Evan Rudowski: Web Transplant

Murdoch Ends What He Started

Rupert Murdoch today ended what he started.

Twelve years after anointing Tony Blair the next prime minister with a critical front-page endorsement, and ushering New Labour into power, Murdoch's Sun newspaper declared the Labour era over.

      

The Sun may only be following public sentiment, and this may have been the case in 1997 as well. Nevertheless, when Murdoch says it's over, it's over.

And if anyone doubts that a media mogul can still wield huge influence over the public debate, look no further than Murdoch. He does it in Britain and he does it in the US via his Fox News network which fans the flames of right-wing political sentiment, creating a huge backdraft for the Obama administration.

In the meantime, back here in Britain, it's time to wish Gordon Brown goodbye and good luck.

Wake-Up Call

Picking up this morning's Metro on the train platform, I couldn't help but be struck by the front-page headline above the article on the £1.9 trillion bank bailout.

Metro puts it in stark terms. That's:

• £288 for every man, woman and child on the planet
• 10,000 times the total raised by the Band Aid and Live Aid concerts
• 36 times the aid sent by the richest nations to the poorest each year
• 190 times the GDP of Ethiopia

The front page photo is not of bankers in suits or overwrought Wall Street traders watching their positions erode, but rather of African children lined up for food.

Manipulative? Maybe. Political? Yes, in the great tradition of British newspapers. Sobering? Definitely.

A few months ago I attended a talk by Bob Geldof, who passionately and with great clarity reminded the developed world to keep its commitments to the poor nations of Africa and elsewhere. Remembering Geldof's talk, it's difficult not to be struck by how easy we've found it to bail ourselves out while as a society we seem to find it so difficult to meet our relatively measly commitments to our less fortunate fellow humans.

If we let every bank collapse, we would not have it as bad as many of these people who spend their entire lives hoping for a handout or a hand up and often don't get them. And I think after recent events we can finally put to rest the self-serving theory perpetuated by Western governments that vast wealth creation at the top of the pyramid somehow trickles down to those at the bottom. It does not.

Geldof cleverly brought his talk back to his audience's self interest. We're running out of everything, he reminded us. Water. Clean air. Raw materials. We cannot keep consuming at the rate we did in the 20th century. We need to find new sustainable ways of living, more modest ways of living, or we will hit the scrap heap.

Let's hope this financial crisis represents the death throes of the era of consumption without heed for consequences. Let's hope we get some political leadership that encourages us to live responsibly and sustainably. This wasn't a bubble bursting, it was a collective delusion. Time to wake up.

Pricing Politicians

Today I received an email from the Obama campaign inviting me to attend a lunch with Al Gore in London on 25th September. Price: $10,000. And for $28,500, I can also attend a half-hour reception beforehand.

Wow! I haven't spent that much on lunch since the internet bubble.

Last year I was invited to attend an entrepreneurs breakfast at 11 Downing Street with then-Chancellor Gordon Brown. Price for breakfast: 45 quid -- about $90.

Say what you will about Gordon Brown, but compared to Al Gore he sure is value for money.

From King to Candidate

It's symbolic, if coincidental, that tonight Barack Obama will accept the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States, on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

The New York Times has a moving article today focusing on the handful of Democratic delegates who will be there tonight and who were also there for King's famous speech on the National Mall on August 28th, 1963.

From a practical standpoint, when it is so urgent to get the Republicans out of power before they further wreck the country, I am sorry it's not Hillary up there. I am still not confident that Obama can defeat McCain, although I am pretty sure Hillary would have.

However, from a standpoint of seeing how far America has come, there is something wonderful about seeing Barack Obama, a black man, standing up there as the presidential candidate of a major party. Forty-five years ago, when black men and women were still being beaten in the streets of America for trying to claim their basic rights, it could only be a dream -- and the most bold thing that Martin Luther King Jr. could do was to relate that simple dream.

Today, Barack Obama is a symbol of how far America has progressed. Today it is a black man who may lead our nation. That's change I can believe in.

