Hannan: Obama is "exotic" and that's "unsettling"

That first article is really, really awful. The first paragraph, for example, is a complete misrepresentation of what was happening at the time.

It confuses opposition to Israel with anti-semitism. For example, this, the article's only report of actions by Chavez, has nothing in it to suggest anti-semitism:

"While he lamented the synagogue attack in a one-line statement, for weeks beforehand Chavez had vociferously rallied his supporters to protest Israel's war in Gaza, which he called a "genocidal holocaust against the Palestinian people."

He also expelled Israel's ambassador and demanded the presidents of Israel and the U.S. be prosecuted for mass murder."

It then insists that Chavez is to blame for the actions of 'a pro-Chavez website' and that he's directly responsible for all the activities of his police. The thing that would disturb me most is the penultimate paragraph, but the tone of the article is so incredibly slanted that I really couldn't judge without more information.

Dear Mr Trodd,

Are you still there?

For shame, Mr M, I am blushing.

Do people actually call righties "comrade" on here, though?

When the poster knows the person he/she is referring to is anything but left wing then it's an insult.

Personally insults have never bothered me, but you shrinking violets on the left are much put upon.

!

Given that this is fairly obviously a site for people with left/Labour sympathies, it seems strange to object to being called comrade from time to time - It's like willingly going to a Christian church and being annoyed because the vicar refers to you as a Christian, or sinner.

The Internet is a strange place, you find yourself in places that you would not normally frequent. Dale (Tory) is interesting his writing style is convivial and normally he makes well argued points. The Hannan blog was blogged about by one James Macintyre and pulled by the New Statesman. So that led me on to Hannans blog to see what it was all about.

Why are we here discussing this side issue when the public need to know about other things which are far more important? You have been warned read the link below that compares the market at the point of the great depression to where we are now. It is terrifying when viewed in the context of the UK's comparative economic situation.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100010276/this-is-truly-terrifying-lessons-from-the-great-depression/

"What do you think of President Chavez? According to the Labour MP for Rotherham, Denis MacShane, President Chavez "heaps praise on Robert Mugabe - 'the Simon Bolivar of Africa' according to Chavez and has made openly anti-semitic remarks in a continent where attacks on Jews are a serious business"."

I did not know this and have looked into this. From what I have seen it is sickening. Given the human suffering in Zimbabwe and the obvious vile nature of anti semitism, any association with this man is deplorable in the extreme.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/13/chavez-jews-referendum-opinions-contributors_0215_rowan_schoen.html

http://www.news24.com/Content/xArchive/Archive/968/04b15e0a55b846f4a51e4ab5dc34c68a/27-02-2004-08-40/Chavez_hails_visiting_Mugabe

Blimey, is this still exciting blogging minds?

For the record, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition, 1994) defines ‘exotic’ in four ways :

(i) introduced from another country ; not native to the place where found
(ii) (archaically) FOREIGN, ALIEN (MW’s capitals, not mine)
(iii) strikingly, excitingly, or mysteriously different, or unusual
(iv) of or relating to striptease ( ‘exotically dancing’).

Given the first three possibilities, I am reminded of Metternich’s alleged statement, on hearing of the death of Talleyrand, “I wonder what he meant by that?”

Certainly, it was an unusual choice of a word and the conditional negative in 'it would be odd....' can be written : 'and naturally, some people are unsettled by that' - but maybe that's too direct for a politician.

I am white, female, middle-class (and I used to be a university lecturer)
and I don't need to apologise for that.
I have indeed experienced racism, from black students. It's not one-way, you know

If you're looking for a dog whistle look to the mouths of Parmjit Dhanda, Alex Smith and Gabe Trodd. This whole media storm is a pathetic attempt to make people hate Daniel Hannan.

Another thing, if Alex worked on the Obama campaign AND is sensitive to alleged racism, wouldn't that make a passing knowledge of Obama's own language a minimal requirement before publicly slurring opposition politicians ?

Has Labour got anything to offer beyond smear campaigns ? On the current evidence it's hard to find.

I'm against ALL extremism, OH. The extremism of brown shirts, hair shirts, or red shirts. The extremism of Salafists who download bombmaking materials from the web. The extremism of skinhead and hooligan thugs who go Paki bashing on some spurious claim they are defending our liberties. And if you really support the English Defence League, OH, I'm going to have to include you in that category: the extremism of a purported libertarian blog that marches in lockstep with jack booted authoritarians.

You amaze me. You've come full circle. You'll march with the EDL, and yet complain about infringements of liberties.

You're either an idiot, fool or hypocrite. Either way, you've just blown whatever few shreds of credibility you may have.

I'll bookmark this for further use. Old Holborn marches with English Defence League.

RIP your libertarianism

I am old enough. And you should check your sources. This Powell elevation is just right wing revisionism post Thatcher. If anyone deserves the title of 'lost leader' of the Tory Party, it's Iain Macleod. He didn't screw up with a provocative inflammatory speech. He just died too young, and is a victim of the ongoing wet/dry wars.

Powell and Hannan share a lot in common this way. Their writing style and range of reference makes them both sound distinctly 'clever'. But neither of them were compassionate, inspiring, or in the final result politically intelligent.

But don't let' the pop idol pressures of the moment cloud your judgment. Read some Powell, then some Macleod, and come to your own conclusion

I am not old enough to remember Enoch Powell, but I did study politics. I any source I read, Powell was revered as an intellectual colossus and some said leader of the Tory party had it not been for the rivers of blood speech.

Powell was no titan from anything I've read, and there were many more brilliant scholars, and many - Russians, French, Polish. Jewish - lost more comrades than he did in World War II.

I don't think he was a bad person at heart. But he was wrong. And I don't quite see this revisionist need to re-elevate him: except for some nefarious inner struggle for the soul of the Tory Party.

If that's all it is, then you're welcome to it. If I'm missing something profound, I hope you'll let me know.

PS. So Blair was right in everything he said?

Powell got it spectacularly wrong on immigration. We coped well, overall, with immigration in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, if not at all perfectly. But it remains possible to say that Powell called other things correctly without endorsing or supporting the "Rivers of blood" speech.

Mr Hannan has made is pelucidly clear that he is not a Powell-style racist. It may be that the use of "exotic" was unfortunate but it has to be read in context.

Dear Mr Trodd,

I do not think you have read and understood Mr Hannan's full post.

What do you think of President Chavez? According to the Labour MP for Rotherham, Denis MacShane, President Chavez "heaps praise on Robert Mugabe - 'the Simon Bolivar of Africa' according to Chavez and has made openly anti-semitic remarks in a continent where attacks on Jews are a serious business".

What do you think about Labour MPs and members (eg Ken Livingstone and the admittedly totally obscure Colin Burgon) who seem to support him despite this?

