Palin Post-Mortem [Updated]
(Your genial host captured on film playing bingo instead of listening to the debate)
Washington D.C.
I had a grand time watching the debate in the jam-packed Hawk”N Dove bar up on Capitol Hill. Lots of roaring and cheering as almost the entire crowd was gleefully playing Palin Bingo.
I have so far refused to take Governor Gidget seriously and will hold to my vow. Tonight proved one thing: the politically dead can still talk. Or at least repeat some memorized lines.
Never have I been a fan of Joe Biden but I think tonight he turned in his best performance. He was simply authoritative, knowledgeable and radiated reliability. When Palin played her expected hockey mom card, Biden pulled back the cape and stuck the sword square into her heart, misting up and basically saying “I’ll see your special needs child and raise you a dead wife and daughter.”
That neat trick elicited a roaring cheer from the crowd around me. One I joined in on, by the way.
The snap polls coming in as I write all give a solid percentage win to Biden. Duh.
Much of the media, however, is artfully avoiding the polka dot gorilla over there in the corner… that Palin is clearly a nincompoop. The L.A. Times went so far as to call Palin’s performance tonight “relatively steady.” Which, I suppose, is the way you could have described the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
This is more or less the last we will see of Ms. Palin. As CNN’s Jeff Toobin (by far the smartest among “the best political team on TV”) said post-debate, tonight will be remembered solely as a “cultural artifact,” the high-point of public recognition of Governor Palin.
Wish I could say the same of moderator Gwen Ifill, a living reminder of why it might be a good idea to defund PBS. I simply thought she was atrocious. As a young lawyer, and long-time friend of my family put it tonight, she acted “like an 8th grade class president.” She was boring, limp, formal and ineffective — to say the least. (see pal Michael Balter on this and also James Fallows).
I teach interviewing at USC and the first thing I tell my students is that proper interviewing requires acute listening, that the glaring sign of an amateur reporter is someone who blithely ticks off a list of questions without following up the answers given.
Ifill cheated the audience out of any real insight into these candidates and let them both off the hook — which means there was an objective advantage for the least prepared of the two, Palin. Why not a simple set of obvious questions: Mr. Biden, how does three decades in the Senate make you a beacon of change? Ms. Palin, how can someone who can’t name a single newspaper she reads or a Supreme Court decision she disagrees with be fit as commander-in-chief of the United States? And so on and so on.
Palin ended the debate by taking a pot shot at the “filter”of the MSM which is pretty outrageous for someone who is a dedicated dodger of all reporters.
But the MSM is fair game in this election. Ifil was a limp wimp. And now for the next two Presidential debates we can look forward to two certified dinosaurs as moderators –Tom Brokaw and Bob Schieffer. Talk about folks who are out of touch with Americans, at least those under 75 years old.
I am confident tonight that this election is all but over. The debate did nothing tonight except to shore up Joe Biden’s favorablility numbers and help consolidate Obama’s widening lead. The real news tonight wasn’t the debate, but rather McCain’s surrender of Michigan.
Some sort of new political era is fast upon us. As an asterisk, let’s hope this is also the last time we will have to watch these sort of dreadful MSM debates that smell of mummified relics.
Update at 2 a.m. –: I”ll leave the serious dissection of the debate to my friend David Corn with whom I’ll be having lunch on Friday. He does his usual great job of sorting through this muck.
Also…now that a few hours have gone by and I have been able to sift through the results and the myriad punditry, I have to say that –in general– the media has done a rather poor job tonight. The CNN post-mortem was particularly inane, based exclusively on partisan spinners and some rather idiotic scorecards they filled out (like we’re gonna take seriously what either Ed Rollins or Paul Begala says about the other side). On the other hand, the CNN pundit panel seemed like towering geniuses compared to the inimitable Candy Crowley who I find to be an intellectual black hole.
Not to fret, Candy. No question that this news cycle’s Dunce Award goes to Roger Simon of The Politico who, apparently watched a different debate than the rest of us. What a bottomless font of Conventional Wisdom (Please let me know when his job opens up. What a dream gig for a journo — the freedom to write all your stories in advance and never, ever have to have an original idea).
