have become apparent then the demolition of a statesman(woman) may begin and history and Shakespeare are full of wonderful examples of this process.

Wierdly, and Verity is 100% correct about Blair being the vilest, nastiest piece of work in Britain's very long history of the vile and nasty, Tony seems to have made it into #10 without going through the process of accepting bribes and making shady promises. Or at least no one has gone to the bother of unearthing it. And there we have the Blair paradox; a morally corrupt, utter hypocrite made it to the highest office without having done anything illegal! Once in office is another matter, of course.

Mr Obama's career thus far is less remarkable in that he has obviously made the kind of compromises that any other pol would make.

Maybe there's a ray of hope in that.

Ellen J

Yes, elfraed, we all know about Obama’s color and the civil rights movement. Barack Obama himself was never a victim of anything to do with that. He’s happy for people to draw that conclusion when, of course, the opposite is true - his genealogy links him to slave owners.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1466665.ece

People always bang on about his father’s goat herd as if Obama was some salt of the earth man of the people. He has, of course, enjoyed the pampered privilege of a Harvard education, with a lawyer‘s salary to follow. Even then he needed his convict friend to arrange him a cut price mortgage. It’s all part of his spin: tapping into history that has nothing to do with him.

Barack Obama’s political roots can in fact be traced to the living room of unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, because it was in that room that he launched his political career.

You talk about ‘Mr Bush’s wars‘, well, what was Mr Bush supposed to do? The government of India has been persistently weak about Islamic terror and has recently had to think about invading Pakistan to deal with it. They have ended up in exactly the same dilemma as Bush: do you wait and hope, or do you try to extinguish it on foreign soil, where it is incubated, or do you just wait and hope?

You talk about the country being bankrupt, but who’s fault is that? Bill Clinton’s for passing politically correct laws that meant people who weren’t creditworthy had to be given mortgages. This stuff started in the property market and it will only end once that flattens out. This was a foolish and radical policy that has cost America and the world dear. Like Obama’s background, though, this piece of history is airbrushed away by the Obamanuts.

If that easy credit policy wasn’t bad enough, there is worse to come under Obama. Since the days of the founding fathers, American citizens’ freedoms have been defined by the Constitution - that’s why you’ve not turned into Cuba, Russia and so on. This punk Obama wants to set in motion an agenda whose endgame is to turn the Constitution on its head. Melanie Phillips explains the intention and the methods here:

www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3067781/ruling-by-a-radical.thtml

I hope Obama doesn’t get that far but this is the real and present danger to the freest nation on earth - that its freedoms are compromised irrevocably. That this agenda is trying to be set in motion to so to the inane chant of “Yes, we can” is truly nauseating.

Hysteria

I still can't understand why people don't see the similarities between the Blair and Obama phenomenae....

As PAris says in the Times today - don't write "I told you so" after the event if you can see the train wreck ahead of time - and I am afraid that is what we are looking at boys and girls...............

Verity

Hurraayyy for James Delingpole and his lucid and clever rebuttal of a post by an illiterate, xenophobic (oh, how I've longed to use that word since the lefties colonised it!), self-righteous moron!

Eugene Whatever, did you notice that the "six parts" that you referred to were what we call in the civilised world "pages"? It said the actual word, for people who couldn't quite figure it out for themselves: page.

Eugene makes a huffy, provincial little note: "I know that I would rather be unpublished." Well, I'm sure you've had your wish, sweets. For years.

Verity

Alidë Kohlhaas - you sounded mildly sane, or at least, not harmful, until you got to this: "As for Al Gore, who says he has been discounted? Climate change is definitely happening and our actions have contributed to it." You came in with a fake Sanity Card! Climate change has been going on for several million years without the permission of Al Gore. And Earth's "climate change" is echoed on Mars. Bugger off.

Ellen J, I was with you until this grotesque statement: "The government of India has been persistently weak about Islamic terror and has recently had to think about invading Pakistan to deal with it." You are clearly not informed about the region and you should not be voicing opinions. India has been dealing with Islamic terrorism for decades. The Indians are brave fighters and clever strategists. This statement infuriates me. You know nothing of the Sub-Continent and its intracies.

Fluke Greville - Snap. One look and I read the entire script. And made plans to get the hell out.

Verity

First, how did the Comments clumsily lumber up to the top of the page again? This is beyond both stupid and logic.

Hysteria - the light at the end of the tunnel is the light of the oncoming train. As we're on the tracks, we can't divert. Blair put Islamic immigration on the oncoming train.

kathleen abell

Hmmm. Interesting. But what about the mess America is in after eight years of Bush? I am of the opinion that Obama will disappoint because he will continue to be a corporate pawn and will not change the direction of American foreign policy very significantly.Just another Bill Clinton --who was too far right for me. A Canadian point of view.

James

If this vapid rhetoric really is the case against, then America deserves to be still more optimistic. I didn't realize the anti Obama sentiment was so windy and tribal. I used to think there might be more to it. The case for: a plain upgrade in competence, less likely to be deflected by false ideological dichotomies.

David Short

Nicholas, I have no idea why you are so hostile to me.

Give your full and real name if you want to make such remarks.

