From sea to shining sea

Malcolm, usually inherently suspicious, missed one point until now. He should have remembered, having blogged the link previously.


He was amused that the Miami Herald was engrossed by the personality and background of Sarah Palin, from the diagonally opposite corner of the States. Mrs Mooseblaster is now on a two-day "swing" through Florida, hoping to pick up $3 million for the strapped McCain coffers, and so incurs even greater local interest

Yet the Herald seems to have a down on Mrs Mooseblaster. This might be a recognition that Florida is not showing appropropriate reverence for the McCain-Palin ticket: Fox/Rasmussen has them now falling fully seven points adrift -- and southern Florida is far stronger for Obama than the State as a whole.

That would not explain Carl Hiaasen's brilliant demolition stomping over the Mooseblaster reputation, before the Veep debate. Hiaasen escalates from:

the same right-wing gasbags who've trashed Hillary Clinton for 16 years have morphed into sensitive souls when it comes to their own hockey-mom candidate. Each unsettling news revelation about Palin is automatically decried as a sexist smear.

via permutations of the formula:

If Palin were a male candidate, Democrat or Republican, she'd be taking heat for ...

Each jab punctuated with a reprise of those grimy moments of the Mooseburger rise to fame and fortune. This concludes with:

If Palin were a man, she'd be questioned closely about her professed aversion to pork-barrel government spending, since she has happily pledged $500 million of her state's money toward a 1,715-mile natural gas pipeline.

Speaking about that as-yet unbuilt project, Palin got on stage at the Wasilla Assembly of God and told churchgoers: ''God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies in getting that gas line built, so pray for that.'' As you might imagine, this is a popular clip on YouTube.

A male candidate would be ridiculed -- no, make that crucified -- for suggesting that the Lord has taken a personal interest in natural-gas extraction. Luckily for Palin, the Sarah Rules censure such commentary as anti-religious...

Wondrously, though, Palin has yet to face any questions about her weird anti-witch inoculation at the hands of one Pastor Thomas Muthee in 2005. It's sort of creepy to watch, but who knows -- maybe this stuff really works for future vice presidents. Maybe Spiro Agnew should have tried it.

That is pure, delicious vitriol.

[The YouTube video mentioned is essential viewing. The Mooseblaster doctine is that gas pipe-lines and the US mission in Iraq are "God's plan":]



Today's Herald editorial pursues Hiaasen's central point:

She doesn't hold news conferences and has kept interviews to a minimum. She doesn't field questions from her own donors at fundraising appearances, as Sen. John McCain does. As a campaign strategy, running against the media may ingratiate her to the party faithful, but it does nothing to reassure doubters and undecided voters.

A news conference is an effective way to communicate. Gov. Palin should be eager to show that she is ready to compete in the same arena as other candidates by taking part in this time-honored ritual. Her reluctance adds to the appearance of a lack of transparency in her campaign.

This disturbing pattern includes the ongoing ''troopergate'' investigation in Alaska involving her firing the public safety commissioner. McCain-Palin spokesmen call it a political trick designed to undermine the campaign. How could that be when the investigation began well before she joined the GOP ticket?

The Herald is a modest operation, but a successful one: less than half-a-million circulation for the fat Sunday edition -- but still in the top two-dozen best-selling dailies across the Nation.

And the stinger?

Behind the Herald stands the McClatchy Company, the third-largest newspaper operation in the US -- which also owns the Anchorage Daily News. Malcolm enjoys reading between the lines of that journal, as its decent liberal regard for the truth and the facts compete daily with the fervour of the local Alaskan Republican norms favoured by its readership.

Today's gem is the coverage of Senator Ted Stevens, up on corruption charges: a distinguished Attorney General of the US, Alaskan of the Century, indulging in a foul-mouthed rant against the FBI agents who were charged with investigating Stevens and others.

Sphere: Related Content

A quantum of solace? No: a Gramm of discomfort.

The one that got away:

When the economic history of these years comes to be written (the clatter of Ph.D. keyboards grows by the day), there will be an episode on the lunacies of deregulation.

How did we get into this mess?

Cue Phil Gramm.

Back in December 2000, things in Washington, DC, were somewhat feverish:

• There was the small matter of Bush v. Gore, recently settled at the Supreme Court.
• The "holiday" recess ("Christmas" being a forbidden word in the land of the First Amendment) was coming up.
• The Republican majority in Congress was, again, toe-to-toe over the budget with the (now lame-duck) President Clinton.

Let's stick with that last one.

