You know I’m really missing out on a great business sideline in political journalism – the one that seems to always pop up about half way through a political piece where the writer, needing a little padding to reach the word count ordered by the editor, goes to some rent a quote hack for those vital 200 words to act as filler.

What sparked me off was reading a relatively bland article on Governor Palin’s book tour by Andrea Billups in the Washington Times. It wasn’t particularly unfriendly except when Andrea suddenly started quoting Andrew Koneschusky, “a vice president in the public affairs practice of D.C.-based Levick Strategic Communications”

Now that is a title – great to throw out at dinner parties over the soup to the attractive brunette on your right hand who you hope is still single…beats being a bus driver any day….

It was Andrew’s quotes about the Governor that set me thinking.

He had to say, more in sorrow than in anger that she had a “perceived” lack of substance.

Instead of taking that off the table by delving into more substantive realms, she’s lashing out at critics and she’s attacking left and right and pretty much confirming and solidifying the image that a lot of people already have of her

But be not downhearted….Andrew’s there to help. All she needs to do is to get rid of that burning anger and toxic bitterness . She has to offer a positive message and show “some substantial chops” (I do hope he is not being sexist here – you Americans often use words in a sometimes embarrassingly different way….I remember the awkward silence that fell when I asked a visitor from New York if he fancied a faggot for lunch…)

I have to confess some puzzlement at Andrew’s characterisation of the Governor. She has always struck me as a cheerful, feisty, warm hearted lady but who am I to judge? I am an elderly Englishman, living in the ancient forest of the Sussex Weald – what would I know about “public affairs practice” – all I ever did was teach teenagers for forty years.

Nevertheless I thought I would just check Andrew out to see if maybe I had missed a little nuance and discovered something very interesting. Before ascending to the giddy heights of veeping at D.C.-based Levick Strategic Communications Andrew had worked with Senator Chuck Schumer (Crazy Chucky) – pro choice, pro Fannie & Freddie, pro gun control, pro pork (“And let me say this to all the chattering classes that so much focus on those little, tiny, yes porky amendments. The American people really don’t care”)

He has also worked with Representative John Murtha (I wonder if he was one of the thirty passengers a day at Murtha’s airport for no one that has soaked up $150 million from all you generous taxpayers) so it would seem that Andrew must be well versed in the art of pork.

Would it really come as a surprise to you, dear reader, to learn that Andrew has also been a big cheese with the Louisiana Democratic Party, not usually described as the cleanest political machine in America?

Essentially, then, Andrew is a lobbyist who has worked for some of the biggest Democratic porksters in politics which, of course, makes him the ideal person to offer up some well intended and carefully balanced advice to one of the country’s biggest porkbusters.

So, in the interests of research, just let’s imagine that Andrea was running a piece on Andrew and decided to ring me here in England for some sound, caring advice…maybe it would go like this..

Andrew needs to break away from working with DC windbags and get some experience with people who actually run things and accept responsibility. Helping implement one of the largest infrastructure projects in American history would be a good start. He could also get involved with the preparation of a multi million dollar budget and see that it was spent wisely rather than on airports to nowhere while, at the same time, doing some legwork on an ethics reform programme. After a few years of that he might gain “substance” and “chops”

But maybe Andrew wouldn’t be too keen on that – can you imagine the consternation amongst Andrew and his fellow lobbyists at Levick at the mere suggestion of someone going to Washington and taking an axe to the pork and the lobbying and spending several days on a line by line crunching of earmarks scoring them for utility and value for money?

That must be Andrew’s worst nightmare – he might have to stop being a lobbyist and do something useful like driving a bus…..no wonder he hasn’t got a very high opinion of the ‘Cuda – she is his nemisis………

Read more…

The Daily Mail went hard onto the Chairman of BT for being the only person in a Hampshire village to be invited to be part of an experimental rural broadband test – other villagers say they are in a broadband dead zone.

Prince Charles complained of rural areas becoming digital “deserts”

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “Too many rural households are currently unable to access the internet at satisfactory speeds.”

Naturally the Telegraph, always the “voice of the countryside” – or, to be more truthful, the voice of the “second homers” – applauded Charles demand for “action” which, of course, is media code for taxpayers money.

I have another idea – maybe these people could use mobile broadband and pay for it themselves…..and while they are about it they could dig into their pockets to subsidise the shops and pubs they are always losing.

Let’s get it straight – these people are always saying they love living in the countryside because they are not hemmed in by the crush of city life. They want the space and the slowness of pace. Fine. But they must also be ready to put up with the inconvenience of rural living – the isolation, the lack of services, the absence of crowds…

You want shops, pubs, facebook, hospitals, schools……then live in the city where they can be provided by the score. You want to be nearer to nature? Then enjoy the silence – but don’t expect me to fork out extra cash to smooth the rough edges of your rural retreat…..

Remember over the last few months when all the pundits, strategists, consultants and RNC  hacks were busy giving Governor Palin advice about what moves she should make if she wanted to return to the political stage?

Well I’m pleased to say she totally ignored them and decided to do it her way – the Palin way…and guess what – it has worked to perfection. Interestingly enough SamHenry at ON MY WATCH agrees.

