Has spiked infiltrated Barack Obama’s party?

The truth is out. spiked’s key role in determining the direction of the US election has been exposed. You, dear reader, thought we were mere commentators on American politics, mere critics of Democratic elitism and Republican opportunism and analysers of the new nature of American politics. But in truth we sent one of our number – ‘Phil Moonlight’ – to act as a superdelegate for the Democratic Party! Is there nothing we can’t do?

Thanks to the Superdelegate Transparency Project (STP) – an online outfit backed by every liberal’s favourite web-based bible, The Huffington Post, and by the Open Left website – spiked’s historic role in the Democratic selection of Barack Obama has been revealed. STP reports that ‘Phil Mullan, also known as Phil Murphy, is a superdelegate in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination’. And this Mr Mullan is also ‘a partisan of the LM group. He has variously been involved with Cyberia, Living Marxism, Spiked Online [and] the Institute of Ideas.’ (1)

News of Phil Mullan’s role as a superdelegate quickly spread through the open-left, transparency-obsessed sections of the world wide web. The online Hillary Clinton Forum reported that ‘Phil Mullan, also known as Phil Murphy, is a superdelegate in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination’ (2). It also helpfully informed us that Mr Mullan is ‘National Finance Chair’ of the Democratic Party (why he can’t siphon some of that money for us at spiked is beyond me). More recently, a contributor to an online gossip forum reveals that Phil Murphy, also known as Phil Mullan, is a former global co-director of Goldman Sachs as well as being ‘a partisan of the LM group’ and spiked (3).

What can I say? It is true that Phil Mullan – or ‘Phil Moonlight’, as we might call him, in honour of his allegedly amazing ability to run Goldman Sachs and choose the next president of America while at the same time being a London-based writer and contributor to spiked – writes for my magazine. Tap his name into our search engine and you’ll find some spiffing articles on the so-called ‘ageing timebomb’, the pensions crisis and the subprime mortgage fiasco. Alas, and unfortunately for those brave online warriors for honesty and transparency in all matters political, this is not the same Phil M who acted as a superdelegate for the Democrats…

They’re probably thinking of Philip D Murphy, who, unlike the London-based Phil Mullan who contributes to spiked, really was a top exec at Goldman Sachs and a superdelegate for the Democrats. Mr Murphy, from New Jersey, was the last superdelegate to declare his voting intentions: in mid-June he revealed that he was backing Obama (4). Mr Mullan, on the other hand, being a British citizen, cannot even vote in the American election, much less decide who may stand in it. So how did ‘Philip D Murphy of New Jersey’ get crazily mixed up with ‘Phil Mullan of spiked’, on websites backed by the likes of Arianna Huffington and dedicated to exposing the truth?

This is the nature of online conspiracy-mongering with its in-built Presumption Of Dodginess, where everyone is looked upon suspiciously, their names chucked into search engines to see if they really are who they say they are or whether they have more skeletons in their closet than a university anatomy department. The fact that Phil Mullan in London used to, a long time ago, write under the pen name Phil Murphy for LM magazine seems to have been enough to convince online seekers of political dirt that he is the same Philip D Murphy of Goldman Sachs who plumped for Obama in his role as a Democratic superdelegate. The online activist who suspects everyone and trusts no one will see conspiracies and links and lies even where none exists – or especially where none exists, given that the very ‘absence of evidence’ is taken by some conspiracists as hard proof that a conspiracy must be under way (5).

Or maybe I am executing an elaborate cover-up…? Perhaps I am cynically trying to throw the transparency police off the scent of the Murphy/Mullan/Moonlight intervention in the Democratic nomination and hide from the world the truth about spiked’s puppeteering of the US election…? What do YOU think, reader? Email and let me know. But don’t expect a speedy response: I’m chairing the peace talks in Zimbabwe for the next week and then I’m off to a meeting of Exxon directors in Texas.

Note to bloggers: Brendan O’Neill who edits spiked is not the same Brendan O’Neill who was a chief executive of ICI or the Brendan O’Neill who owns a Victorian-style restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. Visit Brendan O’Neill of spiked‘s personal website here.

(1) Phil Mullan, Superdelegate Transparency Project

(2) SnailMail addresses of superdelegates, Hillary Clinton Forum

(3) See the Free Republic debate forum

(4) Finally, Phil Murphy picks a horse, Politicker NJ, 10 June 2008

(5) See ‘Humanising politics – that is my only agenda’, by Brendan O’Neill