Viva Revisionistas!

This, from Jake Tapper’s Political Punch blog, is Bill Clinton explaining Hillary’s misspeaking

“She took a terrible beating in the press for a few days,” he said, per ABC News’ Sarah Amos, “because she was exhausted at 11 o’clock at night (1) and she started talking about Bosnia and she misstated the circumstances under which she landed in Bosnia. (2)

“Did you all see all that? And oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari,” he said — referring to the Dutch exotic dancer accused by the French of spying for the Germans and executed by a firing squad during World War I — “like she was making up all this stuff.

“And then the president of Bosnia said, ‘Well, it was quite dangerous when she came, there were snipers in the hills all around,’ (3) And then Gen. Wes Clarke, who was there trying to make the peace among the Bosnians, said ‘Yeah, it was dangerous, let me remind you three of the Americans who were on my peace-keeping team were killed because they had to take a dangerous road ’cause they couldn’t go the regular way.’

If that wasn’t bad enough, when Nancy Pelosi was asked about this, she referred to Bill Clinton having a “late night adult moment”. I cannot imagine to what she was referring. It certainly isn’t the sort of late night adult moment I usually have.

Jake Tapper’s subsequent post in Political Punch is excellent,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked about former President Bill Clinton’s error-riddled defense of his wife, regarding her Hemingway-esque accounting of her 1996 trip to Bosnia.

“I can’t for the life of me figure out why the president would have said it except he may have been having a late night adult moment,” Pelosi told CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “but let’s leave it at that.”

Kind of harsh for a House speaker to say about a former president.

And ABC News’ Sarah Amos points out that Bill Clinton’s comments were hardly “late night” — having been uttered at 3 in the afternoon and again at 5 pm.

Somebody buy these Democrats some watches.

But then again, Bill Clinton’s late night adult moments usually took place in mid afternoon.

No crisis to address?

Isn’t it enough that he denies that his country is ravaged by AIDS? Today’s comment by Thabo Mbeke, reported by Reuters, suggests that he is denial on a whole lot more,

“I wouldn’t describe that as a crisis. It’s a normal electoral process in Zimbabwe. We have to wait for ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) to release (the results),” Mbeki told reporters after meeting Mugabe for an hour.”

To the rest of the world, including many of his fellow leaders, what is happening in Zimbabwe is nothing less than a constitutional coup d’etat. That perhaps the most powerful leader in Southern Africa seems to think all is “normal” says more about Mbeki than Mugabe. According to Gordon Brown, “We, and the leaders of the region, strongly share this commitment [to democracy]”. Perhaps, as has long been suspected, Mbeki doesn’t.

Badly done Mr Brown

Read Kate Hoey’s article Olympic ideals? It’s a grotesque charade on Telegraph.co.uk for a take on the Olympic torch fiasco on Sunday that Gordon Brown will not enjoy.

This heavy mob [the Chinese toughs in blue tracksuits] that charmlessly controlled the torchbearers yesterday, shouting orders at the runners, showed that even a public-relations offensive by the Beijing authorities is a brutal and heavy-handed affair. When the torch arrived no one saw the flame or even the runner – the Downing Street gates opened and the Prime Minister, in front of a small crowd of trusted apologists, participated in a gravely miscalculated photo opportunity.

Protesters were not just drawing attention to China’s oppression in Tibet but they were speaking out against its dismal record of support for the genocide in Darfur and the long-running military dictatorship in Burma.

Using a form of “spin” of which the politburo in Beijing would be proud, our powers-that-be decided to make a distinction between the thousands of pro-Tibetan and the pro-Chinese spectators along the route. Pro-Tibetans were “demonstrating” or “protesting” while the “Chinese were celebrating” (with help from their Embassy, which provided them with flags and banners praising the Motherland).

I simply cannot understand why Gordon Brown has allowed himself to be embroiled in this mess. It shows either bad judgment or bad advice.

Enough said.

So talking to yourself really does work

It is not April 1, so it must be true. According to a report in today’s Telegraph, talking to yourself is actually good for the brain and mental well being. According to Julie Henry, the Telegraph’s Education Correspondent,

Studies have found that “self-talking” can aid concentration, help solve problems and lift depressive moods.

I suppose it may depend upon what you say to yourself. Working in an open-plan office, I cannot but hear one of my partners, who is forever exhorting himself to “Get a grip” and “Come on, get on with it”. Talking to yourself may, as the psychiatrist Paul Horton is reported as having found when carrying out his survey, help to raise glum spirits. I just reckon that my next door neighbour is barking.

Home from home

If the Chinese (and the London 2012 National Olympics Committee) were hoping that the Olympic torch relay across London was to be a journey of harmony and peace, they will have been disappointed. Protesters, the weather, and Londoners’ apathy (did they really think that the participation of celebrities, the curse of Western life, was going to ensure a respectable turnout) have seen to that. Two things struck me reading the reports and watching the news. First the involvement of the Prime Minister, always one to avoid the difficult moment (but then as I have posted before he talks more about courage than showing it). Thus, according to Reuters,

Brown greeted the torch behind Downing Street’s closed steel gates in front of a vetted crowd as protesters scuffled with police outside and Beijing supporters waved Chinese flags and banged drums.

The Chinese will have felt well and truly at home.

And, secondly, the evident discomfort of Tessa Jowell, interviewed about the protests by the BBC,

“The welcome of the Olympic torch to London is not the same as condoning the human rights regime in China or condoning the treatment of Tibet.”

Only up to a point (and her face made that clear). China’s view is clear: the Games should not be politicized. Similarly, the IOC has vigorously defended its policy of non-involvement in politics. But as history has shown time after time, sport and politics are inextricably linked, and sport is used, directly and indirectly, for political purposes across the world. The Chinese are as guilty (if that is the right word) as anyone else, as the Beijing Olympics are being used by the Chinese themselves to demonstrate that the Chinese regime has changed.

The problem is that you cannot have it both ways, using sport for your own political agenda, and yet deny the same to those who do not share your views. Beijing Olympic torch relay spokesman Qu Yingpu let the mask slip, when he told the BBC, “This is not the right time, the right platform, for any people to voice their political views.” Yet as Tessa Jowell pointed out, lawful, peaceful protest is part of our democratic tradition. It is just that peple don’t like their parties being spoilt.