Yeah, I particularly liked the money quote from the campaign about taking criticism for the lack of vetting: "This nonsense stops now."

Ooh. Daddy's angry.

Posted September 3, 2008 7:59 PM by Michael Roberts

I couldn't help noticing that one of the "Democrats" that the Sweetness and Light people were excoriating is a ... Fox News commentator!

Over at the other board I moderate, the "Sarah was covering up for her daughter!" story came in suddenly, from just one poster, who had just joined, and who apparently had no other interests.

Today's raft of only-posts from recently-joined first-time-posters are all close variations on "The Democrats are scared of Sarah Palin!"

Hey, I can recognize astroturf when I see it.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:22 PM by James D. Macdonald

These are real problems. The right-wing press can’t magic them away. Neither can the campaign itself, though they’re trying hard.

I dunno. She gives a good speech tonight: the Press, having been "work-the-refs"-ed into feeling bad, declare her a triumph, and the story goes away -- at least from the mainstream press.

The key point here is that the right not only screams bloody murder when subjected to one hundredth of what they routinely dish out, it's that they get away with this. The press reports their slanders; and then it reports their outrage over any liberal questioning as if it's legitimate.

So I think they'll make this one go away too. Palin will be little more than a symbol of the evil liberality of the media, a rallying point for the crazed right.

I hope you're right and I'm wrong. But so far no one's managed to overestimate the degree to which the SCLM will roll over for the right.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:22 PM by Stephen Frug

That's interesting. I didn't know Sullivan was conservative.
On the other hand, I was a culturally conservative Clinton-era Republican once upon a time, but I have been informed by Reliable Sources that I am a traitorous, arugula eating, latte sipping, America-hating, terrorist supporting, socialistic, hippie loving, elite, baby-killing-supporting, irreligious, puts-science over God/Common sense/Big Oil/Etc, gun-stealing, European-sympathizing, big meanie who doesn't adequately worship GW Bush and his Ultimate Executive Privilege (of a level over 9000!) and dares to question the integrity of the fine people who defend our country from terrorists by confiscating laptops.

The irony kills me.
And I'm slightly disappointed at not having been accused of being homosexual.
Also, seeing "Posted by Teresa at 06:47 PM * 1 comments" makes me think, hmm, there must be a patch for Moveable Type to fix that pluralization error.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:29 PM by don delny

#2 James D. Macdonald:

Yeah, sadly, I've been hanging around reading (and occasionally posting to) too many political blogs lately and I've been seeing this "Democrats are afraid of Palin" quite a bit. I think it's more along the lines of not having anything else to say than it is anything real.

Kind of like the Noonan/Murphy open mike faux pas. They say one thing when they are "on the air", and say (or think to themselves) quite another thing when they are in the privacy of their skulls.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:29 PM by Michael Weholt

Her experience consists of 1 1/2 years as governor of a state with a population smaller than San Diego, time served as a mayor of a city with a population under 10,000, and ethics investigations of her abuse of power in both positions.

Is she channeling Spiro Agnew?

There's also talk that she's associated somehow with the Alaska Independence Party, a group that wants Alaska to secede from the union, but her people aren't saying yes or no on that. I hope it's true, good America-loving patriot that she's supposed to be.

In his autobiography, McCain notes that he's a quick decision-maker, much faster than "the other guy," and while that sometimes gets him in trouble, well, he just faces the consequences. He fails to understand in this case that it could be the entire nation that faces the consequences. He's selected Ms. Palin entirely for the purpose of his campaign, not for the country, under the premise that Hillary's supporters are such stupid sexists that they'll vote for to put her in office because she's female. Her lust for Alaska's oil is an added plus.

And now, after pointing fingers at Obama and saying he has no experience, that he's all talk and no substance, McPain has the gall to be miffed at anyone who questions Ms. Pallid's lack of national experience.

Self-absorbed hypocrite.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:32 PM by KB

Andrew Sullivan, for conservative purposes, is more and more a loose cannon. It's as though there is an intelligent and thoughtful man in there and sometimes he gets out.

(No, I'm not saying that conservatives are unintelligent or unthinking. I am suggesting conservatives have a certain...Pavlovian...reaction to any hint that everything the "right" wing does is magic.)

Posted September 3, 2008 8:41 PM by D. Potter

kb @ #6, "He's selected Ms. Palin entirely for the purpose of his campaign, not for the country, under the premise that Hillary's supporters are such stupid sexists that they'll vote for to put her in office because she's female. Her lust for Alaska's oil is an added plus."

Well, not just for those reasons. I've been hearing convention delegates interviewed by NPR and they're stoked! I'd expect that from the fundamentalist right, but even the "moderate" Republicans Robert Siegel found for All Things Considered think she's a wonderful choice (other than Christie Todd Whitman, who's lukewarm).

Posted September 3, 2008 8:42 PM by Linkmeister

#8: About three or four years ago, Andrew Sullivan realized that his supposed allies in the Republican Party weren't just trying to mollify the religious right with empty words; they Really Meant It with all their talk about the homosexual menace. And he was enlightened.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:44 PM by Jon Meltzer

"NOT everything the 'right' wing does is magic."

I really need the Police not to provide my soundtrack.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:46 PM by D. Potter

well, I'm a bit scared of Sarah Palin. Who wouldn't be? She represents almost everything I think is wrong with the country right now, and people like her. As in want to vote for her, like her.

And Carly Fiorina is pissing me off.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:49 PM by ADM

Well, if McCain is mud slinging at Obama for his church, shouldn't Palin's church be fair game too?

Lets talk about them

Or her environmental record

Or the fact that she ran the town of Wasilla into $20 Million of debt

I'm also curious to see how she handles any questions about foreign policy. She's got zero record of having any informed opinions about it. Of course, she may be a secret policy wonk. I'm not going to underestimate her.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:53 PM by Josh Jasper

#4, #7, #9: I think the final break for Sullivan with the Republicans wasn't about gay rights, but about torture. He came out strongly and vociferously against torture when the Abu Ghraib news broke, and to his credit, has not wavered from that view. The rest of the right wing turned on him for that.

The real point is McCain’s unbelievably foolish and impulsive handling of a major decision. The secondary point is that McCain has an incompetent campaign organization, yet heads are not rolling the way they should after a fckup of this magnitude. These are not the kind of mistakes a candidate for the presidency should make.