Yours in disunity,

Mark

Hi Gabe

the words you quoted and mr Hannan where spoken by President Obama himself ,
If labour think this type of campagin will gain votes then they are so out of touch .

ricki

So you are FOR Islamic Extremism in the UK?

You beat me to it!

Growing in numbers? Like your stellar blog?

You call yourself a libertarian, and you'd go out in the streets, paki bashing with hooligans.

Welcome to OH's libertarian paradise.

Switzerland with skinheads

OOPS: COMMENT BELOW IN RESPONSE TO OLD HOGBIN

I know full well about the EDL, and am writing about them now. If you're on their side OH, you're supporting intolerance and bigotry.

Why am I not surprised?

Seeing as my last reply was censored, let's try again.

If Griffin came out with this slogan, and then Brown repeated it, that makes Brown's speech even worse!

Question: With or without the mask?

Yes I know what Alex says and understand it. Unfortunately, neither you nor Alex are able to say the same about Hannan's piece. You don't even seem to have read my comment. Hannan isn't saying it's okay to base criticism of Obama on his background; he says exactly the opposite. However, he also says it's not surprising that some are - presumably because he has a less rose-tinted view of American society than yourself. As for the use of the word exotic, as someone else has pointed out Obama himself has used it to describe his background. Since it's massively unlikely, then, that he would take offence at it, you really don't need to on his behalf. It really isn't that strange a use of the word.

Yes, Peter.

I will be out on the streets fighting to make this place a racially tolerant diverse country. In other words, I will support the EDL in their campaign to stop Muslim Facists and the UAF dictating to anyone (including me) how they should their lives, what they should believe and how they should think.

Do not underestimate the power of the anger out there. I suggest you have a look at how fast the EDL is growing in numbers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8261969.stm

See you on the front line?

"If Cameron had any spine, he'd fire Hannan. He doesn't, so we'll have to put up with Hannan heaping shame on Britain, Westminster and Brussels, to worldwide audiences."
Well Mr Trodd, it is very easy to get a transcript of the Hannan video, lets see you fisk this.
I would suggest that the head in the sand brigade believe this nonsense. Hannan is a bright guy and many on the left do not like his intelligence, eloquence and popularity. They fail to argue against his point and make complete fools of themselves on silly little witch hunts against him. The sooner we accept that people from other tribes can have a valid point the better.
Sad people who are not adding anything to the argument. The reality is that Gordon Brown is the man who has made the country a laughing stock and nobody else.

Hi Hugh, Dual Citizen and others...

What Alex actually says is: 'Oh dear. Apparently Daniel Hannan empathises with those in the US who believe that President Obama's background is "unsettling".'

The Mirror, a national newspaper reported on it (as they should) and Alex reported on that article (as he should).

On the the substance. Hannan says: '"Barack Obama has an exotic background, and it would be odd if some people weren’t unsettled by it.'

I would say that: it really is odd for people to be unsettled by it; Obama is a 'regular guy'; the suggestion that it's OK or fine for people to be unsettled by Obama being black, from Kansas or Hawaii (why would Americans think Hawaii is especially 'exotic'?)is a disgrace, at best; and the use of the word 'exotic' in reference to America's first black president, within the context of America's history and civil rights movement is highly inappropriate and insensitive. What does Hannan know about it?

If Cameron had any spine, he'd fire Hannan. He doesn't, so we'll have to put up with Hannan heaping shame on Britain, Westminster and Brussels, to worldwide audiences.

Powell was an intellectual titan and brilliant scholar who was marked for life after seeing so many of his friends, enemies and contemporaries lose their lives during the second world war. The war was a trauma he was never able to recover from and which coloured his life from that point onward. I do not agree with many of his views as he expressed them but Powell was not a bad man at heart. Generally intellectual voltage in itself has very little to do with enlightenment, humanity and decency; some of the cleverest people who ever lived were evil to their core.

One day I hope to be exotic. With Celtic blood in my veins all I am is artistic and poetic. Perhaps I should get some tattoos or piercings or similar in order to make myself more interesting.

"... utterly utterly nasty..."

Labour is two-utterly nasty? That's even nastier than just being nasty! Blimey!

You can acknowledge feelings. Obama did it spectacularly yesterday in response to the Carter speech about 'racism' in the US healthcare debate. He denied racism was an important factor, and also admitted that while some people voted against him because he was black, probably just as many voted for him. (And of course, he's actually mixed race).

Obama's attitude shows a route that Bill should admire: he acknoweldges the role of race in politics, but seeks to defuse.

Powell did the opposite. He didn't just acknowledge racial fears, he also - as you note - poured petrol on the flames with some scary but inaccurate incidents. That is playing the race card big time.

Also, everyone raves about what a genius Powell was, and his fantastic oratory. But to be honest, compared with Churchill, Obama, MLK or Lincoln - I don't really see it. I see no great body of political thought either. All I see is the slightly affected aristocratic aspirations of a bright middle class man, wrapped in the language of the classics and the tatters of the Imperial Past.

Gimme a break, OH. I've been hearing this apocalyptic bullshit for four decades now. That bunch of former hooligans can cause a bit of a fracas in the Bullring, but if you think that is 'the River Tiber foaming with blood', then you've been taking more hyperbolic steroids than I thought.

So, during the oncoming racial Armageddon, where will you be Old Holborn. Out in the streets fighting to make this place a racially tolerant diverse country?

Or like some latter day roll-up smoking Nero, fiddling on your blog while Rome burns?

Powell also liked to quote a constituent who predicted that "the black man will have the whip hand over the white man". He tended to cite constiuents rather than his own feelings - the old "controversial" DJ trick - but He was a master of oratory and knew what effect such words would have. I don;t know about attacks but all the oral history fro the time says workplace racism shot up after the speech.

Of course he had massive support from trade unionists, perhaps because, as Bill says, he was acknowledging feelings they felt were not being acknowledged.

The point is, as you say, it's sometimes not what you say but how you say it.

I agree that people can be too quick to call racism, which is why I didn't say I thought he was racist. I just pointed out a) exotic is a charged word and b) some of his recent speeches could be seen as dog-whistling the libertarian right. I don't care much about Hannan - the real issue is that no one cares about the Eu so unrepresentative oddballs are getting elected to postions of power. I am, however, interested in a potential growth in the hard/libertarian right, so I think it's worth watching out for possible signs of said growth. As I said, I could be wrong. I hope I am. I note that the libertarian blogs seem pretty uninterested in in DH, so maybe that's the case.

As for Powell - on the subject of immigration and equal rights, rather than talk about his beliefs he tended to attribute the feelings and observations to his constiuents. One major defence at the time was that he was talking about other people's racism. The infamous blood speech used a supposed letter from a lady in Wolverhampton, the authenticity of which has been disputed.

I do realise the point you're making is that knee-jerk anti-racism means people with understandable fears get marginalised - I fully agree with that.

