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Obama strikes me as a modern Chamberlain, praising his (oh-so-transient) “peace with honor.” McCain, however, comes across as “peace when we’re done kicking you ass and not one moment sooner.” And since this was ostensibly a foreign policy debate, I give the win to McCain. Oh, and one other thing — Obama is still talking as I write this. But he’s spending his last answer angling for the European vote, which does nothing but reinforce my point....

A British government minister attacked Republican US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as "horrendous" at the Labour Party conference on Saturday. The outburst from Communities Secretary Hazel Blears threatens to undermine Prime Minister Gordon Brown's determination for the British government to maintain a neutral position in the US presidential election. Speaking at a fringe meeting of the centre-left party during its annual party conference in Manchester, Blears said Palin was capitalising on people's disillusionment with regular politics. "I just think there is so much anti-politics -- not just in this country but around the world," Blears said. "One of the reasons...

The well-known WII museum of Normandy, France, authorized within its walls a conference organized by the extremists who pretend 911 was an inside job. Held on September 16, 2008, the conference features several commentators, from the one attributing the 911 attacks to the neocons to the one saying it was the jews. The "Memorial de Caen" was built to commemorate the millions of Allies who landed in France in 1944 to liberate the country.

Cabinet minister Hazel Blears has attacked US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as "horrendous". Ms Blears, the Communities Secretary, suggested that the Republican running mate of John McCain had merely capitalised on people's distaste for regular politics. Her comments appeared at odds with strenuous efforts by Downing Street to maintain neutrality on the US presidential elections. They also risk poisoning relations with the Republicans, who are still neck-and-neck with Democratic hopeful Barack Obama little more than a month before polling day. Ms Blears was speaking to a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Manchester when she remarked that politics...

The lamestream media told you:Francoise Hollande, the head of France’s Socialist Party, has endorsed Barack Obama for U.S. president, and promised “to work for the senator’s victory,” in the words of the Associated Press in an unbylined article. ... cont.

LONDON — Are American voters susceptible to blackmail? Ever since Sarah Palin lifted John McCain's campaign, it is becoming increasingly clear that America will be branded racist if Europe does not wake up on November 5 to find that Barack Obama has been elected. Here is what Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian had to say last week: "If [the election] is deemed to have been about race — that Obama was rejected because of his colour — the world's verdict will be harsh." His view is that the anti-Americanism that has demonized President Bush will be as nothing to the...

One of the many, many imprecise aspects of daily journalism is estimating a crowd size -- especially when the gathering is large and sprawling. In such cases, reporters learn early not to hazard a guess of their own but to rely on officialdom. But sometimes, in another sign of the vagaries of pinning down a count at an event for which tickets haven't been allotted, the figures from the local authorities vary. Such was the case Wednesday as John McCain and Sarah Palin wrapped up the road tour that took them to several states since the Republican National Convention ended...

What Europeans are Saying about Sarah Palin Europeans have greeted the news of Sarah Palin’s nomination for Vice President of the United States with a predictable mixture of anger, frustration, resentment and resignation. After more than a year of uncritically praising Barack Obama as a supernatural figure destined by fate to solve all of the world’s problems, European elites are suddenly coming to terms with the unwelcome possibility that the junior senator from Illinois might just be another human being after all. European commentary on Sarah Palin has ranged from ridicule, to ridicule, to more ridicule, to reluctant acknowledgment that...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would triumph over President Dmitry Medvedev if presidential polls were held this weekend, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday. A separate survey showed that if Russians were allowed to vote in U.S. polls, they would prefer Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. The polls follow Russia's intervention in Georgia last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake a pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia.

THE HAGUE, 12/09/08 - Popular support for US presidential candidate Barack Obama is higher in the Netherlands than anywhere else in Europe, according to the Transatlantic Trends 2008 survey published yesterday. At the same time relatively many Dutch also view his opponent, John McCain, favourably. Sixty-nine percent of Europeans view Obama favourably, compared with 26 percent who view McCain favourably. The highest favourability ratings for Obama were found in the Netherlands (85%), France (85%) and Germany (83%). The highest favourability ratings for McCain were found in Portugal (35%), the Netherlands (33%), Spain (33%), and the United Kingdom (33%). Transatlantic Trends...