YES. I keep telling myself that Obama beat Clinton in part because he simply ran a better campaign, and that at this rate he should have no problems defeating the self-destructing McCain campaign.

Posted September 3, 2008 8:59 PM by Becky

this article in Time on Palin's early days is interesting, too. "How to ban books?" Indeed.

OMG Romney just called the Supremes liberal.

Posted September 3, 2008 9:08 PM by ADM

the far right is a whining bunch of sissies who can’t stand up to one little breath of a suggestion of a hundredth of the abuse they habitually dish out. This goes a long way toward explaining why nobody likes them and they can’t get laid for free.

Hee, nicely put.

Maybe Palin's family drama is all a smokescreen to hide her heaps of governmental fail.

Posted September 3, 2008 9:20 PM by Mary Dell

Personally, I'm willing to consider McCain's principal point with one small amendment. It may be that Sarah Palin has as much relevant POTUS experience as Barack Obama had four years ago. (Frankly, I tend to believe that the only non-incumbents who have relevant experience are ex-presidents like Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevent, but that's another matter.) The crucial difference is that the Democrats gave Obama the keynote address instead of the vice-presidential nomination and we have spent the intervening four years getting to know him. He has endured more than his share of shitstorms, some more relevant than others, and through them he has shown himself (to me) to be a man of intelligence, dignity, and vision.

Sarah Palin may well be all of these things as well. She may as easily be a rising star with feet of clay like John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer. There is no reasonable way that one can expect the electorate to feel comfortable making such a judgment in a two month period, and simply trusting any biography that Steve Schmidt is peddling to be accurate and complete is not on the table. If it will mildly ameliorate my sexist attitude, I will say that I feel the same way about Admiral James Stockdale; an outstanding American whose only significant flaw is that he didn't turn down Ross Perot's flattering but highly inappropriate job offer.

Posted September 3, 2008 9:28 PM by Matthew Daly

Good to see how an experienced editor Writes It Right. Rightly. Correctly.

Medical records are protected under the HIPAA Act. There will be real problems for any person or persons who uncover medical records relating to the last pregnancy of Governor Palin and the birth of Trig Palin.

It's automatically a federal case. Privacy rights and privacy violations with respect to medical records are pretty durn serious stuff under HIPAA.

Which, when you think of the Governor's stance on other related issues, is truly mind-croggling.

It is, beyond a doubt, time to end the Reign-By-Tantrum of these thin-skinned Imperial Infants.

Posted September 3, 2008 9:31 PM by gurnemanz

... and the next time you revise the spelling reference, I nominate principle. Sigh.

Posted September 3, 2008 9:32 PM by Matthew Daly

I can't quite summon the focus today for all 500 comments on the previous Palin thread, so if this is a repeat, my apologies.

The Murphy-Noonan video, wherein John McCain's former campaign chief Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan were caught on tape after an NBC interview, sharing their real thoughts on McCain's judgment in selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Even the Republicans are appalled.

Posted September 3, 2008 9:54 PM by Ambar

I give the McCain camp lots of credit for their handling of multiple scandals breaking at once: They keep releasing more and more information about the least important one, and the one where the candidate is most sympathetic. They have kept alive the babymama stories well enough, and for long enough, that no one will remember anything else that's come out about Palin in the last few days. The photo op today was a masterful touch. The sidebar on tomorrow's story about Palin's speech will be about her future son-in-law, not about the lies and such in the speech. And then next time anyone raises anything from the ongoing corruption investigation of Palin to her sticking Wasilla with $20 million in debt to her connections with secessionists, they'l just say it's old news.

Posted September 3, 2008 10:01 PM by arthur

Arthur, I fear you are correct.

Posted September 3, 2008 10:20 PM by Sajia Kabir

Um. I was sitting here listening to the Palin speech, and especially listening to the crowd booing and growling on cue, and I was suddenly overcome with the sensation that I was living inside Jo Walton's Farthingworld. :-(

Posted September 3, 2008 11:04 PM by Harriet Culver

I haven't been watching Palin's speech, just skimmed the transcript which was the usual talking points; but expectations have run extremely low, and from the livebloggers it sounds as if she's delivering it competently enough that it'll be covered as a brilliant success (this shouldn't be a surprise, really).

We're probably going to see a bounce for the Republicans in the polls; don't know how big or long-lasting it will be. It will probably start manifesting tomorrow or Friday when the trackers are covering the convention period, then increase into the weekend, just as with the Democratic bounce.

This is my request in advance that people not go insane with grief over this when it happens. Even if it wipes out Obama's polling lead. It's the kind of thing you have to expect. Obama seems to know what he's doing.

That is all.

Posted September 3, 2008 11:09 PM by Matt McIrvin

TNH, the PKD was the one I was thinking of.

gurnemanz, #17, the medical records can be made public if Palin wants them to be.

Posted September 3, 2008 11:17 PM by Marilee

@22: I watched her speech because I wanted to know that what I was reading about it wasn't filtered through the media, instead filtered only through my own personal (pro Obama) biases.

I was saddened to realize as I listened to her introduce her family how much it reminded me of the popular girl in high school running for school president on the grounds of having the cool boyfriend and the right clothes.

I didn't want that to be my response. I wanted to like her if only because she is a woman and she is in a historic spot for females. I was sadly disappointed.

Posted September 3, 2008 11:18 PM by aguane

Harriet@22 Farthing Scared me.

I suppose it was supposed to, but still.

Posted September 3, 2008 11:19 PM by eric

#24 -- me too, Marilee, if only because the DNA test for PKD was The big find in cat breeding about the time I quit.

Posted September 3, 2008 11:23 PM by Ambar

I had an epiphany today.

Remember McCain's treatment in 2000 at the hands of the Republican Party? The smears about his black lovechild in the SC primary, etc.?

I think it's not entirely implausible for him to have realized he can't win -- because of the mess the Republican Party has made of the country -- and to have figured, what the hell? I think I will RUIN THOSE MISERABLE BASTARDS FOR A GENERATION.

I wouldn't even blame him.

Seriously -- Obama is going to win this one. Indiana is a swing state. And McC's running mate is a three-ring circus all by her lonesome. And he's called Obama the Antichrist. It's just too surreal to be ... real.