Much of the rest of tonight’s commentary wasn’t much better.
There was a lot self-fulfilling prophesyzing (is that a word?) going on. For an entire week the commentariat has been dutifully chanting that expectations were SO lowfor Palin that she might easily beat the spread. And then when she finally appeared and didn’t drool onstage and didn’t boot any of the follow-ups not asked her, they all said, “See we told you so. She performed well.” Most pundits went out of their way to say the match was some sort of draw. Funny thing … not a single legitimate post-debate poll scored it even as being close. All gave the decisive edge to Biden. But what do the voters know?
CNN’s John King, in noting that his own network’s poll scored it at as a 51-36% win for Biden ( a staggering rout) felt compelled to warn us, nevertheless, that this survey was taken only among those who actually watched the debate so it might not really be representative. Huh? Someone please explain that.
Memo to the American People from Correspondent King: Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes!
I’m starting to get the feeling that we might be in a similar moment as the final two months of the Democratic primary. The Clinton campaign didn’t have a prayer after March 5 and yet the media played along through May pretending the fight was tight. My humble impression is that the McCain campaign has virtually imploded. The media is too chicken to report it. And the liberals are too disdainful of the American people to recognize that they are not being hoodwinked by the nose-diving McCain campaign. It’s late right now and I’m pretty tired. Maybe, I’ll think differently in the morning. But I doubt it.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Great minds think alike: I totally agree about Ifill’s ineffectiveness as a moderator, and said so in my own blog post on the debate:
http://michael-balter.blogspot.com/2008/10/she-did-fine-batting-softballs.html
I give Palin a little more credit, however, for pulling off what she needed to pull off and keeping the “base” energized just a little bit longer. But now back to the real world: McCain has to face Obama two more times, and that won’t be pretty. Watch for a McCain meltdown before it’s over.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Marc, there’s something very weird about your embedded link to Balter’s page. It goes to mail.google.com ?????
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Ifill is always like that – utterly tepid. Biden was very good. I guess Palin gets credit for no blank stares, but much of what she said didn’t make much sense. It was rhetorical in the worst sense. And she made numerous statements that were simply false, although I don’t think her “base” cares about that at all. Her winks were creepy and her “authenticity” was obviously crafted and rehearsed. The “g” droppin’ was gettin’ darned stale, by golly, and I was beginnin’ to think she’s just one heck of a humongous phony. I ended the evenin’ findin’ her even more viscerally repulsive than I had goin’ in.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
link to Balter is fixed.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Defending Ifill:
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Marc, Thanks for the fix. The link kept sending me to my gmail inbox. I found it kind of creepy!
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 pm
She’s like a Stepford wife crossed with a pit bull.
What was almost funny was she kept talking faster and faster so she could regurgitate all she had memorized before she forgot it.
I wish one pundit would have noted that her smarmy, snotty demeanor is hardly “presidential”; vice presidential or even politic.
On that point alone she should be packed up.
I am always amazed Americans have no shame at how a Bush, or Palin might appear to the rest of the world.
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Ifill did an excellent job of asking consistently tough but fair questions and not giving the jackoffosphere the slightest little soundbite to take out of context and parade around as an example of poor Ms. Palin having to answer to an uppity negro.
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
My grad class is doing interviewing this week. Ifill would get a legitmate F. An embarrassment to the profession outdone only by the vacuous hot gas session on CNN post debate. No wonder people hate the media.
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
“Some sort of new political era is fast upon us. As an asterisk, let’s hope this is also the last time we will have to watch these sort of dreadful MSM debates that smell of mummified relics.”
I doubt either of these things is true, unfortunately. I think an interesting debate restriction would be to ban the use of all numbers in describing your adversary. The next time I hear the GOP say Obama voted for tax raises 94 times, I’m going to put a bullet through my brain on the grounds that it no longer is serving any useful function.
Thanks for the recommendation, Marc!