I don't think Powell is a good reference though. His recent rehabiliation casts him as lone, maverick, genius-holy-innocent sort of martyr. Of course he was a briliant man, but the makeover sits badly with the facts that a) he worked and primed the media obsessively before making controversial speeches to maximise their impact, b) he made other speeches citing anecdotes from NF lierature that were subsequently proved to be made up.

Did he flag up concerns that deserved to be taken seriously? Yes. Did he do so in a way that was deliberalty inflammatory? Yes. The complexity is on both sides.

Sure, and I can see why, but I can also imagine you might come to feel moe ambivalent about it if you'd been chased through the streets by skinheads, were unable to hail a cab after dark, and had your ability to do your job questioned all explicitly because you had French blood. These are real examples - i was present at the last two, and in the very last one the person making the accusation actually used the word "exotic". I realise this could sound like I'm making it up - I assure you I'm not.

You seem to have completely failed to follow his argument.

He's stating that Carter is right - some of the opposition is down to prejudice: some explicit racism, some of it down to the subtler antipathy he identifies resulting from Obama's background. And unless you think there aren't people in the US who are less than cosmopolitan in their outlook, it is hard to disagree with Hannan that it would be "odd" is such people weren't unsettled.

However, he points this out to show that it is foolish for Conservatives to argue there isn't prejudice behind some of the criticism, not to excuse it. Rather, he implicitly criticises this second group for their "vicious personal attacks" on Obama and describes both groups' criticisms as "discreditable". He then contrasts both to a third group of people – the only group whose criticism is valid in his view: those attacking Obama not because of his background but because of his policies.

And there's nothing remotely racist about the word "exotic". Hannan's usage of it here is perfectly normal. It's not his fault you're not familiar with it.

"Famously he predicted that racial war would happen in England."

Wait. The English Defence League and Casuals United have only been organising themselves for the last 6 weeks. It's coming and it won't be pretty.

Oi!

Oh no. Old Holborn does enough pimping of his own stuff already here. He doesn't need eager 'chuggers' doing it for him

Alex doesn't post propaganda from the government. He worked on the Obama campaign, and is just sensitive to the kind of dog whistles that went around at the time. You might think oversensitive - but it's worth a discussion when it comes to an increasingly prominent UK politician.

If an article like this gives everyone a chance to explain and exonerate, all the better.

Hi Duel

Wow i wonder if Alex had checked that before he posted this propaganda post from the Goverment .

ricki

This article is worth reading on this very subject:

http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/09/righteous-on-record.html

So it's racist to describe someone as having an "exotic background" is it?

”I have an unusual name and an exotic background, but my values are essentially American values. I’m rooted in the African-American community, but I’m not limited by it.”

(Barack Obama, 2004, shortly after his election to the Senate).


What an idiotic post!

What an idiotic post!

Which makes Brown repeating it (in what was then the lead up to an election campaign) even more odious.

Alex Smith,please actually read what Hannan said and then just grow up.

Its idiots like you that have stiffled any adult debate in this country on immigration,asylum et al with childish accusations of racism.
The BNP must be delighted to have recruiting seargents like you.

B Bendle,

You've hit the nail on the head, not for the first time, and I share your thinking : "The fact that I think Daniel Hannan is consciously using dubious language ...."

Mr Hannan chooses his words very carefully, and he knows exactly what he is doing. He deliberately engages in ambiguity.

Thanks for your well-considered comments, always made using temperate language. They are an example for others to follow on this site.

I've said the same about GB for a while now.

There will be more anon on Hannan, who I do think is important to the right. At the moment he's trimming between libertarian and ultra dry Thatcherite. In the former category is all his stuff about 'Marxism' in socialised medicine, idealising free market Iceland, apparent support for lifting of immigration controls etc. But like many apparent libertarians, their arguments over EUSSR actually conceal a form of authoritarian nationalism, which reeks more of Thatcher than Nozick. I've no idea where he stands on capital punishment, civil partnerships, drug legalisation etc.

I guess he really is Powellite on most issues (except race) and that it's a new brew of classic liberal economics, some liberal social issues, and a strong dash of nationalism.

I didn't say that being white and male meant you had an easy life, just that in a predominantly white country, we might not be best attuned to the wider social aspects of racism. True, I've had run ins with skinheads in my youth, but in my later life with an Asian gang and a Kurdish guy. I was probably just this privileged white guy to them. If so, they were being racist.

Nobody should be judged on the colour of their skin or ethnic background. However it happens. And the majority tends to pick on the minority. They may or not have racist views, and just going along with the crowd, and picking on any stranger. This stuff can get whipped up incredibly quickly - look at the Lebanon or Bosnia.

The anti racism stuff my kids are taught at schools explicitly includes black racism aswell as white racism. So they should know when they're being bullied into political correctness.

So I'm going to have to disagree completely with you on this, Bill, and not for the first time. I really don't see anti-racism as being the biggest problem in British politics. It can go too far, and can certainly be used to bully people. But you're exagerrating its dangers.

I also think that standing up to real racism when it happens is one of those "things that matter". In fact, for my forty plus year on the planet,most of them in London, the improvement in race relations down here, and the intermingling of cultures, is one of the things I most proud about my country and captial city. London is now, by common consent, the most Cosmopolitan city in the world, with a quarter of all Londoners having non British grandparents, and more mixed marriages than anywhere else.

It's just something I care deeply about, and part of my core values on the liberal/left. It's probably the one ditch I would die in.

Sorry about that.

Eh? What was that, sister?

Peter, it is easy. Racism is disliking someone for where they come from or what colour their skin is automatically. Without getting to know anything about someone, you immediately decide they are not for you because they happen to have a different pigment in their skin or they originate from another man-made border.

Demonstrate that and you can be defined as a racist. If I say something about the Germans during the war for instance, does that make me racist or does it mean I am refering to a period of time when the German people were not particularly nice to my family? If I argue with a black man because he has just stepped infront of me in the queue, am I a racist, or am I someone who is rather put out by his lack of manners? But if I deliberately cross the street to avoid walking past an Asian youth, is that an act of racism?

The last example though, thats the kicker. Have I been beaten up by a youth, so I'm viewing him as a youth who could be dangerous? Did I once have a nasty confrontation with someone who happened to be Asian, so I'm wary.

Lets put that another way, the chap I cross the street from has ginger hair. Am I racist? Or do the previous arguments become more recognisable?

I'm white, I'm male. So what? Does that mean I've had an easy life? Does that mean it has all been handed to me? Does that mean even that I haven't been shown prejudice? I'd give examples, but it is a futile attempt to convince the majority about what it is like to be male and white because we are the priveledged few aren't we? Society tells us so, it must be true.

