Highway 99
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Here's an interesting bit of information I'd never heard before. It's from the issue of The Economist dated the first of this month, in an obituary on Madame Chiang Kai-shek:
Being remarkable, charming and sexy were formidable weapons. Time magazine put her on its cover. She addressed the American Congress, the second woman and the first Chinese to do so. Her speech about the importance of China in the war encouraged the Americans to send ever more arms and money to Chiang Kai-shek's army. Most of it was wasted. China under the Nationalists was a fractured nation that was going to be unified only by the communists. Much of the American money was pocketed by the Chiang family. Madame Chiang was later to blame the "loss" of China not on the inept and corrupt Nationalist regime but on the American government of the time, a tale that many Americans continue to believe.I don't know what The Economist's sources are or how much credence to give this, but it certainly rings true -- we seem to play a similar role in world affairs decade after decade, bailing out smooth-talking ingrates who later (or simultaneously) blame us for anything that goes wrong in the world. It's getting pretty damn old. I wonder if one of these days we don't just tell the rest of the world to fuck off and pull into an isolationist cocoon. (Then they'd probably knock us for that, too. Assholes.)
By the way, the reason I don't link to the Economist website is that not only do you have to be a subscriber to the dead-tree edition in order to access the site, you also have to answer a lot of incredibly nosy personal-demographic questions. I find this pretty irritating. I figure that people who have access to the web edition and want to search for a story I've told them about should be able to do this quite easily on their own.
Andrew Sullivan tries to keep track of left-wingers promulgating the Bush-lied-about-an-imminent-threat Big Lie in the media. Here's another example to add to Andrew's still-expanding list.
This morning on C-SPAN's Washington Journal one of the two final guests was Phyllis Bennis, described as a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and a Fellow of the Transnational Institute of Amsterdam (God help us). She spent nearly one hundred percent of her speaking time coughing up every Bush-bashing lie in the catalogue. These included not only the imminent-threat slander but also the "lie" about a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam (at least Ms. Bennis claims it's a lie -- wonder if she actually believes what she's saying?).
I will link to the video on C-SPAN's website when it becomes available, which I expect will happen tomorrow. There is usually a one-day gap between when Washington Journal airs and when it goes up on the site.
Update: The video link appears to be no longer available; as of today (December 20, 2003), only video going back to December 10 appears on the C-SPAN site.
Saturday, November 29, 2003
WEASELS BITING WEASELS?
In my November 17 post I linked to an article describing the proposed merger of the nations of France and Germany into one single large nation. I couldn't believe the story wasn't getting more attention. Two major European nations talking seriously about becoming one, for Pete's sake?
But maybe the reason it didn't attract more attention is that insiders knew better than to take it seriously. That's the way it appears in this article in The International Herald Tribune:
Last week, France and Germany were portrayed in Paris as actively discussing the creation of a French-German union, a mistily defined political fusion that Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin nonetheless described as "the single historical bet we cannot lose."
This week, Germany's Social Democratic Party held its annual three-day congress, adopting a 23-page position paper on international relations. It said, dryly, in a single sentence, that German-French cooperation was "an important basis" in the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
After descending from a drumroll and flourish to a whisper, the great initiative went dead silent here on Thursday. Eight days after Villepin's trumpeted Franco-German date with history became public, the office of President Jacques Chirac issued a statement saying that although the French and German governments were talking about many things, "the concept of a Franco-German union is not a part of our discussions."
So much, at the moment at least, for the latest stirring of lyricism in the ever-closer, increasingly rhapsodic relationship between France and Germany.
Last Sunday, when the first reports began coming in concerning the two American soldiers who had gotten stuck in traffic, killed by Iraqis, then robbed and mauled after they were dead (though these reports were later denied by military spokespeople), I was concerned that the unusually brutal nature of the killings -- with their obvious overtones of Black Hawk Down -- might cause such a spasm of revulsion in the American public that it would prove a turning point in our willingness to stick with the Iraqi occupation and reconstruction.
The next day at work I was thinking about the notion of the stock market as a register of the collective public mood -- remember the doomed idea of a "terrorism futures market?" -- and I started wondering if there would be a plunge in the market in response to the killings.
I didn't have ready access to market data during the day, and by the time I got home, I was very curious, and a little apprehensive, as to what I might find when I turned on the market news on TV.