The man wants to see himself as a maverick. He's not got another chance at the Presidency, at his age. If I were in his shoes, I would also bear incredible resentment for said bastards. Put two and two together and - viola!

Posted September 3, 2008 11:28 PM by Michael Roberts

Michael Weholt @5: [..] I've been seeing this "Democrats are afraid of Palin" quite a bit.

A friend commented that the phrase he was hearing was "the angry left".

I suggested we could make a drinking game out of it (do a shot when some spokesperson said 'the angry left') but we both had things we needed to do...

Posted September 3, 2008 11:32 PM by Rob Rusick

Sarah Palin wouldn't even have had to release all the medical records. A few minor ones would have done it, plus some delivery room personnel saying "Yes, she was there, she had a baby, that's all I'm going to say." That's all it would have taken to keep a seventeen-year-old girl from being dragged through the mud.

But Sarah Palin didn't do that. Neither did her husband. John McCain should have insisted on it. He didn't. This does not help me believe they're telling the truth. But no matter whose child it is, the fact remains that none of them have taken the simple, straightforward steps necessary to protect Bristol Palin from a ghastly experience.

These are not family values in action. This is child abuse for the sake of political advantage.

Posted September 3, 2008 11:48 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

One thing I noticed (among all the talk of "liberal supreme court" and big government) was the number of times speakers used the phrase "media elite" and "liberal media."

It's like the growl of a wounded dog, trying to frighten away anyone who frightens it.

As for the "Democrats are afraid of Palin" meme-wannabe, I liked the way Ezra Klein responded to Fred Thompson on that: Note to Thompson: You're an actor, not a Jedi. These were the droids we were looking for...

For myself, I watched her speech tonight (I missed the others because of work and family obligations) and thought it was fine. She read from the teleprompter before the second-friendliest crowd she's ever had (First friendliest: Showing off her ballet-dancing when she was seven to grandma and grandpa). It was an okay speech, but I wonder how she's going to do when reporters come after her without a script.

The real test for her is yet to come.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:13 AM by Harry Connolly

Yeah. I've been wondering about the baby. So have the mothers of little kids that I know. They know what a 4 month postpartum mother is like, how little sleep happens, and how little higher thought happens due to the sleep deprivation. We can't imagine how someone with a 4 month old, let alone a special needs baby, could have the energy for campaigning.

I can imagine the 3am call she could get, after she's had no REM cycles for the last two nights because the baby just isn't letting that happen. You don't want this person a heartbeat away from the car keys, let alone the big red button.

I'm not going to say that a mother's place is in the home. I might mention that a child needs two parents, and that it's good if they occasionally get to see them, but only because that seems to be a right wing thing to say when they disapprove of someone else's choices. But I will mention that the baby probably needs a mother.

Maybe she has a different family life. But I'm thinking different planet like, not just a little less attachment parent style.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:15 AM by eric

Has this been linked to yet?

Palin's church talk

"I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:20 AM by Stefan Jones

Regarding Trig Palin, either he is 1) Sarah's fifth child, or 2) Bristol's first child. Either way, things don't look too good for the honesty of the Palin family. Why? Think on the following:

Assuming Trig is biologically Bristol's child, the Palins have been caught in a flat-out lie. The math suggests, however, that Bristol could not have given birth to Trig, since she is supposedly five months pregnant right now. But stay tuned...

ssmng Trg s nt n fct Brstl's chld, thn t prphrs frnd f mn, Srh Pln's nglgnt ctns wth rgrd t th crcmstncs f hs brth - dstnt trvl n th thrd trmstr f hgh-rsk prgnnc (hr g nd th fct tht sh llgdl lrd knw h hd Dwns Syndrm), cpld wth dcdng t trvl ll th wy bck whl n lbr ftr hr wtr brk - crtnl lk sspcsl lk dlbrt ttmpt t hv th nfnt nt srvv. Hd Trg nt srvvd, my gss s tht t wld hv bn pntd s sttn f "h, t bd, pr kd, bt prhps t ws fr th bst"... whn n ctlt t wld hv bn wht mntd t vr lt trm brtn. Whch, f crs, bng n rcrd s pr-lf, Pln cldn't hv jst dn hnstl. h, nd mx n th fct tht pprntly th Pln fmly ddn't mk t pblc tht sh ws prgnnt wth Trg ntl ftr th brth, nd vrythng pnts t thr bng tht smthng thrghl rttn n th stt f lsk.

(PS: Teresa, I'd like to nominate "voila" for the spelling hints section. If it isn't already there, that is. Memory fails.)

Posted September 4, 2008 12:32 AM by Summer Storms

From reports, Gov. Palin isn't the primary caregiver for her children, so rested doesn't bother me.

That she's selling herself as this Überfrau who is both governor and mother, when it seems she's not (with the frisson of sympathy/pity/heroisme which comes of the child having Down's...) that bothers me.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:45 AM by Terry Karney

She's got other kids to help out, and obviously uses them (and I'm not saying this is necessarily bad -- most of the people I grew up with helped to take care of their siblings). I do have to ask, though -- if Bristol Palin is 5 months pregnant, isn't it darned close to impossible that Trig is hers? I suppose it could belong to the younger sister, but ... also, isn't Down's Syndrome much more common to older parents, rather than younger?

M, 'm hvng mch sr tm blvng tht th bb s Pln's nd tht sh trvld whn sh shldn't hv, pttng th fts t rsk. nd th rll cyncl prt f m thnks tht rbd nt-brtn prsn mght nt s mscrrg brght bt by lck f cr s nythng bt ntrl.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:46 AM by ADM

ADM: Don't go there. It's been (for quite reasonable cause) place out of bounds.

We shan't put windows into men's souls, but speculations like that are both invidious, invite terrible second order effects.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:05 AM by Terry Karney

I don't know, Terry. It seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder about.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:14 AM by Summer Storms

I must not post in anger, I must not post in anger...

Posted September 4, 2008 1:14 AM by Jen Roth

Summer @34 -- apparently you've never seen that joke before. Sorry if I rattled you.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:18 AM by Michael Roberts

I want to remind people of the ban on that topic.

It came up in another thread, and quite apart from the risk of inciting trolls, it was (and damned fast) leading to members of the community getting more than a little heated at each other.

