29/10/2008 9:40:42 am
US Election Debate. Yesterday, I participated in a debate on the US election at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Well-arranged and indeed well-visited.

The three other speakers were clearly supporting the Democratic side, though professor Ross K Baker was very balanced. Erik Åsard of the Swedish Institute for North America Studies was a more outspoken sympathiser of the Democrats. Brian Palmer was an animated propagandist for Obama.

What they also had in common was that they did not declare their sympathies; they pretended to be neutral. I, on the other hand, declared that I tend to support McCain on economic issues but that I do not share the Republicans? views on social matters.

Brian Palmer showed Republican campaign films and read quotes that he ridiculed. He also quoted leftist commentators about those Republican films as if their words were the objective truth. He hinted more than once that the Republicans ran a racist campaign.

That has nothing to do with reality, but it is what you can expect from the far left. And indeed what you can expect from someone who has co-written a book called George W Reinfeldt; a leftist criticism of the Swedish Prime Minister.

Update: Here is an editorial by Svenska Nyhetsbyrån, published in countryside newspapers, about the event.