It was with surprise and relief that I learned that not only had the stock market not precipitously declined, but that the Dow had closed up 119 points and the NASDAQ had closed up 53. Indeed, the charts showed that there had been a steady, across-the-board rise beginning early and continuing throughout the day. Looking at the charts, you would not have been able to tell that anything particularly bad had happened over the weekend.
I don't know how much to read into this. Perhaps I'm giving in to wishful thinking. But I can't help wondering if the market, acting as a unique source of information about the optimism and pessimism levels of the population, isn't telling us that the American people are more psychologically prepared to stay the course in Iraq than is generally recognized.
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Recently stalked by a series of sugar daddies with deep pockets and unacceptable politics, Tribune has been rescued by Britain's biggest unions.Now why would a red-blooded capitalist like me give a damn about the dire financial straits of an obscure socialist magazine?
The publication, which does not pay its contributors and barely remunerates its permanent staff, is seen as the notice board for all those in the Labour Party opposing new Labour and as such is regarded with deep irritation by the Government.
The rescue package agreed with the unions, dominated by members of the "awkward squad", includes plans to relaunch the weekly magazine, plus a safeguard of editorial independence by way of a trust.One reason and one reason only: George Orwell did some of his best nonfiction writing as a columnist for Tribune.
Friday, November 21, 2003
Real Bush 'At Odds with Media Caricature'From The Scotsman. Read the whole thing here.
By Chris Moncrieff, PA News
US President George Bush is "totally at odds" with his media image, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said today.
Mr Campbell, an opponent of the war with Iraq, spoke out on the ePolitix website about his discussions with the President during the state visit.
He said that they discussed directly issues such as Iraq, the Middle East, Guantanamo Bay, Kyoto and trade sanctions.
"He is personally extremely engaging. He has a well-developed sense of humour, is self-deprecating and when he engages in a discussion with you he is warm and concentrates directly on you.
"He looks you straight in the eye and tells you exactly what he thinks."
Mr Campbell, stressing that the President was "totally at odds" with his media image, went on: "I was not persuaded by what he said, but I was most certainly surprised at the extent to which the caricature of him was inaccurate."
Last month Britain made the people of Iraq more secure from terrorism than at any time since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And millions of Iraqis are grateful for having the best public services - from schools to clean water and power - they have had since the first Gulf war.The men and women of the Ministry of Defence aren't the only ones.
These were headlines that Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, hoped would appear in British newspapers during "Big October", the code name for a media offensive aimed to convert the UK public to supporting the outcome of the Iraq war.
But now, after daily reports of terrorist attacks on the Americans and last week's killing of 17 Italian policemen, the men and women from the Ministry of Defence are blaming "negative attitudes by news editors" for the failure of the headlines to materialise.
It's from The Guardian. Read the whole thing here.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
I try to note powerful arguments in favor of the War on Terror and draw attention to them when I can. Prior to this, I've linked to an essay by Steven Den Beste (see my post of July 24, 2003) and a speech by Tony Blair (post of July 20, 2003) when I thought they might sway readers who weren't yet convinced that we were doing the right thing.
Andrew Sullivan now provides us with another powerful argument -- this one having to do not just with the war, but with the related issue of George W. Bush. It takes on all the usual anti-Bush arguments and convincingly rebuts them all.
I have only two small objections -- quibbles, really.
First, Andrew sent out a version in his newsletter last weekend that he describes as the "original version," as opposed to the slightly rewritten version that was to end up in the Sunday Times, the Times version being more oriented toward British readers. Problem is, I've read both versions and to me (and I could be missing something here), they seem identical. I'm assuming that the one posted on Andrew's website is supposed to be the version that was published in the Times -- it appears to me to be labeled that way.
The second problem? See if you can spot the mistake:
Iraq? One of the worst tyrants in history has been toppled, 300,000 mass graves discovered, the marshlands of Southern Iraq are coming back to life, the Kurds and Shia can plan democratic futures, and Bush's policy is still declared a disaster because a few thousand remnants of the old regime, combined with other regional terrorists, are still fighting! The notion that this policy has already failed relies on so raising the bar of success that only a miracle would pass muster. Come back in five years - the only reasonable time period by which to judge Iraq's reconstruction - and we'll talk. Meanwhile, some $20 billion of aid money is coming from American pockets to rebuild a country devastated by totalitarianism. And the architect of this astonishing act of humanitarianism is compared to Hitler in the streets of London. It makes no sense. None.Persuasive, no? So then what's the problem? Well, those 300,000 mass graves are the problem. Surely Andrew meant to say about 260 mass graves with about 300,000 people in them? Not that it invalidates the paragraph, let alone the whole essay. But some editor, somewhere along the line, should have caught it.