Gordon Brown has triggered a potential row with John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, after apparently backing Barack Obama - breaking convention not to get involved in foreign elections. The Prime Minister heaped praise on Mr Obama and the Democrats in a magazine article, saying they were "generating the ideas to help people through more difficult times." Dealing with economic problems is the crucial battleground in the US elections and Mr Brown's comments were interpreted as backing the Democrat candidate. The Prime Minister's office and the British Embassy in Washington were last night involved in an embarrassing behind-the-scenes operation to...

World wants Obama as president: poll Posted Tue Sep 9, 2008 10:50pm AEST US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said. All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain. In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins. More than 22,000 people were questioned by...

The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: "It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more." In my head, I'm not as anxious for Barack Obama's chances as I was for John Kerry's in 2004 or Al Gore's in 2000. He is a better candidate than both put together, and all the empirical evidence says this year favours Democrats more than any since 1976. But still,...

LONDON - Most people across the world would prefer Democrat Barack Obama to win the US presidential election over his Republican rival John McCain, a new poll spanning 22 countries showed Tuesday. The BBC World Service survey found the most common view in all nations polled was that Obama -- who staged a euphoric European tour two months ago that included a speech to 200,000 fans in Berlin -- should win in November. An average of 46 percent of all those questioned thought US relations with the rest of the world would improve if Obama took office, compared to just...

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said. All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain. In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins. More than 22,000 people were questioned by pollster GlobeScan in countries ranging from Australia to India and across Africa, Europe...

Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, grabbed European headlines on Thursday with the focus either on her ideology or her gender. “The Republicans hope to have found their Obama,” opined Le Monde, the left-of-centre French daily, following the mother of five’s rousing speech to the Republican convention on Wednesday. In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung greeted ”the rage from Wasilla [her home town]” as a woman who presented ”herself as a ”herself as a pugnacious and self-confident politician” The French media provided full coverage of the pregnancy of her teenage daughter (treatment they would be reluctant to apply to their...

British Press Wrinkles Nose at Palin Pick 'Less a Running Mate, More a Collection of Polling Qualities,' Writes One Newspaper REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK MIKE LEE Aug. 30, 2008 The British papers and online commentators are having a field day with the story of Sen. John McCain's vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The Times of London ran these headlines: "Mother of five Sarah Palin ignites race for White House," "Gun-toting beauty queen aiming to be the vice president" and "The mum who's running for vice president." The British press is usually more restrained when characterizing its own politicians. It's not...

On August 25 Patrick Donahue of Bloomberg breathlessly informed us that a recent poll showed that Germans love Barack Obama. In a week where Obama's soft polling numbers with Americans who will do the actual voting, you'd be excused if you wondered who cared, but apparently Bloomberg thinks this Obama puffing "news" is worth reporting. It's more reason to be suspicious that the Old Media is in the tank for Barack Obama, in any case. This particular Bloomberg story has little substance and is centered on a population that cannot even vote for Obama in the first place. Interestingly, however,...

His endorsement of the Democratic candidate, against John McCain, his Republican rival, would usually be considered unusual for a Conservative. But during his recent European tour, Mr Obama proved successful at winning over politicians of all persuasions, charming David Cameron, the Conservative leader, who he met for talks in his House of Commons office. A survey carried out last month found that a third of Tory MPs want the Democrat to emerge triumphant. But the Mayor of London is the most high profile Conservative publicly to throw his weight behind Mr Obama. He told this month's Square Mile magazine: "I...

As he prepared to meet US presidential candidate Barack Obama later Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a French newspaper that the Illinois senator was his "buddy." "Obama? That's my buddy," Sarkozy was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of Le Figaro. "Contrary to my diplomatic advisors, I never thought Hillary Clinton had a chance. I always said Obama would be chosen" as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. "I am the only French person who knows him," Sarkozy said, recounting that he had met Obama during a visit to the United States in 2006, when he was Interior...