Obama's Palin Bonus

Republicans gift

After a near perfect week for Obama, McCain has provided him with a bonus.

Mrs Palin is offered as one heartbeat away from a possible President aged 72.

The cunning plan is to win over dis-illusioned feminists supporters of Hilary Clinton. How many of them are global warming deniers with a gun fetish who are opposed to abortion in any circumstances? Do many of them believe in gunning down wolves and polar bears from planes and teaching children creationism?

Mrs Palin is every Hillary supporters’ nightmare and reminiscent of the views of President Bush. But far more right wing. Those who the gods intend to destroy, that first make mad.

Good on you, Barack. Now you have got it made. The only obstacles are the talk jocks and the racists. They grow weaker every day.

Protégé plummets

Having generously selected intern journalist Matt Withers as one of my protégés (this blog July 13th), he has disappointed again.

The ingrate blames me for saying that the confession of a former opponent of the smoking ban was ‘anonymous.’ Checking back on my sources (you must learn to do this too Mattie) I find that the article on IC Wales website was, and still is, attributed to an un-named  ‘staff journalist.’

Not a clue that the person who had denounced her past folly in opposing the ban was indeed Angharad Mair. The IC Wales website is a bit puzzling. There is no picture of Angharad on the article I quoted, but there is one of her on another article, which confusingly is then attributed to someone named ‘Nick Rippington’.

Have they put you in charge of the website Mattie? You must concentrate.

Your protégé status is hanging by a thread.

Tabloid hoax

Ace journalist Ben Goldacre exposes the deception behind the MMR hoax.

The non-link between the triple vaccine and autism was the biggest science story of the last ten years. He does not put the blame on the doctors who started the scare – it was the fault of the tabloids and the Telegraph for using amateur non-specialist journalists. They added unnecessary anxiety to every parent of a young child in Britain. Were they exposing their infant to a nasty disease?

There has been no scare in any of the other 90 countries that use MMR. This was entirely an UK neurosis.  It has had dreadful consequences. Take up of MMR plummeted from 92% to 73%. There was a mumps epidemic in 2005 and measles are at a ten year high. All because of very bad science.

Newspapers have not learned the lessons. Science stories are still written by hacks without scientific training. Their purpose is to boost circulation, not to inform their readers.

Ben Goldacre publishes a new book tomorrow, Bad Science. I have ordered my copy on www.guardianbookshop.co.uk. There is a second chapter titled, ‘ How quacks and drug companies convinced us there is a pill for every ill.’

 Looking forward to reading that.

Cardiff Bay.

A bit of controversy about my enthusiasm for Cardiff Bay yesterday.

Little appears to be known about the wildlife area there. I will explore further. Meanwhile here is an aerial view.

Comments

[Huw O'Sullivan]

Republicans gift.
Or to look at it another way.
Now even if you vote republican you will be voting for a first, first female vice president as opposed to first black president.
It will shore up some republicans who feel McCain is not right wing enough and it will indeed attract some female voters.
McCain would have won without it, he will still win, but now the people who vote for him can bask in the warm glow of promoting feminism and his win will be less obviously due to his not being unwhite.
I am constantly astounded at both your unreasonable optimism over who will win, how easily you gloss over how little racism it would take for Obama to lose and that you also seem to think it will make any realistic difference to the rest of the world. Democrats and Republicans are effectively two wings of the same party when it comes to world affairs, admittedly Democrats are more pleasant to speak to in general and inifitely easier to communicate with than the current dunce in chief, but lets face it, gordon the gopher would also be a massive improvement in that area, there may be a slightly bigger difference between them when it comes to domestic affairs but the world will be no safer with the US democratic party in charge in the states than it is with US republican party in charge,
It is in fact possible that it would be less safe, as democrats feel vulnerable to being considered soft on security issues and therefore tend to feel they need to prove they are not.

I feel you also severely underestimate the utter stupidity of vast swathes of US citizens, bear in mind that while the republicans tried to make massive capital from the comments of Obama's christian pastor for a considerable period of time,
the pew survey published in June this year showed that
12%(up from 10% in March) of democrats and republicans think that Obama is a muslim and a further 25% of all voters don't know what religion he is.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/898/belief-that-obama-is-muslim-is-bipartisan-but-most-likely-to-sway-democrats

[paulflynn]

I am surprised by your pessimism, Huw.

All the four major polls put Obama in a clear lead with between 3 and six points. That includes one taken on the 28th of August. A clearer picture will emerge after the Republican Convention. The prospect of Mrs Palin being president is a very real one if the Republicans win. There is no precedent for anyone with so little experience getting the job. That should deter republican voters.

The feminist vote is much more strongly a Democrat priority rather than a Republican one. There are deep divisions between the two parties in the US, probably more than there is between Labour and Conservative here.

I am anticipating more stumbles by McCain on the lines of his inability to recall how many houses he own of the boob that no-one is rich unless they eared $5million dollars a year.

Obama is light years ahead of McCain in his ability and his presentational skills. Nixon was damaged in his TV battles with Kennedy. The dominance of Obama when they share the same platform will be a telling one.

The bad mouthing of Obama is based on fiction. The next time will give more chances of a rebuttal.