And speaking of things you never thought you'd see in The Independent (see my previous post), how's this for a surprise?
Where was the tongue-tied Texan? This was fluent and funnyYou'll have to pay to read the rest (and I didn't want to). Why is it that a newspaper that believes so ardently in socialism is so comfortable with the profit motive when it comes to internet readers looking at its articles?
Mary Dejevsky
20 November 2003
For a President who made his reputation as a tongue-tied buffoon with a fine line in malapropisms, this was a bravura performance. Whoever has been coaching Geroge Bush in oratory deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom (and a congratulatory glass of champagne). Speaking - yes, speaking with fluency and considerable style - at the Banqueting Hall in London yesterday, Mr Bush must surely have slain his line-fluffing demons once and for all.
Ignore the sideswipe at Tony Blair winning the Medal of Freedom and concentrate on Mary Dejevsky's assumption that George Bush has been rigorously coached to some level of speech-delivering proficiency he's never attained before. While I'm glad to see that The Independent got its take right on Bush's speech, I can only marvel once again at the inability of the Left to perceive Bush in the normal way one human being usually perceives another. Dejevsky seems never to have noticed any of the other eloquent speeches Bush has delivered to perfection over the past several years. And she's a professional political commentator, for God's sake! What planet do these Leftists live on? How can they have (presumably) watched and listened to Bush for years and still believe that he's stupid, that he's vicious, and that HE LIED! HE LIED! HE LIED! to dupe us into going to war?
Just more evidence that the Left has gradually become divorced from reality, and just more of an explanation as to why they're rapidly going downhill.
Monday, November 17, 2003
Some miscellaneous entries having more or less to do with Bush's trip to Britain:
Did you think you'd come across a headline like this in, of all places, The Independent, home of the pathological Robert Fisk?
Blair is right to make common cause with this brave and visionary President: Millions of Britons who wish their country had the right to entertain Mr Bush in a dignified and friendly manner will go unheard.It's by Bruce Anderson, a regular columnist for The Independent and, if memory serves, a biographer of John Major. It's a pay-per-view article, unfortunately, so I didn't read all of it, but the headline, subheadline, and first paragraph give the flavor of the piece.
It's nice to see someone speaking up for what must be a large number of Brits who don't hate Bush but do hate what will be happening to their country this week.
That description might fit some of the people who show up in a new ICM survey for The Guardian (why am I finding this stuff in all the left-wing papers today? Has hell frozen over or something?):
Majority backs Bush visit: pollAnd from Matthew d'Ancona in The Telegraph, a less surprising source of pro-American opinion, comes this:
More Britons approve of US President George W. Bush's planned visit to their country than disapprove, a poll says.
The precise extent of Mr Blair's influence over the prelude to the Iraq war, the conflict itself and its aftermath remains a matter of bitter controversy. But the Prime Minister's attitude to this week's presidential state visit has brought out a strain of stubborn independece within him which has left even his closest advisers nervous. Senior ministerial allies have encouraged him to cut the trip back from the four days it now occupies in the Government "grid" to 48 hours - but to no avail. As one Downing Street official put it to me: "Tony won't be told. Some of us have urged him to tone down the whole event as much as he can. But his line is that Mr Bush is his friend and Britain's ally, and he's not changing a damn thing."Read the whole thing here.
And in the middle of the usual Time Magazine anti-Bush propaganda is this heartening paragraph:
On the contrary, Blair's solution to his p.r. problem is to offer a full-throated advocacy of close U.S.-British ties. Far from keeping Bush under wraps for fear of gaffes, Blair is encouraging him to grant interviews with lots of local media. A trip to Blair's home constituency in the northeast is planned to showcase more of the President. "Anyone who thinks the Prime Minister is going to be apologetic about his relationship with Bush and the U.S. totally misunderstands his view of them -- both personal and strategic," says a Blair aide.If these two guys don't have balls of titanium, they do a passable imitation.