A. Taylor

Can't describe how long I have waited for a journalist to relay the truth about the massive mistake the American people have made with the appointment of this fraudulent president and his liberal cohorts. Thank you Mr Delingpole

The similarity with 'Tone' Blair is eerie and absolutely spot on.

The horror of it is that all of us in the West, and not just Americans, will suffer the inevitable consequence of the pervading force of Socialism (peddled as capitalist democracy) that is surely coming.

We, in Australia, should know: we have our own recently appointed Messiah and are already experiencing 'change' to a previously well oiled and well run economy and way of life.

I only hope it is a temporary madness and that sanity will return to the West, even if it takes eight long years for Americans. Hopefully, sooner for us.

Anochka

When James Delingpole writes:

In four, or more likely, eight years time, America is going to wake up one morning — rather as Britain did in the dog-end of the Blair years — with the most terrible hang- over, only to find its pockets empty, its savings gone, its property trashed to virtual worthlessness, its streets rife with crime and its traditional liberties circumscribed by nannying bureaucrats and pettifogging regulation, and it’s going to ask itself: ‘Huh? How did that happen? Did someone drug me? Why didn’t I see that one coming?

his words call to mind those museum and shopping mall maps with the "YOU ARE HERE" giant red X designation.

IOWs, thanks to the work of that pinch-eyed mediocrity, George W. Bush, the danger Obama represents is 1000 times greater than Delingpole prognosticates.

elfraed

Y'all have missed my point entirely about the race issue. He has broken a barrier, just that. Even if he hadn't 'broken the ice', his upbringing is unconventional for any American political leader let alone the President. There are many shades and intensities of American in this nation of immigrants, but each is no less a human being for that.
I simply don't see how you can so confidently pigeon-hole him as another Blair when their backgrounds are nothing alike. (I suppose I shall just have to read the book when it comes out.) Blair, as I understand, was raised in the mainstream even though his drift has been to the left; a man entirely British.
President Clinton, for all his faults, did not favor a bizarre level of debt over balancing the budget. As for the mortgage crisis, we know that was only the tip of the iceberg in an ailing economy. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush pushed sunny platitudes while driving up the debt. He raised no taxes despite the added expense of two wars.
If this worldwide slump turns into another Great Depression, we may see a necessary and radical change in government domestic policy, not brought forth by conservatives longing for the days when we were a nation of self-sufficient yeoman farmers.
Since that day when our country became more citified that countrified, we have become subject to the whims of the market and to the the dictates of our leaders. Power no longer flows upward from the free tiller, but downward from those who can provide jobs, jobs, jobs.
If you really want to help Americans out, show them how the British people have prevailed under similar circumstances. So far, all I have read are complaints.

Peter Holttum

Too true in the main - but Blair was hardly a socialist. Labour was just the ladder he used for his ascent, so he used the language. Delingpole deludes himself if he thinks this analysis would not more or less fit a future Cameron coming, or indeed anyone else It's a reflection of the power of marketing in politics. We've seen what this can do for bankers, financial services, actuaries, accountants (audit/IT fiasco) etc etc. Older readers will remember also the second coming of Kennedy, Wilson, Thatcher - a whole line of similar charlatans. That's politics as it must always be - but now they are all now hailed as saviours by our preposterous media - in thrall as it is to spin, and government advertising campaigns

elfraed

"My problem with Obama is that he is a socialist who is about to introduce socialist rule to a country whose values are wholly inimical to socialism."
Lets' get beyond the labels and just get done what needs doing, since that is the essential value in any society.
America is no longer the land of fable, where the homesteader could get by on his own pluck and determination. Ninety-seven percent of the population are landless peasants, same as y'all, entirely dependent on the whims of the market and the dictates of their leaders to provide for them. The sooner that Americans face that fact, the less likely to be bamboozled by conservative thowbacks to an earlier era, oozing shibboleths such as "Capitalism" and "Socialism". The Republicans and their voodoo economics have failed to instill a cargo cult mentality in the American people, which is really all that is left of their economic program, their Contract on America. Greed and savagery are the hallmarks of modern Capitalism; and one of the purposes of modern representative government, stemming from that activity, is to mitigate negative effects on the population at large and lend balance to the whole of economic life.
"When Obama and his lot ruin America it will certainly be no accident."
America is already "ruined". It is just a matter of how to dispose of the flotsam and jetsam of its former self in a manner most advantageous to oneself.

elfraed

"That this agenda is trying to be set in motion to the inane chant of “Yes, we can” is truly nauseating."
The only agenda being set in motion is to deal with the facts of modern life. At its base lies the alienation that comes of living in cities and suburbs, which has replaced the gemeinshaft of village life, which has sustained humanity since the dawn of civilization, and has engendered ceaseless argument over the means to deal with it.[see: Socialism]
"Yes we can" is no more inane than "Drill Baby Drill!", and more likely to directly benefit the commonweal than giving exclusive drilling rights to a favored few.

JJ

elfraed: "The only agenda being set in motion is to deal with the facts of modern life. At its base lies the alienation that comes of living in cities and suburbs, which has replaced the gemeinshaft of village life, which has sustained humanity since the dawn of civilization, and has engendered ceaseless argument over the means to deal with it.[see: Socialism]" - no, it isn't.

