Sarah Speaks -- Once I Was Blind
Governor Gidget appeared on screen melting my heart and conquering my soul. That was after The Mayor of America softened me up.
Once I was blind. But now I can see.
I agree with every one of their points.
Black is white.
Up is Down.
Slavery is Freedom.
Arbeit Macht Frei.
We are winning in Iraq.
The WMD did exist.
Saddam was the leader of Al Qaeda.
Torture is legal.
Mitt Romney is a populist renegade.
Running Wasilla is more or less like running New York City.
Black men who become president of the Harvard Law Review are effete snobs.
Community organizers are sinister.
The media is run by Socialists.
Ivy League universities should be shuttered and replaced by trade schools.
Writing two best-selling memoirs is, um, a black mark.
Having a baby out of wedlock or aborting the fetus is strictly a personal, private issue even when the state wants to criminalize the latter.
America's perceived economic crisis is a mental aberration curable by sexual abstention.
Reading someone their legal rights is an act of wussiness.
Sarah has had more executive experience than Joe Biden and Barack Obama combined.
Hockey moms are more intelligent than hockey pucks.
Running the PTA is very much like the CIA.
Piloting a snowboard is the same as flying an F-16.
Garnering about 655 votes to win a Mayor's seat is major executive experience.
Palin would be the perfect President to stare down Vladimir Putin.
Mike Huckabee should be named head of National Institute for Science Education.
No Alaska Governor is a member of the Permanent Political Establishment.
Sarah is more or less like Harry -- Truman.
Traveling outside the country once by age 43 makes you fit to run the most powerful military in the history of the world.
Capacity to read a pre-canned generic speech written by spinmeisters is a major qualification for national office.
The Republicans are a shoo-in to win in November.
The sun sets in the east (except in Alaska which dwells in darkness much of the year).
P.S. I will leave it to others to offer a "serious" analysis of Sarah Palin's remarks, I refuse to participate in that sort of farce.
Bill Bradley, however, holds his nose and does a formidable job -- even before she spoke.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Haha, very good Marc. Where’d you get that picture from, Sadly, No! ?
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Al Giordano: “She could have been big, but instead she was small.”
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 pm
As long as you’re going with photo-shopped pictures, Marc, this one is a bit more flattering.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 pm
You are sooooooo scared.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Gidget was played by the somewhat underestimated Sally Field, and as that former figure-of-fun Flying Nun notoriously gushed, upon winning an Oscar, “you like me, right now, you like me!”
And it would seem from polling so far that lots of people do like Palin, right now, with more coming. I think we can throw out Gallup’s 3-to-1 positive/negative as an outlier, but the others (CBS, CNN, Diagao) all line up 2-1. Of those three, only the CBS poll has gone around twice so far. It shows about twice as many converting from “Haven’t heard” to “Favorable” over “Unfavorable.” At this rate, her favorable/unfavorable will go to 40/20 over the next couple weeks.
OK, I’ll admit this analysis is way too simple, way too early, statistical science fiction. It’s also poorly reflective of voter choices even if Miss Congeniality proves very well-liked. (After all, lots of us liked Mike Huckabee, and still do, but would have to be waterboarded into voting for him). The “Undecided” segment seems to gaining out of “Haven’t heard” a lot more than either “Favorable” or “Unfavorable”. And I have little doubt that the initial 22-38% Favorable is heavily populated with Cultural Conservatives — they either already knew about her, or have litmus-tested her really fast. Also, guys think she’s hot or something. In a naughty librarian kind of way.
I want to apologize to you all for taking this so seriously. And if, by chance, McCain & Palin squeak out a victory, I promise I will be so, like, not all “I-told-you-so” about it, for sure. I’ll be really nice, I’ll commiserate. I won’t talk about how sneeringly dismissive you all were back in early September, before the Flying Nun’s bomb bay doors opened and unleashed hubris-seeking missiles on your asses, sending you scattering.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:08 am
What an unbelievable collection of falsehoods and general bullshit on the part of the Republicans. Scared? Maybe, but not at the potency of the Republican ticket, or their collective intellect. Scared because once again, it looks like the blatant, emotional pandering by distortion and mischaracterization to the lowest common denominator of the American public may once again prove what a nation of morons we are by giving the GOP four more years in the White House. mmmmeehhhhhh
DRILL BABY DRILL!!
September 4th, 2008 at 2:08 am
This is definitely a category 5 shitstorm. Everyone watch the Daily Show’s coverage of the DNC and RNC…Pure genius
September 4th, 2008 at 2:24 am
MT sticks his neck out and predicts there’s a chance McCain-Palin could squeak out a victory. I’m impressed. Who knew ? I’m going to move that 1/4 inch over into his corner and acknowledge that there’s a chance McCain-Palin could squeak out a victory as well.
I am now officially on the record such that whatever happens in November I can come back here and say, “I told you so.”
“I want to apologize to you all for taking this so seriously.” After reading a long paragraph and then actually clicking your polling link, I’m not sure I should accept the apology. Less links like that please. I enjoy your speculative bullshit too much to read through it and then get my faced rubbed in the fact that I owe myself an apology if I take it too seriously.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:09 am
There’s one policy position on which I’m in hearty agreement with the Pork Queen of Wasilla, and it’s allowed her to become a pretty popular governor. It’s a reform I support and it sticks it to entrenched interests:
Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska’s Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry — a step that has generated stunning new wealth for the state as oil prices soared. (Seattle Times)
I guess I missed that in “her” speech last night - I’m pretty sure “she” gave no love to Barack Obama for proposing it on the federal level. But Kudos to that. I haven’t seen the latest stats, but Alaska is usually second or third highest in states that benefit from federal spending over and above their per capita taxes. Something like $1.85 for every dollar Alaskans pay out. Seems like they’ve been getting a pretty good deal, but if the Wasilla Pork Queen wants to go to DC and tax the oil companies while she’s making sure we Californians aren’t getting our pockets picked by Alaskans rolling in oil money, more power to her. I’ll be sure to ask when she comes to Oakland.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Not sure how much it matters if “so crazy it might work” defines this election (hopefully it won’t and our best shot is to expose the “crazy” stuff) but the Pork Queen of Wasilla is a shameless serial liar on her first big night out. Below:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_09/014545.php
September 4th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Whaddaya want, a political science thesis? You’re much to snarky tonight.
A VP candidate is often an attack dog. Her slams at Obama were, on the whole, reasonable. Funny, actually.
Did she lay out a clear policy agenda? Nope. Do I still fear that McCain could be an adventurist in foreign policy. Yep.
But the woman is effective, much more so than Cliff Clavin, I mean, Joe Biden.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:17 am
“Hockey moms are more intelligent than hockey pucks.”
Bigot, much?