And now for something completely different: Two of the weasels have decided to mate!
France and Germany aim for union to challenge USThey are actually willing to give up their existence as independent nations -- in effect, to commit mutual national suicide -- purely to spit in the face of America. Hatred of America seems to be all France in particular exists for these days. It is sick, completely sick. And it is also a direct smash in the face to Blair, whose overriding ambition, at least in foreign affairs, is to act as a bridge between Europe and America and to bring about the emergence of a pro-America European Union. It won't work. More and more people are realizing it. But Blair, under the influence of intense wishful thinking and an extreme faith in his own powers of persuasion, refuses to see it. It is his one great blind spot, and I fear it's going to cost him dearly. Even if Chirac and Schroeder were to be replaced by two less opportunistic, more pro-American leaders (or by one better leader -- if the two countries merge, presumably the result would only require one head of state), the regulatory and constitutional bindings that are starting to tie up the EU would likely pull it away from the U.S. Combined with some future British prime minister who would be less pro-American than Blair, this could rupture the European-American relationship completely.
France is threatening to unite with Germany to maintain their influence in an enlarged European Union and strengthen their common front against the United States, according to reports yesterday.
Foreign minister Dominique de Villepin was quoted by Le Monde speaking explicitly about "Franco-German union" and to have called the further deepening of ties between the countries "the one historic challenge we cannot lose".
Le Monde gave most of its first three pages to reports on the proposed union, noting that it was an idea whose time might have come.
Pascal Lamy, one of France's EU commissioners, spoke enthusiastically of the idea in Le Monde. He said it could start with the unification of France and Germany's diplomatic services and the sharing of France's permanent seat on the United Nations security council.
M Lamy said: "A Franco-German parliament could focus on whatever the EU and the German regional parliaments do not cover." This would include foreign and defence policy, economic and social policy and research.
The details of further union are yet to be sketched out but are likely to include foreign, defence, economic and social policy.
The leaking of his remarks to a Paris think-tank was designed to underline French determination not to be sidelined by American power and its inevitable loss of indluence when the EU expands from 15 to 25 members in May.
But France also hopes to put pressure on Britain to dilute its transatlantic relationship in favour of Europe . . .
All its diplomatic energies, therefore, are now focused on Europe and in particular on prising Britain away from America. With Britain won over, France and Germany believe they can dominate the enlarged Union. (Via Jan Haugland at Secular Blasphemy.)
Why is this story not front-page news all over the world? It ought to be.
Sunday, November 16, 2003
GEE, NO KIDDING?
Times Poll Reveals that Bush has an Image Problem with British Women -- PR Newswire, 11/10/03
Andrew Sullivan prints a portion of a letter from an American living in Britain concerning the current climate of anti-Bush hysteria:
I can't get any break from it. I was on a school inspection in Southampton and a weedy member of the inspection team cornered me and starting in on Bush and how she had marched against the war, etc. This was not the time nor place to express political views of any type. I simply informed her that I was a New Yorker and that my sister and brother-in-law had lost eight neighbours in the World Trade Center and I wholly support President Bush and the fight against terrorism. Silence.Andrew's post reminded me of what happened to a friend of mine last July. David took a trip to Britain and Ireland lasting a couple of weeks. Before he left, we discussed the possibility that he might run into anti-war and/or anti-American hostility. As it turned out, this possibility was exacerbated when news of David Kelly's death broke while (my friend) David was in Britain.
Your column this morning is absolutely right -- these people have forgotten 9/11.
After 22 years in Surrey we're looking to move to America.
He avoided personal confrontations until one day when he was in Ireland. Riding on a train, he got into a conversation with an Irishman who noticed his American accent, and the conversation turned to the war in Iraq.
I wouldn't go so far as to say things got ugly, but they did get tense. The Irishman was critical, all right, but what struck David most forcefully was not how critical he was but how uncomprehending he was. As David tactfully tried to get the Irishman to acknowledge that the War on Terrorism was necessary to prevent future catastrophic attacks on the West, he was met with a blank wall of ignorance. The Irishman's whole attitude seemed to be: You were attacked on September 11 and that was terrible, but it's over now, and can't you try to get over it?
