October 7, 2008
Tom Nairn, the eminent Scottish scholar of nationalism, has a provocative piece over on OurKingdom. He revisits Ernest Gellner's modernist theory of nations in which former "imperial" polities - dubbed "Megalomanias" - would give way to more limited, ethnically-delineated st...
go to article »October 3, 2008
03:30 Biden ends flatly. The debate winds up, families pour onto the stage (Palin's takes longer). Early verdict: it's a draw, with no serious slip-ups (or coups) by either candidate. Vice-presidents are meant to be innocuous, aren't they? 03:28 Post-apocalyptic Palin reverie! Strange...
go to article »October 2, 2008
Over on our sister blog, openRussia, Patrik Shirak takes both McCain and Obama to task for their simplistic views on this summer's Russia-Georgia crisis. During last Friday's debate, the Republican stuck to his hawkish, cold warrior line on the Kremlin, while Obama declined the opportunity ...
go to article »October 1, 2008
How did political imperatives swing yesterday's fateful vote? The vast majority of "vulnerable" congressmen - representatives occupying seats truly up for grabs in forthcoming elections - voted against the bailout package. According to the political statistics blog fivethirtyeight.com...
go to article »September 30, 2008
Amongst the various soundbytes and slogans tossed around during the Republican National Convention, one was repeated more than most. "Country First" emblazoned the podiums, stages and screens of McCain's political spectacle. It was the clearest articulation of the candidate's patr...
go to article »September 25, 2008
Earlier this week, conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh played a terrifying game of racial semantics. He insisted that Barack Obama was not, in fact, African-American, but rather "Arab". Limbaugh mused: "Do you know he has not one shred of African-American blood? He's Arab. ...
go to article »September 17, 2008
There may yet be another twist in the "tale" of this election campaign. After Sarah Palin's eruption upon the scene, it seemed that we were set for a contest of personae: the old maverick and his hockey-mom deputy vs. the cerebral orator and the feisty political veteran. Issues would ...
go to article »September 4, 2008
Amidst the mountain of praise heaped on Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican National Convention yesterday, one assessment stuck out for me. According to NBC's political director Chuck Todd, in Palin, "conservatives have found their Obama". What does this mean? Like Obama, Pa...
go to article »September 2, 2008
As Jim Gabour seemed certain of all along, Hurricane Gustav spared New Orleans a return to the horrors and devastation of Katrina three years ago. Though eight people across the south of the United States died as a result of the storm's arrival, its impact has not been nearly as deadly as feare...
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John McCain had a hard act to follow after the thunder of the Democratic National Convention. In the Rockies, Obama scaled the heights of political spectacle, delivering one of the surest and strongest speeches of the campaign year. What could the much more restricted McCain possibly muster in resp...
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