Obama: Don't Wanna, But Gotta

It now seems pretty likely that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. If that's so, I guess I'll have to support him -- however grudgingly.

Obama seems to have many admirable qualities; he would certainly be an improvement over the current president. He'll be readily embraced by the rest of the world, especially after the eight-year-long, two-fingered salute delivered by Bush and company. So why am I so ambivalent?

In part it's his lack of experience relative to Hillary Clinton. To a small extent it's the Reverend Wright issue -- not so much what Wright has said as Obama's equivocation; we know what Wright believes, but what does Obama believe?

But mostly it's the way so many of Obama's supporters turned so viciously on Hillary Clinton, vilifying her to an extent that made her former right-wing Republican antagonists seem like lovebirds. These Obama supporters, full of blind zeal -- and who presumably at one point would have gladly supported Clinton as their nominee -- instead turned on her and painted her as a virtual anti-Christ.

And Barack Obama, with his high-minded ideals and his message of change, nevertheless tolerated this and benefited from it. At best, he remained silent while many of his supporters turned on the woman who wanted to lead their party to victory in November. At worst his campaign participated in painting a picture of Hillary Clinton that encouraged and stimulated this venomous outpouring against her.

Why should he not have? He undoubtedly stood to benefit; he is a politician and he is trying to win. But that's the point -- Barack Obama has proven to be a politician no different from any other. The ideals, the messages of hope and unity, were not borne out in practice. He sent his rhetoric soaring to the heavens, yet encouraged his supporters to get down and sling the mud. Given the success of his campaign compared with Clinton's, he is arguably a better politician than she.

If Barack Obama is no different than any other politician, I'd rather elect a politician with some experience. That would be Hillary Clinton. But it seems that this is not to be.

I'm angry at Barack Obama for playing this game. It's been cynical and disingenuous. But if Hillary Clinton might manage to look past it, and perhaps throw her support to Obama, I guess I might too.

Because after all, that's politics.

Obama's Capital Gains Bombshell

Barack Obama said in last night's debate that he would consider raising the U.S. capital gains tax rate from its current 15 percent to as high as 28 percent, as reported in this New York Times article. Hillary Clinton stated that she would not raise it higher than 20 percent.

Given that he is willing to nearly double the capital gains tax rate, I wonder why Obama seems to be the darling of much of the Silicon Valley set?

Barack Attack

How ironic that Barack Obama turns out to be the primary beneficiary of the unrelenting right-wing hate campaign against Hillary Clinton.

As we have seen on the campaign trail, Obama is happy to use this to his advantage by continually reminding us of Hillary Clinton’s “baggage.” How cynical, when he should be condemning these right-wing politics of destruction.

Obama claims to be the candidate of "change" -- whatever that means -- but he is happy to advance his candidacy by echoing the worst of American politics. The many fabrications and right-wing slanders that could not stick to Hillary previously now become reality as Obama reminds us of how encumbered Hillary is by them.

To advance his own personal aspirations, Barack Obama willingly allows himself be the tool that the Hillary-haters use to finally deny her the presidency. He may claim to be untainted by Washington politics, but his deft manipulation of Hillary's supposed negatives suggest he may be a better politician than her.

Many of Hillary's own natural supporters, like this blogger, are increasingly buying into this rhetoric and abandoning her. It's not that they think Hillary is unworthy, they say, it's that she can't overcome her negatives. How sad that they are making themselves complicit in the right-wing hate campaign to destroy Hillary's presidential aspirations. When they voted for Obama for this reason, I hope they appreciated the irony.

Barack Obama claims to possess none of Hillary's alleged negatives, but the fact that he has engaged in this brand of politics should be a big negative to anyone who may be drawn to him. Hillary has run a straightforward campaign. Obama has been the manipulator.

The right-wing attack dogs must be gleeful at how the end game for their years-long anti-Hillary strategy is finally playing out. They will dispense with Hillary, who rightly reminds us how battle-tested she is in facing down her attackers. Instead they will get the young, unproven Barack Obama, who has yet to turn his platitudes into policies -- and with Hillary out of the way they can start unloading on him. Watch out.