Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

Letter from the Left Coast: The Fat Lady Finally Gets Off Her Backside

Ian Bowater, this blog's very own LA Correspondent, with some final thoughts on the presidential race
So here it is – the last ever Letter From The Left Coast. It’s been over a month since the last one but quite frankly nothing much has happened. Oh… there was some Black Guy who got made President of the United States. I never saw that one coming. The interregnum created a power vacuum, or rather a news hole, which any number of hopefuls, has-beens, nonentities, also rans, losers and the occasional Great White Hope tried to fill. Quite frankly, Bernie Madoff’s multi-billion dollar fraud wasn’t going to do it. Once we learned that Zsa Zsa Gabor had lost eight million there were no more tears left to shed.

Letter from the Left Coast: The Cabinet, the Legacy and the Law

Ian Bowater with a Christmas Special from the Left Coast

Here’s change you’re gonna have to put up with… Barack Obama ran on the left to beat Hillary in the Primary. At the general election conventional wisdom dictates that he would move to the centre to get elected. When in office he will naturally drift back to the left. The Republicans forced change on him by playing the Pinko, Commie, Socialist card. Instead of running to the middle, he stayed left because it worked for him and none of the calumnies heaped on him by the McCain campaign worked for them. Now in the transition we are learning what sort politician he will be. He is governing from the right, appeasing some pretty nasty folks while he builds his big tent. Instead of ringing the change bell there’s a load of old Clinton clangers in his first Cabinet.

Letter from the Left Coast: So Will Obama Be The Real Deal Or Not?

Ian Bowater hopes for a new New Deal from Barack.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. All across West L.A. thousands of newly emboldened, well meaning Liberals held hands around a family table laden with an unlikely mélange of savoury and sweet dishes along with the obligatory vegan alternatives for the exceptionally uppity. Where do they find the strength on tofu and pulses? After apologizing to the Native Americans – the original hosts of this Turkey fest – they gave thanks for Barack Obama. The President-Elect has been beatified, canonized, lionized and deified on an upward spiral of hyperbole since the day he won the election. He has simultaneously restored America’s faith in itself and returned it to Number One in the world. That’s the word on this one. America is Barack – America is Back!

Letter from the Left Coast: Hey World - Meet the New Boss

Ian Bowater, with a post-Obama reflection on the day that Americans welcomed in a new president, although how sincere they all were is a matter for debate.

I admit to having a nostalgic fondness for elections. It probably goes back to the fifties when, as a nine year old, I helped my dad leaflet the Hillsborough ward in Sheffield for Alf Meade, our local councillor. Alf was no Barack Obama but then I didn’t need to be inspired. I was always a tribal politician who followed my dad’s lead and the family legacy. I love Election Day itself even more, despite not having had much experience of working on a winning campaign in my adult years. So, I was looking forward to last Tuesday with some trepidation. I’d actively participated in the Obama Campaign if only for research purposes. I might be the common loser factor. I hadn’t bothered with the local McCain headquarters because I’d been told there was no one was home.

Letter from the Left Coast: Vote for Obama, says Ian the Leftie!

Our man in LA Ian Bowater does his bit for the Obama campaign Los Angeles-style - by the infinity pool

Regardless of whether Barack Obama gets an historic victory on Tuesday and the much-vaunted new era begins, the American Century ended last Friday with the death of Studs Terkel. Journalist, activist, oral historian, Studs chronicled the twentieth century from the perspective of the working man. Sadly, he lived long enough to see the American Worker parodied and disparaged in the shape of Joe the Plumber, John McCain’s new-found friend from the campaign trail. Joe is everywhere except when he forgets to turn up. Offering opinions on subjects as diverse as the tax plan and Israel, Joe has a scared story for every occasion. No matter that he has no experience, not even of campaign strategy meetings. Joe says what he wants and the further off the reservation he gets the more Mr. Maverick loves him.

Letter from the Left Coast: Now Come the Really Dirty Tricks!