It is time the Labour Party, but more so the people of a Labour mind began to look around to the wider view of society and challenge the things that matter. Everyone comes up against a bully, everyone experiences prejudice, but not everyone is represented in Parliament. In a democracy, every single person have a voice, they should all be represented and even the most extreme view at the very least considered. But people should not be labeled because life has shown them a set of experiences. I am lucky in many respects but unlucky in others, how many would admit the same?

On Powell. Was he right?

Famously he predicted that racial war would happen in England.

He was wrong.

Was it incendiary what he said in the 1968 speech? I think you'd have to ask Britain's black community that. From what I gather, racial attacks went up with the legitimising of their 'race war' fears by a senior British politician.

Only words, Bill. But I don't doubt that Powell's words did create small rivers of blood.

It's not about views on racism. Everyone has some racist or nationalist views (I've a problem still with Australians I'm sorry guys :)) but power. Is someone stoking up the hatred of the majority against a defenceless minority, like the Nazis against the Jews, or the Hutus against the Tutsis.

So racism has been the bane of millions of deaths, especially in the last century.

Absolutely, you should judge Obama on his character. I rather like his laid back character during crises. But don't forget, that racial stereotypes abound, and there's one good reason you'll never see Obama getting hot under the collar: he's desperate to avoid the stereotype of the 'angry black man' which would alienate millions of Americans.

So it's hard to judge someone on personality and politics alone, since our politics and personality is so informed by our class, ethnic, gender, economic and cultural backgrounds.

I hope one day we'll be over all this. Identity politics around race, class and gender bore me. Nobody's a better person just because they've suffered persecution or prejudice. In fact, they're often worse people.

But I'm also worried that because there's a huge online reaction against 'racism allegations' that we miss the bigger point. It exists. And must be talked about.

Yes, but if then people were 'unsettled' by that, you might be worried...

Or not as the case may be.

Someone downthread has made the analogy "The pilot is female and some people find that unsettling". Without explanation or repudiation, is that somehow a connivance at sexism?

I'm not sure myself. But then again I'm not a politician.

I quite agree, Hannan is showing a pattern. He is showing a pattern of saying what he thinks, and eloquently. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with his every word and I believe him to be really rather arrogant, but for him to be judged on the word exotic is a little much.

When we have the likes of the BNP spouting their racism through a mask of convention it is about time that politics started to realise, you can not hang on the every word, you should view it in context and in context Hannan, whether you percieve his views as right or wrong, can not be viewed as a racist. He is trying his best with his use of words to infuriate those in the Labour Party, but then he views that as his job. He is well rehearsed and again, eloquent, and likely fully aware of the storms he can create by calling Obama exotic.

Enoch Powell is a whole other kettle of fish. He is a man that on the one side can be viewed as a racist, but on the other highlighted that racial tensions would damage Britain. Was he right? Was he wrong? And if you agree with just a small part of what he believed, does that automatically make you a racist? If you disagree with everything he says does it make you a righteous human being who accepts all without question? Politics is politics, but your beliefs are what you believe from the heart, not what you say to make sure no-one knows what is inside.

The problem with modern politics is it is too quick to call someone a racist. Too quick to judge on the basis of what someone says or the way they say it. If I don't like Obama does that make me a racist? Thinking about it, I'm not fond of GB, he's Scottish, so am I a racist for that? Do I dislike him for who he is or what he is? Likewise with Obama. Can I judge him on his politics and personality or will it always be about the colour of his skin, because if you really believe the latter, perhaps it for those who believe that to review their views on racism.

Yup. When you change exotic to 'female' it does jar even more. The 'not a regular guy' is more in the 'girlie boy' Schwarzenegger frame of reference.

Odd though, because as others have pointed out, Hannan is not a regular guy by British standards, and in US broadcasting is a very exotic fish indeed.

I have French blood and love to be called exotic.

Cheers Peter. To be honest I doubt there are many people left in the country who support Gordon Brown now, and personally speaking I thought they should have ditched him.

To be fair a lot of the conservatives/trolls seem to have realised that and the debates have moved onto issues, which seems more interesting and worthwhile.

I'd like to know what Mr Hannan's long term strategy is - he seems like a man who certainly has one.

Like being referred to as 'comrade' too?

Exactly. I'm staying at the moment with my brother and sister in law who is Kenyan. She's just gone to bed, but my brother reckons 'exotic' is just a bit patronisng. It would depend on the context. In some, it could even be complimentary. But your friends 'irritating' would probably be the most common response.

Probably similiar to what you and I feel about being called 'socialists' by Tory Trolls.

Good points B Bendle. Kudos

Re the white male issue - I realise this might just be a one off, but to coin a phrase, one of my best friends is black (from Ghana) and gets privately irritated by people referring to him as "exotic". It happens quite often - ive seen/heard it twice in his presence myself.

Just mentioning this partly in support of my post above.

Who held Obama up as non political paragon? Certainly not me. He's a very astute operator. But you mischaracterise his early years in community work. He did three years very poorly paid, and then lots of pro bono work. His book advance was paltry, and he specifically eschewed the high paid Wall Street law firms courting him after Harvard.

Not only is Obama an expert on constitutional law, he's also served time at the coal face of community organisation. This, rather than allegations of Chicago style politics, explains the phenomenal success of his presidential campaign. I hope I don't need to remind you of the activists he encouraged (Alex and my son among them) and the base of donors he mobilised. I've rarely seen anything quite like it in electoral terms in my lifetime.

Cameron's only electoral test has been through the 200,000 or so conservative activists who voted him in after three election defeats. I think he did a great job of changing the Tories style and media image. But somehow I don't think he'll quite have the same impact as Obama.

Part of this is Obama's own organisation skill and team, but also the optics of his presidential bid. Race is a much more explosive issue in the US than the UK, for obvious reasons from slavery, to segregation, civil rights and then Nixon's 'Southern Strategy'. You need only visit a big American city to see that disastrous legacy write large in urban terms. Beyond the domestic symbolism, there's also the international resonances. It's hard to say America is an enemy of all Muslims when their president bears the middle name 'Hussein' and spent time at a Madrassah.

On all these levels, I think - with no particular disrespect to the leader of the Conservative party, that comparing him to Obama really does Cameron few favours. In fact it reminds us that Cameron, like Blair before him, a bit of a throwback to an old partician model of political leadership, which feels sligthly regressive compared to Thatcher, Callaghan or indeed Wilson.

Bill, I agree that the speech is not in itself explicitly racist, and I loathe pc witch hunting, but there is possibly something dubious here in the use of that word exotic.

Firstly, there is a history if Westerners using the word "exotic" to characterise non-whites as alien and suspect. Edward Said's classic book Orientalism sets this out clearly and its basic premises are now widely accepted by historians of all stripes.

Secondly, the many US commentators during the 2008 election campaign felt that "exotic" was being used as a code for "black".