The agenda being set in motion is to try to whip up antipathy towards America's Constitution, via "community organizers", with a view to undermining its core defence of individuals and thereby create an over-mighty state.

You say "Yes, we can" is no more inane than "Drill, baby, drill", but the latter means something - it means drill. "Yes, we can" means absolutely nothing, which is its point. You're just supposed to graft whatever fantasy you like on to your Bunkum Obama hologram and think it will arrive soon. This is a tactic straight out of the Tony Blair playbook, which I believe is where James Delingploe's article came in.

Verity

James (but not Delingpole) - You see, we have seen the entire performance over the course of 11 years (we don't have a limit on terms in Britain). Obama is following the script and the stage directions with the skill of a an actor. The completely empty rhetoric. The desire to tear down an established, well-ordered society (this is a Gramscian ambition). The presentation of the candidate, later winner, as the saviour of the world - a claim made by others that he never dismisses or refers to derisively.

Even changing accents and speech patters is cut on the Tony Blair template. Blair changed his accent depending on who he was speaking to. In Scotland, he spoke with the hint of a Scotch accent. For middle England, he spoke with an educated English accent. For the welfare sector, and on TV talk shows he adopted what we call Estuary. Obama has an identical range of accents and manners of speaking. All the way down to American black. I spotted him, at a black meeting, referring to someone and looking around and saying, "Whay's he at?" in a high pitched, squeaky voice.

We can give you a timetable and a road map. They are identikit Gramscians. (And they both have aggressive, greedy lawyer wives.)

Ellen J

“The only agenda being set in motion is to deal with the facts of modern life. At its base lies the alienation that comes of living in cities and suburbs, which has replaced the gemeinshaft of village life, which has sustained humanity since the dawn of civilization, and has engendered ceaseless argument over the means to deal with it.”

What on earth does this have to do with handing out mortgages for homes to people who can’t pay them back? The modern facts of life are that if you hand out credit to people who can’t pay it back then the banking system comes crashing down. Is Obama going to reverse Clinton’s legislation so the housing market is never left so high and dry again?

elfraed

"What...does this have to do with handing out mortgages for homes to people who can’t pay them back?"
Nothing. It has to do with the old Capitalism/Socialism dichotomy.
As for the "American Dream" of owning a home, that is pie in the sky, unless the home is on a self-sustaining farm. If it is not so situated, the house is just another commodity of no greater or lesser value than the market assigns it.

Norm

My dear American friends are long standing Republicans but voted for Obama. They got quite cross when I pointed out the similarities to Herr Blair and ZanuLabours attack on our civil liberties, our Tony being such a hero in America. But Obama wishes to change the consitution and that is what Americans should beware of because it will not be for the better.

Colin Gillies Edinburgh

Thanks James. I thought that I was the only one who did not think that he was the Messiah. I saw through Blair when he was campaigning for the Labour leadership in 1994 but that was due to intuition and not for any other reason.

jim

But on fundamental policies McCain and Obama were virtually identical. A lot of the loony stuff will get dropped as he won't have the money.
Obama is an intellectual who has surrounded himself with academics, so grandiose plans that will never be implemented is more likely.
As for the third way, there is one. It's the one the revolutionary leaders introduced, libertarianism.
I agree he's a snake oil salesman that will end in failure though.

Observer

James Delingpole makes an interesting argument, and is in some respects quite right, but there is one fundamental error in his hypothesis: the US does not follow the UK in political cycles.

Tony Blair was our version of Bill Clinton - Obama is not their version of Tony Blair. We have not got anywhere close to what Obama will do. Obama is Clinton 2.0 and already we have seen even slicker techniques of manipulation. The subliminal hand signals in his speeches that draw our attention to him when he refers to JFK and the constant referencing of Lincoln (using his bible and re-enacting his train journey to DC) being two examples to reinforce our notion of Obama as a "great president" before he has even been sworn in.

So, expect much worse as the biggest smoke and mirrors presidency in history plays out, and worse still - remember we haven't had the British version of Obama yet.

Angry American

Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim, a Marxist and a racist (Verity: he belonged to that false church which 'preached' Black Liberation Theology, war against the white race, for 20, not 12 years. It's the only 'religious' body which he has ever belonged to, apart from Islam, of course). One of the parties he has appointed to give a prayer at his inauguration is Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood (terrorist organisation banned in several countries, world-wide, among them Germany and Egypt) and the ISNA admitted through a statement made by its lawyers at the Federal District Court in Texas on July 21, 2008, that it has ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and with Hamas.

http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/732

This is intended to send a very definite, sotto voce message, to the Muslim umma. This is thanks to the traitorous Lying Old Media which deliberately kept every fact about Obama hidden from the public, not least of which are the facts about Islam.

Nicholas

David Short: "Nicholas, I have no idea why you are so hostile to me."

Really? Maybe it has something to do with this patronising, sanctimonious tripe:-

"the election of Obama has changed the world. The readers of the new Spectator possibly don't ever meet Africans or Afro-Americans. If they did, they'd understand."

or this piece of arrogant, supercilious, judgemental, condescending nonsense:-

"I think of the Spectator as 'new' for reasons that might get me banned from writing here."