The blog returns from holiday with Ian Bowater our leftie in LA still adamant that having run one of the worst campaigns in political history McCain could still find ways to cheat a victory

The now famous McCain grab-ass photo from the final presidential debate was probably best rendered by “Berliner Zeitung”. It was almost exquisite in its symbolic detail. The background was a Prussian blue. In Europe we always associate blue with conservatism whereas it is the colour of the Democrats in America. Red states are Republican as in red meat and redneck. Barack Obama is left of the frame with his head slightly bowed, lips tight looking dignified. He could be an artist’s study for an eventual slavery memorial. McCain takes centre frame. He is a slavering homunculus like the grasping capitalist from a scathing Otto Dix print. Together the two images look like elements of the evolution man with Obama as homo erectus and McCain an ill-formed primitive, grasping at stature. The title is simply “Endspurt”, which sounds like the money shot from a cheap porno movie. It means, in fact, final spurt or push as in a race. But here it will forever mean a last desperate grab.

Letter from the Left Coast: McCain Support for Veterans is a Fallacy

Ian Bowater, our old-fashioned leftie lost in LA, looks at McCain's poor record on backing the military and laughs at suggestions the financial crisis means we're all socialists now. 

Let'€™s talk about political certitude. Remember the old saying '€œsafe as houses'€? It'€™s the houses that are the problem. Politicians, left and right, were dead set against the bailout right up the moment they were for it. The coin was tossed and came down on the other side, just like that. Remember when HDMI was a socket on your new flat screen TV? Who knew it was a Hybrid Derivative Monetary Instrument. Banks and bankers thought they were great right up the moment they turned toxic. Then they became sceptics. Everything is certain right up to the point of flux. The Dow and the FTSE went in a tailspin. Stock Exchanges stopped being accurate barometers of economic performance and became upper class bingo halls.

Letter from the Left Coast: McCain Blames Obama and Women for the Crash, Will He Dump Palin?

Ian Bowater, our old-fashioned leftie lost in Los Angeles, wonders who else McCain will find to blame for the financial crash

Give me liberty or give me debt! The House of Representatives voted for liberty and rejected the Bush/Paulson/Bernanke bailout package endorsed by a panicked Democratic leadership. It started last week with the Death of a Salesman. Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, fetched up in Congress with a charming idea called a “bailout” plan. What he was selling was a bunch of “toxic loans”. Sounds inviting, doesn’t it? Shit sandwich anyone? Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury turned to the 9/11, Iraq War, Patriot Act playbook and said it had to be done and done quickly. Fortunately, enough on the left and right in the House of Representatives cottoned on to the idea that “a bailout”  is supposed to mean shipping water out of a sinking vessel rather that letting 700 billion gallons in. John McCain rode in to rescue the bailout and ended up bailing out on the rescue.

Letter from the Left Coast: Focus on Palin Merely Protects McCain

Our correspondent in sunny California Ian Bowater reminds us that the key issue on the Republican ticket is not Palin

[Mick says: I'd be interested to know what you think McCain is saying to Palin here!]

First a declaration – no animals were harmed in the writing of this Letter From the Left Coast but we did slap lipstick on a few pigs. All accusations of sexism are without foundation. The McCain Campaign’s assassination of the truth looks like the St. Valentine’s Day mascara. Apparently, poor, cute, little Sarah Palin has been so reviled by the sexist Obama campaign she is but one typo away from being a “Honky Mom” – more of her later.

Letter from the Left Coast: McCain - the Edwina Currie Connection!

Ian Bowater, our leftie lost in California gets back into the comfort zone by turning his pit bulls on McCain and Palin with a sideswipe at a former enemy nearer to home!

Last week St. Paul, Minnesota became the last refuge of the scoundrel. It was impossible to move at the Republican Party convention for the Stars and Stripes. Digital images wafted digitally everywhere. At least at the Olympics they got a couple of hairdryers to make proper flags waft in reality. Under the banner of “Country First”, the straw-boatered crowd whooped it up for their scoundrel-in-chief – John McCain, total liar and fraud.