Meet the 14-year old wunderkind of conservative US politics (Jonathan Krohn)

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/15/jonathan-krohn-republican-party

Some would like to embrace him. Others would much rather kick him. "Precocious" is one of the kinder words being used to describe Jonathan Krohn, the teenage would-be saviour of the American right.

A video of the 14-year-old firebrand lecturing a room full of conservatives old enough to be his parents has provoked a visceral reaction on the web. Krohn wears a suit and tie, and speaks with the actorly mannerisms of an elder statesman. The most recent response on the video site YouTube is: "My god, what an annoying child!"

His three-minute address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington was spookily reminiscent of the speech in which a tweed-jacketed 16-year-old William Hague told the 1977 Tory conference: "Half of you won't be here in 30 or 40 years' time." The whey-faced Hague received a standing ovation and praise from Margaret Thatcher, but the TV footage has often haunted him since.

Krohn's moment in the sun made him the darling of CNN, Fox News and countless radio stations. He was interviewed in the New York Times. Facebook groups have been set up acclaiming him - but so, too, have groups lampooning him, including one called "I Explode With Laughter Every Time I See/Hear Jonathan Krohn"