And Nicholas is my real name. You'll have to wait until your free speech suppressing New Labour friends control and regulate blogs and force their ID cards down our throats for my surname, by which time it will probably be a number anyway.

Hostile? You have no idea.

"Give your full and real name if you want to make such remarks."

You sound like another New Labour stormtrooper who wants to control and regulate blogs. Just remember, my comment followed yours and was in response to it and I am under no obligation to dance to your tune.

Jon

An accomplished rant for sure, but on second reading this is just unsupported gut instinct stuff. All about Blair, little to do with Obama

Verity

David Short writes: "Nicholas, I have no idea why you are so hostile to me."

I wish you'd also referred to me in this comment. Aren't I hostile enough? Already I've touched on the bottomless well of your stupidity and ignorance. Isn't that good enough to get me included?

Your "demand" - the socialists always "demand" things - that Nicholas gives you his full and real name if he wants to "make such remarks" is so Naziesque - "papers, please" that I suspect you're a British Labourite.

Robert Nowell

James Delingpole seems to accept his US publisher's view that in this country we've spent 12 years living under socialism. What socialism? If we had we mightn't be in quite the dire mess we are in now.

Bensaude

Yes, we'll have all the old guff when things start to go awry: not enough socialism or greenery or whatever.
Like Blair, the guy is charming and convincing. Hopefully, he is not such an arrogant and unprincipled maniac. Hopefully, he reads books unlike Blaaie. But, despairingly, I know they will be the wrong ones: socialist conclusions already inherent their very conception.
Full marks to Delingpole. It is no fun being right, being Cassanda, in this world of Romulus Augustulus Brown and our decadent Constitution and tenth-rate generation of Englishmen^. Don't even mention the Scotch!

David Short

Still no real names, then!

I wonder why?

Or perhaps I don't.

D.M. Brown

The similarity is not only with Blair but with the Trudeaumania in Canada during the 70's and 80's. He virturally ruined this country with his deficit funding, turning us into a nanny socialist state. He gave us that pandora's box called the Charter of Rights, that gave the courts more power than parliament. Of course, he had the power to appoint all high court judges both in the provinces and to the supreme court. He was arrogant and a liar. He lied to get elected, then did what he pleased when he won. Every time I see the Obamamania, it's like a flashback. God help the U.S.A.

Nicholas

David Short: since that is your second post referring to names it seems something of an obsession that may give the lie to your last comment about not wondering.

Cast a glance through this and other blogs and you will see an assortment of first names, full names - real or perhaps contrived - pseudonyms and even "anonymous". Are there rules?

Not many of us have credentials as impressive as yours when it comes to journalism, Africa and Kenya and which give you such a special right to comment on the Obama phenomenon:-

http://www.davidshort.org/

David Short

'Nicholas', I am well aware that psuedonyms are using on many blogs.

No harm in that, but if one person makes hugely insulting remarks about another, then he should have the courage to reveal his identity

Rosemary Redston

What a wonderfully illogical essay James Delingpole!
America is in the mess you predict for the Obama years already: pockets empty, property values trashed, the streets 'rife with crime'. Your essay would be a wonderful exercise for students studying logic; sweeping statements galore, emotion plus plus. Your point is crushed beneath your rhetoric.

Verity

D M Brown - You are correct. Trudeau wrecked Canada, and Canada offers sad evidence that, once destroyed from within, it is almost impossible to get your country back.

Rick Hawkins

Tiger Woods is "half-white"?

Dimitri Lazaroff

Hey Jim, may I offer some assistance with your book...if my fellow americans think that you're more qualified because you've lived 12 years under socialism, I should be much more qualified being born and lived for 37 years under socialism...and comunism...and all-around marxism...and konzlager economics.
I escaped this and came to the US only to find out that my old friends are already here and have been here since long before I was even born.

A. MacAulay

But let's be open on one economical point nobody seems to want to touch. The US is world champion at exporting it's inflation. If all the dollars at large in the world all came home at once then the US would have a currency similar to Zimbabwe's. All countries who exchange goods and services in USD are now paying for Mr Greenspans's Bank of Toyland cheap money, just as they have all paid for Mr Bush's investments in the military and will pay for Mr Obama's binge spending.

Nicholas

David Short: "No harm in that, but if one person makes hugely insulting remarks about another, then he should have the courage to reveal his identity"

Why?

Doesn't it occur to you that your own remarks about the Spectator and its contributors might be considered "hugely insulting"? You imply that Spectator readers are unlikely to meet Africans or Afro-Americans and if they did they would "understand". What evidence do you have for any of that? It is an outrageously presumptuous statement. Does it not reveal bigotry, prejudice and a very, very closed mind to presume that Spectator readers may not have met Africans or Afro-Americans and therefore do not understand the impact of Obama's election? The implicit, snide and rather nasty implication from those on the left that to be right wing is automatically to be racist is becoming irksome and is, frankly, "hugely insulting".

Personally I agree with this article. It is not Obama but the horde of left wing zealots and pressure groups who jump on his bandwagon that will represent the danger. They will get the headroom and power, as with Blair in the UK, to wreak untold damage in the name of "equality", "fairness" and that greatest impostor of all "change".