September 4th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Cliff Clavin? I don’t see the resembl– oh, wait a minute, I see it now, there’s the attempt to plagiarize, then he loses to a woman in a red suit who didn’t look like she was going to do too well for a while. I get it now.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:40 am
One thing that struck me as most outlandish tonight was Rudy Giuliani - I think in his speech, but certainly in an interview just after - deriding “cosmopolitans.” When I heard it, his loopy…uh, what is it…3rd wife was grinning at his side. I have to hand it to GOPers for sheer shamelessness. I guess something like 20% of the electorate is as stupid as the GOP thinks they are and another 20% or so is as cynical as Giuliani, et. al.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:47 am
Bigot, much?
Beat me to it. It is interesting that Marc included that sole true statement.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Her slams at Obama were, on the whole, reasonable. Funny, actually.
GOM has a virulent case of the disease that America suffers from.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:12 am
And it would seem from polling so far that lots of people do like Palin, right now
Which has little to do with whether they think she should be VP. Those polls show something different.
with more coming
A claim tossed off with no support. The Republicans had an opportunity to make her likable outside their base, but they took a different path.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:31 am
reg writes: “…. the Pork Queen of Wasilla is a shameless serial liar on her first big night out.”
I started checking your source for that, reg. Picked the first issue: that Palin, while claiming she would be a friend of special-needs parents, cut the budget for special-needs schools. I looked at the PDFs linked. Yep, she might have cut that part of the state budget (though you’d need to look at the relevant legislation to be sure they were her cuts, not cuts forced on her). Then it occurred to me: what’s the largest single segment of the retarded-kid population in Alaska? The Fetal Alcohol Syndrome kids, isn’t it? I searched her site on that term. I came up with this: massive budget increases in a number of education programs, some of which might cover FAS kids (not enough detail, again you’d probably have to do to the legislative record). So, until someone proves otherwise, I’ll hold out the possibility that there actually is increased funding that’s now simply better targeted.
It’s a lie that Obama hasn’t authored any legislation? Well, has he? I’m guessing there’s wiggle room here: if you define “authored” stringently, as “wrote single-handedly, and got passed”, the pickings might be pretty slim. If you define authorship as loosely as your Political Animal source apparently does, then I guess the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (praised as good news for bloggers) is Obama’s. But then, by the same token, it’s also McCain’s — as far as I can tell, Obama and McCain had equally subsidiary roles in it. If you’re sniffing out oppo on Palin, you might look at the “secret hold” placed on this bill by … yes, Ted Stevens. Oh, but also by Democrat Robert Byrd, who I respect greatly for calling bullshit on the Iraq adventure when hardly any other Dems were doing that. Ah well. I guess fear of pork-sniffers knows no partisan divide after all.
It could go on, and on, and on. What is a lie, exactly? What’s your definition of “is”? And of “exact”? And is your definition of “is” sufficiently “exact”?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Whether people like Palin “has little to do with whether they think she should be VP. Those polls show something different.”? Which polls would those be? CBS News poll has 14% saying picking her makes voting McCain “more likely”, 13% “less likely”, 28% “no difference. That was for Sep 1-2. She was at 13% “more likely”, possibly a slight bounce from the convention (though admittedly the “less likely” column went up by more in the last few days.) If she’s a catastrophically bad pick (which seems to be the view most promoted here), why does she do even as well as polling in the mid-40s compared to Biden’s mid-60-percent, when people are asked how they’d choose if they could split their vote?
I’ve looked closely at the Emily’s List poll on Palin. Again, I’m hardly suprised that she doesn’t get a majority of women, especially after her positions are made clear. However, even with the subtle biases in how the extensive information on her positions is supplied in that poll, at the end, “McCain-Palin is better on this” still gets 35% from women on “Understands the Issues and Concerns Important to Women”. As an example of bias in presentation, the poll mentions that Biden “voted to authorize the war”, but has opposed Dubya’s handling of the war, and without mentioning that he stuck with the pro-invasion position much longer than many other Dem senators. It does NOT mention that Palin, while saying she supported Bush, is concerned, wants to know if there’s an exit plan, and has a son due to deploy to Iraq soon. Despite such skewing, Palin still commanded a 41% overall appeal rating, to Biden’s 64%. How does she even get that much, if she’s such a walking disaster area for the GOP?
CNN/Opinion Research (which according to analyses linked from fivethirtyeight.com is slightly Obama-biased in its predictions), Aug 29-31:
“”How would you rate John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for vice president? Would you rate this choice as excellent, pretty good, only fair, or poor?”
27% “Excellent”, 25% “Pretty good”.
“Does having Sarah Palin as his running mate make you more likely to vote for John McCain in November, less likely, or will it not have much effect on your vote?”
22% “more likely”, 20% “less likely”
“Will the fact that a woman will be running for vice president with John McCain make you more or less likely to vote for McCain, or won’t that make any difference to you one way or the other?”
“A claim tossed off with no support”
Actually, with support, just flimsy support: extrapolation from two closely-space polling points with margin-of-error (and rounding errors) possibly swamping the true signal with noise. Which is why I hedged with “it would seem”.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:12 am
I doubt MT really believes that “authoring legislation” is a meaningful criterion. He’s just regurgitating an RNC talking point he never even bothered to chew.
We have to go back more than four decades to Lyndon Johnson to find an American president who was an accomplished legislator.
If you want say every president since Johnson failed because they had not prepared themselves for the job by writing laws, then you may have a point.
Clinton is well known for his command both of the legislative process and for the contents of legislation, even though he had less legislative experience than Obama and about the same as W.
I think we can agree that by all objective measures of economic performance and foreign policy goals, Clinton outperformed them all, going back to FDR and an age where such comparisons lose all focus.
The Republicans like to prattle on about “executive” experience, both as a holdover from their defense of W’s initial inexperience and as a way to defend Palin and play her as more experienced as Obama.
But what a president really needs is political experience, i.e. the ability to persuade people to go along with his ideas and, more important, to have people feel good about having done so. He also has to have good ideas, of course, but that’s a much more generalized criterion and subject to debate that is always stunted by ideological preferences.
I’m not voting for Obama because I think he’ll write a good health care bill. I am voting for him, in part, because I’m convinced he’s capable of understanding complex health care legislation — something I know W isn’t up to and remain unconvinced that McCain is capable of.
But being able to read and understand legislation is less important than being able advocate for it in a way that not only wins support for the right choices, but also enriches the understanding and civic mindedness of citizens.
If McCain wins, he will have done so by once again stoking the resentments and insecurities of undereducated rural and semi-rural voters. He will govern the same way, just has Bush has, dooming a whole range of potential reforms from health care, to environmental protection to intelligence reform and sane foreign policy.
If Obama wins, he will have done so almost entirely without resort to identity politics. For all the jabs we hear from Republicans about latte sippers, cheese lovers, Ivy League degree holders and so on, we do not see the same sort of flamboyantly phoney reverse snobism from Democrats.
