But otherwise I can’t help wondering whether Janet really has lost the plot. Her shrill propaganda for the war in Iraq was laughable. Still, it isn’t her kids dying on the battlefields of Iraq.

As to the Monbiot-cultural studies accuations, I’ll leave readers to decide whether that matches the stuff ive written in any important respect. Sounds like the mid-90s mindset we appear to be leaving behind.

As far as I can see, most of your commentary consists of adding ‘…not’, to any positive statement . I suspect a less cynical disposition might generate more illuminating remarks

Also see comments here: http://www.crikey.com.au/US-Election/20081103-US08-on-campaigning-and-luck.html
Still waiting for your pants-down around the office Bernand!

As for Albrechsten, I agree with Keane that if Obama was supported purely on the basis of race it would be poor reasoning, but the blog post doesn’t provide any real evidence of that, and nor does it have explanatory value with Obama winning most white and other demographics with overwhelming margins. Her failure is both a conceptual confusion in equating such affirmative race-consciousness with racism, and a refusal to reconcile the charge w/ black support already being uniform for the Democratic ticket.

I’m surprised nobody has made the latter observation already, as it’s the quickest way to giving the lie. Black voters overwhelming support the Democratic ticket regardless, see Gore, Kerry, Clinton et al. It is no bloody mystery. The history of that support is that of the racist Dixiecrats being absorbed into the Republican Party and the GOP’s embrace of the Southern Strategy, in contrast to LBJ’s support of civil rights and enfranchisement legislation. That’s a cliff notes version, but it’s a general trend that has driven ALL minorities from the GOP, including conservative Hispansic, because the party cannot resist its crude nativist instincts.

The fact that black voters didn’t get behind Obama until white voters in Iowa had shown he could actually inspire them and win tells you all you need to know that it is about merit.

Clearing aside the irrelevant stuff first - whatever mad stuff the Guardian does on one page, it does the opposite on another, and it’s all designed to sell newspapers/web ads. Secondly, this stuff about Fisk is asinine. Go back over his writings and you’ll find that few people have been more spot on about the Middle East over the last thirty five years.

But the main thing I disagree with is how you characterise Albrechtsen’s argument about voting by race - for the simple fact is that this is not necessarliy a ‘stupid’ act. It depends on the racial relations. It would not be a ‘stupid’ act for an aboriginal person to vote for another aboriginal person on an inner city sydney seat, even if they disagreed with their politics, or a Roma person in eastern europe, or, i dunno, a black person in america.

Race isn’t a ‘ridiculous’ factor if your race has meant that you still feel excluded from the mainstream of social life, which most black americans - reasonably enough - reasonably feel. It’s ridicullous if you think a centrist chicago law professor/senator is a secret arab terrorist. The situations are not symmetrical.

Bernard, your best stuff is critical and cutting. In your worst stuff I hear the endless afternoons of the failed public servant, the ceiling fan turning slowly as you wait for 4.36pm. Cynicism is not criticism, colleague. It’s the opposite.

I prefer “sceptical” to “cynical”, but either is preferable to your reflexive spouting of undergrad leftist dogma. A bit like a mirror-image Janet, really, although of course we all prefer the HST ‘omage and the eloquent verbosity and you’d make a way better ABC board member.

And no, I don’t think Obama’s a secret arab terrorist, but nice try.

Oh and thanks for the lifestyle tip. Alas, I’ll stick with empty cynical centrism. I can’t quite suspend my credulity long enough to embrace the vibrant vision of socialism, to which, you reckoned, America was bound just a few short weeks ago. But you have definitely replaced George Monbiot as my exemplar for Homo Rightonus, that wonderful species whose natural habitat is the common rooms of Cultural Studies departments, and whose defining characteristic is the sort of Spot-the-Genocide-and-smash-the-state rhetoric that never benefited anyone except Sociology lecturers in their quest to bed First Year students.