You describe the Spectator as "new" but refrain from explaining why, other than to suggest you might be banned from posting here if you did. That implies the description is hardly a complementary one. Do you have the courage to explain yourself?

If you hold the Spectator and its blog contributors in such contempt why do you post here? To provoke reactions like mine? My original post stands.

rob

You might well be right, my instinct tells me that you are. However he was elected in a hotly contested electoral process so we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He certainly has a lot more on his plate than he bargained for and perhaps that will restrict his ability to do too much damage to the American People.

Verity

David Short, like Nicholas, I highlighted your appalling ignorance at the top of this thread when I corrected your assumption that British people have never met any Afro-Americans or Africans and this accounts for our "not understanding" what Obama is all about. As Obama is not an Afro-American himself by any stretch, what his posturing points up is that he is a poseur and a phony like, um, oh, off the top of my head, Tony Blair, for example. In other words, the whole point of James Delingpole's thesis.

Herbert Thornton

God, I do hope that the folk who don't like Barack Obama turn out to be mistaken. Note that I said I "hope" - I refrain from forecasting what he will be like. To think that he's like Tony Blair is very discouraging.

I suspect that among many people there was similar distrust of Benjamin Disraeli when he first became Prime Minister. Yet he was quite a success. He and German Chancellor Bismarck were two of the greatest men of the 19th century. Moreover, the two greatly admired each other. Bismarck is recorded as saying of Disraeli - ““Der alte Jude. Das is der Mann.”

As I said, I find myself hoping that Obama will turn out to be not so much a Tony Blair as a Benjamin Disraeli. As it happens, I have just noticed that the Washington Post has reported news of an interview with President Hugo Chavez on Venezuelan television in which Chavez said Obama has "the same stench" as Bush? Is that not just a little bit encouraging? Wouldn't it be nice, in 4 years time, to hear President Putin describe Obama as "Barack The Great"? I know, you may say - "about as much chance as your winning the lottery" - but they're both nice thoughts.

But I do comfort myself with the thought that even if he does turn out like Tony Blair, American Presidents have less power than British Prime Ministers. Congress may contain a good many silly people, and the President may be a sort of elected King, but thanks to the American Constitution, Congressmen are a great deal more independent-minded than are British M.P.s. and the President is not a dictator. A British Prime Minister on the other hand is in effect a temporary dictator and British M.Ps of the governing party do what he tells them to do. That difference is real basis for optimism about America.

David

BO's strategy is quite simply to stay in power as long as possible. To achieve this he will do exactly what Labour has done in the UK: that is open the doors to immigration and create social programmes to reward dysfunctional families, unwed mothers and those who refuse to work.
The objective being to create a voter base of sloths who will be in the majority.
BO is an extremely dangerous pop idol president whose ponzi scheme financial plans will bankrupt America like Blair's did.
The mass media hav conned most Americans.
But I guess they did get the government they deserve.

alexolife

I wonder how one could measure the economic benefit of simply energising the electorate with false hope every four years. It might be better than nothing.

harold stevens

"ragbag ....... of scuzzballs, communists, class warriors, eco-loons, thugs, malcontents, and single-issue rabble-rousers that will sweep into power on his back? "

How is this worse than the jackbooted gang of rifle hugging, fundamentalist loony , racist , intellectually moronic, "pro-life" terrorist , build more prisons thugs that all ride along with Bush and his ilk ?

pathetic, pessimist, paranoia.

Christine Kadi

Rarely have I been so upset and disgusted than I was when I read the majority of these ignorant and often racist comments about this article- I do not rate delingpole as a journalist and even his TV criticism is often puerile. If you want a proper assessment of Obama's potential from a balanced perspective, go read Andrew Sullivan in this week's Sunday Times. I am disappointed to know that so many truly stupid and obnoxious people read the Spectator- I thought it provided intelligent commentary from a centre-right point of view.

Laura

Harold Stevens, I understand you may find it embarrassing that the Obamessiah launched his career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist, but you won't was these facts away by saying it's "pathetic, pessimist, paranoia". It's simply a fact.

Mind you, you call George Bush's associates 'racist' when he promoted more black people to positions of high office than any other president hitherto.

Christine Kadi, if you think Andrew Sullivan provides a 'balanced perspective' on Obama, you've clearly overdosed on the Kool Aid, too. Sullivan is a full-on Obamanut.

David Lindsay

In Medialand, there might have been euphoria over the 1997 Election result.

But in Britain, fewer people had actually voted Labour than had voted Tory in 1992.

Whereas the popular joy over Obama is real.

As are the expectations, of which there were never really any among normal people where Blair was concerned.

Obama really does have to restore America in all her job-protecting, wage-protecting, skills-protecting, unionised, internationally non-interventionist, big municipal, co-operative, Distributist, Keynesian, morally and socially conservative glory.

Or rightly pay the price at the polls.