The issue at dispute was a spending bill, to the tune of £384 billion. Billion, note. At the last moment, Senator Phil Gramm slipped in a measure (262 pages in length) entitled the Commodity Futures Modernization Bill. This had been drafted by Gramm's associates on Wall Street, giving pretty-well unlimited scope to invent new money-making wheezes, without any risk of scrutiny or surveillance. Even Gramm was taken aback that it passed without more ado.

That was Malcolm's start for a rant.

He intended to demonstrate conclusively

• that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was the root-cause of the present melt-down;
• that Gramm was a personal beneficiary, beyond the dreams of avarice, of the grateful largesse of the financial corporations (Enron in one particular, of which Gramm's wife was a Board member0;
• that Gramm's personal involvement continued (after Enron had blasted his Senatorian progress) as a Vice-Chairman of UBS, while he lobbied and machinated for looser regulation of the financial markets;

and

• that there was and is a direct and continuing link between Gramm and John McCain.

At which point he diverted his attention to other matters of concern: bootlegs of Bob Dylan and a promising teccy by Jill Paton Walsh.

No prizes for coming in second

All of which was made pretty redundant by an article by Alexander Cockburn in this morning's First Post, which made all of those points eloquently, and in the context of a sweeping condemnation of American social and economic policies:

Over the past quarter-century the US manufacturing economy went offshore. Lately the so-called new economy of the 'Information Age' has been moving offshore too. Free trade has left millions without decent jobs or prospects of ever getting one above the $15 an hour tier.

Below a thin upper crust of the richest people in the history of the planet, there's the rest of America which, in varying degrees of desperation, can barely get by. Millions are so close to the edge that an extra 25c on a gallon of fuel is a household budget-breaker.

Wages have stagnated. For decade after decade the bargaining power of workers has dwindled. We've had the macabre spectacle of US-based workers ordered to train their overseas replacements before being fired.

(By-the-by, Malcolm now sees that neither he nor Cockburn had squatters' rights here. The marvellous Mother Jones has been ploughing this furrow since mid-summer. Paul Krugman, op-eding in the New York Times, was on the case as early as March.)

Follow the money trail

Which leaves Malcolm with just these thoughts:

• what exactly is the McCain policy in this crisis?

and

• how close are he and Gramm these days?

Those may not be wholly-separate questions.

McCain's wobbles

Gramm, a fellow Texan, was McCain's cheerleader, "top economic adviser" and chair of the McCain campaign -- until an interview with the Washington Times.

That interview was Gramm's shop-window to promote:

a detailed program to revive dynamic growth with dramatic tax and spending reforms.

From what we know above, we can assume that "detailed program" amounted to licensing the market to yet greater over-reaching.

Unfortunately, Gramm then fingered the culprits responsible for "the sluggish economy". They were none other than the Great American Public:

weighed down above all ... that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades and that America is in decline.

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

"We've never been more dominant; we've never had more natural advantages than we have today," he said. "We have benefited greatly" from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.

As the derision set in, the McCain first instinct was to close ranks. Gramm's Panglossian self-delusion was the McCain position. A statement went up on the Politico website, quoting a McCain aide:

Mr. Gramm was simply saying that we are laying out the economic plan this week. The plan is comprehensive, providing immediate near-term relief for Americans hurting today as well as longer-term solutions to get our economy back on track, secure our energy future and deliver jobs, prosperity and opportunity for the next generation. We're laying out that plan this week with an emphasis on the critical importance of job creation, and it's been a great success so far.

When general ridicule exploded, Gramm was then swiftly evicted from Starship McCain via the nearest airlock. Overnight, that previous statement disappeared from Politico, and the direction of travel totally reversed:

Phil Gramm's comments are not representative of John McCain's views. John McCain travels the country every day talking to Americans who are hurting, feeling pain at the pump and worrying about how they'll pay their mortgage. That's why he has a realistic plan to deliver immediate relief at the gas pump, grow our economy and put Americans back to work.

Enter, and exit, the Old Girl from Channing School

Another blast from the past, another Texan, was loosed to make the economic running. Carly Fiorina was on the stump:

John McCain has proposed a clear pro-growth agenda that will jump-start our economy and create millions of jobs ...
Americans know how to succeed. They need a government that creates an environment to unleash the creativity and ingenuity of the American people to create jobs, not more programs from Washington...

He'll also keep America competitive in the global economy by reducing taxes on businesses and giving a tax credit for the hiring of research and development workers. America levies the second-highest business tax rate of any industrialized country. To attract jobs here, that has to change.

