Report from Jon Snow, Channel 4 News
Oooh, my colleague Steve Bell’s got a trip off to Denver to see Mr Obama in action (insert fumes of jealousy here). It’s at The Guardian. It’s 24-hour hoopla over in Denver at the moment, although this handy link to mispeaks or downright lies, depending on your point of view is fun. Thus, some not-quite-true-hoopla.
This speech by Michelle Obama to the Democratic Party national convention in Denver, Colorado, is a peace-offering to the many supporters of Hillary Clinton from the Obama team. It’s also an incredibly powerful piece of political iconography – a black American woman standing up at a national level to talk about politics. (Ok, she’s the candidates wife, but to anyone who has spent any length of time in the US this still feels a bit like the Apollo moon landings.) I’m pretty sure it’ll work for keeping the Clintons onboard for the autumn but whether that will work for the American electorate… who knows!
This is hot stuff to quote the main Channel 4 man.
Like many pundits, I originally thought Hillary Clinton would get the Democratic Party nomination but instead, we have an Obama-McCain race this autumn. This head-to-head will, in large part, be a referendum on race and age in the US. But it will make a change from the gender issues which preoccupied the primary season. This cartoon, which references Grant Wood’s marvellous painting, American Gothic, was made in early January this year. (The second male head in this animated cartoon is John Edwards of North Carolina who has since disappeared from the national political scene after his non-marital sexual activity became published knowledge. His wife, Elizabeth, is suffering from a recurrent form of cancer.)
The small war in Georgia revealed the return of another old international power struggle. The US plans to plant several missile sites in eastern europe to create a missile ‘shield’ for the US. It signed a deal with Poland to install a site in that country, this week. This action could be interpreted as being rather like the Russians putting nuclear weapons into Cuba back in 1962, and certainly, this is the way the Russians and the Chinese currently see the US actions. You can see a cartoon touching on this for Channel 4 News here.
Coming soon…but while we are processing that, have a look at the excellent alternative medals table which examines how many medals are won on a variety of interesting, alternative measurements.
Caricature of the Conservative party shadow chancellor of the Exchequer and heir to the Osborne and Little wallpaper business, George Osborne. Watch out for the male member shaped nose.
Contribution to a collaborative comic strip project caleld Narrative Corpse. Comic artists pass the thread of a story to one another in a version of pass-the-parcel 🙂 Hat-tip to Rod McKie for getting me involved.
