Two presidents open their mouths

Once again, President Obama shows that he has more sense and a better ear for outright idiocy than his supporters. His clear statement that he did not think racism was a major feature of the opposition to his plans, and that at the heart of it was anti-state feeling, shows once again that disarming ability to sound as though he understood his opponents that is one of his major assets. Maureen O'Dowd, Jimmy Carter and the rest have been made to sound like the out-of-touch fools they are. Not that the opposition will thank the President, since in fact one thing that is clear is that his plans will plough forward whatever interpretation is placed on the resistance to them. In a sense, the interpretation does not matter, except in that it has again made Obama sound wise and moderate - whether he is or not.

The Western consensus that President Ahmedinajad's Holocaust denial will do nothing but harm to his standing in the world's eyes is, I regret to say, a pious hope. Of course, it is an outrage to Europeans most of whose families have personal memories of murdered dead in the Hell of what is often still called "the war", or to Americans who share our memories for many reasons - kinship, the memory of American troops who came here, etc. But what is to us both the blackest and the best remembered episode of our own past may well be, in countries with no direct connection, at best half-forgotten folklore, and at worst a matter for debate. I well remember my horrified astonishment at hearing a charming, attractive, well educated Chinese lady from Singapore state that she thought Hitler was on the whole right, because his policy was to improve the race, and that was a good thing! I think I managed to convey to her how far beyond the pale such views really were (and in London of all places!), but it took some effort. And if that is what comes out of educated mouths in a comparatively cosmopolitan place such as Singapore, God only knows what we would find among the rising classes in India and China. Economic growth is drawing people out of poverty and into a middle-class standard of living by the tens of million every year, but there is no guarantee that their cultural background is making the leap to anything like the same extent. And God only knows what ideas would find at play in the rest of Asia, in Africa, even in Latin America. To many people, even outside the Muslim world, Ahmedinajad's statement will have been both arguable and not particularly shocking.

(no subject)

Whether everyone has or has not the right to their own opinion is a moot point. The problem with the internet is that everyone has the faculty to express an opinion - however ill-informed, moronic, perverse or demonstrably wrong. The brain-sick have been empowered, and the rest of us spend more time than we would wish trying to repair the damage they do.

Damn

Of course your favourites don't always win. But I really did not think that Martina Hingis deserved to go out at the first stage of Strictly Come Dancing. Ah well, at least this relieves me from the need to follow it through to the conclusion, which would have meant putting up with the several completely wrong alterations (the BBC does not seem to have heard of the principle not to touch a winning team) as well as with all the bad features that are evidently still present - in particular the grotesque popular votes. I did not think Joe Calzaghe deserved to stay, let alone be above Martina, but then he is the greatest boxer Britain produced in a century (and he is really Italian, please notice - just as they had to call in an Italian called Fabio to get their soccer team to perform) - and no doubt all the boxing fans will vote for him no matter what. As for Linda Bellingham, she evidently benefited from all the perverse votes that went to John Sergeant last year. Sad, really. Martina deserved better. But to judge from what I saw, neither the BBC nor the public did.