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I agree about how disappointing Ifill was. However, I think know that if she had asked your suggested question for Palin (and the one we’d all love to hear asked of her by anyone at any place — like a young man at a cheesesteak line) then the McCain camp would be furious and claim bias, even if she had asked your first question for Biden or any other damning one.
I was largely satisfied by Biden’s performance. There were a couple of times when I had wished Biden would have raised the issue of McCain voting against the more college money for vets. It was in there somewhere when Palin was rambling about how McCain is awesome to vets (like Obama failed to do to McCain in their debate) and I also think it would have been a good one when she was rambling about education.
Ultimately, Biden had a good strategy: hit McCain and not so much Palin (many people had feared that if he would have attacked her it would look like a man being unfair to a woman — though I still think he should have gone for the throat). Just like Obama with McCain, he was sufficient at debunking her lies about theirs and their own positions and voting record. 538 brought up a nice point about how, because Palin was clearly on script, Biden cleverly realized he could jab at McCain and Palin would have had to go off script to defend him, and that never goes well for her.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Also, Palin sounded like a beauty contestant.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Also, why doesn’t strikeout work in the comments >.<
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Marc!,
I was at the Hawk and Dove too last night!
It was a good time for me and mah girls at the bar, except the bartender, an old dude, named Edger, kept trying to flirt with me and was giving me and my friends free drinks, thinking he was going to get one of us to go out with him! LOL Edger is married, has a mistress and still wants more sex!
Anyway… I digress, sorry! I thought that Biden was dead on perfect against Palin, who was so obviously locked on her script that she had memorized.
Biden clearly was the more skilled politician, debater and was very easy going, smiling, etc. Palin seemed lost at times, not answering Gwen Ifill’s questions, redirecting her answers with her positions as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska. Sheesh!
Biden really gave a great debate with Palin, showing that Obama picked a great guy to be his future vice president. Or, can I say, “next” vice president?
Gwen Ifill wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t good either. Actually, I wasn’t impressed with the questioning pattern that she presented. It’s not that she could have gone for the “gotcha” questions, like Katie Couric did with Palin, it’s just that she could have done better with follow up.
I will admit that both Biden and Palin were civil to each other, and that was nice to see. It was also nice to see their families all together on stage at the end.
Well, me and mah girls will be back to the Hawk and Dove, on Tuesday night, to watch the second Obama-McCain debate, but we’re going to get a table and not sit at the bar with Edger.
Edger was somewhat distracting at times during the debate. He was really busy, for sure, but he kept messing with us.
Edger’s a really nice guy, but just too flirty, gives away too many free drinks, which is so obvious to all of us that he’s more into sex (he’s an old horn dog!) than into our personalities, although, lol, he’d like to “get into” us! lol
Angela Brockington
Obama-Biden Supporter
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 am
One commentator on Public Television, I believe from Politico, was the only one to point out that Palin didn’t answer any of the important questions. Before the debate, Deborah Tannen commented on Palin’s penchant for doing her “L’il ol’ me” routine, and said she should stay away from it. Palin avoided that at first, but as the debate went on she resorted to it more and more. If I were a woman, I’d feel insulted. If I were a man, I’d feel insulted, too. Oh, I am a man. I’m insulted!
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:24 am
Unfortunately, due to the moderator and the structure of the debate, Palin got away with dodging most of the questions completely.
My thoughts are here, as is a collection of hilarious Sarah Palin lines from the night:
http://sahilkapur.blogspot.com/2008/10/debate-thoughts.html
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:21 am
One question I wish Ifill, or Biden, had asked of Palin: “Governor Palin – and by extension, President Bush – if you don’t know how to pronounce ‘nuclear,’ why should we believe you know what the word even means?”
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:54 am
“..poor Ms. Palin having to answer to an uppity negro.”
Where do you get this shit BB. A racist behind every tree. Victims then, victims now, vitims forever.