Any discussion of ongoing efforts by terrorist organizations to obtain weapons and target the West appeared simply not to register. The Irishman seemed to have no frame of reference into which to place this information, and he likewise seemed completely unable to assimilate or appreciate what David was trying to tell him. Either the Irishman was genuinely mentally defective -- which he did not appear to be -- or the cultural/media climate in which he had been living had utterly ignored and censored any reference to the fact that we are still all living in the crosshairs. The Irishman had just plain not heard of any of it.
After a few minutes David realized his efforts were futile and, wishing to avoid an escalation into something really nasty, he changed the subject.
But those few minutes drove home the point: As Andrew Sullivan and his correspondent both noted, the Europeans have forgotten 9/11. To some of them it is something the Americans, or the West more generally, deserved; to most of the rest of them it is a sad event which has faded into the historical record and has no current relevance.
In this context, it is less mystifying that so many Europeans regard the Iraq war as unjustified. Thanks largely to their media, they inhabit a different mental universe.
I only hope that a critical mass of Americans are not joining them there. Our media aren't as bad as Europe's, but they're bad enough.
I used to be an ardent supporter of NATO. But I'm starting to wonder whether Mark Steyn is right and the European-American alliance is dying -- along with Old Europe.
For Christ's sake, is Tony Blair the only sane one over there?
Saturday, November 15, 2003
FREE STATE PROJECT UPDATE
On October 21 I noted in this post that the Free State Project's signed-up membership had dropped back down below 5,000 after the election in which the actual Free State was chosen. I wondered whether some people had gotten cold feet and asked to be removed.
The question might have been answered when the Free State Project website put up an October 27 New York Times article in which it was mentioned in passing that some people dropped out of the project when the Free State turned out to be New Hampshire (too cold and too far East, apparently).
There's a problem, however, if you're interested in reading the Times article, since the article's gone into the Times archives and you'll have to fork over $2.95 to read the whole thing. In case you'd like to read the abstract of the article -- gratis -- you can do that here. Registration required even to read the abstract, however.
Two developments on the upside: the FSP website has been redesigned, and the membership is back up over 5,000.
SCARE QUOTES: THE RETALIATORY STRIKE!
I got a kick out of this one.
Earlier today, reporting the announcement that the U.S. government planned to hand over the lion's share of power in Iraq to an Iraqi national assembly some time around next June, Fox News put up a graphic describing the proposed schedule. One line on the graphic was as follows:
June -- U.S. "Occupation" endsAfter enduring seemingly endless references to the U.S. """liberation""" of Iraq, I had to smile when I saw this new variation.
Scare quotes, Fox News style!
Friday, November 14, 2003
DID HE OR DIDN'T HE?
It appears that actor Christopher Lee might have discombobulated BBC interviewer Libby Purves by slipping a bit of pro-American commentary into a conversation about Lee's Lord of the Rings movie series.
I say appears because it seems to me there's room for interpretation. Lee could simply have been referring to a movie character named Sam -- or he could have been talking about Uncle Sam as well.
I hope it's the latter case. Particularly since 9/11, I've felt an appreciation of pro-American showbiz folks as sharp as my disdain for the far more numerous anti-American airheads. I never had strong feelings one way or the other about Christopher Lee, but if it turns out he was complimenting America's role in World War II -- and by implication, America's role in other wars -- then from now on I'll go out of my way to check out any movie he's in.
Read about the incident at the Daily Ablution and see if you agree with G. Scott Burgess that Lee is definitely on our side.
Notice: Switching blog-homes while still covering (among other things) Canadian politics, Authentic Liberal has transmogrified into The Roundhead.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
"THE FISKING OF FISK," FISKED
Earlier today, Andrew Sullivan linked to a story in the British Spectator and included the following sample paragraph and commentary:
VIDAL IS FISKED: On the Patriot Act. And don't miss this fisking of Fisk either. Money quote:[Ellipsis mine, not Andrew's.]Fisk's third stay in Baghdad lasted from the end of August to late September. Fisking involves both commission and omission. . . . Fisk seems only to have haunted the prison of Abu Ghraib and the mortuary of Yarmouk hospital, exclusively searching for American brutality.If Robert Fisk isn't malign, he's nutty. I see no other alternative explanation.
I agree with Andrew's take on Fisk and was intrigued enough to click on the link and read David Pryce-Jones' entire article, "The dangers of Fisking."