Sarah Palin’s timing and strategy should be in a required reading political text: “Palin on Politics – How to time it; how to move in the political and media morass.”

…

Now, in a time of deep distress and uncertainty in our nation, Sarah Palin is a beacon of survival and of creative self-initiative. She is now the master-in-chief of her image and her message. She is now poised at the brink of, well, her next strategic, well-timed move.  The suspense builds; the speculation continues – Sarah, what a success you are and on YOUR terms!

Read the rest here including a perceptive analysis of how she controlled Oprah and how she has managed to align herself alongside the Tea Party movement without sacrificing her own freedom of manoeuvre.

I know she is a runner and a hunter but I am not so sure I would want to play chess with the ‘Cuda…

cross posted at C4P

January 2009 – Obama as Lincoln……October 2009 – Obama as Nixon????

We have had a surfeit of apples so The Lovely Mrs P has made some SPICED APPLE CHUTNEY……

Makes about 2 or 3 250ml/9 fluid oz jars

• 500g/18 oz apples
• 1 medium onion
• 2 birds eye red chillies
• 250g/9oz Demerara sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice (not mixed spice)
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• half teaspoon sea salt
• black pepper
• 1 heaped tablespoon chopped or grated fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 350 ml/12 fluid oz cider vinegar

1. Peel and roughly chop the apples and finely chop the onion.
2. Seed the chillies and chop finely
3. Put all ingredients in a pan and bring to boil
4. Cook over a medium heat for 30/40 minutes until mixture thickens
5. Spoon into jars and, when cool, place in store cupboard

Another corpse to join Brown’s government of the living dead. The Rule of the Zombies…it’s like an episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” but, unfortunately, according to the DT it’s really true….

Glenys Kinnock, the wife of the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, was appointed Europe minister in a move hurriedly announced by Gordon Brown during his press conference.
She will be made a peer and replaces Caroline Flint, who announced her resignation while Mr Brown was taking questions from reporters – 18 hours after endorsing him and saying she would stay put.
Mrs Kinnock, 64, has been an MEP for Wales for the past 15 years and was a party spokesman in the European Parliament on International Development.

Will she add value to this gang of deadbeats? Unlikely seeing she was reported as being one of the worst performing MEPs.

Still she will certainly fit in well with rest of the snouts-in-trough freeloaders in the Labour Government because in 2004 she had her own little expenses scam going in the infamous Sign in/Sod off extravaganza

GLENYS Kinnock was last night embroiled in an EU expenses “scam” that is costing taxpayers millions of pounds.The Euro MP wife of ex-Labour leader Neil was filmed “clocking on” for non-existent parliamentary sessions so she could claim a £175 allowance.Mrs Kinnock whose salary is £56,358 a year plus lucrative expenses is said to have made £4,550 from the practice.And she is among 36 British MEPs caught in a two-year probe in Brussels.

Even better her response obviously became the template answer for most Parliamentary fiddlers in the current fiasco.

She has broken no rules and has got nothing to hide

In other words just the sort of person we need to help Gordon sort out the expenses scandal….

The ultimate goal of Marxism – the total subjugation of the individual. Watch this and feel the cold dark chill of fear….

Those thoughtful chaps at The Grauniad have been chatting with other opinion formers in NW1 and have decided that The People’s Voice needs to be heard. Brown must go and we the sweaty multitude can hasten to the hustings to seal the deal – after our betters have decided, of course, what is best for us.
Now what is best for us is proportional representation and fixed term parliaments and a constitutional convention and a referendum and all of it designed by a consortium of sundry academics with names like Vernon Bogdanor, glitterati like Polly Toynbee and a House of Commons where the majority of members and their spouses, parents, children and lovers have been having a whale of a time with money taken from our wallets and purses by HMRC.

Apparently we are not bright enough to make those decisions off our own bat over the next few weeks because an election now would “see Britain stumble into the future without any idea where it will lead”. We need to be led by the motley crowd of crooks and spongers who have brought Parliament into disrepute.

The fact is that the chattering classes are scared witless because at this moment in time they have lost control. The absolute contempt that ordinary people hold for the political class also spreads to the media class because we know that they also knew about the scams and the lies and the hypocrisy.

So let’s ignore the pathetic pleas from the Guardianistas. This stinking cesspit of a Parliament needs to slither away in shame within weeks and the next 60 days spent in getting constituency parties to either reselect or appoint new candidates and then we elect a new Parliament of clean men and women with a doctor’s mandate to purge the shame.

Forget precedent – hold a general Election on the first Thursday of September – let the people speak.

The last few days of Britains Got Talent 2009 and suddenly the media is whipping up a backlash against Susan Boyle and pushing young Shaheen…but maybe the public are not buying into the hype about stage school Shaheen because in Tuesdays semi final they voted for comedy father and son duo Stavros Flatley forcing the judges to push the boy singer into the final as a last minute “judge’s choice”

But the real star of Tuesday’s show wasn’t even one of the competitors. It was thirteen year old Faryl Smith from last years BGT who returned to do a solo spot singing Amazing Grace. She didn’t win the 2008 title (she came fourth)but her career has blossomed and her recent album not only became one of the biggest selling classical albums ever in the UK but has also sold quite well in the USA.

Has Faryl got talent????

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