Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG

Today's Web Grab

You might enjoy:

• Andy Borowitz in The Huffington Post: McCain makes historic first visit to Internet
• John Dickerson in Slate: Attack Obama. But do it right
• Niall Paterson in Boulton & Co: Final push in Glasgow East
• Jill Kirby in Centre Right: Whose life is it anyway?
• John-Paul Flintoff in Green Central: Water, water everywhere but is it safe to drink?

Brown's bomber jacket up for grabs

Gordon Brown has rejected the opportunity to buy back Bush's welcoming gift. Keep your eyes peeled for the following For Sale ad.

Available: One brown leather bomber jacket. Never worn. Perfect for maintaining masculine image on both sides of the Atlantic. Fur lining will warm you from the chill of popular opinion.

Distinguishing features: Rt Hon Gordon Brown badge and Camp David seal. Latter notably bigger than former.

Actual value: More than £140. Sentimental value: None.

If John McCain had been on that New Yorker cover

The Vanity Fair folks bring their own perspective to that New Yorker cover with this McCain-based alternative.

How will readers take the walker, pills and George W. above the mantelpiece?

Magazine Rack - Issue 268

You might enjoy:

• David Glenn in The Chronicle Review: What explains the growing gap in wages?
• Jason Zengerle in The New Republic: Mr Right?
• The Economist: No sex please, we're American
• James Surowiecki in The New Yorker: Sponsoring recklessness

Barack Obama: Is he too good to be true?

That's what John McCain thinks anyway.

The latest video from his team details the media's love affair with Obama. Watch the swooning - and some really dodgy YouTube work - below

Stuck on you? Captions please

 

These were the words spoken by Dan Glass as this picture was taken:

Do not worry, this is a non-violent protest. I have actually just superglued myself to the buttons of the Prime Minister.

We cannot shake away climate change like you can just shake away my arm.

Unfortunately for the nature of his protest, his words proved true. Brown shook away his arm after just 20 seconds of tugging.

But it did provide the opportunity for a little caption contest.

A sticky moment? The glue that binds us together? Comment Central readers, over to you.

Colour coding Barack Obama's press team

Do not wear green.

That is the instruction issued by Barack Obama's camapign to reporters following him on his tour to the Middle East.

Apparently reporters have been warned that green is the colour of Hamas.

The instruction has perplexed experts:

"A ban on wearing green seems bizarre,” said Richard Bulliet, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Columbia University, who said the color is associated with the family of the Prophet Mohammed.

“I would hazard the guess that the campaign's concern is more with distorted—and religiously inaccurate—reporting by Obama's detractors than with any actual signal that might be conveyed,” he said, referring to false rumors that Obama is a Muslim. “You don’t want to have some blogger come along and say ‘Obama is showing his true color.’”

“I think they’re just being overcautious to a ridiculous degree,” Bulliet said.

Mohamad Bazzi, a professor of journalism at New York University and former Middle East bureau chief for Newsday, called the instruction “very strange.”

“I guess green is the ‘Hamas color’ — but it's also the color of Islam!” Bazzi said in an email from Beirut. “That's one way for the Obama campaign to alienate 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide.”

Wednesday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• David Owen: The final throw of a gambler who was coarsened by war
• Barney White-Spunner: Basra - here's the good news story
• Alice Miles: Who'll be first to offer disabled people a job?
• Daniel Finkelstein: We're beating crime. You'd better believe it
• Robert Crampton: Let sex divorce her nasty partner, violence
• Ross Clark: Why are motorists allowed to use sat-navs?
• Richard Morrison: If senior citizen Sir Mick Jagger can keep rocking - so can we
• Ann Treneman: Alex Salmond is main attraction in Glasgow East by-election campaign
• Peter Riddell: Welfare reform has been a long time coming
• Leading Article: Karadzic Faces Justice
• Leading Article: Made in Africa
• Leading Article: Cool on Coal

And from the rest of the papers...

