Prudent Palin

"We of course are going to be prudent,we're going to live within our means. We don't want any Alaskans to assume that government is the answer to all of the challenges and issues and problems that any individual faces."

Who said this? It was, of course, Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin earlier this month when she put forward her proposals for the state’s 2009 budget.

“As Alaska's coffers are filled mostly by oil revenues, the recent drop in prices has caused revenues to slow” reports David Karki. “In response, Governor Sarah Palin's $4.9 billion budget calls for a 7 percent cut in overall state spending, mostly in capital projects. Combined with a modest 2 percent increase in the operating budget for state agencies, the budget outline would result in a $388 million surplus in 2010 if projections hold.”

Sounds like a sensible, conservative move – and it seems to have the support of outgoing Anchorage mayor Mark Begich who in a few days time will be sitting amongst fellow Democrats when he becomes Senator Begich. Of course you probably won’t hear anything about it at ConservativeHome or Iain Dale and certainly not from self proclaimed US political expert James Forsyth at Coffee House. Forsyth’s focus on US politics rarely reaches beyond Washington or NewYork and his take on Palin tends to be referenced by Tina Fey and Andrew Sullivan so the idea of her actually framing a multi billion dollar budget is a little outside his payscale.

The same about refusing a $25,000 pay rise – “Imagine that – keeping spending to less than available revenues and refusing a pay raise. Politicians across the nation are scratching their heads, asking themselves: ‘You mean you can really do that?’ “ Well, as a certain President –Elect might say “Yes we can”……..but Forsyth and Co. won’t be interested as it doesn’t quite fit into their image of Palin as a shopaholic airhead who never reads anything more complex than a spupermarket receipt……



Hat Tip – North Star Writers Group

APPLEBAUM OR JOE......

You know how it is – having sacked most of his experienced staff “thirsty” Will Lewis has to pack most of his Daily Telegraph with polyfilla – opinion pieces rather than factual reports. Hence today we have Anne Applebaum earning her four figures with a piece on the US election hacked out probably over thirty minutes between a latte and the first dry white wine of the day. But Lewis doesn’t care, it’s filled a page and at least its not Bryony Gordon or Celia Walden so that’s a relief

Applebaum does the standard Toby Harnden – reads the NYT and WaPo, streams something from CNN or ABC then pontificates about the Bradley Effect etc as if none of us has the wit to hit the US on the internet ourselves. There is, of course, the mandatory reference to a “shrill” Palin going negative on Obama about Ayers, so tiresome, so cheap.
(Memo to AA – read Thomas Sowell
about the significance of one’s earlier allies…)
Then comes the compulsory (for DT) Vicki Woods moment. Anne has a friend who is so worried about O losing that rather than posting her vote from the UK she is flying over to make certain it counts..(subtext…..I have the sort of friends who can fly over to Virginia on a whim while you are still trying to work out the times of the next bus to Tesco…)

Here’s a serving suggestion for Lewis – forget AA and hire Joe the Plumber instead. Not only will you get a more realistic viewpoint about the American politics from lower down the pecking order but you could get your cistern fixed at the same time….and he'll probably be cheaper....

But wait – Alex Spillius (DT Harnden Clone) deflates Joe by pointing out that he hasn’t got a plumbers licence owes back taxes- another McCain fiasco (Palin 2…). Unfortunately ace reporter Spillius has only done his homework in a half hearted fashion by relying too much on the NYT and the unions - and the networks. Joe doesn’t need a licence because he is working for a licensed plumber.

“No, Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher doesn't have a plumbing license, but his employer does. His back taxes total less than $1,200. Not exactly Wesley Snipes.” (Fox)

As Jules Crittenden has pointed out “I could care less about Joe’s background, whether he’s legit, or whether he is a McCain operative. What I do care about is that I could be attacked like a public figure simply for asking a question, like Joe. I am chilled. No longer undecided either.
Joe is emerging as an everyman uber-Palin, tapping into the fundamental Joeness of America … an innocent trap Obama set for himself, when he went out to talk to regular Americans, and was caught telling them how he really feels. “Share the wealth.” Joe, a living, breathing Norman Rockwell painting in our own time, then is set upon by the Obamist press.
The Joes of America aren’t going to like that. Obama better watch out. He may find he’s stirred up an army of them.”
Oh and about those unpaid taxes – someone else owes even more
But somehow don’t expect Spillius and Harnden to focus too much on Martin Nesbitt – he is even less significant than Joe, he just happens to be Obama’s Campaign Treasurer……..

THE "BRILLIANT" JAMES FORSYTH........

When the conservative UK Spectator began it’s Americano blog about the 2008 election I really thought it would travel well beyond the Toby Harnden type re-hash (see Daily Telegraph) of the latest from WaPo/NWT/AP. After all, why in this day and age should the DT bother paying loadsadollars to such hacks for regurgitating this stuff when we in the UK can read the US media online in real time? Maybe, at last, we would get some in depth, sophisticated reporting that really came from between and behind the lines – what a hope! Almost all UK commentators (even the so called Conservatives) can’t be bothered to operate outside the zone when it comes to Palin and as for Alaska – call for Borat…

It is clear that Americano’s James Forsyth is not only a Harnden clone who can’t really be bothered to operate outside the zone but he has also made no attempt to try disentangling the details of politics in Alaska…par for the course, I suppose – nevertheless, so disappointing. Still, here is a primer to get you started, James…


I suspect that their sympathies lie with the pet conservatives who are allowed to grace the columns of the NYT – David Brooks, anyone? – who view Palin with disdain because they perceive her as some trailer trash rube from the boondocks who was shoved on to the ticket at the last minute to shore up the hillbilly vote, so dim she thinks she can see Russia from her front room and had to answer “which one” when asked about the Bush doctrine (Ruth Lea on the BBC’s QT a day or so back)….

