Clinton under fire

I am amused but saddened by the increasingly negative democratic party infighting. Barack Obama has without doubt suffered a severe set back with the revelation of his association with the Reverend Wright.

Now it has emerged (note my careful use of the passive tense - who was, I wonder, responsible?) that Hillary Clinton was dishonest, cheaply dishonest, about being “under fire” when she visited a war zone. She was not in an real danger at all. This was a publicity seeking holiday jolly upon which she took her daughter.

Who paid for Chelsea’s airfare, I wonder?

Obama has “hit back” by disclosing his tax returns for the last six years, and has challenged Hillary to do the same. Is that going negative, or is it a reasonable request? Negative or not, it’s a brilliant political ploy, and Hillary is wriggling on the hook.

But, consider this. Let the yardstick be honesty. Obama has been associated with a militant black church leader. Whatever you may think of the “A more perfect union speech” you cannot accuse of Obama of trying to lie his way out of it. On the contrary. He addressed the problem head on.

Hillary, on the other hand, “mis-spoke”. A charming neologism for an outright, cynical, headline grabbing lie.

Obama is in trouble for telling the truth. Clinton is in trouble for telling lies.

A handful of British MPs are now fighting in the courts to stop public revelations as to how they, ...er, “mis-spent” their Parliamentary allowances on new kitchens. Now Hillary is being challenged to open up her finances. Should make fascinating reading. Expect a lot more than “new kitchens”, but don’t hold your breath that she will accept the challenge.

A letter from the colonies...

Hillary is told NHS BLOG DOCTOR has declared for Obama

My interest in the American election and, in particular, in Barack Obama has produced an interesting immediate response:

Mind your own business. If we had such long transatlantic noses and tried to influence your elections, you'd be screaming bloody murder. The arrogance. The hubris. The presumptuousness. I can hear your crybabying now. The anti-American propaganda and misinformation the governement funded BBC spreads throughout the world in 43 languages, especially to the ME, affects us. So, I guess by your reasoning, we have a right to say in YOUR elections. Right? Get a life and mind your own business. Your arrogance is breathtaking. The European obsession with America is pathological.

Comment under "Knocking copy"

I had no idea that Dr Crippen was so influential in American politics. Word from America says the Clinton camp is in disarray since I declared for Obama particularly as all the super-delegates are avid readers of NHS BLOG DOCTOR.

It's an interesting fantasy.

On the more serious point, we may all jest about America being "the leader of the free world" but the fact is that American politics effects us all, and particularly affects the UK. Many Americans have been unable to throw off their Munroe doctrine antecedents and take no interest in world politics. Or even in world geography. That is their privilege, but they are naive to assume that the rest of the world will take such a blinkered approach. They are ignoring the elephant in the room. Americans may see the Chinese just as purveyors of good food and laundry services. They should get out more. Twenty five years from now the so called "leader of the free world" is going to realise that its domain is smaller than it used to be.

So I shall continue to take an interest in the American election, as will many Brits. That is my privilege. And I am trying to get a handle on Chinese politics too, but that is not so easy. Unlike China, the USA still has a free press and an unsanitised version of Google.

Knocking copy

There is nothing the British press loves more than building some one up and then knocking them down again.

The Sunday Times was at it today.

First some elementary genetics. It is easy to assume that if black male marries a white female that the off spring will be light brown. In fact, it is possible for a child to be either black or white. Indeed, there may be one of each. Despite his white mother, Barack Obama looks like an African American. He chose to attend what the Sunday Times calls

...an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable.

So what?

Obama might not have felt comfortable in a predominantly white church. Had he attended such a church he would probably now be being criticised for denying his black heritage. A no win situation.

Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio talk-show foghorn, expressed the popular view more succinctly: “No country wants a president who is a member of a church with this kind of radicalism as its mainstream.

As Obama has made abundantly clear, his presence in the church and his friendship with the Reverend Wright does not mean he espouses Wright’s views. Most young men are radical. In the UK, Dennis Healy, one of our most moderate Chancellor of the Exchequers, and one of the best Prime Ministers we never had, was in his youth a member of the Communist Party. The Pope, no less, was a member of the Hitler Youth. Obama is no supporter of the Reverend Wright. As a young, black American he attented a black nationalist church.

So what?

The Sunday Times article starts with some breathtakingly naive knocking copy.

Long before Barack Obama launched his campaign for the White House, when he was considering a run for the US Senate in 2003, he paid an intriguing visit to a former Chicago sewers inspector who had risen to become one of the most influential African-American politicians in Illinois.

“You have the power to elect a US senator,” Obama told Emil Jones, Democratic leader of the Illinois state senate. Jones looked at the ambitious young man smiling before him and asked, teasingly: “Do you know anybody I could make a US senator?”

According to Jones, Obama replied: “Me.” It was his first, audacious step in a spectacular rise from the murky political backwaters of Springfield, the Illinois capital.

Note the careful use of words like “sewer” and “murky”. Just a little bit of subliminal innuendo. What is the Sunday Times really saying? It is saying that five years ago Barack Obama was an ambitious young man.

Well, there’s a surprise.

Why Barack for Britain? To move towards a more perfect Union

As readers of NHS BLOG DOCTOR know only too well, I am an avid follower of American politics.

From the early days of the campaign, I have been excited by Barack Obama. He is a fresh face in Presidential politics, a fresh face which was much needed after twenty years of Bush/Clinton family hegemony. Another eight years of the Clinton family is too much to contemplate. But a being a fresh face is not, in itself, enough.  Obama has the ability to inspire people in a way that has not been seen in American politics since 1960.

After the intervention of the Reverend Wright, I thought I would listen to the first couple of minutes of the now famous "A more perfect union" speech. I listened to it all. The cynics will talk of speech writers and rear-guard actions and damage limitation. It was of course a speech born of necessity but, whatever its origins, I thought it was the finest political speech I have ever heard. I could not imagine this coming from Bush, or Brown and particularly not from Blair.

For me, Obama for President.

Many others who have listened to the speech feel the same. It was both sincere and inspirational and we need an inspirational American President. The problem though is that most people will not even start to listen. For them the endless selected inflammatory sound bites of Reverend Wright will be enough. The negative press is beginning already. NHS BLOG DOCTOR readers will know that in 1997 I voted for Tony Blair. I was taken in by the rhetoric, by the promises and by what then I took for sincerity and honesty. Have I been taken in again? This time I do not think so. This time there is more meat on the bone.

Time will tell.