Your party can never set people really free. It depends on their dependency for its very survival. You are the racist BB, and the sad thing is you have become so brainwashed by your religion, you are blinded…..and lost.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 am
Smothering mothering gone wild. And it’s destroying an economy that depends on independency and self-sufficiency for its survival, as we speak.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:47 am
“The “g” droppin’ was gettin’ darned stale…”
Most pols do this periodically to show they’re just folks. Obama does it often enough, managing to somehow sound semi-authentic. However, I think Palin would be advised to get her gerunds right. She’s already dripping with down-home mediocrity; we get that point immediately. She needs to prove that she actually knows how to pronounce an -ing.
Don’t mean to be too picky, but shouldn’t there be some sort of rule against proclaiming oneself a maverick? Shouldn’t the self-proclamation automatically strip you of that title? And can mavericks really run in teams? Doesn’t that defeat the whole iconoclastic purpose? I find that after seven ‘maverick’ self-annointment in the space of an hour I begin to feel strangely unconvinced.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 am
Jim R – the entire McPalin strategy was to put Ifill on notice that she’d better not press too hard since she’d written a book about “black pols of the Obama generation”, that they of course knew about when she was chosen. Or should have, unless they’re very, very stupid. So, yes, Ifill was put in the position of needing to act “deferential” to Palin and not do any strong follow-up (which she dutifully didn’t) or get reamed mercilessly by a bunch of shrieking maniacs like Michelle Malkin and Kathryn Jean Lopez.
Palin was almost as bad in the debate as she was in the Couric interviews – she just did a better job of stringing her memorized soundbites together. Zero substance. She’s incredibly lucky that Joe Biden didn’t have the brief to take her apart – because her vulnerabilities were manifest. Had the gender thing not been hanging there – i.e. had she been debating Hillary as an example – she would have easily been ripped to shreds, she was so full of shit so many times.
Biden did the right thing for him – which was attack his peer, John McCain, and he did that effectively. If he’d done stuff like show what a complete joke her “administratative skills” are in the context of a state that doesn’t have to raise revenue from it’s citizenry, but can ride solely on taxing corporations bent on resource extraction, or how screwed up her pipeline deal – which may never come to fruition – was, he’d have probably been tagged as a bully picking on a little pitbull. He’d also have demeaned himself by the very assumption that she had some record that Joe Biden needed to diminish in the interest of his own credibility. Biden was just very, very good and showed he’s a class act and probably one of the most thoughtful, analytical guys in the Senate. Also very much a “regular Joe.”
Palin rode the thing out, but what we were watching was a zippy little cheerleader asking to be appointed lead assistant coach. It should be embarrassing to Republicans, but the party forged by Tom DeLay, Abramoff and his clones, Newt Gingrich, Cheney, Bush and, yes, John McCain (who is a 90% carbon copy of Bush – and increasingly showing himself to be even worse than a chastened Bush on national security issues) is beyond embarrassment. The insult of Palin’s appointment by John McCain to this country is going to be the final measure of the man. It pretty much has wiped out whatever was left of his reputation as a “maverick” in the sense of inner-directed integrity. This was a play to the worst elements in the GOP and to the worst instincts in a segment of the electorate. They both deserve not just defeat but humiliation on electon day.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:15 am
evets – I drop “g”s in conversation sometimes too, but if you hit every one without fail, and top it off with weird winks and a torrent of overt references to how “down-home” you are, it begins to sound ridiculous. It was as bad as when Hillary tried to do her “Southern black” thing delivering a speech in Selma Alabama commemorating the March. That was one of the worst I’d heard until Palin last night. An act of almost taunting your audience’s credulity.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
Biden’s essential decency, social grace, and humble background (humbler than hers) made it hard to use him as a foil for her main-street hockey-mom jabs. In a sense, she may have had an easier time going up against Obama with his natural reserve.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:37 am