The closest Democrats come to that is the, admittedly embarrassing, obsession with castigating the rich as somehow, by definition, greedy and/or sly. And in some cases, as with John Edwards, this note can be played so heavily that it borders on identity politics. But it is a relatively small plank in a much bigger platform that focuses on policy competence and progressive ideas.
When the party W built starts laying down criterion for competence or “experience” anyone with two brain cells should know their time is being wasted in the one of the most extravagantly fraudulent ways imaginable.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Oops, didn’t finished with last poll question:
14% “more likely”, 5% “less likely”, to vote for McCain now that he has a woman on the ticket.
While I’m at it, on the same page, while only 45% say she’s qualified to be VP, somehow, 57% say McCain’s choice reflects favorably on his ability to make decisions as president.
Also, I got something wrong above — asked how they’d choose if they could, between the two VP candidates, Biden’s at 54%, not in the “mid-60s” as I wrote, while Palin is at 41% there, not in the “mid-40s”.
Now, I admit: it might take something close to a miracle for McCain-Palin to pull up even with Obama-Biden. Well, but … let me (re-)acquaint you with a not-exactly minor miracle that’s not exactly unrelated: this time last year, McCain seemed to be plainly out of the running, and beating would beat Giuliani, two figures reduced to faces twisting in anger at their respective party conventions. Oh, how long ago it seems …. this has not been your average election year, has it? Rely on time-tested intuitions at your peril.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:22 am
I try very hard not to be partisan about this analysis, and I think I do passably well.
I have been watching and comparing the way Republicans and Democrats speak with a fair amount of attention for 25 years or so now. In that time, there is one constant–Republicans have no shame. I’ll pause here to genuflect to the various exceptions, but the overall arc is clear. There seems to be no nuance, no subtlety, and, in fact, no truth, they will not simply steam right over in the pursuit of power. Time and time again, they just talk away reality as if it’s a fog you can simply blow on.
Palin has 18 months in office? She’s more experienced than Obama! “America needs more energy; our opponent is against producing it.” A leavening of nuance that makes that statement an outright lie. And Guliani talking about the expansion of government over the last twenty-odd years while the Republicans controlled much of government much of that time. The examples are endless, really, and I wish I had kept track of them over the years.
The difference strikes me this way: Democrats generally buy the notion that speech making and rhetoric should have some connection to actual facts; that there is a connection between truthfulness and civic virtue. Republicans, not so much. They seem willing to say anything no matter how untruthful, or more regularly, how distorting the statement is.
And while Obama seems willing to acknowledge nuance by noting that McCain loves his country as much as anyone else does, the Republicans at the RNC, though, are having none of that.
It seems that the boundaries of the acceptable are drawn more widely in the Republican heart, and that this makes the Democrats fight with one hand tied to their belts. I wouldn’t want the Dems to change how they operate, but it grates me every election cycle to see how effective the disingenuous really is.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Somehow, I lost “and the smart money was on Clinton beating Giuliani”. I hope you can mentally splice it in.
Please sir, can I have comment preview?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:35 am
[...] Wing News, Pajamas Media, Marc Cooper , BeldarBlog, Associated Press, About.com US Politics, Gateway Pundit, TigerHawk and [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Notwithstanding his weird accusation that I’m “regurgitating GOP talking points”, that was one of the best posts from bunkerbuster I can remember.
Very good one from Dan O as well. The challenge for the Dems is to not be seduced into doing what works so well for the GOP. They should continue to try being “reality-based”, just punchier with it.
If there’s one respect in which the Dems could afford to shed some shame, it might be in breaking down and hiring more operatives out of the advertising business. George Lakoff had great theories about why the Dems can’t communicate as effectively as the GOP. But the ad game is full of practitioners who already know Lakoff’s theories from their gut. How could somebody as unappealing, and as hated by journalists, as Richard Nixon could manage to become president? He hired top staffers out of the advertising business.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Uh-oh.
—-
Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, who has written best-selling books on gender differences, said she agrees with complaints that Palin skeptics — including prominent voices in the news media — have crossed a line by speculating about whether the Alaska governor is neglecting her family in pursuit of national office.
“What we’re dealing with now, there’s nothing subtle about it,” said Tannen. “We’re dealing with the assumption that child-rearing is the job of women and not men. Is it sexist? Yes.”
“There’s no way those questions would be asked of a male candidate,” said Howard Wolfson a former top strategist for Clinton’s presidential campaign.
—-
Be ready for it: Bristol Palin coached to deny that she’s learning everything about mothering from her mother. “No, of course not. Mom’s too busy running the state. It’s Dad who’s getting me up to speed with taking care of Trig. Could you people go get a life of your own already. This is, like, getting really intrusive.”
It’s not like you’re aren’t being warned about the dangers here. By Obama himself, remember?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Second that on bb. Excellent points.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I am a registered democrat, very disappointed in my party. I was born and raised in Massachusetts. This is not the same party of JFK, RFK or even a early EMK. I was going to vote for Hillary before she lost to Obama, but now I will be voting for McCain/Palin. I have seen Palin speak about her energy policy and I thought she made sense and sounded smart.
I live in Southwest Florida now and the economy is terrible down here. I don’t see Obama/Biden helping us down here. I welcome Palin as a true vehicle for change.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:02 am
I welcome Palin as a true vehicle for change.
How, specifically?
September 4th, 2008 at 7:17 am
MT,
Here’s one of the better fact-checking jobs.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Bill Bradley -
Your Sarah Palin take was one of the few sane ones I’ve see. Everything else seems to be hagiography or demonology.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Michael - you’re looking pretty silly in some of your gyrational speculation.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I’ve already put my money where my mouth is on my fundamental assertion of the Pork Queen of Wasilla being, in many respects, a fraud - I’ve promised to vote McCain/PQW (aka VPILF), if the Queen convinces McCain and the GOP to enforce a windfall oil profits tax, such as she pushed for in Alaska - and I contend is key to much of her success, popularity and ability to dodge a lot of the tough choices that most governors have to deal with.
Also have to say that Right Voices link is pathetic. Really pure partisan airhead crap that I guess I’d be cobbling together as well if I were some desperate rightwing ideologue. The media is being demonized for committing journalism. It’s really that simple and anyone who participates in this charade clearly has a vested interest in Pork Queen getting a free ride on the issues and questions of her integrity and judgement because…you know…she’s a mom. The right is outdoing itself in the business of shoveling horseshit.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:35 am
It would be useful if best-selling author Deborah Tannen weilded some specific examples when she gets her name out in the press riding her hobby horse. Not saying she couldn’t come up with a couple if pressed, but a soundbite doesn’t make a case.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:35 am
“wielded”
September 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am
“Here’s one of the better fact-checking jobs.”