FM

It's all very well being sceptical about Obama, but he would not seem such a saint to so many if Bush had not been such a sinner. Bush had good instincts, but he pushed his agenda so dishonestly and so incompetently and so cynically that it created the wave of feeling that has swept Obama to power. Why did Bush attack Iraq when he could justly have attacked Afghanistan? Why did he lie about his reasons? Why did he allow waterboarding? Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib? Why did he fiddle while New Orleans drowned?

On the right we are supposed to believe in the impartial rule of law, yet Bush systematically sacked non-Republican prosecutors.

Bush embodied a spirit in which it was OK to cheat as long as you were on the Right side, egged on by Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Scooter Libby.

This ultra-partisan spirit, which did not hesitate to undermine the US constitution was the same one which drove the impeachment of Bill Clinton over a relative technicality.

No, it's time for the right to stop sneering at Obama and try to emulate some of his dignity, honesty and lack of cynicism.

Josh

Fantastic article. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one feeling that way. I just wish more of my fellow Americans saw it...

lauriemacdonell-sanchez

You are as usual clear & prescient as to a clear & present danger. It took titanic effort by a cynical, leftist US press to lull the masses of useful fools into ignoring all the red flags & propel them to the polls, as well as the customary Democrat chicanery @ voter fraud to guarantee the necessary edge. America -- & the world --are in for a very rough roller coaster ride indeed. A lot of us will be lucky to still be alive 4 years hence. Worse still, it will take years to undo some, but never all of the harm about to wreaked on our fair republic by the motley crew of idiots, failures & reprobates hanging from the taffrail of red-&-black flagged M/V OBAMA.

Archie

Verity and D.M. Brown: Spot-on about Canada! As for the rest; imagine Tony Blair with the resources of the most powerful country in the world at his disposal! Frightening.

YouCannotBeSerious!

Dear Mystic Delingpole - any predictions for what will happen to Librans next Tuesday? You seem to have confused political analysis with the requirements of the horoscope page. Next!

Bob Goodman

Re waking up after the Obama administration with "the most terrible hang- over, only to find its pockets empty, its savings gone, its property trashed to virtual worthlessness, its streets rife with crime and its traditional liberties circumscribed by nannying bureaucrats and pettifogging regulation, and it’s going to ask itself: ‘Huh? How did that happen? Did someone drug me? Why didn’t I see that one coming?’"

Just a wonderful description of exactly where we are at now in America. Delingpole ever been here?

LMAO

James, why do you hate America?

Verity

Harold Stevens - Every cocktail hour needs a laugh! Thank you! "jackbooted gang of rifle hugging, fundamentalist loony , racist , intellectually moronic, "pro-life" terrorist , build more prisons thugs "

Gosh! And to think that GWB got in with a majority of votes twice! Who are the timid unjackbooted, uncrazed voters who steeled themselves and got up the nerve to vote for Obama in the face of all these armed thugs and loonies? They must be so brave!

And the moonbats are out tonight! Christine Kadi: "If you want a proper assessment of Obama's potential from a balanced perspective, go read Andrew Sullivan in this week's Sunday Times. Oh, thank you! Did he manage to slip something about Obama (or anything else) in between his considered opinions of gay marriage? Is he diversifying? I hadn't realised that people still read Andrew Sullivan. How cute!

Christine also refers to comments on these hallowed pages that were "often racist". Code for "racist" these days is "anyone who has an educated opinion about why Obama may be a destructive and divisive president". As he is only half-black, could those you condemn believing their comments are based on skintone, be termed "half racist"? Fair's fair!

FM - why are the posts getting crazier the further down the thread we move? You write regarding Mr Bush: "Why did he allow waterboarding? Because it works? Because American frat pledges went through it of their own free will until universities stopped it? "Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib?" Same with knobs on.

"Why did he fiddle while New Orleans drowned? No. Your question is: "Why did Governor Blanco fiddle (with her contractor pals) deals for rebuilding the levées) while New Orleans underwent its bursting levées? (We should always remember, most esteemed FM, that Hurricane Katrina never touched down in New Orleans or anywhere in the great state of Louisiana. The tropical rain accompanying the hurricane filled up Lake Ponchartrain and the levées burst. Katrina touched down in Mississippi. A completely different state. Republican.

We have seen Obama's British doppelganger, Blair, at work and have seen the destruction to our civil society that his madness and ambition wrought.

I sincerely wish America well.

elfraed

"Why did he allow waterboarding?
Because it works? Because American frat pledges went through it of their own free will until universities stopped it?"
I'm sorry, but most Americans did not pledge to those fraternities. While the atheist Christopher Hitchens can not speak for all atheists, he can call it as he sees it: torture. Mr.Bush, I am afraid, is alone in calling himself a Christian and believing that waterboarding is not torture. If Mr.Obama ends such practices, he will have made a good start at restoring honor to the office of the Presidency.