Darn it, evets, I’ll betcha you could ask that soccer mom who lives down a few heavily-mortgaged houses down your typical tree-lined, God-fearin’ street, sittin’ at her kitchen table tryin’ to figger out if which kinda Campbells’ soup to buy, if the fast-talkin’ gal from the American Heartland up there near the North Pole sounded just like her last night and she’d give you a great big ol’ look of horror. Sarah Palin is the person lots of folks might have voted for to be PTA President, but after a while nobody much likes. If given enough leash, by virtue of blind ambition she rises to the her level of incompetence and ends up in some sort of disaster. With any luck, the McCain campaign will be Palin’s disaster. She’ll go back to Alaska, “write” a book (Mark Salter will likely be available), serve out her final term as Governor under a cloud of scandal and end up on the motivational speaker circuit. I say this knowing full well that the gang at NRO’s corner imagine her as the horse they want to ride into the White House in 2012. The incoherence and lack of seriousness among contemporary “conservatives” knows no bounds. What we’re seeing in the right blogosphere is actually some form of unhinged right-wing populism joined opportunistically with an ideology of sheer will-to-power by the more canny neo-con faction (which cares not one whit about abortion, religion, etc.) – the kind of coalition that is about as close to nascent American fascism as we’re likely to see in our generation. I don’t believe, however, this is their moment.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
>Palin is clearly a nincompoop
And your point is? You’re more than old enough to remember that we chose Ronald Reagan as the most powerful person in the world, twice. She reminded me very much of a female RR with the winks, rigorous script, and folksy bullshit
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:58 am
The most disturbing part of the night was the Constitutional talk about the role of the Vice-Presidency. Presuming that she had actual knowledge of the topic–a dubious claim that I’m not making–then she just publically told the world she plans on continuing the imperial (vice)presidency. Biden’s response was fantastic, and a useful warning about the dangers of unbridled ambition. Palin seems to be nothing but ambition.
If she didn’t know what she was talking about (I don’t buy that her “what does the Vice-President do” line was a joke), which is vastly more likely given how her performance was 90% regurgitation, it’s yet more evidence of her total lack of understanding about American politics and governmental institutions. And worse, it’s more evidence that she seems to lack the ability to draw connenctions and follow implications where they lead. That’s scary.
The Couric and Gibson interviews simply exposed her lack of readiness, and generally bumblng manner when pressed on something. I suspect this debate for most people instead highlighted her total lack of honesty and sincerity. Her style was phony as hell, and obviously so.
Regardless of her performance, marionette-like as it was, McCain pitched himself off a cliff when he picked her. Only the 30% of copmplete partisans who live permanently on the right don’t see this.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 am
PS if Ifill had any legitimacy she would have tactfully asked each candidate to name the countries bordering some hotspot like Pakistan. Perhaps she could have handicapped it for Palin by just asking whether she knew which continent, eg, Afghanistan is in.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
“She reminded me very much of a female RR with the winks, rigorous script, and folksy bullshit”
I’m almost loathe to say this, but I think RR was much more credible and “authentic” in his folksiness and bullshit than Palin.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:16 am
Ok. New name for Palin:
The Regurgitater.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 am
“I’m almost loathe to say this, but I think RR was much more credible and “authentic” in his folksiness and bullshit than Palin.”
Absolutely, but he was an actor, and could pull it off.
Palin, on the other hand, simply looked like someone who had been over-prepared.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 am
The Trojan Moose has nuthin’.
Obama was just recently in Grand Rapids (Kent county is the reddist of red in Michigan) and now McCain has quit Michigan altogether.
Time to start thinking down ticket… There are at least 2 congressional seats that the GOP always wins in Michigan — the 7th congressional district, where incumbent Republican Tim Walberg is being seriously challenged by Democratic state senator Mark Schauer and the 9th where 6-termer Republican Joe Knollenberg is trying to fight off Democrat Gary Peters. The 9th Dist. is in the ‘old blue blood’ GOP stronghold of Oakland county. Both of these congressional seats could go from red to blue.
The fact that the Dems are soon to go a-campaignin’ in Virginia and North Carolina with a month to go pretty much tells it all.
I’m really beginning to think this Alexrod dude knows what the heck he’s doing.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 am
She came across like a used car salesman- a real phony.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 am
“RR was much more credible and “authentic” in his folksiness and bullshit than Palin.”