Which sounds like the recipe for further deregulation and subsidy for Big Business.

Alas, in the course of true Texan love did not run smooth: Fiorina would follow Gramm through the air-lock.

She questioned the suitability of Mrs Mooseblaster for the Veep slot -- indeed the suitability of McCain and all-comers -- , and was decidedly more liberal on girly matters. Is it relevant here that Fiorina had been floated, not least by herself, as a name to share the McCain ticket? Malcolm notes, too, that Fiorina might not be the best arm-candy for McCain at this precise moment: she was, after all, the recipient of (allegedly) a $42 million golden parachute when she previously was decanted from Hewlett-Packard: that doesn't chime to well with the Mooseblaster manifesto:

Shortly after McCain promised he would "clean up" Wall Street, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his running mate, appeared at a Colorado rally on Monday morning and proclaimed that "John McCain and I will put an end to the abuses in Washington and Wall Street that have resulted in this financial crisis." She promised a McCain administration would "reform the way Wall Street does business."

That hardly amounts to a cogent, coherent policy; and leaves us that enduring mystery:

Where is Phil Gramm these days?

He was certainly back on board, just a month after his eviction: we have the word of the Wall Street Journal for that:

Ousted John McCain campaign co-chairman Phil Gramm is back with the campaign’s top advisers this weekend, as the campaign gathers top supporters for a series of briefings in scenic Aspen, Colo. ...

Gramm was seated in the front row, with other top supporters, this afternoon as McCain addressed the Aspen Institute in a “conversation” with Walter Isaacson, president of the institute and a former editor of Time magazine.

Asked what his role in the campaign is now, Gramm said in an interview, “I’m a supporter.” As for whether he continues to advise McCain, he said, “We’re friends. I haven’t stopped being his friend. If he asks me, I’d give it to him.” He added, “I’m not an official adviser.”

As late as last Wednesday (10th September), the fine Italian hand of Gramm was still drafting the script, according to AP:

Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas lawmaker who attracted a devoted following in the GOP primaries, said Wednesday he rejected an appeal to endorse John McCain's presidential bid.

Paul said the request came from Phil Gramm, the former McCain adviser and ex-senator...

Speaking to reporters at a news conference, Paul said Gramm called him this week and told him, "You need to endorse McCain." The Texas congressman said he refused.

Ordure! Ordure!

Just a few days ago, the newsprints were hailing the great turn-around in the fortunes of John McCain, following his public embrace of Mrs Mooseblaster. Now, once again, it has all turned sour.

This has reached even the attention of the Times:

John McCain embarked on a desperate – but defiant – damage-control exercise yesterday as he sought to justify his claim that despite violent convulsions in America’s financial markets the “fundamentals of our economy are strong”.

His Democratic rival has pounced on the comment as proof that the 72-year-old Republican nominee is “out of touch” not only with the plight of investors on Wall Street, but also the pain of homeowners and workers on Main Street.

Lies, damn lies, and statistical presentation

To make its point, the Times illustrates McCain's problem with a graphic derived from the Diageo/Hotline daily poll (which, in itself, provokes Malcolm's curiosity: what has a drinks giant to do with political polling?)

It is instructive to compare the original:
with what the Times has done to it:


Now what Murdochian sub-text is being conveyed there?

Sphere: Related Content

The fashion stakes


Malcolm guesses that "Tricky Dicky" Nixon is partly to blame. That story is worth revisiting: it tells us a lot about the workings of US political theatre.

So: a Malcolm aside:

During the 1952 Presidential campaign, Nixon's "slush fund" became an issue. The New York Post had a story that Nixon had taken $18,000 from Californian businessmen, on which Nixon had been drawing for his personal use. That might have gone away, had Nixon not gone into turbo-mode. His problem was the mud stuck because corruption had been precisely the claim he had directed at his previous political opponents. His first defence was to blame Communists for initiating a smear campaign. Everyone in his campaign, Nixon said, had to be "cleaner than a hound's tooth". The press, who had already worked out that Nixon was not that straight, were soon aiding the agitation for Nixon to be dumped from the ticket. Then Eisenhower, after a few days of hesitation,telephoned him, and gave him a soldierly instruction: "There comes a time, in matters like this, when you've either got to shit or get off the pot." Eisenhower, shrewd as ever, warned Nixon that the public reaction to a statement would decide whether or not Nixon stayed on board. On 23rd September, Nixon and his wife, Pat, mounted the dais at the El Capitan theatre, Hollywood. Nixon gave a virtuoso performance to the audience of 2,000 and (more important, and an innovation) to the television cameras. The portion that is generally remembered is when he denied that Pat had a mink coat: no, all she had was a plain republican cloth coat. That was followed by a piece of mawkish piety:

A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little girl Tricia, the six year old, named it "Checkers." And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

Later, when Eisenhower (who, himself, had few illusions about Nixon) was asked how he took the speech, his reply was, "We're gonna keep the dog."