One of the longer and more repetitive ones, anyway. Not to mention that it contains a few lies itself. For example, try to find where Palin clearly “counted McCain out”. Withholding an endorsement until you’re sure is not “counting out” a candidate. Oh, she said oil companies bribed their way to lower taxes, and rebated something the difference to Alaskan citizens? But that makes her NOT a fiscal conservative? It doesn’t even particularly relate.
A lot there I’ve seen, a lot I’ve talked about, maybe some things worth taking up, but basically not what I’d hand someone who wanted details, in any kind of well-organized, clear format. Get solid facts, distill them into slogan-level attacks that don’t do TOO much violence to the truth, and you’ve got something. This isn’t it, Randy.
It’s sort of the truth to say she killed one “bridge to nowhere”, but still supports the other. But is she really still supporting it? Look at the details. She’s stalling on funding a study to look at how much it would cost to come up with a realistic estimate for that other bridge (Knik Arm). It could be she’s still working on how to kill it once and for all, or just hoping it dies because people stop believing in it. Alaska is one weird state — the other name for that bridge is “Don Young Way” — Young being the one House member from Alaska, a state with its quota of TWO senators. There might be ways in which he’s more powerful in Alaska than the governor. And maybe she’s having to work around that annoying political reality.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:41 am
“I have seen Palin speak about her energy policy and I thought she made sense and sounded smart.”
I’d love to see that transcript - because energy policy is important. But I’ve seen her speak about energy policy as well, and frankly, there’s no evidence she has a clue beyond her status as Sultan of oil-rich Alaska. We don’t need someone relatively knowledgable about drilling for oil as their central “expertise” helping to design the 21st century energy policy. Unless, like Boone Pickens, they’re admitting that’s the thinking of the past - whether we go deep and broad in ANWAR and offshore or not - and who’s spent considerable effort promoting the althernatives. I’ve seen no evidence that Pork Queen of Wasilla has spent 15 minutes trying to develop an alternative and renewable energy policy. Doubt she even knows anything about the cost/benefits of nuclear. This is one area where Marc’s “Black is White” dismissive attitude is well-founded.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:46 am
“you’re looking pretty silly in some of your gyrational speculation….”
Yeah, reg, and I’m sure if I’d predicted Palin as VP a couple weeks ago, you’d have said the same.
I’m sure I’ll say sillier things. Eventually, I might even get more ridiculous than what’s actually going on. Didn’t Mark Twain say something like, fiction must be believable, while reality is under no such constraint?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:48 am
MT,
There was a lot of detail there and a lot of substance. We have to agree to disagree.
As for counting McCain out, compare the way the endorsements went from Clinton’s and Obama’s opponents in the primary season to Obama when they dropped out. The only major figures I can think of who didn’t endorse were Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, for obvious reasons. Counting out may have been a bit harsh, but prior to last friday, her support seemed tepid at best.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:49 am
MT - the tell in your speculative gyrational weakness is that you hedge that Pork Queen of Wasilla is not full of shit in her bridge to nowhere claims. The facts as I’ve seen them are that she supported it running for office, stopped it once she was in…but didn’t oppose it until the funding itself was guaranteed to Alaska whether they built the bridge or not. She “flip-flopped” - probably shifting to the more sensible position, or at least the “McCain” position - but taxpayers of America got exactly NOTHING in return for her belated “correction”.
I also got a kick out of your telling Randy to distill his comments on PQW to “slogan level attacks” when your rationalizations/and ‘what if’s” make the Obama “quick response” backgrounder look like it was written by…uh…Don Draper in comparison.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am
“if I’d predicted Palin as VP a couple weeks ago, you’d have said the same”
I have a hunch you didn’t know who she was, like most of us.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Meade might be talking about this, reg. Provenance of this video? I smell astroturf. She is quite an articulate panderer, you have to give her that.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I didn’t know who Palin was back then, but then, where did I claim I did know? My point was, you would have found it laughable. A “gyrational speculation”.
Apparently you still find it laughable. Who knows, maybe she’ll gone within the month, joining Eagleton in the almost-ran history books.
I just wouldn’t count on it.
Your biases are clearly showing. I quote from an article that quotes Deborah Tannen, and you snipe about her for not saying very much. Eh? You don’t know how much Tannen said. All we have is what the article’s authors and editors decided to quote of her. Or has Tannen already conclusively identified herself in your mind as … One of the Enemy?
September 4th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Michael - I’ll be clear. An example of a lie is to say that Obama isn’t responsible for any legislation.
It’s also a lie to say that when Alaska’s coffers were full because of windfall oil taxes she sent the money back to where it came from. At least according to the closely-held, long articulated belief system of the folks who were her primary audience at the RNC, Pork Queen would have had to send the money back to the oil companies from whence it came. Anything less is a redistributive scheme…kinda like Obama’s tax policy. So by base standards, she was not just peddling some of those shameless GOPer lies we’re familiar with, but hawking some Dem cliches that would be considered “lies” by virtually everyone in the room she was addressing.
There’s tons of low-hanging fruit in the Queens teleprompter text and it will get plucked. I can assure you.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:13 am
MT - with your Tannen response you’re showing that you want to have it every which way, while making dumbass insinuations about me. Get a little bit better with whatever you toss out here next. I’ve got a ton of work to do after coffee and will bid y’all adieu. This has gone into pointless circles mode.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:21 am
“There was a lot of detail there and a lot of substance. We have to agree to disagree.”
Do you disagree when I say it’s sloppy, repetitive and, here and there, dishonest? The only measure by which it might be a superior fact-check is that it’s got a lot of sources and quotes.
“As for counting McCain out, compare the way the endorsements went from Clinton’s and Obama’s opponents in the primary season to Obama when they dropped out.”
Palin wasn’t running against McCain. The political meaning of her endorsement would naturally be different from that of rivals for the top spot, by virtue of ideological differences. As a figure with significant GOP right-wing base appeal, and therefore a dark horse VP candidate, she had everything to gain by playing hard-to-get. A too-gushing, too-early McCain endorsement might actually have alienated some of the very base voters that, by virtue of her ability to deliver them, were her main potential asset to the McCain campaign. But she never counted McCain out, despite what your vaunted “better fact-check” claims.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a resource, but I’d want to cut and comb a little more.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Michael - While I wait for some water to boil, I’m going to go “slogan-like” on you and skip any further discussion of details.
Can anyone supporting the Pork Queen of Wasilla for the second-highest office in our fair land honestly assert that she would have been as popular/successful in her two prior positions as Governor of Alaska and Mayor of her town if she hadn’t been aggressive on two major fronts: A - a windfall profits tax on oil companies, and B - lobbying aggressively for federal earmarks to fill local coffers ?
This is the essence of it. If someone can make a case that those stances weren’t, at the least, very important to her success - doing things like sending tax rebates “back where they came from” - and getting lots of stuff built for her town - I would love to see it. I think I’m on pretty firm ground asking that as a question that…ahem…raises questions about Pork Queen’s rhetoric vs. her record.