To give RR some credit, he mixed the folksy with the formal. There was more complexity to the character. And to be entirely fair, he had, over the years, off and on the 20 Mule Team trail, thought himself into a pretty coherent (if simplistic, and in my view wrong-headed)political philosophy. And he could articulate it well in the right setting. He could even write about it pretty fluidly. He was a heavyweight compared to Palin. To measure the gap between these two tribunes of the conservative movement is to measure the distance the right-wing intelligentsia has fallen since it started to get its hands on the gears of power.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
“trying to fight off Democrat Gary Peters”
Can we pitch him against Jim Bunning?
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
“To measure the gap between these two tribunes of the conservative movement is to measure the distance the right-wing intelligentsia has fallen since it started to get its hands on the gears of power.”
BUT Reagan is a key to how they have fallen. The emphasis has been shifted – Reagan to W Bush to, god forbid, Palin – to finding a “vessel” for packaging rightwing ideology that is appealing to “Joe Sixpack” in a way that the ideology itself would not. This worked pretty well with Reagan, partly because he was probably a more complex guy than a lot of us were willing to credit at the time (I thought he was surprisingly reasonable when he actually met Gorbachev face to face), but it’s a flawed strategy. It’s “Mad Men” run amok and whatever core values it originally was supposed to serve get become totally tangential, incoherent and reduced to “gimmicks.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:48 am
“BUT Reagan is a key to how they have fallen.”
I agree. Just saying it’s interesting to trace the descent.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
My knowledge of election law is limited on this subject so I’ll ask this assuming everyone else’s is better: What is the standing of the 2008 election if one party changes its vice presidential nominee (guess which) at the last minute, say Novemeber 1st, and that name is not the one on all the printed ballots already in circulation and at the precincts? Can the election be challenged on that basis then decided by the Supreme Court?
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
Palin reminded me of Mr. Compassionate Conservative circa 2000. Total bullshit. Either they are lying when they present their party as tolerant or they’re stupid.
She’s pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-regulating the financial sector, and for windfall profits taxes. She is either a Democrat and doesn’t know it or she is a cynical lying bitch.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Here’s a recommendation: don’t pick ‘maverick’ as the drinking game word.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
>if one party changes its vice presidential >nominee (guess which) at the last minute, >say Novemeber 1st, and that name is not >the one on all the printed ballots already in >circulation and at the precincts? Can the >election be challenged on that basis then >decided by the Supreme Court?
Nah, Ralph would never dump Whatchamacaller
There may be some states where this would pose a state-law problem, but there is no federal issue with this. We vote for electors, not candidates, even if it’s the candidate’s name on the ballot. In general, the electors are free to vote for whomever they want.
As the SC posed such a temptation for GWB by reminding us in 2000, there is no federal requirement that there be a popular vote at all, let alone that the electors vote as originally pledged.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
This is good stuff: http://www.slate.com/id/2201342/
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
Great link, DanO. LOL.
“Befoulers of the Verbiage” has to be on a fast track to a place on the shelf next to the stately letters of Chester A. Arthur.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Gov. Palin’s response to Marc’s criticism
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
One important observation came out of this debate: “A nuclear war, that’s the be-all and the end-all. That’s bad. A lot of people, gone.”
Who knew ?
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Palin may be the 21st Century version of Andrew Jackson–don’t pay attention to the elitists and do the job the people want.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
“Gov. Palin’s response to Marc’s criticism”
I wonder if she changes by the trick or by the hour?
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Looking at a photo one sees online, the one with the legs and the black dress, one could almost imagine all America rising and saying in one voice, “Couldn’t we just fuck her?”
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I do believe, Robert, that is exactly what is going to happen.
She is going to get fucked. Royally.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Intrade – which is folks betting real money – has Obama nearly 70-30.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Sen. Obama and V.P. Palin after the election
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
As Woody proves, conservatives don’t have a racist bone in their bodies.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Except, of course, in their heads.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
wow, Woody. That’s really funny. Here’s what Sarah Palin will be doing after Nov 4.