Well, they underestimate her at their peril. She has rough edges, still has stuff to learn and, of course, would be so out of place at any Beltway dinner table but she is savvy, catches on very quickly and, above all, she is a conservative who connects with ordinary, everyday Wal-Mart people – just watch how they respond to her at her rallies – and as Mayor and Governor her achievements outrank any failures.

It seems unlikely that McCain will win and he will join Gore and Kerry in the pantheon of losers – but Palin will not sink out of view. As the Obama supporting feminist icon Camille Paglia wrote “This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.”


She might well use the next four/eight years to become the focus of a new manifestation of Republican Populism, possibly mixing conservative social values with an anti big business platform, maybe an updated version of the Contract with America but much more than Newt 2…much more even than the Gipper……think Bull Moose…think Teddy Roosevelt….

BTW, re Ruth Lea – the Governor’s “nearness of Russia to Alaska” remarks, so often parodied, were attached to other comments about Russia that somehow ended up on the ABC cutting floor (I wonder why?)…and I would love to have heard which one of the five interpretations of the Bush doctrine did Lea have in mind…..

US Financial Meltdown - Who and Why and How

How on earth did those bankers get embroiled in the subprime market - it's a dirty word now, of course, but a few years ago some people had a different perspective. Watch this and then ask yourself why the big media in the USA and here have not tracked right back on this issue............

Obama campaign - a link to anti Palin youtube smear?

Fascinating story circulating in the US blogosphere here about a possible link between Obamas guru David Axelrod and an anti Palin vid on youtube - what is more, since the story emerged everything has been pulled....mmmmmmmmm...interesting to see if the big media picks up on it....

DAVID DAVIS

The trouble with sites like ConservativeHome is that the vast majority of posters are party political trainspotters obsessed with the minutiae of our niche fetish and/or the Westminster Village Commentariat. Now normally that is fine and, like the Collectors of Car Tax Discs, we can pursue our little hobby with all the fury and intensity of your regular anorak. However, when something as out of the box as the David Davis resignation comes along we struggle to fit it into our Weltanschauung because it it transcends the parameters of party political discourse – it’s the sort of thing one would discuss in a seminar as part of a Political Science degree…hence the bewilderment of hacks like Robinson and Crick – if they can’t understand it then it must be either a “stunt” or part of some sort of conspiracy.
Fortunately this issue is now beyond the village and the anoraks and and is in the hands of those ordinary, everyday folk who are not political hobbyists. These are the people who we often claim to represent and love but who do sometimes display an annoying tendency to make up their own minds and ignore our sage and well informed advice…..

The Iraq Surge and the DT

"Military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al Qaeda"

So says The Washington Post in a recent article headed "The Iraqi Upturn". Now the WaPo is the Bible of the Beltway, the parish magazine of the East Coast chattering classes, the Court Circular of the Democrat elite so when it starts to say this it must cause consternation at the BBC, The Guardian and The Independent where the concept of the Iraq "quagmire" has been deeply embedded as a self evident truth.

But, more worryingly, it must also be causing concern at The Daily Telegraph which, over the last few weeks, has been peddling a rather curious line about events in Basra and Sadr City, portraying the current offensives in a rather negative light - and it raises again the issue of the DT Editor Will Lewis and his relationship with Gordon Brown. The sudden spate of articles from Mary Riddell have been very defensive of Brown and it just makes you wonder if "Private Eye" is on to something when it describes a degree of "cosiness" between Lewis and the Brown coterie.....perhaps someone should tell those Barclay boys......

Channel 4 and Bobby Sands

Channel 4 is risking fresh controversy over a film that portrays Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker, in a sympathetic light says The Daily Telegraph.

“Hunger” premieres at the Cannes Film Festival today and is directed by Steve McQueen, the Turner Prize-winning artist.

It recounts the 1981 IRA hunger strike inside Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison which Sands led for 66 days until his death.

Jan Younghusband, the Channel 4 commissioning boss, said: "I feel it is the right moment to be revisiting and reconsidering the ideals of these young men who put themselves and others through a great deal for their belief that they could make their world better."

Laudable indeed – but why does it always seem that Jan and her media buddies use a sat nav that only seems to take them in the direction of those who support the maiming and murder of innocent civilians as well as British soldiers and police officers by bomb and bullet? Or is that what she means by saying these young men put “others through a great deal”

Perhaps Jan would next commission a film about the IRA bombing of Belfast’s Abercorn Bar restaurant on a Saturday afternoon in March 1972 which killed two young Catholic girls and maimed many others including a young bride to be who lost both her legs yet months later walked up the aisle on her artificial legs, so determined was she to put her life together – but then perhaps she might see the bomber (who was never identified) – as another young man who put himself through a great deal for his “belief that they could make their world better."


The Jan Younghusbands of this world are straight out of the world of Tom Wolfe, they are the Radical Chic, the beautiful (and wealthy) people of the media elite, our new ruling class who despise the ordinary plodders of the suburban world and prefer, as one commentator said, “to identify themselves with what they imagine to be the raw, vital lifestyle of the lower orders.”

What next from Jan, then…………… Reinhard Heydrich – Violinist?