IF in the next two months she can prove to me she’s the kind of tough cookie who can convince her party to support a windfall tax on oil profits that enormously benefited her state, her administration and her image, as I’ve said, I’ll vote for her.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Do you disagree when I say it’s sloppy, repetitive and, here and there, dishonest?
Yes I disagree.
Of course she wasn’t running against McCain, but virtually every Democrat endorsed one or the other well before a clear winner came out. I still believe her support was very lukewarm and unenethusiastic, even after it became clear that mcCain was going to be the nominee.
Someone from Alaska calls bullshit on one of her claims and it’s very convincing.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Pure petulance Marc.
I’m jazzed.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:58 am
“I also got a kick out of your telling Randy to distill his comments on PQW to “slogan level attacks” when your rationalizations/and ‘what if’s” make the Obama “quick response” backgrounder look like it was written by…uh…Don Draper in comparison.”
The Draper reference is a little lost on me, because Mad Men hasn’t made it over here to Japan on video yet. Anyway, I’m not even trying to craft slogans, so I don’t know why my failure in that department should be held against me. I just think attack lines should have more than a grain of truth, and should not backfire either.
“She was for those bridges before she was against them” would seem to be a very good attack line, because it’s packed with many grains of truth. The only problem is, once you start talking pork, it’s open season on everybody in Congress, including some otherwise estimable members, probably Biden among them.
I believe that, once you start looking at it this way, you quickly see that there’s not much in the batch of Palin revelations that can form the basis of sustained attacks with a net gain for Obama-Biden. My guess was based on the belief that Palin actually WAS thoroughly (but very quietly) vetted, by a team that realized what they were up against: a big state with a small-town political system, where they’d have to move very stealthily to get inside information. I believe that a lot of the strategic thinking on her was closely held, and that it was worked out over a decent interval of time, with pretty good information. Basically, it hardly matters what we learn or speculate here — the McCain people have probably already thought of it, and thought it through, maybe weeks or even months ago.
That’s not the story on the street, I know — i.e., the story that McCain decided rather precipitately, forced to choose hastily, against his desire for a more moderate running mate. And that might be how it looks to McCain himself. But with the money recently sloshing around that campaign, I can well believe that even McCain himself didn’t know all that much about the vetting and strategizing on Palin. Expensive? With a small, sharp team, working for a few months, why would it cost more than a couple hundred grand at most? Easy to hide when you’ve got millions. Maybe when Palin finally came up for McCain’s consideration, the team just did what savvy underlings so often do: make the boss feel like he was coming up with all the key ideas, insights and strategic concerns. Make McCain think that HE worked out Palin as the best choice — or least bad of some bad choices, anyway.
I guess there’s not much to do except watch the attacks play out, or, if they aren’t made eventually hear the reasoning for why they weren’t. There’s probably no point in trying to convince anybody of my point of view on this decision, which I admit might be wrong anyway. Basically, I believe the people running McCain are far from stupid. Therefore: the choice of Palin might well be very smart, or at least it’s a possibility I just can’t dismiss out of hand. After that, it doesn’t seem that hard to work out why it probably IS smart, or at least how they’d come to that conclusion, even knowing all that’s suspect or problematic about Palin, even knowing things that none of us could have known before now. After all, that’s what these people do for a living. We’re just the amateurs down here, and very possibly reacting in precisely the way the pros predicted.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Therefore: the choice of Palin might well be very smart, or at least it’s a possibility I just can’t dismiss out of hand
Only to the extent that we’re talking about her and not him. That will soon change.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Randy, you show no evidence of following my reasoning about Palin’s statements about McCain, for why she wouldn’t have warmly endorsed him. It’s as clear as I can make it, I think. So I give up. Not gonna say it again.
And whoever seems to have so convincingly called bullshit on Palin seems to have yanked that bullshit-call — I don’t see anything about Palin on that page. I even looked at the HTML source, in case my browser was screwing up.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:17 am
It’s not that I show no evidence of following your reasoning; I just don’t accept it. Many vp picks over the past few years have involved those who opposed the number one on the ticket. You really haven’t made the case that her being for Romney would have damaged her being picked as a vp by McCain.
I’ve had problems with their site as well. Essentially it’s about the natural gas pipeline. Try it again later.
here’s the text below:
September 4th, 2008 at 10:23 am
reg, regarding your A and B above — well, but of course! Japan’s post WW II political history is full of examples of nobodies from the sticks who pulled in the pork and stuck major tax bills to big corporations, and who came out of nowhere to take the top spots in their parties, even becoming PM in several cases. Very politically talented, energetic, willing to take risks, and perhaps doubly driven because, by virtue of humble class origins and regional prejudices, the usual and safer routes of upward mobility were virtually closed to them. That twang! That podunk university degree! (If they even have one.) I find them admirable, in a way, except for the results. Living in Japan makes me see democracy at its worst (well, not Weimer-Republic bad, but pretty darn bad.)
Some of the scariest of these toughies are the women here, from the more religious and conservative parties, a couple of them entering politics via little more than a resume from the entertainment industry. So maybe Palin just snaps right into a mental template I happen to have already near at hand, and surprises me less.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am
(While I’m rendering some stuff) For reasons that will go unspecified I’m reminded of a famous Robert Frost quip by some of what I read in this thread:
“A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.”
September 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Fallows:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/sarah_palin.php
September 4th, 2008 at 10:44 am
“You really haven’t made the case that her being for Romney would have damaged her being picked as a vp by McCain.”
Where did you even mention Romney in what you said before? Why would I be trying to make that case anyway?
As for the “calling bullshit”, it turns out to be something the Anchorage Daily News more soberly calls “stretching the truth”. Call me some MSM dupe, but I’ll go with them over any blog called “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” Strictly speaking, I agree: cutting a company a development license, and dropping a deposit, in the absence of an actual construction project, isn’t something you should describe as something “we began”.
OTOH, that’s a politician’s perspective on this sort of thing — they aren’t civil engineers, they are dealmakers, and for them, doing the deal and getting bureaucrats seated IS getting the thing started. If no ground is broken before it gets stopped for some legal or political reason, they’ll attack their opponents for destroying the project.
There’s probably an entire mini-wing of the Alaska bureaucracy devoted to this non-existent pipeline, just as there is for the Knik Arm Bridge, which (as you can see) has a very official looking website for its “Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority”, and probably some staff, even though it’ll probably never get built. I’m sure if you went in and talked to these people — who are currently getting stalled by Palin about funding for a study to look yet again at how much the monstrosity might cost — they’ll talk about the day the project “began”, even though it’s just a bunch of people sitting around at desks.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Sorry,
I left out the words for example before putting in Romney.
The sentence should have read ” You really haven’t made the case that her being for Romney for example would have damaged her being picked as a vp by McCain.”