So it is a loaded word. Now, of course Hannan could have been using it innocently. Of course he could.

On the other hand, he now has a little record of referencing subjects that are like dog whistles to the libertarian right.

- Libertarians regard the NHS as a totem - being willing to attack it is seen as a sort of test of whether you're a true believer or not. Check out the debates on samzdata to see what i mean.

-It's similar with Powell - he is something of a cause celebre for the libertarian right, who see him as a great intellect and man wrongly brought down by political correctness.

So it seems a fair interpretation that Hannan is postioning himself as a hero for the hard right, but in such a way that attack him as such makes the attacker look like a pc witch hunter. It reminds me a bit of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 saying people felt they were being swamped by an alien culture, Everyone knew what she meant, but if you said so you coujld be made to sound ridiculous. And then the Met named the offensive that triggered the 1981 Brixton Riots "Operation Swamp". Hmm.

It's a difficult one. Over-hasty accusations of racism alienate people, as the posts on this page show. On the other hand, Hannan is not stupid, and seems to be following a pattern. It would at least be interesting to watch him, given that there seems to be a growing shift to the right, in spite of Cameron, among younger Conservative MPs and activists.

Obama's languid and professorial attitude annoys a lot of people, Bill, but that would not make them racist by any stretch.

I've made my position about false allegations of racism below, but while agreeing with most of your post, I have to notice one thing...

Nearly all the commenters here (by the vague sampling I've noticed on Labour List) seem to be male and white. That of course doesn't make them racist or sexist by any stretch of the imagination, any more than a predominantly black or female blog is necessarily racist (against non blacks) or sexist (against men).

However, I am a bit concerned of the echo chamber effect. An argument among predominantly middle class white men (including myself) about what constitutes racism is a bit like the proverbial bald men arguing over a comb. Intellectually, we can know what we're talking about. Practically and emotionally we have no idea.

Having got that off my chest I don't think Hannan's comments, in context, can be seen to be racist in any way.

Labour List wasn't hadn;t been launched at the time of the speech, but the following link shows Jacqui Smith's actions re Job Centres and immigrants was included as a topic:

http://www.labourlist.org/lunchtimelist__6_-_monday_19th_january_2009 will link to a page

And I have personal recollections of the British Jobs for British workers speech being attacked as racists by several posters.

As for me sniping from the sidelines, and suffering MPs who do nothing about Gordon Brown - you seem to assume I'm somehow representative of the Labour Party, or at least a member. I'm neither. You can post on here without party affiliations or loyalties - a fact that the Conservative trolls who just come on vent their anger tend to overlook.

The fact that I think Daniel Hannan is consciously using dubious language doesn't make me right, left or middle. I know Conservative supporters who regard Hannan's recent statements as unpleasant and dangerous - as well they might, because in the long run he looks as if he could be more damaging to the Conservative Party than anything else.

Okay, so this Hannan is being racist here is he? Could we rephrase some of that and see if it is racist?

I was born to a poor family, but due to circumstances, I ended up being raised by a fairly well-off family. Although I spent much time in the North of the country, spells in the South had some effect on me as I grew up as it was a very different environment. Born a Protestant but raised as a Catholic, the two religions, although many view them as one in the same, left me wondering about religion my entire life.

All Hannan is saying is that Obama is exotic, he is unusual. How many of you were born into the Catholic religion but were raised amongst Muslims? How many of you were born in an area known for its farming community, then moved to an island in the sun? Are you exotic if all that happens to you? Does it really matter if you're black, white or a mixture of both?

What has the world come to if you can not make a comment about someone who obviously has had a variety in life, more variety than most? Obama is a complete oddball in the sense he has not had what people usually experience in life, but if you say that you are automatically a recist? Why? Because he has a bit of African descent in him? He's mixed race so therefore any comment about him being mixed race is racist?

This campaign against Hannan is anything but honest, it is, by all accounts an obvious one. Rather than tackle someone who is obviously linguistically endowed, it is far easier to take his words, twist them and attack. Will attacking him stop his message to the wider world? Do you really believe for one second that he will change my view because he says something about Obama even?

I'll be honest, I really don't like Obama. I find his relaxed attitude to serious affairs to be disturbing. I find his path to where he is as disturbing and I find the constant branding of anyone who challenges him as a racist as disturbing. It is my view, my opinion and if that brands me as a racist, if my view that Obama is indeed exotic is racist, then fair enough, I must be racist then.

The truth is that because Obama is quite obviously not the all white President that we usually see from America, he could, if he wanted to, get away with murder. Any challenger, anyone who disagrees or for that matter anyone who shouts out "You lie!" will not be treated like the hecklers who greet George W Bush, they won't be like the many people who mocked Ronald Regan. Because Obama is Obama, those people will automatically become racists.

Pathetic and I would hope for better from modern politics.

Please this is pathetic.

DH did not say it was unsettling - he said it is not suprising that some people find it unsettling. He said we must admit that some of this feeling was racist.

Let me paraphrase, He said Obama is black, some people find that unsettling, that is racist. We should admit that it is racist but not actually be suprised by it.

That is not a racist statement and you are ignorant to say that it is and in fact by doing so you porivde protection to real racists who can hide behind it.

It's certainly true that Obama did community work - for three years between 85 and 88 to be precise, after earlier stints with a think tank and industry.

The position since 88 is a little more complicated than you seem to want to suggest. He want to Harvard Law School in 1988, and graduated in 1991. He got a book deal immediately (Dreams from my father), and began to teach law and work for a civil rights litigation law firm. He subsequently became involved in various comunity projects & non-profits - as a director/board member. With this background he was able to get himself elected to the state senate in 1996.

Whether you like it or not, Obama is a professional political operator, just like Cameron. Unlike Cameron he was coming up in the Illinois Democratic party, and so did civil rights law and community work in Chicago instead of being a SpAd in the Treasury and a PR.

I'm not suggesting Obama didn't improve the communities he worked with in Chicago, but to hold him up as this non-political paragon is itself laughable.

(As for the questions: Not as far as anyone's noted; No, but what's the relevance: the private prep school I reference above is in Hawaii, not Indonesia; No, and it's a meaningless comparison as Harvard Law School is postgraduate, whereas Cameron was an undergraduate at Oxford; No - and neither did Obama.)

True dat.

But appearing on the Glen Beck show might not be a wise move.

Kudos to Hannan for consistency to free market principles by advocating the free movement of labour as well as capital.

Can you provide links for these?

I don't think Hannan shows any signs of racism. However, he's mixing with a pretty dodgy crown on Fox, and should know that. Hannity is odious, but Glenn Beck is stirring up ethnic resentment, here's what he recently said about Healthcare and Green legislation.

