There's nothing worse than a politician playing parent

There is a Downing Street bylaw which states that all wives of prime ministers must produce at least one twee book in thinly disguised support of either their husband's predicament - being prime minister - or their own. Mary Wilson had her poetry, and Norma Major did a book about Chequers, while Cherie Blair gave us The Goldfish Bowl, an unsurprisingly sympathetic and (even less surprisingly) money-spinning look at the business of being married to a PM.

In accordance with this statute, Sarah Brown is soon to publish Dads, or, to give it its full, somewhat emetic title, Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood From Britain's Finest and Funniest. Dads seems to be aimed squarely at that till-side spot reserved for screamingly funny tales from the 19th hole, or The Little Book of Calm.

I say "soon to publish"; in fact, Mrs Brown's book is not out for almost a month, but for reasons upon which one can only speculate, it was serialised this very week in - where else? - the Daily Mail. Calling all psephologists: what is the ratio of tedious celebrity anecdotes about fatherhood to local council seats not lost? About 960:1 on the exit polls, but perhaps the dads have salvaged a little more now the results are in.

But back to The Little Book of Why My Gordon's Human ("an enchanting new book" - the Daily Mail). You would hesitate to class Dads as groundbreaking, in that it falls back on the hackneyed device of asking a lot of celebrities to provide contributions. Here's one from the Kumars star Sanjeev Bhaskar; there's one from Ronnie Corbett; and - oh do look - here's the lengthiest one by miles from a certain Gordon Brown, whom we must assume falls into the Britain's Finest, as opposed to Britain's Funniest, category.

Profits-wise, the PM's wife will be giving a percentage to charity, though the celebrities are thought to have contributed for free. Downing Street declined to confirm the precise economics yesterday.

Still, that's all by the by, because we all know that the real aim of this book is to showcase Gordon's ethereal affinity with fatherhood - that state so fetishised by the male politicians de nos jours.

Gordon was due another de-weirding on this front, because it has been two years since his "at home" with the Daily Mirror, who were invited to survey the charming chaos wreaked by his toddler son, John.

Since then he has been quite eclipsed by those David Cameron web videos, in which all the Cameron progeny play their part. As paterfamilias, Dave signs the release forms for his brood, to whom he was most recently shown being nice in an ITN exclusive designed to show he's just like us. And yet, by choosing to parade his offspring in regularly screened domestic tableaux in which they have no choice but to appear, one can't help feeling that Cameron is not so much like us, but more like the celebrities who court at-homes in OK! magazine. He is certainly no different from the ever-resourceful Jordan, who attracts criticism for allowing her disabled son to be photographed, except that she's doing it for material capital, while Cameron's in it for political capital.

"What my son has taught me about caring", runs the headline on one Cameron article, whereas Brown almost fell over himself to explain that fatherhood "does make you think all the time what parents need".

It is bad enough that public life is beginning to feel like an episode of Kids Say the Funniest Things, but even worse to hear Brown statements such as "Alongside millions juggling the pressures of work, I struggle too to be what I want to be - a good parent."

Oh, not the juggling ... Please not the juggling. There is little more insulting than people who patently occupy another world telling you they're just like you in order to ingratiate themselves - it is more irksome even than celebrities who speak about the advent of a baby as though they are the first person ever to have given birth.

So removed is the top-flight political experience - how could it not be? - that all attempts to find common ground with your average Joe are so reductive as to be meaningless. Cherie Blair tried it with motherhood on one notable occasion. As a reminder of that particular struggle to juggle: she had just been forced to buy £500,000 worth of luxury flats in Bristol with the help of a famous conman, then lie about it to the No 10 press office, because - and here came the crack in her voice - her son was going away to university for the first time.

At the time, people remarked that at least little Ewan wasn't going away to her husband's war, as were so many others of his age; and a similar scepticism seems appropriate in the case of our current PM. Since taking office, Brown has shown no sign of moving to increase paternity leave, nor of letting up sending other fathers - and other fathers' children - off to die in the various wars we've got on at the minute. So if Dads is to get a sequel - and they would have to rush it out, because it looks increasingly unlikely that Brown is going to get one of his own - perhaps these families might be approached for winsome anecdotes?

marina.hyde@guardian.co.uk

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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

Clinton Adviser Claims Indiana Slur Video Is Conspiracy

About Sam Stein

Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at stein@huffingtonpost.com.

A former aide to President Bill Clinton, and current informal adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton, expressed outrage and shock on Friday after a videotape from 1992 surfaced allegedly showing him describing Indianans as "white n---rs."

Mickey Kantor, who served as campaign chairman during Clinton's 1992 run for the White House and says he has offered help and advice to Sen. Clinton, insisted that the tape was a fraud and that he was exploring legal steps against the individual who posted it online.

"I've never used that word in my entire life, ever, under any circumstance, ever," an angry Kantor told The Huffington Post, citing his and his parent's work fighting for civil rights. "I have listened to [the video] and so have you. You can't tell what it is I'm saying in that second sentence, you can't decipher that."

Indeed, a review of the original copy of the 1993 film The War Room, from which the excerpt was taken (around the 4:40 mark) is virtually inaudible. The sound suggests, if anything, that instead of saying "How would you like to be a worthless white n****r?" Kantor says, "How would you like to be in the White House right now?"

The director of the film, moreover, says that Kantor never uttered those words. "He does not say that. He does not say that," D.A. Pennebaker told Ben Smith.

The cropped video, which spread through the Internet like wildfire on Friday morning, shows Kantor with fellow former Bill Clinton staffers James Carville and George Stephanopoulos discussing results from the general election. In the footage, Kantor approaches the two aides and says, "Look at Indiana -- wait, wait, look at Indiana. 42-40. It doesn't matter if we win, those people are shit." That much seems true, though Pennebaker says Kantor was referring to the George H.W. Bush White House. The alleged "white n****r" line followed.

Kantor, on Friday, insisted that the latter part of his statement never took place and that it made no sense for him to use such language.

"Indiana was not even on our radar screen," he said, "And I was talking about the polling and not the people... If you look at The War Room, this is not the way Carville or George interpreted my statement. This is frankly libelous."

Kantor said he was in the process of contacting "the best" libel lawyers to approach YouTube.com about the process of removing the video from its site. He suggested that The Huffington Post, too, should not print even his defense, as it would be an advancement of a non-story.

"I don't need to be defended," he wrote. "When you write it, what you are doing is extended the libel."

While Kantor said he had no idea who was behind the video or what intent he or she might have, he offered that political motives were at play.

"Many people are subject to this kind of being used in a way to try and stir people up," he said. "I can't say it more clearly, but I had never used that word... My parents would come from the grave and kill me if I used that word."

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