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/auminer/hookers.jpg
Doggone it.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Shoot, that could be Palin (in the photo Marc linked).
Notice the firearm tat on the hip?
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Isn’t that what she’s doing now (metaphorically speaking) ?
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I’ll also suggest that Marc is demeaning honest hookers with this comparison.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Just as Sarah Palin is not a real leader, the women in the hookers.jpg picture are not real whores.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Marc Cooper Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Woody, when I find something worth responding to you in your petty comments, I will. Until then it’s like scraping bubble gum off one’s shoe.
- – -
Woody (Semi-retired) Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Sen. Obama and V.P. Palin after the election
http://i37.tinypic.com/2mo4e85.jpg
- – -
Marc Cooper Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
wow, Woody. That’s really funny. Here’s what Sarah Palin will be doing after Nov 4.
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/auminer/hookers.jpg
Doggone it.
- – -
Now that Marc has responded to a comment, I understand the type that he wants. And, to think that reg disagrees with Marc on this.
So, here’s another one to cherish.
= = =
PALIN WINS BIG WITH A REAGAN-LIKE FLAIR
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Well if Dick Morris says so, it’s got to be true!
October 4th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Palin refuses to believe global warming is man-made, yet she supports cap-and-trade on carbon emissions. If global warming isn’t man-made, then carbon emissions aren’t a cause and capping them would be “pointless regulation.” Palin proves that you can find a solution to a problem by denying the cause, but not without acknowledging it. We call that a Palindox.
October 4th, 2008 at 3:23 am
For Dick Morris to call Joe Biden a “warmed over has-been on downers” is like O.J.Simpson calling Alec Baldwin a guy with unseemly anger issues against his ex-wife. I’m wondering if Morris was given the opportunity to lick a pair of Palin’s shoes in exchange for that piece. His column certainly was an appropriate follow-up to the shoeshine and hookers pix – but again, the hookers are getting a bad rap. Like psyschotherapists and defense lawyers, their associations with trash like Morris are only done on a fee-per-hour basis.
October 5th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Ifill is an affirmative action hire. She performed above expectations.
Biden is a blowhard. Gaffe central. Love that Botox.
Palin may not know much, but she has a natural gift as a campaigner. It’s a hinterland thing; New York and LA just won’t understand.
Aside from the stylistic contrast, most of the differences between the two campaigns are manufactured. Both parties will support the expansion of central government, deficit spending, economic policies subservient to bondholders, spreading “democracy” where we have no business being involved, uncontrolled immigration, unconditional kowtowing to Israel, globalization even if it means the destruction of our remaining industrial base, the crazy promise-breaking expansion of NATO, etc. Both will ignore the problems of entitlements, government and private sector profligacy, control of regulatory processes by the regulated (nearly inevitable), and corporate welfare. Both will use government to suppress their adversaries, if only to a limited extent.
“Not a dime’s worth of difference,” said George Wallace, and on that one he was right.
The only thing I’ll give ya is this: Obama’s temperamentally more stable, so he may get us into fewer wars for a while. Don’t expect much more, so-called progressives, and you’re less likely to be disappointed.
As for me, I’m leaning to Barr. I live in California, so I could vote for a Trotskyite transsexual from Titan, and not affect the result.
February 28th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
If given enough leash, by virtue of blind ambition she rises to the her level of incompetence and ends up in some sort of disaster. With any luck, the McCain campaign will be Palin’s disaster. She’ll go back to Alaska, “write” a book (Mark Salter will likely be available), serve out her final term as Governor under a cloud of scandal and end up on the motivational speaker circuit. I say this knowing full well that the gang at NRO’s corner imagine her as the horse they want to ride into the White House in 2012.
March 1st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
i just wanted to say that I love this site
March 15th, 2010 at 11:25 am
I, as well, have a pit-bull who is the most loving animal I’ve ever owned. Quickly, a fresh dog breed will appear together for the media to blast, because they have done rotties and dobies in past many years. Unfortunate that media sensationalism breeds so much inaccurate data.