The green jobs czar isn't concerned about the planet. He's concerned about reparations. He's concerned about leveling the playing field. Universal healthcare is the next step. It's a much less obvious route to reparations... [Obama] had rejected reparations because reparations didn't go far enough... Barack Obama is setting up universal healthcare, universal college, green jobs as stealth reparations. That way the victim status is maintained. And he also brings back back door reparations.

If Hannan is as consistent as you say he is - and I await the citations - then he should be much more astute about the company he keeps.

Did David Cameron's mother claim food stamps? Did she live abroad for the first ten years of his life in countries where there is no public sector English language school? Was Cameron head of the most prestigious legal publication at Oxford? Did he then go on to devote himself to poorly paid community works in the ghettoes of a large city?

No, he was a special assistant to Lamont as he led us through the debacle of the ERM, then worked on PR for Carlton TV.

This comparison of Obama and Cameron is only going to lead you into a laughable dead end.

Funny how James is outraged at some perceived tarnishing of Hannan, and then goes on to make a much more general smear.

Come on. Turn the outrage meter down a notch. This accusation that Alex is 'playing the race' card is just as chilling of free speech as saying Hannan is doing a 'dog whistle'. We can talk about this without invoking racial apocalypses.

The problem is all with innuendo and suggestion. Hannan's words are clearly insensitive to some. "Exotic" could be misheard, especially if you're from somewhere exotic (are you?). But it's something we can talk about without throwing our toys out of the pram.

False allegations of racism are odious. But real racism is probably more odious. We've all got to accept we have prejudices, and there's no doubt 'racist' charges have been levelled to stifle opposition. But on the other hand, I know from family experience, people make racist suggestions unconsciously a lot of the time, and the best way to tackle this is politely point out how things can be misconstrued.

I remember during the Democratic Primaries, when as an Obama supporter I was spent in daily arguments with Hillary supporters, and people would - in an argument about healthcare or Iraq - suddenly retort 'So you think I'm a racist because I disagree with Obama?' - even though that was the last thing on my mind.

Some people project racist feelings where none are there, and are oversensitive. On Labour List and UK blogs, I'm noticing another trend: people thinking they've been called racist when they haven't.

I had it the other day with Guy M. I thought a comparison he made between Islam and the BNP was odious. He now thinks I've called him a racist, when all I've said is that his one sentence was insensitive and wrong.

I'd never call anyone on a blog racist, nor indeed a politician in most mainstream parties unless their was evidence by their actions. However, no matter how liberal anyone is, we can all make racist or sexist statements.We only learn that we're doing so when people point out how it sounds.

Some call this political correctness. I just call it progress.

I don't think Hannan is directly expressing racist or xenophobic statements: he's trying to get into the mindset of a shrill but vocal group who turn up at town meetings claiming Obama's a communist muslim, often bearing arms and quoting Timothy McVeigh (quoting Jefferson).

This is a very Powellite Strategy, to try to understand the origins of racial fear and resentment. I dislike it for many reasons, mainly because (like so many posters here) it always bends over backwards to understand majority feelings of 'discomfort' over 'minorities' and never vice versa. Hence someone below (I guess another middle class white male like me) mocks Parmjit Dhanda for saying it 'excuses racism'. Lazy and self interested thinking.

No, what I dislike about Hannan is his ignorance. He loves appearing on American chatshows as some kind of expert, but he's got Obama totally wrong. Why the far right detest Obama is that he's a perfect storm, not only of blackness, but also Yankee aloofness, and liberal professorial charm. Even absenting his mixed race parentage, he's two things Republicans have detested since Nixon's Checkers speech. He's alien because he's smart, educated and articulate.

But since Hannan's making personal comments about the background of the President of the United States, it only seems fair that I can make some observations about Hannan - much to the disapproval no doubt of his hysterical fan boy base here.

Daniel Hannan has an exotic political hinterland, a strange writing style, and an ability to make the intemperate statements seem almost dull and pedestrian, it would be odd if some people weren’t unsettled by it. During the Healthcare debate in the US, he made a virtue of his unusual hairstyling and accent. He was at once for the Powellite centre of England and then suddenly for some remote Island (Singapore or Iceland). He was both radical and soporific. He was a Sleek Geek interviewed by Shock Jocks. He seemed to have an interview on every network. Like a John Redwood, he made a virtue of being all things to libertarian right wing men. For a few months, the strategy worked brilliantly. But with more exposure of his ideas, the stupider their expression became, and it soon became clear that nobody who was supposed to be this smart could actually be so politically stupid."

Could you post a link to an article describing GB's speech as racist and asking for his resignation.

As for lack of support for Gordon, None of your MPs have the balls to oppose him so you snipe from the sidelines.. AND DO NOTHING.

A motion at Conference would be the minimum .. there was not.

People who shout "racist" at their opponents but have a PM who mouths racist slogans have zero credibility..

James, please do not taint our party with that. There are many within the Labour party who are decent people who care about the people of this country.

We have a leadership that have lost the plot, I grant you that but this will be resolved. Our demented Lord and master (Mr Mandelson) will be ousted but Brown will have to go first as the sacrificial Lamb. The new leader must come in and with furious anger wipe out the traces of the New Labour Project, returning a more real inclusive party, listening to the views of what is a broad Labour church.

"However controversial his views," Tony Blair said about Enoch Powell, "he was one of the great figures of 20th-century British politics, gifted with a brilliant mind.

Need I say more.

I think someone just gave the dog a html bone.

It's got to be the lowest of things you can do to invoke the serious charge of racism against someone undeserving of it. You demean yourself, liable the person and devalue the notion of racism.

You are basically using racial tensions to you own ends.

I know you were "clever" enough not to make a direct charge but based on the comments below I think most people could see what you were driving at.

The point I was trying to make is that personally I don't really care if a Prime Minister or President is a "regular guy" or not, whatever that term actually means, as long as he (or she) is intelligent, competent, compassionate, honest, moral and of stout heart. I don't care if such a person's origins are rooted in the gutter or amongst a privileged elite as long as they're a fully paid up member of the human race. Besides, most exceptional people are probably by definition not going to be "regular guys" or "regular girls" for that matter.

Well I am going to raise the spectre of the original Hannan video and it is not to show off about knowing how to do it.



Sadly what we now know about the public finances and what Hannan said in the main this speech has been proven to be correct. The editor needs to get his head around the fact that despite this individual being across the political divide his grasp of "Objective reality" is different to his own. Some respect where respect is due instead of this nonsense.

By all means bring up Cameron's "privileged" educational background if it helps your case, but try not to shoot your argument in the foot in the process.

Compare and contrast:

David Cameron Barack Obama
------------- ------------
Heatherdown Preparatory School Punahou school (private school - from Y5)
Eton Punahou school (private school)
Oxford University Columbia University
[None] Harvard Law School

Truly in class-ridden Britain/America land of opportunity you can only be Prime Minister/anyone can be President, provided they go to the right school, university, etc...