Flash forward to St Paul

On Wednesday, the wife of Senator John McCain, who apparently did not know how many homes he owned, was introduced to the audience by former school librarian, Laura Bush.

Cue some neat bitchery from Vanity Fair's Politics and Power blog:

It caught our attention, then, when First Lady Laura Bush and would-be First Lady Cindy McCain took the stage Tuesday night wearing some rather fancy designer clothes. So we asked our fashion department to price out their outfits.

Laura Bush
Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600–$1,500
Total: Between $3,425 and $4,325

Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

Obviously, "plain Republican cloth" is cut more generously these days.

Another Malcolm aside:

"Slush fund": that's an interesting one.

It goes back to an almost-respectable origin in the 1830s; and it's from the Navy.

Before refrigeration and other methods of food-preservation, meat on ship had to be pickled in brine. When it was boiled, most of the fat would be skimmed off into any spare barrel. This fat would later be sold; and the return went into the ship's "slush fund", to be used at the officers' discretion.

The term appears in a political context as early as 1894 (there is an earlier use, also in the Congressional Record, in 1874, but that seems to be in the original context of padding out officers' income). The reference itself is interesting: it is about the way $400,000 of John Wanamaker's money was used to influence the 1888 Presidential Election in favour of the Republican, Benjamin Harrison. Harrison repaid his debt by appointing Wanamaker Postmaster General.

Some things never change.

The defeated Democrat President in 1888 (he went on to serve a second term after the 1892 election) was Grover Cleveland. In the campaign of 1884, Cleveland had been accused of fathering an illegitimate child: he immediately admitted it, and went on, narrowly, to win the election. A further factor in 1884 was the New York Republicans calling the Democrats the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion". The Roman Catholics turned against the Republicans, who lost New York State by just 1,100 votes, and with it the national election.

Indeed, some things never change.



Sphere: Related Content

As the moth to the flame ... ... so ordure to the electric fan.

There should be a sub-title here,
something to the effect of "the joys of politics".

No sooner had the name of Sarah Palin hit the headlines, and the near-universal cries of "Who she?" faded, than the cow-pats came a-flying:

• Before she became governor of Alaska (virtually a Republican Party feudal fiefdom), her administrative experience was limited to being Mayor of Wasilla City (pop. 6,715).

• She was elected because it was a case of "anybody but Frank Murkowski". Murkowski had been a total disaster as Governor (but that's another story).

• Her sole national recognition is an award from the National Arbor Day Foundation.
  

• Oh, and Sarah Heath (as she then was) was runner-up in the "Miss Alaska" beauty pageant.

• She raised sales tax to fund a recreation center in her home town.

• She doesn't think polar bears should be an endangered species. This might have something to do with her links to the oil industry: oil men don't like sharing the tundra with the local wild-life.

• She used her power as Governor to sack her ex-brother-in-law from the State troopers (see below for more).

• She is currently under investigation for improper use of her authority.

That last bit needs a bit of expansion:

• It seems that the Alaska public-safety commissioner, one Walt Monegan, was none too quick to accede to the governor's behest that the ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, was defenestrated.
• It took more than a score of calls from Governor Palin and/or her unelected husband before the end was achieved. The Palins were shrill in denying any involvement until the tape of one such call emerged.
• There have been some questions about Mr Wooten's own character; and his custody battle with Governor Palin's younger sister, Molly, appears somewhat bitter.
• Another view of that is most of the complaints (some 25 of them) against Trooper Wooten were lodged by the Palin and Heath families, strangely coincidental with custody hearings.
• All the complaints were investigated, and dismissed -- except one. Wooten admitted shooting a moose without a permit. The moose was then butchered by Governor Palin's father, and the meat shared among the Palins, including Governor Palin herself.
• Result: Mr Monegan found himself out of a job, and replaced by the former police chief of Kenai (pop. 7,400), the excellently-named Chuck Kopp. Kopp, by yet another coincidence, is a long-time acquaintance of the Palins. Small and intimate place, Alaska: only some 656,424 square miles.
  