• Simon Heffer: (The Telegraph) - Things wouldn't be so bad now if we had listened to Frank Field
• Rowan Pelling: (The Telegraph) - Brown in deep water over holiday plans
• Con Coughlin: (The Telegraph) - War criminals can't hide under beards
• Leading Article: (The Telegraph) - Serbia comes clean
• Simon Jenkins: (The Guardian) - The concept of international justice will be on trial, too
• Jonathan Freedland: (The Guardian) - Forget the myth-making. Obama is just what the Middle East needs
• Tristram Hunt: (The Guardian) - The fate of 39 Labour MPs is at stake in Glasgow East
• Leading Article: (The Guardian) - In praise of ... drummers
• Deborah Orr: (The Independent) - Radical welfare reform? I don't think so
• Marcus Tanner: (The Independent) - With Karadzic in the dock, the Bosnians he terrorised may finally be given closure
• Sean O'Grady: (The Independent) - The unfortunate fall guy for Gordon Brown
• Leading Article: (The Independent) - A triumph for all of Europe
• General Sir Michael Rose: (The Daily Mail) - My drunken suppers with paranoid madman Radovan Karadzic
• Paul De Grauwe: (The Financial Times) - Cherished myths fall victim to economic reality

And from around the world...

• Thomas L. Friedman: (The New York Times) - All Hail ‘McBama’
• Maureen Dowd: (The New York Times) - Is ‘The One’ Cocky or Commander in Chiefy?
• Richard Holbrooke: (The Washington Post) - The face of evil
• Collin Levy: (The Wall Street Journal) - Democrats and Energy: Reality Bites
• Stewart Baker: (International Herald Tribune) - Finding solutions to a shared problem
• Soli Ozel: (The Daily Star) - Two court cases in Turkey and the republic's future

Today's Web Grab

You might enjoy:

• Gary Becker in The Becker-Posner Blog: Should US Taxes on Gasoline be Higher?
• Sean Collins in Spiked: Fannie, Freddie and the ‘economics of fear’
• Martin Bright in Bright's Blog: Karadzic and Srebrenica
• Daniel Hannan in Telegraph Blogs: MPs should stay on holiday for as long as possible
• Jennifer Howze in Alpha Mummy: What credit crunch?

SATs at School Gate

School's out for summer. At least for the Westminster crew. But Ed Balls faced a tough last day of term as he spoke to the House of Commons this morning about the SATs fiasco.

Find out more at the excellent School Gate

Is a McCain VP pick imminent?

Could the McCain team announce a Vice Presidential pick this week? As possible distractions from the Obama trip fanfare go, it could be a good one.

According to Politico:

The prospect of stepping on Barack Obama's much-anticipated overseas trip with the headline-grabbing news was discussed among the small inner-circle of McCain aides and advisers privy to the running mate decision, according to a McCain source.

But Noam Scheiber isn't so sure.

Interesting idea. But also pretty risky, no? I mean, what if they had a veep announcement and nobody came? What if, instead of stepping on Obama's trip, the trip massively stepped on the announcement? I don't think they could at all be confident this wouldn't happen, which obviously advises against doing it.

And just in case. Here's the latest from the Fix's excellent Veepstakes.

Magazine Rack - Issue 267

You might enjoy:

• Eli Lake in The New Republic: Contra expectations
• Tom Hosie in New Statesman: The battle for Glasgow East
• Lally Weymouth in Newsweek: Who's the pariah now?
• Debora MacKenzie in New Scientist: IMF loans 'drive TB deaths'

How will America vote? You do the math

A fantastic new election toy from the Boston Globe.

Work out every possible scenario for this November in the ultimate 'What If?' game.

(Hat Tip: Tom Bevan)

The first bloggers?

(Hat Tip: Gawker)

Saving Starbucks

This is a fascinating little story.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Ever since Starbucks announced this month that it would close 600 stores by early next year, as its business struggles, the rallying cause has switched to saving these endangered locations.

In other words, having for years been seen as the intrusive outsider destroying the High Street, Starbucks has, in a very short time, become the traditional local business that needs to be saved from extinction.

A fabulous example of loss aversion, if ever I saw one.

Tuesday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• Frank Field: Giving the jobless capacity for change
• David Aaronovitch: Eventually, we will all hate Obama too
• Rachel Sylvester: Hey, it's no time for Alistair to say goodbye
• Ben Freeth: 'I felt no hatred and I did not fear death'
• Alice Thomson: Brussels, stay off our little patch of land
• Chris Ayres: Now it's time for the movies to move on
• Sathnam Sanghera: In the wrong loo? It's a sign of today's design delirium
• Ann Treneman: No place for complacency in politics
• Peter Riddell: Welfare reform has been a long time coming
• Gerard Baker: Why sort of good news is good news of a sort
• Leading Article: Back to Beveridge
• Leading Article: The Iraq campaign
• Leading Article: Home movies

And from the rest of the papers...