I think you'll find it was Nick Griffin who came out with that slogan first. At least he meant it.

Could you post a link to any post in LL in the last three months supporting Gordon Brown?

Labour = the utterly utterly nasty party

More Friday afternoon drivel...

There is not even the slightest hint of condoning racism. "But it could hardly fail to leave a chunk of people feeling that Obama wasn’t exactly a regular guy" means exactly that. Obama's background is not one experienced my the majority of Americans.

The Hannon fixation continues...

It's one thing to open a subject for discussion, another to then smear the speaker.

I despair of the Labour Party. Often it seems that some of you act as nasty spiteful little people who if you don't get your way then smear the opposition.

May I remind you the PM is racist according to your own definitions.. and NONE of you have dared oppose him or vote against him or censure him
British Jobs for British Workers...

The hypocrisy and contemptible self righteousness of people who criticise their political opponents but still support a party whose Leader openly supported BNP policies is breathtaking.

Fortunately only the most blinkered fail to recognise it.

"I picked the bits that most shocked me, and the bits on which there's a Labour response. Do you want me to just reproduce the whole thing? It's here in the comments anyway."

Here lies the issue. You pounce on any word this man says because of your pathological loathing of him. What you effectively achieve is making yourself look very silly. This article is juvenile in the extreme.

As the editor everytime you act perhaps you should say to yourself am I taking the high ground, is this objective, instead of Tories eat babies nonsense. I do not like Tories but I will listen to them as a part of the political process to get to the truth which is what I want to make my decisions upon.

This article is utter garbage but it can't hold a candle to the Mirror article that it links to. That is truely terrible journalism from the last remaining paper that doesn't realise that the game is well and truely up for Labour and everyone associated with its tarnished reputation.

i cannot see how hannan's comments are in the slightest bit racist - or excusing of racism. apart from anything else, your angle bears no resemblance to hannan's piece in full. all you've done damian - sorry alex - is write a rather trite and silly smear. and all because he verbally knocked seven righteous bells out of dear leader brown, to his face, in the EU parliament.

you just can't stop yourself can you? gutter politics. again.

Sorry Charles. The people I know just tend to think that it's not good to be an apologist for racism. Let me explain why it's wrong.
My grandmother used to say casually racist things quite often. She wasn't really racist, but had been brought up in a different era. That doesn't make it OK because saying racist things is actually being racist. Instead of apologising for her, we had to encourage her to stop doing it.
Now she's as shocked as anyone else when she hears racist language.
You see, instead of being an apologist for racism, one should tackle racism, then we can eliminate it.
Do you need someone now to explain why racism is bad?

Erm.

Anyone out there think that Hannan himself is a "regular guy"?

In point of fact what the hell does "regular guy" mean anyway?

For example, in the UK could someone privileged enough to have attended Heatherdown Preparatory School, Eton College and Oxford University, a la David Cameron, be considered to be a "regular guy"?

I had the misfortune to have lived in America for about five years and the one thing that pretty much every American seemed proud of was that "anyone born in the USA could be President" whatever their background might have been. I don't think Hannan was being intentionally racist but unintentionally outspoken and daft, as per usual. Every political Party has loose canons like this; attention seekers that jump up and down and say contentious things just to be noticed. The best policy is to be amused by them rather than annoyed by them. Such people never get anywhere in politics but are usually kind of amusing until their tenure ends when the electorate tires of them and withdraws support from them at some election or other.

(In passing I find it kind of telling that Hannan is appearing on shows hosted by a lantern-jawed right-wing hothead called Sean Hannity who has been proven to be inaccurate at best and a liar at worst time and again in America. I well remember seeing the aforementioned idiot on Hannity & Colmes (on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News... surprise, surprise...)and thinking, "This man is a liar, disgrace to journalism and a fool to boot". No wonder that Hannan should have gravitated towards biased and distorted company like that on commercial television across the pond.)

Alex,

You should know that James Macintyre of the New Statesman did a very similar article to this today. It has been pulled...... worried?

You are an apologist for apologists for racism. You asserted that Hannan was an apologist for racism and didn't go on to explain why this is wrong.

Most bloggers provide a link to the article they are criticising so the reader can form an opinion based on both sides of the argument and so they can make sure the original author is not being misrepresented. I wonder why you chose not to do this?

How would you like it if you had posted:

"The conditions in Gaza are terrible and this provides justification for terrorism in the minds of some Palestinians."

And you saw a headline

Smith: "conditions in Gaza are terrible" and that's "justification for terrorism".

"Parmjit Dhanda has called Hannan's remarks a "disgrace"."

This article is the disgrace, and everyone can see it.

Alex,

I've got a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that Labour are reduced to shouting racist :) I suppose you'll try anything when your leader has been caught lying to Parliament and the nation. Will the man who writes about courage do the honourable thing and resign? No.... thought not.

Your like my wife, no-one gets an apology, just the silent treatment until subtly the subject changes and the
issues get swept once more under the carpet.

MOve on now - theres nothing here to see... Just the wreckage of another smear campaign having been brought crashing down...

You and Dhanda. Jumping on a fake bandwagon and crashing to the ground.

Why didn't you also quote this from Hannan, "If anything, most American conservatives see Obama’s ethnic background as a point in his favour..."

Now about that debt, warmongering, social engineering, EU referendum...

If I say:

I absolutely agree that endemic racism is not only damaging to the fabric of the nation but also morally in-correct

It would be absolutely unfair to quote that as

I absolutely agree that endemic racism is not only damaging to the fabric of the
nation but also morally in-correct

Hey, I didn't know we could use html here. Cool...

Alex, the selected quote seemed judicious only if you were seeking to attack Hannan personally rather than to rebutt his argument. The danger of the ad hominem attack is that it serves only to undermine your own line of reasoning. Hannan has previously spoken of the benefits of the British system, in that it that difines the state from a civic rather than ethnic perspective in articulating his distaste for racist philosophy. These kind of slurs are the reason that so many of the British electorate find politics unsavoury. Why would you seek to continue in such a negative vein when it appears such an annulment of intelligence?

Hi alex/Labourlist

Does this mean someone who says "British jobs for British workers " is a racist ?

This is the type of peice that makes me really angry , this is gutter politics and the reason a lot of voters turn off from politics .

Didnt you leran anything after the Draper/Mcbride affair ?

ricki

But it can only be judged by reading the whole thing - and was only reproduced in order to disply the
vacuousness of the argument

(The bold bit was just to practice - never done it before)

I picked the bits that most shocked me, and the bits on which there's a Labour response. Do you want me to just reproduce the whole thing? It's here in the comments anyway.

Then why cherrypick one or two potentially damaging phrases and misrepresent them out of context
in a cynical attempt to make some form of political capital...

Ah, the favoured technique of the benighted Labour party.

