US Election Blog | The Spectator

The Bush administration in the firing line

, 26 Aug 2009 15:33:33 GMT

The appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the torture of terrorist suspects by CIA officials marks the beginning of several years of paralysis for the US intelligence community and the likely jailing of several officials.

The decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint John Durham to investigate claims of abuse comes fast on the release of a five year old report by the CIA’s Inspector General that sharply criticised ‘inhumane’ interrogation tactics.

America has a long history of appointing special prosecutors who, once they start their own interrogations, tend to

The politics of Ted Kennedy's death

, 26 Aug 2009 12:03:34 GMT

A noteworthy point by Danny Finkelstein, over at Comment Central:

"One of LBJ's weapons, of course, was human sympathy. In the days after John Kennedy's death he sought the support of his colleagues to complete Kennedy's legacy.
Could Obama now do the same after Ted Kennedy's passing?
Health reform was Senator Kennedy's lifelong cause. Perhaps Obama will remind Democrats of this, seeking to rally round the Kennedy name as LBJ did.
Don't be surprised if reform is now repackaged as the Kennedy Bill."

Senator Edward Kennedy, 1932 - 2009

, 26 Aug 2009 08:58:53 GMT

Teddy Kennedy has died aged 77 after a battle with brain cancer. Kennedy was a towering member of the senate for nearly fifty years. Even after the centrist “New Democrats” had abandoned them, Kennedy championed the American Left’s traditional causes, such as healthcare provision, which he described as “the cause of my life”. He was integral to the passage of civil and labour rights legislation, and worked to limit global nuclear proliferation.

In 1980, Kennedy lost the Democrat nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter; others might have retired, but the Senator continued to fight inequality

Obama's internet support comes back to bite him

, 19 Aug 2009 18:12:17 GMT

The internet generation who made Obama’s campaign possible through a mass of micro-transactions have struck again. During the past 24hours over $100,000 has been raised by over 1,500 donors keen to ensure that the President doesn’t back down on his plans for a health care reform, after his Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Sunday that a public option was "not essential".

What’s so interesting about this story is that, having paid to get him where he is, the internet donors now feel they have a stake in Obama. We

The trials of being in a power couple

, 11 Aug 2009 12:32:38 GMT

It seems Hillary Clinton is smarting from her husband’s Korean coup. Exhibit A: her Q&A session with Congolese students yesterday, where her translator relayed this question:

“Mrs Clinton, we've all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation?”

The Secretary of State offered a stark clarification: “My husband is not secretary of state, I am. I am not going to be channelling my husband."

Here's footage:

Will the Obama administration deny requests for more troops in Afghanistan?

, 08 Aug 2009 11:45:46 GMT

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, two of the people involved in devising the surge strategy in Iraq which so transformed the security situation there, have a strong piece in the Weekly Standard arguing that the Obama administration is in danger of repeating in Afghanistan the mistakes the Bush one made in Iraq: not giving the commander on the grounds the tools they need to do the job.

The Kagans’ concern has been caused by strong hints from the Obama administration that it is not minded to send any more troops to Afghanistan whatever the review

What would FDR do

, 31 Jul 2009 18:51:47 GMT

Peggy Noonan has a clever device in her column this week, she imagines what FDR and Nixon would tell their respective parties if they could come back to this earth and advise them. She has FDR offering Obama his take on healthcare, the first major issue on which Obama has ended up on the wrong side of public opinion. FDR points out to Obama that his problem is that if he, Obama, doesn’t get his bill he looks weak but if he does get it, it won’t work. Then he says:

“But I have

General Alexander's dual appointments reveal just how limited Obama's security options are.

, 29 Jul 2009 11:41:08 GMT

In a bizarre move that confirms how hard it is for President Obama to fill the top intelligence spots, the current head of the National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander, has been appointed both to continue to run NSA and to head the new Cyber Command.

The Cyber Command has been one of the most controversial initiatives of the Obama team and is being set up to better defend the nation from countries like China, which have been doing the cyber equivalent of raping and pillaging American economic and defense secrets with impunity. The

Democrats squandering their advantage

, 21 Jul 2009 18:28:16 GMT

There hasn’t been much good news for the Republican party in recent years. But David Brooks, who is hardly a partisan, argues in his column today that the Democrats are throwing away their chance of a permanent majority in much the same way that the Republicans did:

‘We’re only in the early stages of the liberal suicide march, but there already have been three phases. First, there was the stimulus package. You would have thought that a stimulus package would be designed to fight unemployment and stimulate the economy during a