As for LGM, yes they’re partisan, but “began” is past tense and nothing has begun and may very well not happen. That’s bs to me.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Gosh, so much demonizing and NO hagiography in here. The majority of America thought she did pretty good last night. The silly shit that Marc put up is typical of the Democrats Marc. Thought you had given that up for lent or something. You are sounding more and more like an Obamabot.
McCain*PALIN ‘08
September 4th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Given that the majority of America didn’t see her speech last night that would be well nigh impossible.
Talk about “silly shit.”
September 4th, 2008 at 11:43 am
As I’ve previously stated its really wonderous to watch the Stalinists of the GOP respond to the latest line from the Central Committee.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Seriously, its been MCCAIN and his minions spreading the story about that unwed teen who got herself “knocked up” in order to change the subject from Troopergate, the pork, AIP, etc. Its not working. The mainstream press is still covering the later.
And as for the kid - tabloid hell for the campaign and yesterday a condemnation from none other than Dr. Laura. Since the people this move was aimed at - other than the rabid religious right - listen to dr Laura and read those sheets this is bad news.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Onr final point. Last Sunday Obama and Biden appeared on “60 Minutes” for their first joint interview with Steve Croft. And guesses as to when PALIN will face the media?
September 4th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
What is also some “silly shit” is the notion that the party in power in the White House and in control of Congress for six of the past eight years - and effectively having veto power in the Senate given the ability to filibuster - is going to change Washington.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
“It seems that the boundaries of the acceptable are drawn more widely in the Republican heart, and that this makes the Democrats fight with one hand tied to their belts. I wouldn’t want the Dems to change how they operate, but it grates me every election cycle to see how effective the disingenuous really is.”
You’re right Dan. It’s not fair.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Palin’s diatribe last night was as tightly scripted as CATS, and even more annoying. Any one else catch that Palin didn’t even mention, by name; Abortion, Guns, or Social Security; and what her positions are on these things? It wasn’t a speech at all, but a bunch of rhetorical rambling.
September 4th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
“Palin’s diatribe last night was as tightly scripted as CATS, and even more annoying.”
You’re right David. It’s just not fair.
Marc, why won’t you untie that hand from your belt in this fight with Palin?
September 4th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Randy, you can be such a dick sometimes. I obviously meant those that saw the speech. Well, maybe in YOUR case not so obvious. Silly shit indeed and it ain’t coming from me!
September 4th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Randy, you can be such a dick sometimes
GM,
In the years that I’ve responded to your comments, while I’ve disagreed with you vociferously, I haven’t called you names.
You’re argument isn’t strengthened by calling me names.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
You’re being shrill. This may explain why.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The liberals are running so scared of Gov. Palin that they not only resort to photoshopped images, but now this “meaningful attack”:
There goes the gay vote.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Gee, when you see everything they believe all up front like that, they kinda seem a little…nuts, don’t they?
September 4th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
The left can’t stand that there might be a popular conservative, a woman, and non-secular person rolled into one. There are finding everything negative they can about her including this fake photo.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Do you know what’s more urgent to the Democrats than ending war and poverty and turning our nation into a socialist mecca?
The soldiers in Iraq and people without health insurance will just have to wait–just as they have after the Democrats took control of Congress. First things first.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Do you know what’s more urgent to the Democrats than ending war and poverty and turning our nation into a socialist mecca?
September 4th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Waitingt to hear a response to my Q/comment at 9:09 and 9:27 am above. I think those are pretty fair and substantive issues I’ve raised. But nothin, nada, from the Pork Queen’s couriers.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
>And guesses as to when PALIN will
>face the media?
Early and often. She’ll go out with that your-friend’s-hot-mom look, talk about Jesus, and the MSM will just love her right up. They’ll talk about her clothes and her choice of pets and she’ll be the biggest product this side of Disneyland. The electorate will buy it wholesale.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
But, Obama’s Rev. Wright is on their side. - Islamic Jihadists Post 50K Bounty on McCain’s Spiritual Advisor Pastor Rod Parsley
September 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
The fact that we’re still talking about Sarah Palin does show that McCain’s selection was not as moronic as it seemed.
The choice is looking smarter by the minute, but we need to realize how limited the prospects were for a game-changing VP selection.
For past six months, a single subject has dominated the right wing noise machine: Obama.
From talkradio to the wingnutosphere to Fox News Channel, it was all Obama, all the time. Even coverage of McCain was very often, in the end, about what it meant for Obama’s campaign.
Now, it’s all Palin all the time.
Six months ago, the GOP had two political pillars holding up its tent: the Campaign of Hate against Muslims and redneck identity politics, with some considerable overlap between the two.
Now that the Iraq war and events in Afghanistan and Georgia have blunted the Campaign of Hate, identity politics is really all the GOP has to run on.
So whether Palin voted for this or that or commanded an army or the F Troop is somewhat irrelevant, politically, as she is simply a stalking horse for identity politics. And it’s working.
As long is it was Obama vs. McCain, the identity politics card was buried somewhere in the deck. Now that it’s Obama vs Palin, it’s right atop the GOP hand again.
It’s disconcerting to see the fat, pasty head of Karl Rove rearing itself yet again, but, really, his ideas are what the Democrats most need to defeat anyway.
The GOP knows McCain as an agent of change won’t sell, so it has fallen back on the comfortable position of: we’re the party of hard-working Christian rednecks and they’re the party of uppity Negroes, Ivy League elitists and too-clever slackers.
Maybe that works again come November. I doubt it.
Obama has shown himself to be, by his own identity, temperament and politic skill, a very hard target for the Republican’s indentity politics attacks.
If the Obama campaign can get the discussions du jour away from Palin and onto McCain and back to Obama, things are looking good again.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
bunkerbuster - I do think there’s a downside to the excitement on the GOP side being about the VP candidate. I also think there’s an inevitability to the news cycle this week, with PorkQueen’s speech last night and all of the family drama.
Obama made a smart move going on Bill O’Reilly tonite against McCain’s speech. Brilliant counter-programming behind enemy lines and I’m sure he’ll be able to handle BillO Blowhard. The 60 minutes interview last Sunday was also very good media for O/B.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’m wondering if Hillary will go after PorkQueen on her bullshit and lies…that would be a headline grabber and would take the onus of Biden and O demeaning themselves by attacking such an obvious lightweight.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I know that with the internet and all, the ADD news cycle makes every event seem like the event, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t soil my pants over the Palin speech (John McCain’s done that in his Depends already, anyway). It’s September, the first chill has hit the Midwest, and the first NFL game starts tonight. Hell, even Atlanta Falcon fans are probably feeling optimistic right about now, with all the positive feelings and words thrown around. But then, after pundits and armchair quarterbacks finish crowning their paper champions, the game is played, and the final score unveils the winner.
Oh, and just to put things in perspective, Dan Quayle was once a vice president. In other words, neither Palin nor Biden is what voters will care about come November. In the meantime, I’m enjoying myself watching the GOP hysteria talk itself into believing it has a chance. Pass the popcorn!
