The post is called "The Politics of Mass Hysteria" and she's not wrong. Here is a choice cut of the madness, complete with clumsily wayward Phillips sarcasm:

"The media proclaims daily that Obama has already won. He cannot lose. He is the Saviour of the Planet. McCain is a mumbling senile idiot. Palin is evil incarnate."

"Evil incarnate?" Not ignorant or unqualified when it comes to international affairs? Not overly confident or brash when it comes to making judgements? Not an exaggerating self publicist who has repeatedly tripped up on the false claims she made when unveiling herself to her own party rank and file, a large proportion of which now want to wash their hands of her? In short, not like the current ass of a leader, whose blind faith and tunnel vision has driven his own people and a good chunk of the world into something approaching absolute chaos and whose popularity has long ago gone so far down the tubes and round the corner that one has to pick through several layers of shit just to work out why people voted for him in the first place? Evil incarnate is a label that hasn't cropped up too often to describe the fizzled out one-shot weapon and all round laughingstock that is Sarah Palin, but it is far easier to ridicule than dwelling on her real shortcomings. Here's more from the article:

"Those who see a racist in every non-Obama voter are themselves the people for whom Obama’s race is his defining characteristic. They say in terms that his race is the reason we must vote for him. They are the people who, by smearing every conceivable criticism of Obama or revelation of his unsavoury associations as ‘racist’, have emptied the term of its meaning."

Putting aside Melanie's use and abuse of anti-Semitism, who is actually claiming this? Is it even a significant cluster of Obama supporters? Unlike the Oval Office this coming January, there is an elephant in the room here. Is her real beef with people who opposed her treasured Iraq war or Bush's ludicrous economic mismanagement? In an election that is unique in the prominence of real issues did the candidate's colour really cause such an upheaval? Or does a population that has been lied to and experimented on want a change in direction? And anyway, what about the real racism that was aimed at Obama by footsoldiers of the GOP and sections of the media? All that Arab/Muslim crap about Obama wasn't just a dream now was it?



It would be nice to think that with her cries about hysteria and justifiably ironic consecration of St. Barack that Melanie wants a more substance-based electoral culture, though one would have to look the other way from her slavering over Sarah Palin, complete with checklist of cliches. Traditionally in the USA personalities have overshadowed the real issues, reducing the respective bids for power to advertising campaigns. Reagan, Clinton and the even the seemingly unlovable younger Bush all mastered the knack of personality first, substance second. But in reality all she cares for in her analysis of Obama are pathetic little nips at his character and tired accusations that are long dead outside of echoing Republican crypts. She thinks the story of Bill Ayers, thoroughly twisted in her account, is one that the American public want to hear about? It came up in the final Presidential debate and has been investigated thoroughly. Newsflash: Nobody gave a damn because there was liitle of nothing to give a damn about. And even today we have more diversionary fluff, this time about an aunt of Obama's that may be living illegally in the US. It is not just McCain's rubbish that the media is sifting through.

Further nonsense. She claims Obama supporters are "stealing the vote" by committing registration fraud through the group ACORN, and indeed ACORN itself admitted that some of its volunteers had forged votes (before firing them) collecting names such as Mickey Mouse, almost certainly so they could get a few extra bucks, not deliver the election to Team Obama. But this misses the real issue again because Mickey Mouse will not turn up to vote, particularly since many new voters need to bring an ID to the polling station with them on voting day. And driving licenses for giant rodents is more of an Alabama thing anyway, I would imagine. She also omits reports that a Republican group, YPM, tricked people into registering for the GOP. In all honesty I am going to give Phillips the benefit of the doubt here - she might have missed this story because her hated mainstream US media barely picked up on it. But that's only one double standard she is innocent of, for despite evidence from investigations by Greg Palast that potential Democrat voters have been eliminated from voter rolls in past elections, Phillips sees fit to pre-emptively mock anyone that might want a fair election:

"So if the world should revolve backwards on its axis next Tuesday and people wake up and find he [Obama] has lost, then [...] the election will have been stolen in the way we all know evil Republicans always steal elections"

And while Palin and a desperately flailing Michelle Bachmann infuriated many with their comments about patriotism and real Americans, Phillips is happy to bulldoze along the same path, while simultaneously revealing her laughable sources of information:

"Insofar as the American public has managed to obtain some of this suppressed information, it has been delivered by the Western Resistance comprising internet journalists, Fox News and talk radio. The British press, however, have taken their cue entirely from the fifth-columnist liberal US media."

"Western Resistance" indeed. Will we be airlifting these lemmings clothing and food aid next, or perhaps teaching them how to think for themselves? That free press sure sounds like a thorn in America's side. We can see from past columns that Mad Mel goes batshit crazy at the thought that Michael Moore, for example, might know the truth and the rest of America cannot see it. Yet here she is, claiming the same, from a far inferior vantage point outside the country, rabidly squeaking about American patriotism and independence of thought from a small island across the ocean, like an indignant shrew trying to wake a deaf elephant, and tarring the rest of the US media as traitors to boot.

Anyone familiar with her methodology knows that Melanie Phillips selects information on the basis of how much it appeals to her existing prejudices, rather than excellence of research or the authority of its sources. What she might label a "must read" might be just some bog standard drivel and those she labels as experts might be ideological twisted nuts well out of the loop, if not total frauds. That's why Bill Ayers is still an issue for her, while the rest of the media has moved on. So while she skulks around in the sewers of her favourite weblogs and the undead over at the American Thinker, the news that every major US polling organisation is putting Obama ahead of McCain does not compute with her. In fact, I am genuinely amazed that Melanie Phillips can still trudge on with her commentaries on the US election, war on terror and international affairs, given that a short and by no means exhaustive list of the sources she regards as biased or untrustworthy includes Amnesty International, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, B'Tselem, BBC, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, Haaretz, Human Rights Watch, Nelson Mandela, The New York Times, Newsweek, Reuters, Time, UNICEF, The United Nations, the World Bank, the major US public opinion polling organisations and the majority of scientists working on climate change and evolution.

But at least she has Fox.



I'm amazed she can still type, so worn must her fingers be from her bottom of the barrel scraping antics.