If you cannot win an argument against someone, shout "racist" at them.

Remind me - how well did that work for you last time?

Alex,

Did you put the allegations of racism to Hannan before posting this? How did he respond?

There is a history of the word "exotic" being used to call attention to someone's race as something that makes them different and strange. Read Edward Said's Orientalism.

It's a code word, and is recognised as such by politicians on the right and left. Hannan is smart enough to know this very well,the same as he knew that referencing Enoch Powell pulled certain triggers regardless of the literal aspects the reference. It's despicable.

Madasa Fish, Hannan opened up the issue for discussion when he used the word in the opening like of his blog post:

'We should admit something frankly, we conservatives. As the amiable Jimmy Carter says, there is an element of racism in some of the hostility to Obama.'

Oh dear. Maybe I did.

What Mr Hannan wrote was as follows (without the links):

"We should admit something frankly, we conservatives. As the amiable Jimmy Carter says, there is an element of racism in some of the hostility to Obama. At the extreme end of the spectrum, it can lead to this. But, in a softer and perhaps less conscious form, it leads to some of the vicious personal attacks on him - the ones invariably picked up by Leftist media and presented as typical.

Barack Obama has an exotic background, and it would be odd if some people weren’t unsettled by it. During the campaign, he made a virtue of his unusual upbringing. He was at once from the middle of the country (Kansas) and from its remotest edge (Hawaii). He was both black and white. He was a Protestant brought up among Muslims. He seemed to have family on every continent. Like St Paul, he made a virtue of being all things to all men.

On one level, the strategy worked brilliantly. But it could hardly fail to leave a chunk of people feeling that Obama wasn’t exactly a regular guy. Hence, for example, the surprising number of Americans who question whether he was born in the US (see here).

But if conservatives should accept that some of the attacks on the forty-fourth president are discreditable, Lefties ought, by the same token, to concede that the overwhelming majority of the president’s opponents are not motivated by personal dislike. Rather, they have reached a considered view that he is making a series of expensive and lasting mistakes. They are alarmed - with reason - at the colossal debt he is running up (see here). They point out that he was elected on a promise of tax-cuts.

If anything, most American conservatives see Obama’s ethnic background as a point in his favour. They understand that his election has put the grievance mongers out of business, falsifying their narrative of race relations in America. (No wonder Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson seemed so determined to sabotage Obama’s campaign.) Even my most Right-wing friends in the US felt a stab of patriotism on election night at the thought that Obama’s election had finally expunged the inherited sin of slavery and segregation.

No, the reason that a growing number of Americans oppose Obama is because they can see that he is massively expanding the federal government at the expense both of Congress and of the 50 states. They see power being sucked from the citizen to the state, from elected representatives to federal Czars. They complain that he has no mandate for the policy of tax, spend and borrow. And they’re right. Look, I supported the fellow, and I still wish him well. But to seek to close down debate with the racism card is pretty low."

Oh dear! Maybe you should read the full article before spouting off.

You really ought to be careful using the term "racist".. It's being devalued from frequent use.

Boris Johnson has an exotic background.

It's a common term used to described anyone with a mix of unusual nationalities in their family tree.

To call it racist is frankly the politics of the madhouse..
And frankly go on about racism like this and people will ignore you when it matters.. #

But then "the little boy who cried wolf" was never a popular fairy tale.

~ Equating Hannan with the BNP (who are racist) is crazy..

Sense of proportion? What's that?

Are you calling Paddington Bear a racist?

No allegations of racism, nothing unfounded.

By the way, the word "exotic" and other code words were constantly used during the campaign and since.

It is at best deeply insenstive to the delicacy of US race relations.

Did you willingly ignore the fact that Hannan wrote this prior to the last US election:

This is going to be the single most unpopular thing I’ve ever written, but here goes. I hope Barack Obama wins on 4 November.

Or this in the article that you mention above:

Even my most Right-wing friends in the US felt a stab of patriotism on election night at the thought that Obama’s election had finally expunged the inherited sin of slavery and segregation.

Or even this in the same article that you have so cynically harvested a quote from:

We should admit something frankly, we conservatives. As the amiable Jimmy Carter says, there is an element of racism in some of the hostility to Obama.

Perhaps you should consider that Hannan's views on immigration are antithetical to Powell's, as he has consistently advocated free movement of all peoples as an extension of his libertarian ideology. You may not enjoy Hannan's views but that is all part of the necessary cut and thrust of healthy debate. To insinuate racism on his part is a cynical ad hominem attack that serves little purpose -and may indeed prove counterproductive- when there are problems of genuine racism facing the country: are you aware of the rise of the BNP and the English Defence League? You do genuine disservice to combatting racism by such ill conceived invective.

Unfounded allegations of racism, it's like Derek Draper never left us.

He's an apologist for racism. What he's saying is akin to "Of course, the pilot's a woman and some people will that unsettling". He hasn't gone on to explain why they're wrong to be "unsettled".
Moreover he then goes on to say Obama's "not exactly a regular guy". He's not saying Obama's unusual because he's so smart and driven that he's made his way from humble beginnings to the highest elected office. He's saying it because he's black.
Hannan's a disgrace.

Dan Hannan eats babies, you heard it here first.

It is a tactic of distraction - if he can make enough noise about this sort of thing let's call it 'chaff'
then the eye is taken off the ball of labour incompetence and our failign economy.

Quick look over there, theres a man riding a unicycle (cue the smoke and mirrors)!!!

Why all the attacks on Hannan? It's not as if most of the electorate has even heard of him.

Drawing attention to him will not distract voters from the issues that concern them, namely: the ruined economy, Afghanistan, crime, high taxes; the ruined economy, Afghanistan, crime, high taxes; etc. etc.

"Hawai , I think that is a exotic place"

You've obviously never been to Waikiki beach at night.

It seems to me that he is neither agreeing nor endorsing that particular view - but just acknowledging that it exists.

I acknowledge that racism is an issue in some of our towns and cities, that does not make me a racist.

There is nothing remotely racist or apologetic about these comments from Hannan. I am disappointed with Parmjit, who does seem to jump on these kinds of bandwagons all too readily.

Hi Alex/labourlist

I read the article and what he seemed to be saying is that President Obama was telling people what they wanted to hear instead what he wanted to do , The same way Mr Hannan said in his reply to gordon brown at the eu awhile back, and if i am right didnt he say he disagreed with Enoch Powels imigration remarks ? .

I dont find anything offencive in his remarks as for the exotic remark wasnt President Obama from Hawai , I think that is a exotic place

ricki

Oh, please. If you're going to criticise Hannan (and god knows, I do) atleast do it for something credible. He's excusing nothing, and just pointing out that if people don't feel they've connected with you they more likely to be uncomfortable with you.

It only generates support for Hannan if people go off at him over things like this.

This from a man from Peru.