Similarly, all the right-wing knobs in America denounced anyone who opposed Bush’s agenda as an unpatriotic traitor, speaking as if the fact of his being president made him above all criticism, but now insist that Obama isn’t “their” president.

It’s only bad if they’re not in power. They don’t even believe what they say. Shite though it is, I’d have some respect if it was sincere, but for the likes of Montgomerie power is good if they wield it, bad if not.

[troll]
Ha – how dim are the posters here? Do you even have any editorial/moderating guidance before posting?

Wonder how long it takes for them to clock on…

Republicans are mostly nutjobs anyway – it’s the fact that British Conservatives are now behaving similarly that worries me.

Republicans are mostly nutjobs anyway

Isn’t it now non-PC to insinuate that people are mentally unstable?

Besides which, are you claiming that the c. 3 million people who voted Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008 are nutjobs? I’d be inclined to agree really…

Not that I give a damn obviously, but the correct protocol for a man meeting the Queen is indeed to bow your head, only. So etiquette-wise Obama did nothing wrong on that score.

You’d think posturing right-wingers would know this sort of stuff.

I’m not sure it’s that confusing. Clearly, his attack on the Lib Dems is ridiclous. But to say that the other post constitutes an anti-American campaign is equally silly. It’s two sentences and a couple of videos.

I’m just glad the Left never resort to knee-jerk anti-Americanism otherwise I’d be very confused.

Isn’t it now non-PC to insinuate that people are mentally unstable?

nutjobs are people who are crazy, not medically mentally unstable. I’d have more sympathy for them if they were genuinely mentally unstable.

But to say that the other post constitutes an anti-American campaign is equally silly.

As silly as his attack on the Libdems them, right?

“But to say that the other post constitutes an anti-American campaign is equally silly. It’s two sentences and a couple of videos.”

Far be it from me to mind-read Sunny, but what Montgomerie is doing is not treating Obama with the same uncritical respect he accorded Bush/Cheney, because he agreed more with the latter’s policies. When the likes of Sunny, myself and a huge majority of the British people pointed out over several years that Bush and co. were a nightmare bunch of murderous whackos and incompetents, there were stern debates on ‘the Left’s anti-Americanism’ in which one T. Montgomerie was prominent, as if President Bush represented the USA in its entirety.

Of course, now the boot’s on the other foot, TM turns out to be exactly the same as us. When the President is on his side, he’s all for it, when he’s not, he suddenly gets cold feet about this whole uncritical support of the USA thing he was so keen on a few months back. Bloody relativists, you can’t trust ‘em, eh?

There’s nothing wrong with this, except that Montgomerie is a hypocrite who prefers incompetence to intelligence, but we sort of knew that anyway. Sunny is merely poking fun by using a form of reductio ad absurdam.

Republicans are mostly nutjobs anyway – it’s the fact that British Conservatives are now behaving similarly that worries me.

It shouldn’t, in fact as someone who’s longed for the culture wars in UK in the past this should be welcomed as an indication of things to come.

“Republicans are mostly nutjobs anyway

Isn’t it now non-PC to insinuate that people are mentally unstable?

Besides which, are you claiming that the c. 3 million people who voted Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008 are nutjobs? I’d be inclined to agree really…”

Doesn’t Obama bowl like a nutjob or did he mean a cripple?

Oh, I do wish people would stop getting ‘offended’ on other people’s behalf.

As a mentalist myself, I have no objection to Sunny’s use of the term ‘nutjob’ so long as he makes it clear that not all wackos are Tories.

Chavscum, son, have you met this bloke?

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/come_on_lighten_up_im_just

Having read your previous contributions, I’d say the two of you would get on like a house on fire.

There’s nothing wrong with this, except that Montgomerie is a hypocrite who prefers incompetence to intelligence, but we sort of knew that anyway. Sunny is merely poking fun by using a form of reductio ad absurdam.

spot on. though it wasn’t my post, I was happy to run it. I don’t spend as much time monitoring Tim Montgomerie for hypocrisy as should be the case.

