Simon Schama on the night of the 2008 US Election

Simon Schama confronts neo-con douche bag John Bolton with the contrasts in the fortunes of the Democrats and the Republicans.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• barack
• obama
• election
• 08
• 2008
• bbc
• schama
• john
• bolton
• mccain
• sarah
• palin
• joe
• biden
• yes
• we
• can

[acepeeter]

he's called john bolton

[jim0203]

Indeed he is - I think Roger Bolton is a news broadcaster in the UK. Thanks for spotting my mistake; I've changed it (weirdly enough I got his name right in the tags, just not in the info).

[bonard]

I love how Schama gets in his face.

[BritishBlue1]

I find it ironic that Mr. Bolton acts like a victim bemoaning the world labellling the US as a racist country when the most vociferous criticisms come from within America itself.

[horsie111]

People thought the nominee would be Hillary because Obama was a nobody and had achieved nothing. Amusingly, he's still a non-entity and has still achieved nothing... Hillary lost because the media actually picked the First Black President over The Ultimate Achievement For Feminism as the bigger story. In the end, Obama had all the balls bounce in his favour and only won, as Bolton points out, by a few million votes in terms of popular vote. Hopefully the choices for 2012 will be more convincing!

[doIsoundlikeicare]

To help our Sharma in his response to Bolton's final question on whether America's viewed as less racist:

It's not clear what Obama will do with the power. But I wonder whether the historical election of the first black president will signal to anyone on our pale blue dot a shift in the breadth and depth of American racism.

[fnchrstphr]

@Estragon17 I don't know if America is anymore racist than Britain or Japan. Obama is a lousy president and he's done nothing to warrant a second term. At least Obama's supporters can always believe he's a failure because of racism.

[aloz71]

If Simon Schama has something to say it's almost always worth listening to. This is a snippet of a wider debate, so please don't rush to judge on it alone. Very few modern day commentators can comment on the state of US (or UK) politics as eruditely as he can.

[grizzle100]

Bolton is thick, it is a major change in the world's most important country

[arranle]

Bolton is a frustrating guy however he is right on this issue.

[kowloon89]

nice to see Schama retains his crazy dancing bobbly headed presentation style in an indoor, sit yourself down debate. I was sure he was gonna nut John boy at least once!

[TomatoNanny]

Saying 'America is a racist nation' is prejudiced itself. There are certain groups in America that are racist, but then there are lots of others that aren't.

People think the US is inherently racist because it's a country born out of the genocide of the Native American. What you've got to remember is that many nations are born out of genocidal revolution, and as the US grows older, the revolutionary mindset will wear off.