So far, so good, right? A referral to an interesting article I might not otherwise have found.
And the article is indeed good, well worth reading.
There's only one fly in the ointment. Unfortunately, it's a whopper.
Throughout the entire story, Pryce-Jones gets the meaning of "fisking" wrong.
I don't mean shades-of-gray, he-gives-it-a-different-connotation-than-I'd-give-it wrong. I mean he gets it completely, totally, one-hundred-eighty-degrees-the-opposite wrong.
Since the whole point of the story is to explain the meaning of "fisking" to people hitherto unfamiliar with the concept, you might say this error creates a bit of a problem. ("Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play?")
Pryce-Jones thinks that "fisking" is what Robert Fisk does -- that to fisk is to write illogical, hateful, bigoted, unsubstantiated, self-contradictory political propaganda so sputteringly over-the-top that it's almost funny in its ineptitude.
Whereas "fisking" is actually not what Fisk does, but rather what is done to him -- a careful, line-by-line analysis, unpacking, and debunking, such as bloggers have been administering to Fisk's outlandish writing for at least several months now (and possibly a good deal longer -- I started reading blogs extensively only this past spring).
This confused understanding of the meaning of "fisking" shows up immediately in the article's very title.
It pops up again right away in the very first sentence Pryce-Jones writes:
In the www arena where the world speaks invisibly to itself, a new word has appeared: 'fisking', meaning the selection of evidence solely in order to bolster preconceptions and prejudices.And it likewise shows up in the final paragraph:
Perverting American purposes and practices in Iraq, fisking helps to bring about the doom that it anticipates with such glee and relish.No it doesn't! Fisking, obviously, helps to prevent such dire results -- or at least it tries to. Fisking tries to prevent lies and errors from becoming conventional wisdom. Fisking, like Superman, tries to promote truth, justice, and the American way. Fisking got Howell Raines thrown out of the New York Times newsroom. Fisking is a good thing. Fisking is our friend.
So, this being the case, how on earth did Pryce-Jones' story appear uncorrected in The Spectator? How did Pryce-Jones himself make such an egregious mistake? How did it get past proofreaders, fact-checkers, and editors at The Spectator?
Above all, how did Andrew Sullivan, who is arguably the foremost practitioner of the art of fisking, manage to read and quote from Pryce-Jones' article and never even notice that Pryce-Jones gets the concept backwards thoughout the entire thing?
It's an innocuous error, I admit. But it's embarrassing that we who try to hold the old-media folks' feet to the fire should slip up so spectacularly.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
TANGLED UP IN THE NET
I'm aware that, compared to almost any other country (Japan is probably an exception), America tends to have a high comfort level with new technologies. In particular, having lived in Britain for several months (okay, not a long time, but enough to get a feel for the place), I'm aware that Brits in general don't take to new gizmos with quite the same enthusiasm as Americans do.
But even taking all that into account, I find this absolutely ridiculous:
An attempt by the Labour Party to imitate Dr [Howard] Dean by using the internet to arrange for supporters to get together at hundreds of venues across Britain has attracted only a dozen or so participants and, so far, no recorded benefit to the party's cash-starved coffers. . . .This would be sad if it weren't so darn funny.
The Dean campaign has proved so successful that in July, 55,000 supporters met at exactly the same time at 310 venues to pledge money.
Unsurprisingly, the success of Dr Dean's campaign attracted the interest of political parties in Britain. Labour is planning to hold an "international Labour Party meet-up day" tomorrow and lists more than 591 venues where activists can meet up.
These include bars in Edinburgh and Glasgow and all the major cities in England. But according to the website, so far only 14 people from across the whole of Britain have registered an interest in turning up. Ten are looking to get together in London, one each in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds and none in Edinburgh or Glasgow.
In fact, only one person has registered to attend a meet-up in Scotland - in Dundee.
Party bosses will be concerned at the apparent lack of interest in the Labour meet-up day, a trio of party heavyweights charged with masterminding Labour's election campaign, including Douglas Alexander, the Cabinet Office minister and MP for Paisley South, having travelled to the US earlier this year to examine the campaigning techniques of the Democrats.Is this real, or is it an update of a Monty Python sketch?
Labour could draw some consolation from the fact that the meet-up website has only one person registered for a "Liberal Democrats Worldwide" gathering later next month.
