Art Goldhammer looks at the Democratic convention in Denver and lets loose his imagination… I got to thinking about what would have happened had a comparable scene been staged in France. Just try to imagine Carla Bruni rattling on about her first meeting with Sarkozy at a posh Parisian dinner party. And the family vetting?
Is John McCain pretending to be a) Rudy Giuliani or b) John Kerry? Either way, this irrelevant invocation of his POW status threatens, if it continues to be used in this fashion, to make him appear ridiculous. It’s as bad as Giuliani’s “9/11 will produce a better postal service/farm bill/trade agreement/” or Kerry’s grim gawd-help-us
Ah, Sarah Lyall. Bless her. The New York Times’ London correspondent has an entertainingly gruesome piece on the lagered-up misbehaviour of Brits on tour. No-one who has spent any time on Cyprus or the Costa del Sol will need reminding of the horrors that await the unwary or innocent traveller who stumbles upon the modern
It had to happen: peanut butter now comes with a warning that, yup, it contains actual peanuts. On the other hand, perhaps this isn’t as absurd as it may seem. Or, to put it another way, it’s good to see that peanut butter is, well, peanut butter and not something made using ersatz-peanut-like substances. That
Whatever one thinks of Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, I think one can say that his speech in Beijing accepting the Olympic flag as it is passed from Beijing to London provided a splendid antidote to the totalitarian efficiency that seems to have rather weighed down these games. By contrast, there is every
Victor Davis Hanson: If the Olympics were a referendum on comparative ideologies, then I suggest radical Islam is about through. Only a pedant, of course, would point out that the Olympics could be no such referendum. Never mind.
I meant to blog about this earlier, but Toby Harnden’s Telegraph magazine piece on Obama in Hawaii is well worth reading. There is, for example, this: In late January, on his campaign plane as we flew from Kansas after the El Dorado visit, I asked the senator about the wanderlust in his family that he
Shut up! You think this sort of stuff actually helps Barack Obama? You be mad then. Pure Hollywood comedy… [[Hat-tip: Andrew Sullivan]
James Poulos is absolutely correct: the Vice-Presidency is a job best filled by the best second-rate politician available. Remember, second-rate does not mean bad. I sort of had half a sneaky hope that Biden might actually somehow fluke his way to the nomination itself, but that’s largely because since I don’t expect to agree with
My old cobber, Iain Martin, wrote an interesting column for the Telegraph yesterday arguing that the success of the British Olympic team in Beijing demonstrates that there’s life in the old Union yet. There may be something to that. At least there may be right now, this week, this month. Certainly, he is right to
Peggy Noonan thinks McCain should pledge to serve just a single term: I still think a one-term pledge could win it for him, because it would allow America to punt. It would make the 2008 choice seem less fateful. People don’t mind the chance to defer a choice when they’re not at all sure about
Julian Sanchez explains why you should never read your old copy. Unless you do actually crave either a) embarrassment or b) mortification.
Sometime today or sometime tomorrow Barack Obama will put a grateful planet out of its misery and let us know the identity of his running-mate. After Bayh and Kaine surges, the punditocracy is embracing Joe Biden today. And I’d say Obama could do a lot worse. But, working on the time-honoured premise that losing betting
As a wise man* told me, “art imitates life which then imitates art”: The Baltimore Sun reports: Felicia “Snoop” Pearson, known for her role on HBO’s “The Wire,” was released from jail after being picked up on a warrant for refusing to cooperate with prosecutors handling a murder case in which she is a witness.
A reader asks Megan if she supports government spending on the arts and sport. She has a pithy answer: “No”. And of course I have some sympathy for her point of view. In an ideal world this might indeed seem like frippery and even in the world we endure it can often be a transfer
I suspect that this sort of polling is really meaningless. But, still, it’s enough to make one despair. Ben Smith reports that a poll: commissioned by the Democratic-leaning True Patriot Network, found that 74% of Americans say McCain is patriotic, and that just 56% say the same of Obama. Of course, when they say “patriotic”
the London papers, Mike Atherton at the Times, Selvey at the Guardian, Angus Fraser at the Independent and Derek Pringle at the Telegraph. Atherton is new to the post but shows signs of becoming, as one might expect frankly, an excellent addition to the press box. There is nothing wrong, per se, with former test
Good god. Did you know that the United States should be prepared to fight against Russia and China? It may not surprise you that the Weekly Standard fears that the supposedly pusillanimous response to the Russo-Georgian stramash can only encourage China to invade Taiwan. The underlying tensions in the Taiwan Strait bear important similarities to
I’m glad to see that Tim Worstall has found some good news! Sounds like things are all well and good in Britannia’s realm: Britons lack “national purpose” according to a study which found that most people prefer to spend their Bank Holiday watching television or surfing the internet rather than celebrating the country’s heritage. Excellent,
Hamid Karzai, wag: Gordon Brown had to suffer the indignity of a joke about his leadership from Afghan president Hamid Karzai during a press conference in Kabul. Mr Karzai, who faces numerous challenges to his own leadership, made the quip as reporters pressed the British Prime Minister over his relationship with David Miliband. “Cabinet ministers