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By Toby Harnden World Last updated: October 28th, 2009

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Senior White House adviser and Obama crony Valerie Jarrett gave an interview to CNN in which she rapidly backtracked on the required administration line that Fox News is biased. When Brown asked whether she also thought that MSNBC (which is every bit as liberal as Fox is conservative) was biased she just crumbled.

Within the space of a minute, Jarrett said of Fox that "of course they’re biased"�, then that "I don’t want to just generalise all Fox is biased"� (sorry, but...]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Sign in or register

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By Toby Harnden World Last updated: October 14th, 2009

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Which public figure can be quoted as having said something bigoted and disgusting and it doesn't matter whether he did or not because he might have? Who can Big Media brand a racist without checking the facts? Who has to prove he did not say something racist, rather than the accuser proving he did?

A pat on the back for anyone who guessed the answer: Rush Limbaugh (OK, the blog headline was a clue). From CNN  to MSNBC to ABC, it's been put about that Limbaugh said...]]> Fri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Accessibility links

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By Toby Harnden
Last Updated: 6:47PM GMT 08 Feb 2009

Comments 11 | Comment on this article

During last year's epic election campaign, Hillary Clinton said that in the White House "there is no time for on-the-job training". Joe Biden, too, remarked that the presidency...]]> Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Having been firmly in control of the campaign narrative for more than a week and surging in the polls, Senator Obama has been knocked off his stride. Senator McCain stumbled in addressing the Wall Street crisis from the outset with his "fundamentals are strong" statement and then lurched first one way and then the other. Then, suddenly, he seized the initiative.

Obama was put on the defensive immediately after McCain's shock announcement when President George W. Bush - in a move that appeared to bee coordinated with the Arizona senator - called to invite him to Thursday's White House summit. The Democratic nominee could hardly refuse and it looked like he was following McCain's...]]> Sat, 13 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Of course, most of the new conservative love for Clinton is tactical. By lauding the senator for New York, they undermine Obama and highlight her case - which looks more compelling by the day - that he could not defeat John McCain. The old adage that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", Republicans calculate, should hold true until November 4th.

We will never know whether Clinton would have beaten Senator McCain, though there are powerful reasons to be skeptical about her camp's conviction that victory would have been a certainty. But while she may not have beaten Obama in the primaries, she may well have sown the seeds for his defeat in 52 days time.

It's not just that...]]> Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Trouble is, every nominee's acceptance address is the "biggest speech of his life". Every four years, the breathless build-up is duly followed by the punditocracy declaring that he hit a home run - though this time David Gergen's "it was less a speech than a symphony" might have raised a blush or two even at Obama HQ in Chicago.

We already knew, moreover, that Obama could give a fine speech. To a large extent, the McCain campaign, building on Hillary Clinton's "just words" and "one speech", has neutralized this powerful talent by turning it against him. By over-reaching in Berlin, the fine speechifying became a potential millstone for him.

Truth be told, the faux Greek temple...]]> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Only a political naïf would have agreed to a televised reminder of just how close Senator Clinton came to victory in the primaries. And Obama, schooled in Chicago, is no ingénue. Of course, Clinton - as she is so fond of reminding us - received some 18 million votes this year and came within a whisker of winning. Her husband is the most recent Democratic president. They had to be accommodated.

But the deal Obama struck with Mrs Clinton must have stuck in his craw. The contention, moreover, that it was his idea that her name should be placed into nomination is an insult to our intelligence. By allowing the roll call, Obama has ceded control of what happens on the convention...]]> Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 But then the penny dropped. An astute campaign has the serenity to accept the things it cannot change. McCain's re-jigged team did just that by belatedly recognizing that this election was going to be all about Obama. When the main alternative was that it could be all about McSame and George W. Bush, the Republican's strategists concluded, perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Obama has made his extraordinary life story the central plank of his political career. But the constant repetition of the carefully-crafted narrative has begun to wear a bit thin. All the talk about himself can seem a bit, well, self-regarding.

Team McCain now gets this. In a...]]> Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq's welcoming gift was an endorsement of Obama's troop withdrawal plan. King Abdullah of Jordan was happy to be his limo driver in Amman while Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted she "wouldn't resist" another presidential back massage.

No wonder some in corridors of London's Foreign Office fear that Obamamania has taken such a grip on 10 Downing Street that the eagerness of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his acolytes to get a sprinkling of the stardust might alienate John McCain.

Back in the United States, photographs of Obama in shades and headphones besides a respectful General David Petraeus looking out over Baghdad from a...]]> Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Her comments had already attracted controversy and the issue is one close to the hearts of many women. McCain should have had a ready, fluent response.

Instead, the eight-second pause and the protestation that he could not give an "informed answer" because he could not "recall the vote right now" played right into the narrative that McCain is old, out of touch and has been in Washington so long that he can't even remember what he's done there.

While Obama usually seems at ease and ready with a quip or a smile, in formal settings McCain can sometimes look as if he's in pain. If he does grin, he looks more like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" than a candidate...]]> Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500