Mourning but never discouraged

Dimitri Lazaroff: Your comments are so very pregnant with truth. My eyes well up a bit acknowledging your woe. Having blood that runs back to 1642, I feel that, on behalf of those who have gone before us and sacrificed their very lives, I must say I am sorry to you that my beloved country, founded on absolute truths, is not what you would have hoped for when you arrived. Our last several generations, through irresponsibility, and to their rescue, through fraudulence, have fell prey to the quote "when good men do nothing, only few can accomplish bad". Yes the Bolsheviks have infiltrated since 1917 and they have infiltrated our fabric of government and public affairs at every level with every lie and deception known to man. Not surprising for a movement based in the occult… Evil calling good evil and evil good; the pure definition of evil. To call them out has been tantamount to wearing a tin hat. There are indeed more of us out here that John Adams would be proud of than the elitists would like to admit and indeed are frightened of since they ridicule us so sharply through the media they own. Jealousy, what a concept. However, we need you to stay/join in the fight. It's always been 1/3 goons, 1/3 selfish indifference, and 1/3 patriot. All the way back to 1776. Refernece the Clinton election results. Yes dark clouds are gathering if not already sprinkling. However, we have only fear of Barak Hussein Obama and his marxist financiers itself to fear. AND bear in mind. We do have a significant record of events where unseasonably out of nowhere providence has moved. For example: Thrice came whole fleets of ships intent on the decimation of these colonies. Thrice each was devastated by unseasonably strong storms. No myths. No exaggerations. No excuses. Just patriots bathed in prayer and diligence. Humble, Learned, reasonable, logical, responsible, clever. There is one hope concerning this presidency: That somehow someway, providence will grace us with the seeds of truth taking root in the mind of President Obama and him submitting his role to that truth. Know this: We fear Jehovah God; the only God. Its on our coinage. This is our hope: The Kings heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wills. We have a lot of repenting to do to stave of the blatant hand of providence he has lifted. But it can come about. Nothing is impossible when you put trust in God. For those who would discredit me: I am not a fabled endoctrinated media lie that left my brains at the door. I am a leading and record setting entreprenuer. Unfortunately because such I won't be back to this blog anytime soon. Praise or run me through, my words are true. There is a King coming sooner than later. He will rule in righteousness and purity and do so absolutely. Do you know him? There is more evidence of him than Caesar, Lincoln or JFK combined. He's not the Roman Catholic Jesus dead on a cross and replaced by a fallible pope. He is real, alive, and coming back. We do live in days similar to Noah. We do not know the day nor the hour, but we are given the hints of the season in which He does return. Only for those not reading those hints will He come like a thief in the night. Go read it in plain language: I Thes. 5

Jordan

THANK YOU.

JW

Obama is closer to the Anti-Christ than ticks on a dog.Our Nation is already under judgment.Economic collapse,terrorist nukes,and massive earthquakes are our future. We will need Britain-if you are still around-to come and re-colonize what is left. Just leave your socialism at home.Don't keep us waiting too long.God save the Queen.

Beverly K. Eakman

Your article, "I have Seen Your Future, America,and It Doesn't Work" is masterful, a true tour de force. As a fellow author and columnist, I'm thinking of writing a similar acerbic "Open Letter" to the CPAC folks, once again hosting their annual bash, as if nothing just happened to true conservative principles and the Constitution.

Susan McNabe

Dead on article I am afraid. As one of the Americans who can read, I can tell you that I have enjoyed most of article comments also.

All of my overly educated liberal friends and the retarded (intellectually disabled for the Democrats and Labour supporters)masses are beside themselves with joy. Interesting how the liberals are so very intolerant and devote so much time to the curtailing of liberty and the control of others....

Know this, my fellow Americans, we are not doomed. You who recognize the threat to our freedom, must get off of your lazy ass and be prepared to take to the streets in protest if necessary. We have an obligation to protect what is left of our liberty. Just because we tend to be more civilized and less aggressive than our evil, socialist adversaries does not mean we can sit out this battle. (Besides, it will freak out the Media completely if it is too large for them to ignore. Even the retarded masses would become curious as to why so many people are protesting Obama doublesum good policies....)

Join me, fight well and we will have the Congress back in two years time. The well-intentioned retards will wish they had never pissed off this housefrau! To arms! To arms! The Socialist Idiots have taken up fortified positions in DC!

Herbert Thornton

Those of you who are old enough to remember Clement Attlee's ministers in the post-war Labour government will also remember two immensely powerful Ministers whom people often confuse.

One was Aneurin Bevan and the other was Ernest Bevin.

Aneurin Bevan was a raving socialist who founded Britain's ruinously expensive National Health Service that has now deteriorated into perhaps the world's worst such system. Bevan hated Conservatives and everything about them. There was a great outcry when he described them, in one of his speeches, as "lower than vermin".

From the tone of many posts, people view Obama as being a similar sort of zealot.

Ernest Bevin, on the other hand, was no zealot. He was a solid a Labour man, but also both a realist and a staunchly patriotic Englishman - qualities for which the Conservatives soon came to respect him. Yes, I know, some people - e.g. Phil - don't agree because because Bevin was insufficiently sympathetic to the problems suffered by Jewish refugees, but any thought that Bevin hated Jews to the point of wanting to see them exterminated is quite defamatory of a very great man.

However my aim is not to raise that controversy again, but to ask posters this question - with which of the two men does Obama have more in common?

Is Obama essentially a leftist zealot like Bevan, bent on imposing socialist ideas, no matter what the cost? Or is he a staunch patriot - i.e. first and foremost an American, as Bevin was first and foremost an Englishman?

