Wow.
US politics is pretty bare knuckle. I mean, sure, it’s not Ukraine, where you can get poisoned with organophosphates. But it’s rough and tumble.
So, over here in the UK we’ve been watching the grand bedroom farce of Peter Mandelson, George Osborne, and Oleg Deripaska, in which Nathaniel Rothschild was so annoyed at the bad manners of one of his guests in going public with private conversations that he took him over his metaphorical knee and spanked him. (You should really read the letter. It’s a corker.)
Ultimately, this whole thing is a row over a faux pas. George Osborne is in trouble because he used the wrong fork on purpose.
Meanwhile, over there in the US, John McCain is trying to persuade the electorate that Barack Obama is a ‘Socialist’ because Obama wants to give tax-breaks to someone other than the richest 1% of the US. Check out this little gem from an interview with Joe Biden.
The question Mr Biden does not ask, which clearly is on his lips, is:
Are you out of your mind, crazy blonde anchor lady?
Meanwhile a decidedly ugly note of race politics has entered the final days of the campaign. So ugly, in fact, that Fox News VP John Moody seems to think it may be all over for the Republican candidate. The focal point is an incident from last week in which a McCain campaigner reported that she had been attacked by a black man who said he was going to ‘teach her a lesson’ for being part of the Republican effort.
Moody said:
“If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”
Hm. Well, it seems to have been a hoax. So, Mr Moody, old chap, time to endorse the other fella…?
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In other news, Nicola Griffith completely kicked my backside in the ‘Strange Googlings‘ arena. I am in awe.
My most recent search terms include: lions has sex with people and doogg. I’m particularly thrilled with doogg. But it’s nothing on strawberry as an insult.
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And to tie it all together – well, some of it; there’s very little to tie insulting strawberries to John McCain except possibly that episode of the West Wing where… no, anyway:
The Times is now linking Oleg Deripaska to the Russian Mob. They are also referring to Deripaska as ‘Mandelson oligarch’, which seems a bit rich given that they broke the story of his connections to Osborne, but anyway… the Guardian has gone them one better and connected Deripaska to…