Palin - the gift that keeps giving!

After spending $150,000 on her wardrobe, did no-one think to check whether she was wearing a "Vote Democrat" scarf?

Palin's $150,000 clothes budget

You've got to laugh really! Let's hope this takes off in the media over there.

Palin letters

I was reading the Sarah Palin section of the Sunday times letters page yesterday. They were mostly from disgusted republicans but this one from D Peake of Exeter made me laugh:

"Palin will be a breath of fresh air – something we could do with after the horror that is new Labour with its Blair-inspired destruction of our history and traditions."

Um, I think someone is confusing their countries...

Palin as President!

This site is great. Move you mouse around and click...

Troopergate: Unbridled Joy!

Is it wrong/immature to react to the conclusion of the Troopergate report with unbridled joy?

I have to say I did. When I heard the news on the 9am Radio 4 news this morning whilst lying in bed and did let out a semi-shouted "Yes!". That was in reaction to the news by the way (Mrs. L was still asleep:). And when it came round again at 10am I still listened to it with a big grin on my face.

I've found it fascinating to follow its reporting on US news sites and especially how the Republicans/Fox News are responding (by pretending it said something else really). Apparently the reason it came out so late on Friday was that the Republicans were delaying it past the deadline for the evening news bulletins. I hope it isn't forgotten or spun away by Monday.

I've found this US election the most interesting one I can remember.

Iain Dale has finally come off the US Election fence

As evidenced here, he's come out reluctantly for Obama.

Damn him, I was going to write a piece entitled "When will Iain Dale come off the fence?". Just goes to show that you should strike when the inspiration iron is hot!

I'm used to his blind partisan (and in election periods, too shrill to read) posts on UK politics but I never quite understood why he was applying his same "style" to the US elections.

Especially his repeated dogged defence of the clearly unsuitable Sarah Palin, picking up and blindly running with every Republican defence line (rabidly posted in the comments of a thousand leftish US blogs).

I never really understood why anyone from a mainstream UK party would ever support the republicans. A far as I can see both (yes only two) US parties are more right-wing than our entire mainstream politics in terms of the extent of the influence of big business on and the bareface lobbying/bribing by big companies of all levels and parties of government (which seems to always work). Maybe that's naive/partisan of me to see that as right-wing...

However on the flip side they are both big government spenders and protectionist.

Socially of course, Republicans are so far off the right of the scale it's untrue and this has been the case for as long as I can remember.

And before people like Iain Dale say it was different when his hero Reagan was there, I suggest he watch Boogieman: The Lee Atwater Story which I'm pretty sure I saw on BBC4 the other night (or at least a version of it). Scary stuff.

Anyway Iain assures us that now nearly half of his powerful new friends wouldn't lynch him given half a chance anymore, so that's okay.

Clearly, the reality-rhetoric gap eventually got too wide even for him.
Fingers crossed for election day...