Just as an example, how would you characterise Obama's apparent aim to make America energy-independent - by which I think he means independent of oil from outside North America? Is that zealotry or far-seeing, patriotic realism? On the other hand is his Universal Health Care aim as foolishly impracticable and improvident as Bevan's NHS?

So, does America have a Bevan or a Bevin? I hope it's a Bevin....

Kim Hammill

WEll Said! Sound sentiments. We have all been here before with Tone and it was an unmitigated disaster for Britain and for many other countries.

Paul

As a Brit living in New York for the past 8 years, I read this article with real interest. Yes, there is undoubtedly a similarity between the ridiculous euphoria of the British and US electorates in 1997 and 2009, and James D is correct in pointing out the illusory nature of the 'third way' - as Obama learned to his disappointment last night, when not one Republican in the House chose to vote for the stimulus package.

But there are sharp distinctions between the spin of a Blair and a Cameron, and the meticulously prepared,cool professionalism of Obama. Obama hasnt surrounded himself with 'eco loons'; he's appointed a Nobel prize-winning scientist to preside over the government's global warming initiatives. He's backing science and scientific facts - unluck Bush, who really did surround himself voodoo and 'scuzzballs' who were only there because of their 'loyalty' to the Bush dynasty, irrespective of qualifications or experience.

Finally,there's a humility to Obama and Michelle that was never present with Tony and the ghastly Cherie...

Craig

It's refreshing to see people outside of the USA not fawning over Obama mania. I thought the world was in his hip pocket, thankfully there is some sanity left in the world.

Thank You Mr. Delingpole for writing the article I would have liked to have written.

Ben

Mr. Delingpole has seen the future for the sad ass's that voted this FRAUD ( Obama) into office. Unfortunately, those who did not for for THE ONE, will also suffer.He is without a doubt a Socialist/ Marxist to the extreme!!!

Piia

We didn't "all" believe Obama-he didn't win the US election by a landslide--not even in his home state of IL.

You should note that big labor, mainstream media darlings, ACORN, (the Saul Alinsky crew) and fellow Trilateral members like Brzezinski pulled for and pushed Obama into office. Of course there are the far left Bush haters who genuinely love Obama--but we're not all asleep and we are in despair instead of hope.

WHERE is John Galt?

Jonathan Peterson

America already woke up one morning — with the most terrible hang- over, only to find its pockets empty, its savings gone, its property trashed to virtual worthlessness, its national prestige gone, its traditional liberties circumscribed by fearmongering plutocrats and pettifogging regulation.

If you want to blame creeping socialism for your current economic crisis, for WHAT exactly are we Americans to blame for OURS?

Frank

Does that officially make you an
"ObamaDenier?"

anonymous

I see that yous dont know the SPIRIT that forms America. even from the begining.

Carol

Well, we are now just 2 weeks into Obama's presidency and it is already a disaster.

-He is falling like a rock in opinion polls (down 20% since the election in most recent DemocracyCorps poll).

-3 appointed cabinet members have withdrawn in disgrace, and possible more on the way. Apperantly Obama thought it was smart to nominate tax cheats and criminals to his cabinet.

-His foreign policy has been judged as a joke. Iran has already tested its first IBCM, N.Korea has renewed its long range missile program, and he has shown no clout whatsoever in the Middle East conflict.

-His first major domestic legislative initative is basically dead in the water amidst huge oppostion from all corners of the country

This article predicted it all, but I thought it would take more than just 2 weeks to materialize.

Sella Tucica

Spot on, mate.

/American

krissie

Thank You, James! I'm know your opinions have been, and will continue to be,heard by many far and wide. I sincerely hope you have opened some eyes. It really scares and deeply saddens me to think that so many of my fellow Americans actually believe wholeheartedly in Obama and the new administration. Have we become so spoiled by instant gratification that we will do anything and follow anybody that promises a quick "fix"?

Owen Gould

I feel very akin to you Brits. I love you.
I just watched Mr. Delingpole on C-Span here in the States. I really liked his rhetoric about liberty but he lost me when he seemed to support all these wars. Why cannot someone see the virtues of liberty and how war destroys those same virtues?

R.C.

Good luck with your book (especially in this US lunatic political climate)!No cynicism here Mr Delingpole.I am a US citizen residing in Tokyo.This fact, however, will not totally immunize from the Obama injection to come . . . . Woe to the US for choosing such a bum for president! So, again, good luck with that book!

John Herbert

Here in little ol' Oz we've got our own version in Kevin Rudd. He is even more deluded than Blair and Obama. He thinks he is going to make a difference form over here while he hands out pamphlet after pamphlet on how best to educate your baby to dribble.

D. Miller

Right on dude right on! You hit it on the head...Wolf in sheep clothing...

Jason

David Bouvier -

You are dead on. See the recent DHS report in which pretty much anyone who has a gun, serves in the military, prays to God, listens to country music, drives an SUV, smokes cigarettes, and/or likes small government should be considered a potential "extremist". He already has control of the press, who on tax day sounded more like an infomercial for his plan to fly a helicopter over inner cities, dropping government checks on the huddled masses, rather than the journalists that they are supposed to be. Very scary stuff indeed.