• Unfortunately Kopp had been on the receiving end of sexual harassment allegations. Kopp then claimed he had not received a letter of reprimand for this behaviour, but "a letter of instruction for future dealings with employees.”
• Result: Governor Palin did not submit Kopp's name for approval by the Alaska Legislature. She had swiftly dispensed with him, too.

Not for nothing was the lady's College moniker "Sarah Barracuda", gained from her basketball prowess. She has lost little of her bite.

Doubtless there will be considerable back-slapping among the Republicans of Alaska.

The Democrats returning to their bases from Denver's Convention may well be quite chuffed, too. Sphere: Related Content

Pharming today

In the days before Google made these things too easy, Malcolm used to enjoy sketching out the networks implicit in the Directory of Directors and Who Owns What?

Were he so minded, he might feel the urge to do a job of work on Sandra Gidley, the LibDem MP for Romsey. This was the lady who blogged as Romseyredhead until she found New Year, 2006, was so "depressing" she "just couldn't bring myself to comment daily on the unfolding story of Charles Kennedy". Instead she introduced a "Bill in the House of Commons that would restrict alcohol advertising and clamp down on alcohol related offences. The Bill calls for Gordon Brown to 'turn warms [sic] words into positive action' on alcohol abuse."

Gidley took the by-election at Romsey when the Tory incumbent, Michael Colvin was killed with his wife, when his mansion near Andover burned down. She held the seat at the last General Election by just 125 votes. She is a pharmacist by trade, which qualifies her to be a LibDem spokesperson on Health. This includes the tabling, also through the device of private member's motions, of PR puffs for pharmaceutical companies.

The joys of reading the Commons interests register

Our Sandra gets about the world:

• September 2005, a delegation to Taiwan (paid for by the Taipei Office in London);
• June 2006 to Moscow (paid for by Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS). This body, supported by The Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation and other worthies, also takes the shillings of Abbott Laboratories Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chevron, Coca-Cola, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Pfizer — all, doubtless, in a spirit of selfless altruism. A health warning; one or two of those companies have a serial presence in this posting.
  
• September 2006 to Rio, a jolly for Sandra and hubby, paid for by Unichem. Unichem had just completed the take-over of Boots. Unichem is "sole distribution partner" for Pfizer (see above);
• and, just this last May, to Toronto (paid for by the Strategy Institute). The Strategy Institute is an independent, research-based organization which monitors and communicates changes and trends in business and business strategy. The objective of the Institute is to provide decision-makers with strategic business information and executive education to enhance their business judgment. In other words, it organises trade shows (as this one was). The major sponsors were private-sector health care groups, including the Ontario Home Care Association (private care homes).
  

There is a pattern emerging here. Let's add one more jaunt. Now it gets interesting.

Between 30th June and 3rd July last year Sandra Gibley attended two conferences, one in Budapest and one in Paris, both on the theme of cancer-treatment. Her travels and hotels were paid for by Sanofi Aventis. Sanofi-Aventis is also Big Pharma, the French member of the Big Five pill-pushers. By another of those coincidences that isn't, Sanofi-Aventis's largest shareholders are Total (petrol) and L'Oréal (make-up).

Got the link yet?

Merial.

Or, to be more explicit: Merial has a rich history of innovation in the animal health industry. Both parent companies – Merck and sanofi-aventis – have significant accomplishments dating back more than 100 years.

Out in the weirder outskirts of the blogosphere, there is a 2001 posting (at the time of the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth) by the Natural Law Party, getting frothed up about the possibility of virus escaping from the Merial Laboratory in Surrey. This attempts to link research into F&M vaccines by Merial (allegedly on behalf of United Biomedical Inc of Hauppauge, NY) with an allegation by

New York based former US vetinary consultant Dr Patricia Doyle who has been monitoring activities at the US government Plumb Island Animal Disease Center for some time. Dr Doyle claims there is evidence which suggests the complete story about the UK outbreak is not being told ... the [2001] epidemic is related to a lab created FMD type O virus and that the virus was used to challenge pigs in the FMD synthetic vaccine trials... Synthetic vaccine trials on pigs took place in the UK at Pirbright, Surrey.

And United Biomedial Inc's website says one of its "main revenue streams" is a "pharmaceutical contract manufacturing for GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi and Roche".

As yet, Sandra seems to have failed to speak out about Merial. Pity, that: the Surrey lab is just up wind from Romsey. And, of course, a pharmacist's B.A. from the University of Bath qualifies her to opine on so much.

Sphere: Related Content