We don't need that, we don't want that, and we have the power to prevent it.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:24 AM by Terry Karney

Michael @ 40: No, I pretty much figured you were joking. What had me rattled would be the dozen or so times I've seen that particular misspelling elsewhere this week (and the week's only half over) and been equally certain the perpetrators were NOT joking... *eyeroll*

Posted September 4, 2008 1:25 AM by Summer Storms

Terry, I wasn't there, I don't have any idea what thread you are even talking about.

I will reiterate my point that the entire thing, in whatever form, smacks of dishonesty on Palin's part, which is NOT something this nation needs in a Vice President or any other political leader.

Anyone who has a problem with my thinking that Palin is a dishonest person can go work for Fox Noise.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:28 AM by Summer Storms

Summer Storms @ 38: "Anyone who has a problem with my thinking that Palin is a dishonest person can go work for Fox Noise."

Actually, the part that's raised objections is the part where you accused your political opponents of chld nglct wth th intnt t kll. Drop that part, and I think you'll find that many agree that flying while leaking amniotic fluid does in fact represent terrible judgement on her part.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:34 AM by heresiarch

Wow, I just used the word "part" way too much there.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:35 AM by heresiarch

Heresiarch @ 44: If you'd read my earlier post thoroughly, you would have seen that *I* did not make any such accusation; I was relating what a friend of mine said when she heard about the whole thing. The thought had not even crossed my mind until that conversation with said friend; however, on record here I merely acknowledge that it is possible that Palin had that in mind, and that if she did it makes her look seriously dishonest, among other things. Since when is it a crime around here to acknowledge the possibility that ANYONE, be they public or private, friend or foe, is not as forthright they advertise themselves to be?

My point remains that there is something that just rings WRONG about Palin, on many levels and for many reasons. Accusations of unfitness for office, for reasons ranging from the mild to the severe, are a fairly standard part of political discussions in this country and around the world, on all sides of every aisle.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:52 AM by Summer Storms

I had an idle thought while watching Palin speak to that crowd: How many of those older white guys were really happy to see her (or any woman) as their party's candidate for VP?

No way of knowing, I suppose, but there were an awful lot of Babbit types in there.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:54 AM by Linkmeister

Please, everyone, just stop.

Summer Storms: I agree, Palin rings really false. I also figured those who were addressing this topic didn't see it in the Palin Thread.

Heresiarch: She didn't say it, ADM did, but talking about what it implie (or we might infer) leads right back to the problems that thread was building to.

Posted September 4, 2008 1:57 AM by Terry Karney

Summer Storms @ 46: "If you'd read my earlier post thoroughly, you would have seen that *I* did not make any such accusation; I was relating what a friend of mine said when she heard about the whole thing."

I'm fairly sure that you were the one who chose to type it, not your friend. When you repeat a stupid nasty rumor, you don't get to blame the person who thought it first. You and only you are responsible for the words that come out of your mouth.

(Also, shouldn't accusing someone of not having read your argument thoroughly/correctly be on the flamer bingo card?)

"My point remains that there is something that just rings WRONG about Palin, on many levels and for many reasons."

No, there isn't "something that just rings wrong" about her--there are many well-documented, concrete examples of things that ARE wrong about her. "Just rings wrong" sounds like nothing so much as the slimy, "ooh he's secretly a Muslim/black nationalist/I just don't trust him" rumor-mongering that's going on among right-wingers regarding Obama. "Just rings wrong" is the refuge of people who don't actually have any good evidence to back up their position and have to resort to casting backhanded aspersions against their opponents. We don't have to do that! Palin is patently unsuited to be VP in any number of obvious ways! We don't have to allude to hr scrt ttmpt t cs mscrrg.

I take back what I said in the "McCain and Palin" thread. We really can't discuss Palin's personal life without descending into despicable gossip-mongering, can we?

Terry Karney @ 48: Yes, she did. #34, about halfway through the big paragraph.

Posted September 4, 2008 2:23 AM by heresiarch

I was yelling at my tv, I'm sure other Alaskans were too. Though the cult of personality for her up here is disturbing.

I did yell this - "I am a bitter person who clutches her guns but rejects religion, and I'm not voting for you."

Posted September 4, 2008 2:30 AM by Tania

Heresiarch: You're talking to me about flaming?

Posted September 4, 2008 2:43 AM by Summer Storms

The annual budget of Wasilla when Sarah Palin became mayor was $3.9 million. Under her watch, it rose to $5.8 million—an increase of 49%--over six years. She also left long-term debt of roughly $20 million, or 5.1 times her initial budget.

Let's compare that with Bush's record in the White House. His 2002 budget (the first of his administration) was $2 trillion dollars. Six years later it was $2.77 trillion, increasing by 39%. Over that same period, he accumulated $3.2 trillion dollars of debt*, or 1.6 times the amount of his initial budget.

If Palin’s fiscal record in Wasilla were emulated across the entire U.S., the federal budget would increase from $3.1 trillion to $4.6 trillion by 2014, and she would add $15.9 trillion dollars to the national debt.

Palin: fiscally, she’s even worse than Bush!

*I’m not sure if this includes Iraq war debt.

Posted September 4, 2008 2:53 AM by heresiarch

Heresiarch: Ok, so she did. You were in the thread where the moratorium was declared.

You could have let it lie. Look at the way you and she are sniping at each other; that's precisely what I don't think we want, nor need.

Played large it's a win for the Republicans. They get to crow about how nasty the Liberals are, people start to feel sorry for Palin (and so ignore her actual record) and those opposed to McCain are feuding amongst themselves about crap we could be ignoring.

I've said my piece, too long, and too loud. I think my opinions on this are about as concrete as I can make them so I'll stop. Someone with keys can do whatever needs doing.

Posted September 4, 2008 3:21 AM by Terry Karney

Christ on a cracker, the bottom line (for me, anyway, YMMV) is this: Palin is AFAICT irresponsible on any number of levels from the personal to the statewide and potentially national; she is also hypocritical on about as many levels, if one is to believe all the reports about her positions and actions - political or personal - over the time she has held public office; she appears to have been a hasty and probably regrettable choice for McCain and his campaign; and if there is any justice in the universe, this will prove to be the undoing of McCain's presidential ambitions.

