Comment Central - Times Online - WBLG

Complaints Department

From time to time I receive emails and posts concerning my grammar or kindly pointing out typos. They are, just once in a while, a very tiny bit, erm, pompous.

Yesterday produced my favourite complaint so far:

Do you use a spell check when you right?

The author was not being ironic.

Today's Web Grab

You might enjoy:

• Mike Glover in The Huffington Post: McCain Camp: Obama Playing The Race Card
• Fraser Nelson in Coffee House: No way back for Miliband
• Mike Smithson in Political Betting: Will Gordon really fight them on the beaches?
• Jennifer Howze in Alpha Mummy: 10 things we love and loathe about sisters
• Mike Nizza in The Lede: Gates Plans the Post-Gates Pentagon

Could you pass Obama's exams?

The excellent Caucus yesterday spotlighted Obama's professorial days: a part of his life which the media tends to overlook. They have:

unearthed some of Mr. Obama’s old class materials: the syllabus and assignments for his “Racism and the Law” seminar, as well as a set of his constitutional law exams and a partial set of memos he wrote about the answers.

For those not up to speed on their constitutional history, it's some fairly technical stuff but well worth a look. While you're at it, check out the analysis from four law professors.

The politics of beauty

Does the Hill realise how ghastly this is?

The BBC goes clubbing

A little bit of light relief with this oldie from Bill Bailey.

Magazine Rack - Issue 274

You might enjoy:

• Michael Crowley in The New Republic: Punch drunk love: How boxing explains John McCain
• Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The New York Review of Books: Bondage
• Stephen Chan in Prospect: The tragedy of Tsvangirai
• Denis MacShane in The New Statesman: Why Miliband was right

A significant message from Nick Clegg

I missed Nick Clegg's summer message. I'm slipping.

When I caught up with it yesterday, I realised that what I had missed was, rather surprisingly, genuinely important - as Guido acutely noted. (It is also, incidentally, toe curling. Clegg tries to copy Cameron's video style but he has either memorised his talk or is using an autocue. It makes him sound very odd.)

This is the second part of Clegg's reversal of Liberal Democrat strategy. Having moved the party to the right, he now announces that he intends to fight as a replacement Tory Party in Labour seats where the Tories are nowhere.

This is significant. When Clegg was elected it was generally interpreted as a problem for Cameron. I wasn't so sure. I felt that he could shift the balance of politics to the centre right.

There are, of course, a few problems with all this.

The first is whether anyone will actually notice. The second is whether it is sustainable - the Liberals are, in their gut, on the left.

But, right now, it represents a big move with potentially quite big consequences.

The great Britney and Barack Obama video

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The latest McCain video makes every mistake it is possible to make.

First, it intercuts pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton with Barack Obama. The ideas is to make Obama look small. Instead it makes McCain look small. The video shows that they don't get it. They are making a video that appeals to the people making it, and to their view of Obama, not to voters.

Listen, if most people agreed that Obama was like Britney, he wouldn't be a superstar and you wouldn't need to make this ad at all.

Second, the video shows vast crowds shouting "O-ba-ma!". This is supposed to be an attack video, for goodness sake. A vast crowd cheering Obama is about the most potent pro-Obama message you can possibly send.

I honestly wonder if the McCain people know what they are doing.

Thursday's comment from the papers in...

Today in Times Comment

• Camilla Cavendish: Optimism alone won't get Labour out of this pit
• Tom Winsor: How our watchdogs can add bite to their bark
• Jonathan Fenby: Olympic Games show China through a glass, darkly
• Ian Marchant: A properly run pub is the best way to beat binge drinking
• Matthew Parris: Why are Italian tourists so pushy and rude?
• Stephen Pollard: I don't want to be treated by a dyslexic doctor
• Carol Midgley: Angelina Jolie and the superfast generation
• Peter Riddell: We choose the MPs, they select a leader
• Leading Article: The Milibandwagon
• Leading Article: By a whisker
• Leading Article: In full flight

And from the rest of the papers...

• Mary Riddell: (The Telegraph) - David Miliband is ready for battle, but someone else must pull the trigger
• Neil McKeganey: (The Telegraph) - It's our last chance to get tough on drugs
• Peter Mandelson: (The Telegraph) - We'll pay a high price for free-trade failure
• Leading Article: (The Telegraph) - BAE decision is right
• Isabel Hilton: (The Guardian) - Its green medal hopes are lost but Beijing must race on
• Richard Silverstein: (The Guardian) - The end of Olmert
• Martin Kettle: (The Guardian) - Something's got to give - will it be Brown or the party?
• Leading Article: (The Guardian) - Not the last word
• Terence Blacker: (The Independent) - Do some work on holiday, Gordon
• Vincent Cable: (The Independent) - The way to tackle fuel poverty
• Steve Richards: (The Independent) -  Miliband may well have sealed Brown's fate
• Leading Article: (The Independent) - The Burmese deserve better
• Quentin Letts: (The Daily Mail) - Fake protestations of innocence - just like Tony Blair
• John Gapper: (Financial Times) - Corporate culture shock is a big deal

And from around the world...

• Roger Cohen: (The New York Times) - Slow Train to Champagne
• Nicholas D. Kristof: (The New York Times) - A farm boy reflects on animal rights
• Henry A. Kissinger: (The Washington Post) - New premises in Iraq
• Karl Rove: (The Wall Street Journal) - Obama's Iraq fumble
• Laurie Garrett: (International Herald Tribune) - The wrong way to fight AIDS
• Akiva Eldar: (Haaretz) - Olmert's crimes

A musical interlude

This has got nothing to do with anything but I love it.