Motley Moose – Archive

The world of financial and McCain meltdown moves fast. Thanks to GRO for the Daily Show segment which asks?

“Is there anything left for the Republicans to screw up?”

It’s out. On popular request I’m letting you all know my ‘Journal of the Flame Wars’ has now been published in Prospect Magazine .

As with all such articles, they get cut for length, subbed and simplified, and this is even more true in a British publication where the Netroots has to be explained as Blogosphere 101. There are a lot of things – a history of snark, mentions of other bloggers that have been cut because of length and complexity.

Sorry guys. I tried to mention a lot of you. But the editors found it confusing. It really needs a longer piece to get the whole story. Maybe I should write a book

I hope you enjoy despite this. In the fierce urgency of defeating McCain Palin, I don’t want to reignite any unnecessary and ancient flame wars, so the only two issues I want to comment on are these…

I can’t tell you how many times Americans seem amazed/impressed/appalled that I care so much about their election.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being the world’s remaining superpower, culturally and militarily, that you can’t see the impact you have on the world, and hence wonder why any ‘furreners’ who show any interest. But can I tell you something…

As a pretty politically active Brit, especially in the 90s, I can rarely remember a British election arousing so much interest, enthusiasm and debate. Yes, Obama has been the subject of most my political conversations for the last nine months now…

True, I’ve got a personal affinity. Having studied, worked, and lived in the US, having had both my brothers marry Americans (as I did) and been traveling there frequently since I was 19, America is the country I admire/distrust/can’t ignore in equal order. But it’s not just me – my whole country shares much of this fascination. My whole continent actually…

We aliens have no voice in this election. We have no votes, we can’t donate money. So instead, I’m donating something else. I’m sending my first born son, aged only 18, to do what he can (in a quiet way) to work for the campaign

For months I’ve been hearing the recurrent complaint about Obama’s campaign: he’s too soft, he’s too elitist, he’s like Kerry, he doesn’t fight back.

But I remember hearing the same thing six months ago, and I was waiting, trusting, hoping that the campaign was keeping its powder dry, its eye on the ball, its horns sharp, and not mixing its metaphors like I just have. I’ve been waiting and my hope has been vindicated

Yes, it's Palin time again. Finally, Governor Palin is receiving some serious vetting by the main stream press. Two big investigative pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post have confirmed what many of us suspected from Governor Palin's publicised policies and misdemeanours.

 Some people think we should leave this subject alone and concentrate on McCain. But it was McCain who chose Palin, with virtually no vetting, to play the gender card, activate the Christianist base, and catch Obama's team on the (moose) hoof

That they've succeeded in a bounce in the polls is undeniable. Now comes the corollary: what kind of administration has Palin run, and what does this tell us about her potential presidential administration, given that she's running alongside a candidate who would be the oldest President ever elected.

Yes, that’s the margin of Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain if the world got a vote.

According to a BBC World Service Poll of twenty two countries Barack Obama is preferred to John McCain by four to one:

On average 49% preferred Mr Obama to 12% in favour of Mr McCain… On average 46% thought US relations with the world would improve with Mr Obama in the White House, 22% that ties would stay the same, while seven per cent expected relations to worsen. Only 20% thought ties would get better if Mr McCain were in the Oval Office.

Now I know ‘foreign support’ can be counterproductive for Democrats. I remember the Guardian in 2004 organising a campaign to get British people to contact Americans in Ohio to persuade them to vote for Kerry… Look how well that worked.

Cross Posted at MYDD

Yes you read it here LAST.

This could be my last ever diary. According to the BBC dysfunctional liberal blogs, the activation of the Large Hadron Collider release of some tracking polls will cause strangelets and micro black holes a small bounce for McCain, thereby assuring the known Universe shall collapse in a big credit crunch Obama will lose the election as we Jerome Armstrong always said he would

You have been warned. Goodbye Cruel World.  

Frankly, I’m amazed. Having heard for so many months that the Obama campaign doesn’t fight back against republicans, and having countered endless ad hominems about Rezko, Michelle, Ayers, Elitism, and Columns, I’m now being admonished by liberals throughout the blogosphere not to pick on McCain’s VP choice, and the contradictions in her family morality

Fine then. Hamstring yourselves. The republicans use Palin’s family values politically, as a key part of her appeal to an evangelical anti-contraception base. If those same advertised family values prove to be illusory and wrong, let’s ignore that  because we’re better than that…

Come on. We all know this argument sucks…

Cross Posted on MYDD



Yes, it’s official. After months being courted by many candidates, on the eve of the republican convention, the Supreme Being has finally sent his own message of endorsement for Barack Obama as President.

That’s the way the world – or at least this presidency – ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

The Bush Administration’s incompetency in foreign affairs has reached its apogee with the debacle in Georgia.

Whatever the delicate rights and wrongs of the problematic borders there, and Georgia’s applicatio to join Nato, Bush and Rice’s foreign policy initiatives have been a model of inconsistency. First they encouraged Georgia to be ridiculously adventurous, then they failed to stop them when they overreached, and now all they can do is utter hollow threats at Moscow without any means to back it up..

Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum of talking quietly and carrying a big stick has been reversed:

Shout loudly and carry a wet fish