Seriously, one ought not to have to list the entire litany of Palin's inadequacies, errors, or just plain wrongheadedness in order to say that, even had I been likely to have voted for McCain in the first place (an event with zero probability), his clearly inane (or insane) decision to choose someone like her as a running mate, and/or to put in the same effort at making such a choice as a student attempting to write an entire term paper while on a fifteen-minute bus ride to school would have swiftly put paid to any plan I might have had to cast my ballot for him.

Posted September 4, 2008 3:38 AM by Summer Storms

Tania, you were not the only Alaskan yelling at the tv. I ended up at my parents' house this evening (some families the Olympics, mine watches political conventions). There was choral shouting with interjections from my brother on the phone, as well as frequent trips to the computer in the other room, so that we could be certain that the things we shouted were more or less accurate.

My family has been eerily Palin-charisma resistant. The nicest thing I've heard a member of my immediate family say about her is, "well, she's not as bad as Murkowski." Given Sarah-mania I have occasionally wondered if we ought to donate DNA for study.

Posted September 4, 2008 4:01 AM by Sarah E

Summer Storms @ 54: 100% agreed.

Posted September 4, 2008 4:02 AM by heresiarch

OMNES:
I have disemvoweled sections of a number of comments here. If you want to know what we're NOT going to talk about further, read them. Then don't talk about it.

Some accusations* are beyond the pale. Leaving aside the very real probability that those looking for malice will see it in these comments (and amplify it into outrage), we damage ourselves as people when we move such momentary dreadful thoughts from the private to the public sphere. There is plenty to discuss that doesn't go there.

Further comments on this matter will be removed in their entirety; I only leave the disemvoweled ones so that people can figure out where not to go again. I trust that no one will feel it necessary to once again accuse me of either censorship or enabling the suppression of discourse.

God damn it, people, we're better than this.

(Indeed, I note that the last couple of comments, posted while I have been cleaning up, prove that we are better than this. Thank you, Terry, heresiarch, and Summer Storms.)

-----
* This term includes rumors, innuendo, "my friend said that...", "I was just thinkin'", and all related means of discussion. Things grow in discussion, from thought to suggestion to rumor to accusation to anger to hate to suffering.

Posted September 4, 2008 4:37 AM by abi

#57 abi: I trust that no one will feel it necessary to once again accuse me of either censorship or enabling the suppression of discourse.

I just want it noted that that accusation was not made by me. I was talking about a political environment that we live in, and that ML is part of that environment -- not that it was "caving in" to that environment but that it exists in that environment and so is subject to trolls and attacks from outsiders. I will remind the room that I was the first one to start calling for the topic to be deleted, and at the end was begging for it to be deleted.

I just want that noted. I don't want to go into this any further.

Posted September 4, 2008 4:51 AM by Michael Weholt

Terry Karney @35: From reports, Gov. Palin isn't the primary caregiver for her children, so rested doesn't bother me.

That she's selling herself as this Überfrau who is both governor and mother, when it seems she's not (with the frisson of sympathy/pity/heroisme which comes of the child having Down's...) that bothers me.

Tried to find a link for the cartoon which appeared today in the local paper; no luck. Here's my best attempt to describe it:

Mom holding crying baby while feeling forehead of another child with thermometer in mouth; captioned 'Health Care'.

Mom driving car packed with kids (hockey stick sticking out of window); captioned 'Transit'.

Mom with shopping cart, reading list, scanning jar (while two kids waive items of their own); captioned 'Budget'.

Mom asking kid about to play hockey (in cartoon balloon) "Is your body armor ok?"; captioned 'Commander In Chief'.

Text panel: A Mother Of Five...

Mom with cup of coffee, legs up on desk, American flag in background, with cartoon balloon "Piece of cake!"; captioned 'Ready To Serve Day One'.

It does feed into the image you are describing.

Posted September 4, 2008 4:53 AM by Rob Rusick

Michael @58:

That is not the way it came across.

Posted September 4, 2008 4:54 AM by abi

Previous post: For 'waive' read 'wave' (useless spellcheck...)

Posted September 4, 2008 4:58 AM by Rob Rusick

#60 abi: Michael @58: That is not the way it came across.

Well, that's what it was. I will gladly accept the criticism that I could have been clearer about what I was saying, but if you still think I'm operating in bad faith here I invite you to go back and look at it again.

Posted September 4, 2008 5:01 AM by Michael Weholt

Michael @62:
I invite you to go back and look at it again.

I think re-hashing the matter in detail would be pointless, particularly since most of the relevant comments are now unpublished.

Leaving that aside, the next time I ask you to stop talking about something, please just stop talking about it. Change the subject, move on.

Posted September 4, 2008 5:10 AM by abi

#63 abi: I think re-hashing the matter in detail would be pointless, particularly since most of the relevant comments are now unpublished.

From which I will assume that you have in good faith taken my point that it has to be quite a stretch that I would be accusing anybody of censorship when I had been calling for the topic to be deleted.

Leaving that aside, the next time I ask you to stop talking about something, please just stop talking about it. Change the subject, move on.

I think moving on is an excellent idea and I think I will do that.

Posted September 4, 2008 5:42 AM by Michael Weholt

Michael @64:

From which I will assume that you have in good faith taken my point that it has to be quite a stretch that I would be accusing anybody of censorship when I had been calling for the topic to be deleted.

Do not put words into my mouth.

I have reread the postings, and I do not agree that your summary is a balanced representation of the range of your comments.

Move along. Let this matter pass into history as a misunderstanding. That is really the best offer you are going to get.

Posted September 4, 2008 5:51 AM by abi

Never mind. I've had it. This is bad faith. I'm taking ML off my bookmarks so you don't have to worry about it anymore.

Posted September 4, 2008 5:55 AM by Michael Weholt

abi @ 57... I trust that no one will feel it necessary to once again accuse me of either censorship or enabling the suppression of discourse

Abi Sutherland will be back in Abi the Censorian. Cue in music by Basil Poledouris. Darn. Where did I put that photo from Serenity where River Tam is standing on top of a heap of dead Reavers, with ink dripping from her disenvoweller?

Posted September 4, 2008 6:00 AM by Serge

Michael Weholt: It's not bad faith. You asked abi to agree with you. She didn't.

You kept trying to convince her/present her as having agreed with you. At least twice you did it in ways which forced her to say that she still didn't lest her silence equal assent.