September 4th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Well this is quite delicious! We have the Rep Convention in a split with reality. They are NOT part of their own party, they are the maverick reformers, and Palin the mean numb nuts is their alternate response to the Barack phenom, and their salvation - mind you all in less than 72 hours — I tell ya they are miracle worker, dontcha know….giggling……
This is such a joke that anyone, even any Rep with a partial mind, must be taking massive doses of advil at this point and going to their chiropractor for protacted and painful head spin from the idiotic rhetoric from their party.
Thank my stars this crap ends tonight after we watch the last of this mindless circus and giantic retro back to the 80s — I am in great anticipation of watching McCain as the dead man speaks, floating around the stage with his mike in friendly fashion — ya know — his endless “my friends” phrase - hope he did not take tooo many meds and can keep his train of thought for several minutes.
8 more weeks and counting for this terminal insanity to end, and for Barack to be our next Prez!
September 4th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Thanks. Palin is what she is, nothing more, nothing less.
> # evets Says:
September 4th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Bill Bradley -
Your Sarah Palin take was one of the few sane ones I’ve see. Everything else seems to be hagiography or demonology.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Jim R, I don’t think it can be so easily chalked up to whining.
See the Karl Rove comments on Tim Kaine and Palin and the size of the cities the were mayors of. You can find it on Jon Stewart. Just a month ago, Rove was mocking Kaine for governing such a small town, and now he is praising Palin for governing the “second largest city in Alaska.” Huh? Is this for real? I mean…
That’s just blatant whore mongering. It should bother you. It should bother everyone. It is shameless, unprincipled, and dishonest.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
“Sarah has had more executive experience than Joe Biden and Barack Obama combined.”
Um, and John McCain too.
This “executive experience” is a bitch.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
The All Powerful Palin Effect:
EV (fivethirtyeight): Obama 310.6 / McCain 227.4
DOW (NYT): - 344.65
Campaign$ (Politico): Palin raises $8 million — for Obama
Even WY has gone “blue”
I look forward to watching the GOP make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
DanO, “shameless, unprincipled, and dishonest?” Doesn’t that describe Obama’s Chicago political machine? Forget Palin’s mayorship. Her membership in the PTA has more value than Obama’s community organization, whatever that is supposed to be.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
It takes a liberal (Listener) to blame a Dow Jones movement on one speech by a Republican candidate.
It’s more fun watching the liberals trying to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse–with a sexy ‘do.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
“Obama’s Chicago political machine”
That’s Mayor Daley’s political machine. I’m Illinoisan, born and bred, and you obviously know nothing about either Chicago politics or community organization. But I happily cede authority to you in matters PTA.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Woody, yeah yeah, that was cute. But Samuel was cuter.
But seriously. You don’t have a problem with Rove on this one? He DQs Kaine for the size of the city, but singles out the size of Wasilla to show Palin’s great experience. Wasilla is 1/20 the size of Richmond. I just want to know your opinion on this strategy. Is it cool with you? No issue?
September 4th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I want to hear some discussion here by conservatives of PorkQueens windfall oil profits tax that allowed her to return money not to “where it came from” but as a redistribution scheme benefiting “average” taxpayers - which is Obamaesque so far as I can tell.
Also, GOPers need to cut the Teddy Roosevelt bullshit. He left the GOP for his own Progressive Party and was the first presidential candidate in American history to advocate national health insurance - not Harry Truman as many assume. If McCourage and PorkQueen follow Teddy’s lead and push for universal national health insurance, it’s another case in which I’ll be so shocked and impressed by the maverickyness of it all, I’ll offer up my vote to the GOP column in November.
Yes, I’m such a partisan fruitcake that I’ve put forward two instances in which McCourage and PorkQueen could get my vote base on either a corporate tax scheme PorkQueen has already pushed for and used successfully in her state or by following the lead of alleged GOP icon, TR.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Wikipedia on Teddy Roosevelt and the GOP:
“(H)e pulled so many progressives out of the Republican party that it took on a much more conservative cast for the next generation.”
September 4th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Are there any fish left in this barrel ?
September 4th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I’m sooooo afraaaid…
September 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
In honor of Teddy Roosevelt, that most mavericky of GOP mavericks, I propose that McCourage and the PorkQueen run on the MooseBull Ticket !!!
September 4th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Palin will probably want to call it the Moose Stew ticket…
September 4th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
This shit is just getting too easy…
http://tinyurl.com/65d7wv
September 4th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Samuel, on Chicago politicis, I’m willing to be educated–especially if you think that Obama hasn’t benefited from it’s dirty attacks. If you need an education on the PTA, just attend one meeting and say something that a kid’s mother doesn’t like.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I liked Laura Ingraham’s label about last night’s speech, calling it “Sarah Im-Palin’ Democrats.”
September 4th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
CBS Poll: McCain, Obama Tied
McCain Closes Eight-Point Gap From Poll Taken Last Weekend
September 4th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
She nearly beat Obama ratings wise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mThW5FdQO7g
September 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I think we can all agree that Palin was selected on the basis of McCain’s weakness, which is his failure to appeal to religious and “culture” conservatives, rather than his strength, which is his, albeit mixed, record of bucking the GOP powers.
Biden was also picked to counter Obama’s perceived “gravitas” deficit in geopolitics — a mistake, in my view, since the choice only draws attention to a perception of weakness that isn’t a reality in the first place.
Still, it’s Obama’s election to lose. The GOP is on the run from itself. How hard can it be for Obama to let his opponents destroy themselves?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Polls:
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php
PorkQueen’s national security credibility, from the mouth of the great man himself:
“Alaska is right next to Russia. She understands that.”
Later in the interview, “She’s the commander of the Alaskan National Guard…She has been in charge and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities.”
McMaverick implodes before our very eyes…
September 4th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
[...] insulted by the selection of Palin are steaming mad at her now evident competence. You can just hear them raging over the fact that this dim witted right wing fanatic like Palin got one over on the former editor of [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Lifted shamelessly from here:
September 4th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Sure Palin had a huge audience - 26 million. People were curious. But how embarrassing for McCain when his numbers don’t match.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Obama on the Palin attacks: “I’ve had worse said about me on the basketball court!”
September 4th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Randy, you are right and I hope you accept my apology. i was unthinkingly responding to the silly shit comment you made.
Nuff Said on that issue…
Still, Looks like all the obamabots are running scared… no other reason to say things like “Arbeit Macht Frei.” So, I hereby invoke Godwins law and Marc and his acolytes lose the argument.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
apropos my previous comment, McCain gets credit for this:
“Finally, a word to Senator Obama and his supporters. We’ll go at it over the next two months. That’s the nature of these contests, and there are big differences between us. But you have my respect and admiration. Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. We’re dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. No country ever had a greater cause than that. And I wouldn’t be an American worthy of the name if I didn’t honor Senator Obama and his supporters for their achievement.”