• Boris Johnson: (The Telegraph) - Stuff Skegness, my trunks and I are off to the sun
• Andrew O'Hagan: (The Telegraph) - Glasgow no longer belongs to Labour
• Craig Brown: (The Telegraph) - The masochistic joys of festivals
• Leading Article: (The Telegraph) - Courage is needed to put benefits plan into action
• Polly Toynbee: (The Guardian) - Labour's sin-eater has now neutralised welfare reform
• Michael Gove: (The Guardian) - Minister, you failed the test
• George Monbiot: (The Guardian) - Global warming is a brutal truth
• Leading Article: (The Guardian) - In praise of ... West Side Story
• Mary Dejevsky: (The Independent) - Don't silence those who challenge consensus
• Donald Macintyre: (The Independent) - A constant – and candid – friend of Israel
• Marcus Tanner: (The Independent) - Karadzic, the psychiatrist who became a genocidal madman
• Leading Article: (The Independent) - Failure need not mean catastrophe
• Quentin Letts: (The Daily Mail) - A schmoozer, so bland he attracts sullen indifference
• Gideon Rachman: (The Financial Times) - Back Obama for commander-in-chief

And from around the world...

• David Brooks: (The New York Times) - The culture of debt
• E.J.Dionne Jr.: (The Washington Post) - Obama's Iraq mission
• Anne Applebaum: (The Washington Post) - The Saudi guide to piety
• Shelby Steele: (The Wall Street Journal) - Why Jesse Jackson Hates Obama
• Greg Mills: (International Herald Tribune) - China and Russia blunder on Africa
• Shlomo Avineri: (Haaretz) - The state, not the families 

Why the New York Times were right to reject John McCain's article

The New York Times has rejected a piece by Senator John McCain, having already run one by Barack Obama. And you know what? I think they may be right.

Here's how I would have dealt with the two articles if I had been been given them as Comment (OpEd) Editor here at what the Americans insist on calling the London Times.

First, having run an Obama piece on Iraq I would be keen on having a matching McCain piece. Keen but not desperate. Over time it is good to have balance, but it is not necessary to have tit for tat pieces every time.

Second, the job of a Comment Editor is to provide readers with an insight into the political debate. One is not part of the official machinery - required to provide space for rebuttal. If that was a requirement, President Bush would be able to commandeer half a page every day in order to reply to his critics.

So there is no absolute requirement for the NYT to run a McCain piece. Naturally, however, the Editor should want his readers to know what McCain thinks on such a big question. And this might be a good moment to have a piece by him. So why not run it?

Well, political pieces by elected officials or candidates can often be very boring - safe, unrevealing and tediously partisan. In general I required such pieces to jump over a pretty high importance barrier before I ran them.

Obama's piece vaulted that hurdle. It outlined his views, pretty much avoided point scoring, and dealt with the issue.

McCain's piece, on the other hand, knocked the hurdle over. It wasn't about Iraq. It was about Obama. If I received it I would have done exactly what the NYT did - send it back and ask them to redraft it so that it was about Iraq and was more, well, interesting.

Why was I only able to say I "think" they "may" be right? Because I don't know exactly what they asked the Senator's staff to do to the piece. But if they simply asked for a piece that matched Obama's because, like Obama's it was actually about his views on Iraq, well then I am right behind them. 

Today's Web Grab

You might enjoy:

• Chris Cillizza in The Fix: The European Edition
• Tom Bevan in Real Clear Politics: IMABLVR
• Peter Hoskin in Coffee House: Will Purnell's reforms see the light of day?
• Dizzy Thinks: So much for happy hour?
• Sarah Ebner in School Gate: Why the SATS debacle raises huge questions about state education in this country

The Campaign gaffes...so far

When was the last time a presidential candidate really put his or her foot in it?

Relive the memories with 236's greatest hits parade. And taste nostalgia for everything from McCain's Bomb Bomb Iran to that famous Dean scream.

More on that New Yorker cover...

Still trying to make up your mind about the New Yorker cover?

Their chief political commentator offers his two cents.