Ghostly Clinton and fiendish Ahmadinejad, Kanishk Tharoor

Yesterday evening, in the dark and faintly musty basement of the Kensington Library in west London, openUSA attended a fascinating lecture on "anomalistic psychology" - the psychology of belief in the unreal - hosted by the Society for Psychical Research.

We learned, amongst other fun facts, that one out of four Americans believes in ghosts. This quarter of the population presumably doesn't include the pro-Clinton group American Leadership Project, whose new TV spot in Oregon makes no mention of Obama, suggesting that the ALP doesn't want to cause any further Democratic disunity. Even many of Clinton's supporters don't think her campaign can return from the grave.

We also learned that one out of ten Americans believes they have spoken with the devil. Obama may aspire to join this sizable ten percent as he continues to insist on negotiating with Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But god-fearing George W Bush and his anointed Republican successor John McCain won't have anything to do with fiendish interlocutors. Speaking in the Knesset yesterday, Bush equated Obama to Neville Chamberlain, Iran to Nazi Germany, and diplomacy and statecraft to that object of neo-con disdain: "appeasement". McCain piggy-backed on the president's craven fear-mongering, prompting sharp and incisive retorts from both the Obama camp and Hillary Clinton.

Bush comes out of this looking particularly foolish. Never mind that Iran's nuclear threat is grossly exaggerated (a fact supported by the latest national intelligence estimate). Never mind that evidence of Iran's aggression in Iraq and the Persian Gulf is highly dodgy (indeed, the UK Foreign Office has even conceded it was in the wrong over the detention of British sailors last year). Never mind that the White House's clueless policy of trying to isolate Iran has only made Tehran stronger and more important in the region. It turns out that only the day before, Bush's own Secretary of Defense Robert Gates talked up talking with Iran.

Republican Iran policy is bound to fail when inconsistencies and reality-checks keep eroding its stubborn, stupid facade. The devil, after all, is in the details.

Late update: For those readers with a sadistic streak, watch Chris Matthews tear apart the witless right-wing radio pundit Kevin James (particularly after 4.10). When one forsakes argument for analogy, at least try to get your history right.

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