If it were me, I'd have been less restrained in telling you so. If you want to flounce, feel free, but don't expect me to think it's because you were treated shabbily; I don't have the comments to look at, so I don't know (I may not have seen them) who said what abot censorship, but I do know that abi seems to be the most forbearant of our hosts and you seem to have been (for whatever reasons) pushing at her limits.

All of which tells me this is a really touchy subject, and we ought to avoid it like the plague.

Posted September 4, 2008 6:16 AM by Terry Karney

Why talk about Palin's children or family at all? Obama, IIRC, has stated that families are, and should be, out of bounds.

There are plenty of weird and disturbing things about Palin - her ties to Alaska Independence Party, her support of ID, her ties with the corruption endemic in the Alaska GOP and state government, her ignorance of what a VP does, her freaky religious and social beliefs, and probably more - that don't drag the Democrats into mud, and don't allow Palin and the Republicans any chance of being a martyr.

Posted September 4, 2008 6:20 AM by Wakboth

Terry Karney @ 68... Hear, hear! As for myself, I want to thank Abi for the work she does here to keep things civil. I'd call it a thankless job except that I just thanked her. Thanks again, Abi.

Posted September 4, 2008 6:21 AM by Serge

Wakboth@69

To some extent, I think it's frustration from watching the GOP winning elections with the same type of garbage. There is a natural tendency to wonder if maybe the Democrats should be doing the same thing in return.

Even from a strictly tactical standpoint, however, I suspect that getting into a smear competition with the GOP is a losing game. Plays into their strengths not ours. Better to find a way to move the campaign to more favorable ground.

Posted September 4, 2008 6:32 AM by Michael I

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Posted September 4, 2008 6:46 AM by Sten

Whether it's through accident or brilliance, the McCain campaign has done a really good job of steering the Palin discussion to utter non-issues. What makes her incompetent to be VP and how the decision to nominate her points out his incompetence to be POTUS have barely gotten an airing in the media.

[IOW, as #20 said, they may want this story to have play so that they don't have to talk about the ethics charges leveled against her. Or how she was for earmarks before she was against them. That she's running as a reformer is ironic at best. OTOH, sometimes, it's the stupid things that scuttle a candidacy.]

Also, the media have shown that they are willing to prop up McCain's campaign no matter how poorly he runs it. Remember when he was out of contention for the nomination? Part of it is that they like a close horse race. (Never mind the fate of the country. It's about the compelling narrative.) Part of it is that they genuinely like him. He's sort of a Ron Paul with inexplicable credibility. I don't see them exposing McCain as being Whiny McWhiner.

It's pretty clear from here out, McCain will respond to any charge against him with: "How dare you insult my patriotism? I'm a former POW." Likewise, he will meet any charge against Palin with: "You wouldn't say that if she weren't a woman." How courageous and maverick of him. (Ok, surrogates may do the dirty work for him. Because that's even more courageous and maverick.)

It all sounds like "I saw something nasty in the woodshed" to me. Quick, someone tempt them to take a trip to Paris.

#72: We've already seen Obama debate. However, you're right that Palin is an unknown quality on the national stage. With respect to the experience thing, the question the Republicans have to answer is why they think Palin is more qualified than McCain.

Posted September 4, 2008 6:57 AM by John Chu

Andrew Sullivan, a disciple of Michael Oakeshott, is a liberal? To what species does Steve Schmidt belong?

Posted September 4, 2008 7:03 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Thanks, Terry and Serge.

A little perspective here:

We get triple-digit quantities of comments on Making Light every day. We have hundreds of regular commenters and many brief visitors.

I read it all, every comment, every thread. That's a whole lotta words and names going through my head.

I am mortal and forgetful. I'm also mildly name-blind, tending to identify people first by their tone and their circumstances, and only later by their names. I have to really work at names.

The result of this is that very few incidents become branded into my memory with names attached. I'll remember That Dreadful Attempt at a Joke, but not who made it. I'll recall That Unwise Joining of a Pile-On, but not who was in the pile.

So when I say that we should allow something to pass into history, I mean that it will pass out of active memory associated with a given person. To the weight and mass of a regular's body of comments in this community, one awkward incident, one misunderstanding, one angry flounce, is as a feather.

Posted September 4, 2008 7:10 AM by abi

When Palin trots out her family for public viewing (plus babydaddy Levi), and then mentions several of them by name in her acceptance speech, she (or McCain) cannot then claim that media attention on them is "unfair" and they shouldn't be subjected to that kind of scrutiny.

Having said that, Palin last night only demonstrated she knows how to read the teleprompter of a speech written by someone else. Even the snippets I heard this morning sounded like someone reading a script, instead of actually speaking from the heart. Not that any of that mattered to the audience, of course.

Eric @32:

I'm sure Palin has a veritable army of nurses, nannies and other staff to take care of all her at-home children, including the one with Down's Syndrome. After all, she fired the cook and sold the jet, so that money's available for other personnel. Too bad all those adults weren't around when Bristol was posing for those photos showing her drinking, though.

Posted September 4, 2008 7:21 AM by John L

Will somebody please explain to me what's wrong with community organisers. Helping people get back on their feet, improve their conditions of life, get better housing, medical care, and so on seem to me good things. But Rudy 9/11 Guiliani and Sara Hockey Mom Palin seem to think otherwise.

Posted September 4, 2008 8:10 AM by Fragano Ledgister

I shall just note, for general information, that it has been alleged that some initial, "official", statements about Palin's past have, without any fuss, been deleted from web pages.

For instance, reported via Avedon Carol's The Sideshow

If this is as it seems, some of the accusations against Palin could suddenly look wholly unsupported.

Posted September 4, 2008 8:25 AM by Dave Bell

Will somebody please explain to me what's wrong with community organisers.

The phrase is associated in the white conservative mind with black or Hispanic people and their pursuit of grievances.

Posted September 4, 2008 8:40 AM by Matt McIrvin

Oh, bloody hell. If there's a measure of the sheer poisonousness of this topic, it's that it can set excellent people like Abi Sutherland and Michael Weholt at odds with each other.

As far as I'm concerned, the core of this problem is that it need not exist. The Palins could have cleared up the questions at any time. They still could. They haven't. The McCain-Palin campaign is using the ambiguity to their advantage, even though it means Bristol Palin gets dragged through a cubic mile of sht. The person doing the dragging is Bristol's own mother. It may be the ugliest episode I've ever seen in a political campaign.

