The Economist // Current

Celebrity Feet

Famous toes made it onto the cover of 'Globe,' and that means they made it into 'We've... more

Conor_Knighton
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18 days ago
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5 comments

Top Scent: Reality Show Promo

Love watching cooking reality shows where you can't taste the food. Then you'll love... more

infoMania
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18 days ago
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9 comments

Girls and Corpses

The hottest twins in history, how tequila can make you rich, and Conor kisses a corpse... more

Conor_Knighton
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5 months ago
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28 comments

infoMania 7.9.09: Michael Jackson's Ghost

On this week's infoMania the ghost of Michael Jackson makes an appearance on Larry... more

infoMania
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5 months ago
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infoMania 6.11.09: Sarah's Got A Gun

This week on infoMania Brett Michaels gets floored at the Tony Awards. Sherri... more

infoMania
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5 months ago
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16 comments

Hot Mama

Jenny McCarthy made it onto the cover of 'Shape Magazine' and that means she made it... more

Conor_Knighton
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7 months ago
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1 comment

The Economist tells us how to stop the drug wars

Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution "The failure of the... more

ninthstate
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9 months ago
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8 comments

infoMania 2.19.09: Man Hugs, Crotch Shots, and Eating Poo

In this week's infoMania Paris Hilton raps for Snoop Dogg, Brett Erlich opines on a... more

infoMania
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9 months ago
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Non fare lo struzzo

The Economist, edito a Londra da The Economist Newspaper Limited, è un settimanale... more

danima
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1 year ago
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The Economist Endorses Barrack Obama

The Economist endorsed Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barrack Obama.

America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world...

"For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead...

Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. America’s allies would rally to him: the global electoral college on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by America’s history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their problems on racism.

So Mr Obama’s star quality will be useful to him as president. But that alone is not enough to earn him the job. Charisma will not fix Medicare nor deal with Iran. Can he govern well? Two doubts present themselves: his lack of executive experience; and the suspicion that he is too far to the left...

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.

He has earned it

So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

**NOTE: Read the full article at the posted link. I edited this piece to show their main arguments. The Economist endorsed Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barrack Obama.... more

insanejain
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1 year ago
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The Economist Endorses Obama, Trashes McCain

"....the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as "agents of intolerance" now embraces theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies (who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right.

Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found wanting. Sometimes the seat-of-the-pants method still works: his gut reaction over Georgia--to warn Russia off immediately--was the right one. Yet on the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision. Mr McCain has never been particularly interested in economics, but, unlike Mr Obama, he has made little effort to catch up or to bring in good advisers (Doug Holtz-Eakin being the impressive exception).

The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. It is not just that she is an unconvincing stand-in, nor even that she seems to have been chosen partly for her views on divisive social issues, notably abortion. Mr McCain made his most important appointment having met her just twice.

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them. "....the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of... more