I am optimistic because Obama is the most accomplished political personality I have ever seen.

[Huw O'Sullivan]

Yeah, Obama is an accomplished political personality, just like JFK,
Bay of pigs, Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam.
Tony Blair also deserves a mention when it comes to accomplished political personalities, they tend to be disastrous especially for those who have the most faith in them.

Barak is also black which is what will lose him the election.
The US is practically split down the middle on the false divide between democrats and republicans, for Republican voters, McCain is too liberal, Mrs Palin is not.
She is a gun toting, anti abortion Republican with impeccable credentials.
Many women are republicans, many women would also like to see a woman reach that level of office, so even though her views may not appeal to them they may find it tempting to vote for her anyway.
Having the first Black president was never enough to swing the vote to Obama, having the first female president was never enough to swing the vote to Hilary.
But the subtle introduction of a female first, as vice president, will appeal to more people than the unsubtle Black first as president.

I'm thinking perhaps we should work up some kind of bet on this result Paul and if I had anything to offer I would be making it now

For now you carry on believing the polls and I'll go on believing the citizens of the US can be relied on to be no better than they are and come November we will see who is closer to reality.

All of the above however, ignores the fact that fundamentally it makes no difference which corporation owned party wins the white house, the substance is the same, only the style differs.

Clinton after all did not invade Iraq, he merely had the weapons inspectors withdrawn and bombed Baghdad.
The bombing of course was due to Saddam's non compliance with his disarmament requirements, 2 years after he had been completely disarmed of all WMD as was suggested by members of the UN weapons inspectors before the invasion of Iraq and confirmed by the american's own Iraq survey group afterwards.

Of course people say Saddam brought these things on himself, although the bombs did not hit him of course, nonetheless people like to absolve the perpetrators and place the full blame on the obnoxious Saddam.
If he had been more submissive and compliant then things would have been different, although of course they would not have been.
The US never had any intention of following the UN resolution if Saddam complied, both presidents, Bush and Clinton swore the sanctions would not end until Saddam Hussein was removed from power, which of course was never a part of the UN resolution, which was purely to do with removing WMD, the capacity to produce them and certain regular weapons with ranges above a certain limit.

US foreign policy does not vary greatly depending on whether democrats or republicans are in power and as I mentioned before Barak has already pledged his unquestioning support to whatever Israel chooses to do to Palestinians.

This is why I fail to understand why you seem to have set your heart on him getting into power.

Plus if you think I am pessimistic on this you really shouldn't get me started on what the next 30-50 years hold for all of us.

[John]

I am on the fence on this one yet I think Paul that you view what the America electorate thinks by our own standards.
THis is not the case the American electorate is largly insulated from such niceties they are fed utter tripe and misinformation via therir media many believe in so called Christian values and many would die to keep there gun.
The vast majority are so insulated from the real world they couldn't point to Europe on a world map never mind the UK. They are fed nationalism and a belief in the American Dream that if you don't believe in god you certainly believe in the Sovereign right of the USA to protect itself from what ever new boogy man the Government makes up at whatever cost. Most of them are living in some hollywood fantasy you only have to look at the Democratic convention it was predominantly fairy tale rhetoric.
What will happens in Novemeber is going to be a very close call. That in itself must make one question, that after from our point of view the utter disaster of the Republican Bush years one would expect they would desert republicanism by the droves but for the reasons I stated earlier this isn't the case.

[PaulFlynn]

John, that's entirely true that there are major difference between British and American voters' views. But a lot has changed since 9/11 and the start of the second gulf war.

They have turned on Bush and made him one of the most unpopular Presidents ever. They are shocked by the price of fuel and the credit crunch and they blame the Republicans.

The Neo-cons in their document that prompted the Iraq War planned a uni-polar century with the US as the only world super power. That dream is shattered by the rise of Russia and China. The US is demoralised and weakened by the failures of Iraq and the eventual failure of Afghanistan.

The prospect of President Palin should sober up any American Democrat doubters back into the Obama fold.

I am influenced by my strong wish to see Obama elected.

[Rebecca Burt]

Let's see...an ex-beauty pagent winner...with a undergraduate degree in jounalism...who does not believe in global warming...who does believe a woman should have no control over her own body and for 9 months should be viewed as nothing more than a baby container...who's main attributes seem to be stubborness and vicious competiveness... who has had next to no experience in goverment...who has a currently very messy family , has a 17 year old daughter who is unwed and pregnant and is facing investigation for using her political office to smear her ex-brother-in-law and get him fired (he is in a custody battle with her sister)...who seems to be in bed with big oil...who is running for VP...whose running mate is 72 and is a cancer survivor...who has no foreign policy background and in fact has only been out of the country twice...who may become President of the country I love at a time when it faces the most complex foreign policy issues, economic issues and domestic issues it has in decades...Why does this sound like a totally unbelievably bad novel???? I for one am terrified and can not understand what Mr. McCain was thinking!!!!

[Baneswell boy]

"cannot understand what Mr. McCain was thinking!!!!"

He doesn't think. He's a Republican. That's the point of Republicans. Logic and reason always have to give way to religious bigotry and indefensible prejudice.