We need to discuss the other things that are wrong with Sarah Palin. There's no shortage.

Posted September 4, 2008 8:45 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Rob Rusick #59: The cartoonist's name is apparently 'Singe Wilkinson'

Found it. The cartoonist's name is Signe Wilkinson

Posted September 4, 2008 8:57 AM by Earl Cooley III

For those who would like to discuss Sarah Palin from an issues based perspective, I offer the Obama campaign's fact check of her speech last night.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/09/palin_v_reality.php

Some highlights:

PALIN: “Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already. But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.”

REALITY: PALIN SAID SHE WOULD BEG TO DISAGREE WITH ANY CANDIDATE WHO SAID WE CAN’T DRILL OUR WAY OUT OF OUR PROBLEM

Palin Said She Would Beg to Disagree With Candidate Who Said We Can’t Drill Our Way Out of Our Problem. Asked by Invester’s Business Daily “Some politicians and presidential candidates say we can't drill our way out of our energy problem and that drilling in ANWR will have no effect. What's your best guess of the impact on prices?” Palin responded, “I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can't drill our way out of our problem or that more supply won't ultimately affect prices. Of course it will affect prices. Energy being a global market, it's impossible to venture a guess on (specific) prices.” [Investor’s Business Daily, 7/11/08]

Posted September 4, 2008 9:04 AM by Ronit

Fragano - I think it's that community organizers tend to help the wrong sorts of "communities". You know. Those people. At least that's my best guess as to the objection.

I could only watch a little bit of the speech last night, but I did happen to flip past exactly as the little girl licked her baby brother's head. (Well, licked her hand and used it to smooth his hair down. Same difference.) Awwwww... now I'm voting McCain!

(Well, not really. But I am starting to believe that the kid thing/family drama can only help them, because it's easy to ignore policy/morals/beliefs when you feel friendly or protective towards someone. It's where the whole "but some of my best friends are x" thing comes from, after all.)

Posted September 4, 2008 9:05 AM by Cat Meadors

Teresa @80:
As far as I'm concerned, the core of this problem is that it need not exist. The Palins could have cleared up the questions at any time. They still could. They haven't. The McCain-Palin campaign is using the ambiguity to their advantage, even though it means Bristol Palin gets dragged through a cubic mile of sht.

That's no good reason to give McCain exactly what he wants, though.

Posted September 4, 2008 9:06 AM by Raphael

To me the worst personality aspect that's come to light is her fondness for abuse of power. Firing the guy who refused to fire the ex-brother-in-law, firing the police chief who voted against her in the mayoral election, firing the librarian who wouldn't ban books...

Governor Umbridge.

Posted September 4, 2008 9:11 AM by Nina Katarina

#85: And I remember back in the 1970s no one took the real-life model for Umbridge seriously, either.

Posted September 4, 2008 9:36 AM by Jon Meltzer

[self-deleted; if I "go there", I'll do it on my own blog.]

Posted September 4, 2008 9:37 AM by Bruce Arthurs

abi @ 75... I'll remember That Dreadful Attempt at a Joke, but not who made it.

(phew)

Posted September 4, 2008 9:50 AM by Serge

From Fox News: "They both oppose a national windfall profits tax on oil companies, saying it would hinder domestic production. But she raised taxes on oil companies in Alaska last year, arguing that her predecessor, Frank Murkowski gave them too many breaks."

Posted September 4, 2008 9:52 AM by Ginger

She wants to go to Washington to "serve America."

She didn't say what she's going to serve.

Perhaps it's Jonesville Kool-Aid?

Posted September 4, 2008 10:03 AM by Paula Lieberman

My parents had copy of the official report on the Watts Riots that had pictures of policemen beating and dragging people. (The local paper had produced a edition with their own photos illustrating the official text). I had an unrepentant 60s radical for my college polisci class and one of our texts was all about Cointelpro, the FBI program of infiltration by provacateurs. I have never had the luxury of living in a world where had the illusion I could trust policemen to protect my rights.

Posted September 4, 2008 10:04 AM by Manny

Well, that's a new kind of mistake. That comment was, I hope obviously, meant for another entry.

Posted September 4, 2008 10:06 AM by Manny

Paula Lieberman @ 90...

"Mr. Chambers... Mr. Chambers, the first page is just a collection of English words with their own translation. But the rest of the book... the rest of the book - To Serve America... It's a cookbook!"

Posted September 4, 2008 10:17 AM by Serge

#9 Jon

Where's David Brock (Blinded by the Right etc. He's one of the reasons that piece of excrement got into the White House and one of the people who effected Clarence Thomas' accenscion to the Supreme Court--things I find unforgiveable) these days, to mention one ex-neo con and ex-Republican promotion "journalist."

#11 ADM

Palin reminds me of the sort of utterly noxious high school popular girl bully, charming to all the males and protected and put on pedestals by them, and busily demeaning and stepping on other girls, and in particular kicking ME in the face while smiling prettily and pretending to be Gracious and Wonderful, while the smile was actually one of "I am a bully and you are a toy for me to show my superiority over and I thoroughly enjoy hurting you! The more you hurt, the happier I am!"

And McCain, of course, is one of the boys hoisting the bitch up onto the pedestal showing off his pecs and manliness and studliness engaging in extolling her and telling everyone how wonderful she is and how wonderful it is to show off such a wonderful person as (the bitch on the pedestal), and by his actions showing how wonderful he is.... and the rest of the world's not supposed to notice how many girls/women he's stomping on as he shows his graciousness in elevating and extolling the bitch on the pedestal.

And the whole show of the pedestal, the focus on elevating the female, the faux-chivalry involved, is a show to take people's attention off issues of material concern, and instead focus on faux-chivalry.

Posted September 4, 2008 10:26 AM by Paula Lieberman

#11 ADM
Carly Fiorina destroyed Hewlett-Pacard and offshored everything but the sales and marketing operations for North America and the executive offices. She doesn't have the stature of a bad joke.... she's got no more value than William Agee, exterminator through his greed of Bendix.

Palin is NOT Everywoman.
She and I have nothing in common other than being of the same species and female and such.

