Question Time in Washington DC

I watched last night's BBC Question Time from Washington. Both panel and audience gave me a sort of unintended insight into US political attitudes that was, frankly, spooky. And it wasn't even Hallowe'en yet.

There's something about that neatly-groomed, suited, well-scrubbed, wholesome look of 30 - something Americans that is eerie and scary. As if they have only just stepped out of a spaceship from Planet Xenon. Both men and women. Strangely, they all seemed to support McCain & Palin. Probably an in-flight briefing.

Their representative on the panel was one Christopher Nixon Cox.
Yes, Nixon's grandson. If Nixon was my grandad I'd miss out that middle name for a start.

A questioner asked about health care in the US compared to the NHS. Mr Cox certainly didn't want anything resembling a NHS approach in America - 'I don't like waiting in a line'. Apparently he thought health care in the US was pretty well OK. The panel Democrat, Elizabeth Edwards, didn't want the NHS either, but her reason was because it was a 'two-tier' system. A telling point.

Another panellist, who calls herself Cheri Jacobus, attacked Obama and the Democrats for allegedly wanting more equal distribution of wealth, shades of socialism she implied. Taking hard - earned cash from the rich to give, as a hand-out, to people who hadn't earned it (and certainly didn't deserve it).

As the programme ended, I had a strong feeling that nice, mild, silver-haired John McCain has some weird and worrying supporters.