September 4th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
“I’ve had worse said about me on the basketball court!”
Not by anybody that counts!
September 4th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Woody before you gloat about the CBS poll see the breakdown between the last two polls on voter ID. In the latest one the GOP sample went from 26% to 34%. Think that migh change the numbers? But then you’re a CPA so figure it out!
September 4th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I didn’t realize GM was such an elitist.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
rlc, I’m STILL waiting for that 20 point lead and it is way after September 1st!
September 4th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
“I want to hear some discussion here by conservatives of PorkQueens windfall oil profits tax that allowed her to return money not to “where it came from” but as a redistribution scheme benefiting “average” taxpayers - which is Obamaesque so far as I can tell.”
You’d feel entitled, too, if you’d been a beneficiary for years of the Alaska Permanent Fund. Never convicted of a felony? It’s documented that you lived in Alaska for a year? Evidence that you intend to continue living in Alaska? You get payouts from a fund started with oil lease fees. For the rest of your life. Not so good in recent years, but they’ve been almost $2000/year in the past. It’s got about $40 billion in it. The population of Alaska is a bit over half a million. So the individual payouts aren’t even what that fund must be earning, unless they’ve been so stupid as to invest it all in this decade’s stock market.
It might be fun to do a side-by-side comparison of Alaska with other petrostates in the world …. not necessarily entirely fair, mind you, but fun. Maybe you’d start with the view from Abu Dhabi.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I haven’t read any comments here, and have been avoiding some recent posts here and especially the Huffington Post.
I think the treatment of Sarah Palin, no doubt a reactionary demagogue with no political skills - has been disgusting and misogynist. The public airing of her daughter’s personal life, hier guy’s myspace page, just out of line. Maybe I’m “old fashioned” and I realize all sides play dirty - and in the last instaane, its being done by the side I’d prefer to see win. But it is simply gross. You’d think some liberals would have a grudging respect for a right wing demagogue, who at least broke a powerful poltiial machine, quite literally, in a story that john Sayles would film. She’s in fact more admirable than most Democrats, if at the same time a reactionary, yes.
I’d almost even want to see them win, to see someone who seems ostentatiously non-neoonservative, a Buchanan supporter in 2000 - in the VP office. The ultraright are a peace party these days, compared with Dems.
Dennis Perrin put it best, no wonder liberals always accept the implementation of police state measures.
I prefer a reactionary woman who proclaimed that the Iraq war was about oil.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Whew, I guess we should all be glad that it’s too late for Canadian Marxists to get citizenship in time to vote in our election. That demographic could really swing this one.
I’ve been reading James Fallows, who’s not at all bad in his Palin analysis. He’s got a plausible line of argument suggesting that any extended McCain-Palin boycott of “that liberal media” and its pushy press conference style and talking heads shows would mainly be a smokescreen to keep Sarah from gaffing too much. Not that she’s some natural gaffomatic a la Quayle or Biden, or too dumb. Far from it. It’s just that anybody would have a tough time getting up to speed fast enough on every question that might be thrown.
I think Fallows underestimates her in some ways, though. <a href=”http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/sarah_palin.phpFor example, he writes:
“The foreign policy grace notes in the speech, including pronouncing the phrase “Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia,” struck me like George W. Bush’s dropping in the names of foreign leaders during his 2000 campaign — as a way of showing that he knew them.”
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Palin supplied the bit about Abqaiq herself. This woman knows oil, oil production, oil markets. If the attack on Abqaiq had been successful, it probably would have had much greater implications for Alaska than for any other states. That (selective) acuity of hers was brought home to me by viewing a long debate with her GOP primary rivals on a site devoted to her from well before the VP decision. She even zinged Murkowski a time or two on his ignorance. Believe me, if she’s well-briefed, she can live up to the Barracuda moniker.
Of course, Fallows can be even more wrong than this, depending on the topic. Much more. I was very persuaded by his Looking at the Sun. In fact, part of my rationale for coming to Japan to live was that its bubble must have been just a blip, and I was making a smart move by coming in just as its economy was troughing. It could only be up from here, I thought, because of the fundamental cultural, philosophical and economic strength of the Japanese Way.
Oh boy, was I wrong. I blame James Fallows. I hate you James. But I’ll still read you, when you make some sense.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Leave it to jcummings to damn himself by decrying gossip he would only know about through deliberate self-exposure.
Get thee to a nunnery, JC!
Meanwhile, the task before Obama is simply to remind voters again and again and again about what the Republican track record is. He simply has to force McCain to keep distancing himself from his own party, then draw attention to the naked opportunism McCain’s flips flaps flops and flubs represent.
Piece of cake. and I AM taking wagers.
GM: care to put up your collection of Star Wars figures and GI Joe dolls against my collected works of Noam Chomsky?
September 4th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
GM wrote: “rlc, I’m STILL waiting for that 20 point lead and it is way after September 1st!”
Uh, point taken, GM — this race is still too close to call. But … bad link. Maybe you should look at how accurate CBS News polling has been. Third from the bottom, just above Zogby Interactive, is not where you want to be with the betting man. Gallup isn’t much better. They can be useful when you want to debunk nonsense like declaring this election over just because McCain chose Palin, because as bad as they are, they aren’t a spinning compass needle. But I doubt they are good for much more. Wait for Rasmussen or Quinnipiac.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I think I heard one of the best lines from David Letterman. “While trying to grasp for Palin’s foreign policy experience they spoke of such things as being the neighbor of Russia across the sea, and being on the border with Canada. However, they all missed the biggest asset - Palin goes to the International House Of Pancakes a couple of time a week.”
September 4th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
“Meanwhile, the task before Obama is simply to remind voters again and again and again about what the Republican track record is.”
Yes, if you have to focus on the past at all, that’s where to look. And here’s some great ammo: an esteemed economist and former Fed board member tells it like it is, about the GOP’s economic record. Widening income distribution, lower economic growth, over the last 60 years. The tax rebate stimulus seems to have run out of steam, after providing one good quarter. The stock market just dived very sharply, on some bad official indicators, true, but also in ways that mystify investors, which makes me think we’re on the crumbling precipice of a crash. Bill Gross of PIMCO, never shy about exposing economic bedrock reality, just said we might be facing a “financial tsunami” yet (and you thought it had already passed?).
It would be stupid for the Dems not to take advantage of this, and position themselves as the Party of Prosperity. (And maybe downplay the Peace part a little, in view of the competition, and how quiet things seem on the war front at the moment.)
September 4th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
CNN is not as bad as I thought. At the convention, right after McCain talks about teaching an adult illiterate to read, they zoom to a mispelled sign in the audience: Some delegate (Alaskan?) holding up a sign reading:
McCain the Mavrick
September 5th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Now, here’s an event for you Obama-loving liberals to salivate over: