Fascist alert

As my friends know, I do not call everyone who disagrees with me a Fascist. On the other hand, I do believe that Fascism does exist, that it is mortally dangerous (witness the butchery of helpless Christians by Indian Fascists in Orissa recently), and that it must be fought wherever it is met.

I used to regard Chuck Norris as a folkloric, colourful, not very relevant American phenomenon. However, today he endorsed the Ron Paul cult as the forebear of a coming American conservative revolution. Ron Paul, if you remember, is the extremist, isolationist, America-first, supposed constitutional purist, who has long since been outed as a white supremacist and friend of fringe militias and conspiracy theorists. As we say in Italy, tell me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are.

If McCain loses...

...it will be because he is not much of an economist, and he has shown it by pretty much floundering when he had to produce an opinion on the current financial disaster. I detest Mitt Romney, but one has to admit that this would have been his sort of thing; even if he ultimately happened to talk nonsense, he would have talked it with fluent confidence and an understanding of the issues. The catastrophe of Wall Street may well turn out to be the Democrats' big opportunity - just as a campaign of political genius had practically painted them into a corner.