Quick Shots

Back in Gidi and on the way to Osogbo for the festival and some additional research on my yet to be completed novel. Just some quick thoughts on recent developments:

- My Friend Dr Fayemi lost his Tribunal challenge to the last election for Governor of Ekiti state but I believe he will win the war. The discipline and professionalism of his campaign as well as hamdling of his case is quite unusual in the Nigerian political terrain. He is a truly thoughtful, caring and committed leader who deserves a truly impartial panel. All those who have the onerous duty of adjudicating the election tribunals have my initial respect unless something else comes to light that challenges their impartiality. In the end either through appeal or otherwise the country needs more of Kayode Fayemi not less.

- Another Obama Foreign Policy astuteness is being ignored by the press in general and the US media in particular. His position on the dispensability of General Musharraff as an ally and his concern about the policy that ties the US to his regime rather than allying with the broader aspirations of people of Pakistan is emerging as the wiser counsel as well as position. On the other hand McCain's position is that anything that undermines Musharraff puts US interest at risk. Well Musharraf is gone. Also the press in general applaud McCain's tough stance in support of Georgia never mind his total lack of credibility or impartiality as a paid supporter of the policy position of the current President of that country. I suspect many people in the West including the present occupiers of No 10 Downing street have not scaled up enough to see what is emerging. I suspect Senator Obama might have a clue with his more nuanced position. Russia is not Zimbabwe and China is not the Sudan both countries have a world view independent of reactions to the west that is backed by social, economic and increasing military power. How long will it take before they realise if they align more closely they can redefine leadership in many parts of the world away from the US and the West . The West's assumption of superiority sounds increasingly hollow as their economies wane, their military is held down by irregular and largely untrained forces, their principles are compromised in the face of insecurity and fears, their people are polarised in bitter cultural wars. Why should China whose successful Olympics was in spite of all attempts to derail it in the West or Russia which has regained its footing in spite of efforts to surround it with NATO lackeys feel any obligation or interest to listen to the West?

- The Nigerian Stockmarket is on a downer right now and it is not helped by the fact that we have a reactionary Federal government who is hell bent on structural intervention without spending anytime understanding the dynamics or even mapping the processes. If the newspapers are anything to go by the new idea is a government panel on the stock exchange. Not sure that the total sum of the vision that is Law and Order amounts to more than a piece of Akara from Osu. We will see soon but the incompetence of the Government might itself be a God send because it leaves room for the private sector to step up its game. The problem is that the Nigerian private sector is almost entirely transaction driven rather than transformation oriented. Watch this space.

Any way in all white and off to the Osun festival. Expect some pictures and lest i forget a big shout out to Tari who had a A* and A in his early GCSE's thank God you got your mothers brains not mine!

The Media Spin

The post on the Mianstream media spin on the US general elections . There is a perspectiveis that they want a close race to sell their spaces and get ratings but it is up to you. Here is Media matters take on the same thing your humle correspondent picked up on The Washington Post? ABC polls.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200807170011

Then there is the point of what is being ignored as the Bush and Mccain move towards Obamas Foreign Policy as covered by Talking Points Memo in the link below.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/204646.php

Then today the Iraqi PM just endorsed the 'Rookie" Senators withdrawal plans guess what that means. Soon it will all have been Bush? Mccain's idea all along.

What is the media role in this election?

Quick post! It has been sometime since I commented on the US elections, the primaries was delightfully exhausting and I am still processing the dynamics.

I watched my usual battery of News Channels yesterday and came away with an impression that the new narrative is that Senator Obama is an innocent abroad and naive on foreign policy. This even though quite openly Senator McCain was at the same bulletin stealing his opponents policy clothing by prioritising Afghanistan as security focus and increasing troops there. None in the media pointed out that if the candidates were political pundits, Obama had called Iraq right, his point on attacking Al Qeida in Pakistan and challenging President Musharraf efforts as an ally that Mccain called naive also turned quite right, his call on making Afghanistan the real war of National Security also turning out to be quite accurate. On the other hand McCain appears right on the surge in Iraq working because it has reduced but not eliminated violence. Looking at this record how can anyone be the more savvy of the two. Even though i do not agree with Senator Obama on Zimbabwe it is his voice that is on record, the same applies on his view of America budget deficit and its security implications. Is it that the media cannot actually analyse fine points of policy or it chooses no too? For me racism as an explanation is to easy , a low hanging fruit .

In fact CNN and BBC perhaps the more worldly news networks actually locate Obama as struggling to define his Foreign policy pitch even though his major speech was given a subsidiary tag to Senator Mccain's speech in response. I thought this was itself just an issue of my timing in watching the bulletin until this morning. My usual quick check of the polls in http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/ showed the ABCnews/ Washington Post polls as Obama up 3% points on Mccain. If you do read the Washington Post today you will see it as a 8% lead. Which is true?

The reality is that they are both true but Real Clear Politics a blog in Time magazine always chooses the most negative spin on any Obama situation since the primaries. 8% is the gap when looking at all registered voters but 3% is the difference on likely voters ( a more subjective test). In the same vein CNN reported that Mccain does better with voters 47% to Obama's 45% on Iraq in another poll without saying that this is actually within the 3% point margin of error. Add this to the so called satire in the New Yorker you start seeing that the corporate media has an angle it is playing and it is not 'fair and balanced' although they are all yet to go as far as Fox News in being totally without credibility where Obama is concerned.

My warning to you all before Senator Obama morphs into Robert Mugabe choose your media poison with the garden variety scepticism fully at touching distance. It is not the broader reporting but the sting is the spin.