ALASTAIR CAMPBELL - and may the Force be with you...

...so I left this link on Alastair's newly inaugurated blog, and promptly
ran into one Alina Palimaru, authorized moderator and young amant de coeur:

To Selena Dreamy:
First of all, your hyperlink does not work, so you may want to go back to
school for some computer workshops!
Eventually, I did find your blog page with your views about Alastair Campbell...much to my dismay! I know there are people who disagree with his political views, and other personal aspects of his life. We are all entitled to our opinions. Unfortunately, we are not entitled to our own facts!
Let me just copy a passage from your meaningless diatribe, to demonstrate
what a sick, depraved and pathetic little brain you have! Selena Dreamy:
"Alastair’s past history was an unbroken chain of disaster, his blunders ranging
from minor tactical gaffes to major strategic errors, to say nothing of his
psychotic breakdown, clinical depression anduncontrollable outbursts."
For your information, Alastair is a brilliant political communicator and
strategist, and his fanclub includes, among little people like myself, Bill
Clinton, Gen. Wesley Clark and many other prominent international figures. He
also happens to be the "architect" of one of the most spectacular political
comebacks in England's history. He may have made a few mistakes along the way,
who hasn't? He actually did assume responsibilty for some of them.
But your passage seems to imply that Alastair himself is entirely responsible for his
breakdown and depression. You should be ashamed of yourself! You are welcome to
visit this blog and submit constructive criticism. I always enjoy a healthy
policy debate. But if you intend to return with more unsubstantiated junk, just
to brag about how much venom you harbor, then I will only say that you and your
blog are a fraud!

Alina


And here, with due respect, is my rejoinder:


To Selena Dreamy:

"First of all, your hyperlink does not work, so you may want to go
back to school for some computer workshops!"

You're absolutely right. I am, without reservation, a hopeless plodder.
I also know that therapy - not schooling - is my only shot at technological
survival.

"Eventually, I did find your blog page with your views about
Alastair Campbell...much to my dismay! I know there are people who disagree with
his political views, and other personal aspects of his life. We are all entitled
to our opinions. Unfortunately, we are not entitled to our own
facts!"

I believe we are all agreed that it is better to be familiar with the
facts before proclaiming oneself informed. For the level of ignorance that was
being displayed in the catastrophe of Blair's foreign policy during Alastair
Campbell's years as director of communications and strategy, was extraordinary
by any measure. And indeed, to say that the wrong countries were invaded for the
wrong reasons, secularists confused with fundamentalists, and a clueless
intelligence community retailed progressively destabilizing information, would
merely be to report on facts. Not to mention an administration which was blinded
by political arrogance and ideological obstinacy and, apparently, unaware that it
was collaborating in the greatest geo-political disaster story of the past four
decades. As, in the event, a more specific charge would be that, under the
doctrine of collective responsibility, the entire UK government of the day may
have been guilty of war crimes.

"Let me just copy a passage from your meaningless diatribe, to
demonstrate what a sick, depraved and pathetic little brain you have!"

Bless your little heart, Alina, you must have misunderstood my demon - this
particular gift I own of plucking the strings you respond to in exactly the musical style I prefer. It just so happens that I’m quite happy and forbearing about descriptions of this kind. It’s one of my many failings as a blogger and my concurrent deterioration as a human being that I have no desire to pretend to something I am not. I've never been an ethical persona. Call it deplorable. Call it picking up traits from your mentor Alastair Campbell - mine being the Virgin Mary - it is all the same to me. Though who turns out to be the Devil and who is the Saint, rather depends on whose side you're on.

"For your information, Alastair is a brilliant political communicator
and strategist, and his fanclub includes, among little people like myself, Bill
Clinton, Gen. Wesley Clark and many other prominent international figures. He
also happens to be the "architect" of one of the most spectacular political
comebacks in England's history."

Ooops - I have my doubts about the divine properties of Bill Clinton,
to tell you the truth. Admittedly, I was originally an unsuccessful teenage
violinist in New York. But when, as associate Director of Research, I worked at
the Library of Congress, with a coveted pass to the White House Rose Garden, it
soon became clear to me that deception formed the basis of his entire presidency
- such as the granting of pardons, squelching an investigation, awarding a
contract, deferring a regulation or looking forward to yet another "appropriate
enquiry", to say nothing of his groundbreaking "I did not have sex with that
woman!" So don't bore me with this American rogue. As for "the most spectacular
political comeback" - it seems to me that you are a starry-eyed devotee
retailing information to fit pre-existing norms, whereas I represent the
wholesome scrutiny of the people. And Alastair can certainly be under no
illusion as to the nation's feelings with regard to himself.

“But your passage seems to imply that Alastair himself is entirely
responsible for his breakdown and depression. You should be ashamed of
yourself!”

But I am. I am deeply troubled by it - unlike Alastair and numerous
obsessed persons under the misapprehension that they have some sort of claim on
public sympathy. In fact I still wonder about his downward spiral into
alcoholism, and whether or not to acknowledge it as a complex affective
pathology. I went cold turkey on every depression I have ever had, self-induced
or otherwise. Perhaps Campbell saw things differently from his psychiatrists,
but, despite his colossal sense of victimhood, the man should never have been in
politics. It may not be my business, but at the end of the day, it's my ass.

"You are welcome to visit this blog and submit constructive criticism.
I always enjoy a healthy policy debate. But if you intend to return with more
unsubstantiated junk, just to brag about how much venom you harbor, then I will
only say that you and your blog are a fraud!"

I have few virtues, sweet Alina, one of them being that I am the only
blogger to have declared herself a "fraud." It's in my profile. At the same
time, of course, you're missing a fundamental distinction: A pseudonymous
persona is not the same as a fraudulent identity. Indeed, a maverick deception I
can suffer, but a political toady I have no time for.

Finally, may I say that you are adorably homely, formulaic, endearingly
predictable and plainly out of your depth. As for Alastair, I'm afraid I find a
strong disposition in myself not to think so well of him as you seem certain I
ought to. Indeed, I might even claim that his blog is a confused amalgam of
careless, futile, and, at times, blatantly disingenuous allegations, replete
with more political inaccuracies and psychological misconceptions than any other
blog I have come across in two years of reviewing them (with the exception, of
course, of my own!), but I will not! In fact, I beg you all to give a moment of your time to Alastair's blog, and to peruse it for yourself. You will not
find it hard to come up with your own conclusions.

And may the Force be with you...

Dreamy