You can say what you like about Montgomerie himself & his opinions, as I do in no uncertain terms, but the actual ConHome site itself should be lauded. It is probably the best party political site out there, better than Lib Dem Voice even.

The comments threads are very informative as to Tory thinking. Most commentators don’t share Montgomerie’s neoconservatism & love of the GOP, they just politely ignore it & stick to thrashing out policy issues.

haha – fantastic! Id forgotten about the ridiculous “America in the world blog” and its mission to smear anyone who criticises US foreign policy as anti-American. That one’s backfired a bit now eh, Tim??

Forgive me if I’ve missed something, but it seems to me that you have to be really reaching to interpret an implicit criticism of Obama as a criticism of America, let alone anti-Americanism.

Yes Trenchfoot, you’ve missed something: namely that Tim Montgomerie and his pals have spent the last 5 years ‘really reaching’ to interpret criticism of Bush as criticism of America, and indeed as anti-Americanism.

Maybe we’ve found another variety of anti-Americanism to for his list ( http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/briefings/2008/08/the-varieties-o.html ) to sit alongside liberals, pro-Europeans, Jihadis, environmentalists, and antisemites.

The disappointed neo-liberal: infuriated by what he sees as encroaching US socialism, this demented anti-American will seize on any footling observation in his desperation to portray the US as an impotent shadow of its former self, cowardly kowtowing to Islamic autocracies, as it imposes the dead hand of the state where once the glorious free market reigned supreme, blah, blah.

What is it with (most of) the right and Israel? I’d like to think that one day they’ll be ashamed of their unwavering apologism, but knowing them I very much doubt it.

The perverse thing about this discussion is how close, in terms of actual policy (especially economic), Bush and Obama are anyway. The only difference is rhetoric: Bush excused the spending splurge while Obama commends it. Obama may bow to the Saudi king, but Bush fawned over that lot just as much (as Jon Stewart said a few years ago, Bush was practically “queer for oil”). I suppose it just goes to illustrate how so much presidential behaviour is actually dictated by institutional demands, rather than any individual character. So this pro-American/anti-American inversion by the left and right has taken place on purely tribal grounds. It is not about any specific policy, just whether the pres is Democrat or Republican.

Yes, most of what Obama is doing is the same, especially on the surface. But I voted for him (not literally) mainly in the hope that his appointees, especially to scientific positions, would be better than Bush’s.

They accept that evolution happened, they accept that there’s nothing wrong with being gay & half of them don’t believe in the sky fairy.

Given the kind of utter knobheads that Bush appointed, & his shite environmental policy in particular, we have already seen “change we can believe in”, albeit not of the sexy kind that everyone talks about.

In this argument I make no judgment for or against the stimulus. But even if it does fail, which I don’t think it will, the above mentioned is a permanent legacy. When Republicans come back (not for a long time to come: their uselessness & incoherence is there for all to see now) they will respect it.

I believe that Republicans will eventually rid themselves of the religious right & become a free-market, libertarian party & set about winning over young voters as Reagan did. The young, prosperous & educated are by no means natural Democrat constituencies. But Republicans will need to change in order to win them over, & this involves social liberalism.

Although my hope has been somehwat dented, I still see the vague promise of sanity on drugs too.

The perverse thing about this discussion is how close, in terms of actual policy (especially economic), Bush and Obama are anyway

Sorry nick, but that just shows a complete lack of knowledge of the executive orders Obama has signed over the last few weeks, and the statements/appointments he’s made on foreign policy.

I’d expect that statement from a far-leftie, but not you.

Well I guess we will have to see. Shutting Guantanomo is great (when it actually does shut, especially), and I approve of his lessening controls on travel to Cuba. But his foreign policy is still hawkish and interventionist (with different emphases), and his big government/big business bailout seems pretty continuous with what Bush was doing just as he was leaving.