I had a list of things which are differentiators, ranging from her having and marrying her high school sweetheart and me having had neither a high school honey nor a husband; her having kids and me having none, me being a military veteran and her with no such background, she being a hunter and me never having possessed even a gun.... but a computer freeze up lost the content I was writing.

Entities like Sarah Palin made my life hell for the eleven years I was in public school. My visceral reaction is that I hate her guts and despise her utterly.

Posted September 4, 2008 10:35 AM by Paula Lieberman

abi @ 57: You're welcome*, I'm sorry**, and thank you***.

*for what good I've done,
**for the damage I've done,
***for wielding the disemvoweler with such precision, and also generally for being such a good custodian of our conversation. Your work is appreciated.

Terry Karney @ 68: Well put.

Posted September 4, 2008 10:36 AM by heresiarch

Paula @ 94, 95: I also knew girls like that in elementary and middle school. I was blessed to have not one or two, but a whole pack of them in my elementary/middle school class*, a gathering of nastiness that was reknowned throughout the public school system of my town. To this day I despise them for what they did to me and to other girls who were "different". My partner finds it hard to believe that I could have such anger based on elementary school incidents, and thinks that people change as they grow up. I have to admit that I am not interested in finding out whether those girls ever changed**.

I escaped the girls by joining the boys; I hung out with the boys from second grade through the seventh grade. I left the public school in the eighth grade and left them all behind.

Sarah Palin is very likely one of those girls that benefited from her looks and her scholastic aptitude, plus she had athletic skills to boost her cred. If only she had been a pagan, liberal, environmentally-friendly, balanced-budget, anti-global-warming, academically-inclined gay-positive Democrat!

*My town was small enough to have just an elementary and a "middle" school, and all the kids in town went to other towns for high school.
**I have changed, I admit. I still don't care for that kind of girl, but I'm not as angry any more. I just don't have the energy to be so angry.

Posted September 4, 2008 11:08 AM by Ginger

#69 Wakeboth

Barney Frank explained why Sarah Palin's family reality versus the image she is trying to project is fair game, it's because Palin is the one whose entire political paradigm has a basis of a concept which is essentially, "I am a Mommy! Me being a Mommy is my bedrock identity and basis for competence and claim to pre-eminence. I'm just your ordinary Alaskan housewife, coming to politics at the local, then state, and now federal level, with the values and moral mandate of being a Mommy to remake the United States and the world into compliance with my Traditional Christian * Values Mommyhood!"

* This is not my view of what Christianity is/should be. As a mostly secular Jew evangelizing crusading Christianity has been a historically homicidal continuing threat for more than a thousand years... note the apology that Ellen Kushner placed as her dedication in her novel Thomas the Rhymer to the Jews of York, massacred by homicidal maniacs claiming to be Christians....

Gov Palin used the Family Card not only at every opportunity, but applies it whether it has actual pertinence or not. She applies it as bludgeon and obfuscation and billy club and shield, it is a flag she wraps herself in and a banner she swings as a cudgel....

She uses it as offensive and defensive weapon. It was her choice to wield it as banner and weapon and wields it as intrinsic armor. It's ubiquitous and permeates her public persona... and she chose to portray herself that way.

Since it's so all-pervasive about her, there is no way to do discuss Gov Palin with its omnipresence, it makes elephants in the livingroom utterly invisible and not there, in comparison. Why should SHE get to be the rider on the war elephant, with razor-tipped big tusks and big armored feet and her sitting atop the armored rampaging beast wielding a submachine gun shooting at people that I am among, while those she shoots at don't even get allowed to mention the elephant, let attack the blasted thing?!

Hmm, I wasn't thinking of it when the metaphor hit me, I was busily composing/typing away, when it suddenly occurred to me that the elephant is the totem of the Republican Party....

Palin with a machine gun on an armored elephant labelled Religion, stomping the the US Constitution and Bill of Rights(or perhaps the elephant taking a dump on them...)...

Posted September 4, 2008 11:10 AM by Paula Lieberman

Paula #95: Yep. I remember hearing talk about Carly Fiorina being the VP nominee, and the only thing I could think of was the amazingly low opinion of her held by a good friend of mine who works at HP. ("She's ready to do for the nation what she's done for HP.")

Posted September 4, 2008 11:18 AM by albatross

Teresa #80:

Is there a good, reliable summary of her stated positions on the issues, with quotes? I've seen claims of some pretty bizarre beliefs here and elsewhere, and I'd like to know how many of them are true, and why I should believe them.

In some sense, this is irrelevant. Short of Obama discarding Biden in favor of Charles Manson as his VP candidate and proposing to solve the world's hunger problems through cannibalism[1], McCain/Palin pretty much cannot win my vote. (Obama/Biden can lose it, but McCain/Palin can't win it.) But I'd like to see what this lady who wants to be VP really believes, based on things she's actually said.

[1] A swift path to the white house.

Posted September 4, 2008 11:26 AM by albatross

#93 Serge

As opposed to To Serve Man the cookbook....

#99 myself

Maccabees versus Seleucid war elephants....

Posted September 4, 2008 11:31 AM by Paula Lieberman

albatross: ontheissues.org is adding positions and quotes to their Sarah Palin page rapidly. When she was announced as the VP pick, there was essentially nothing there.

Posted September 4, 2008 11:36 AM by Jen Roth

Teresa/abi:

Thanks for stepping in here. (I have contributed some to the heat in this discussion, and I'm sorry I did.) The fact is, we're being played! The whole Palin family drama is the path we're supposed to go down, a bait that the MSM pretty much can't avoid taking, but that we can.

Simply nominating a woman after Obama chose Biden probably wasn't enough to get large number of women to stay home/vote McCain. But getting these issues of motherhood, parenting, babies, unwed pregnancies, etc., churning everyone up can stir up enough bitterness and mysogyny and hypocrisy to get a lot of women to stay home/vote McCain. It also fires up the base, by appealing to that "we are the oppressed whipping-boys of the evil liberal media" meme that the right loves so well.

Now, I think (as someone said long ago) this is a desperate strategy. This can give McCain a big bounce now, and maybe can immunize Palin from some kinds of attack later, but it can't fix the fundamental problems with the McCain/Palin campaign. It can't make her look like a reasonable choice for VP, it can't change her stated positions on the issues, it can't fix the abuse of power scandals in her past. That burning piano is still falling toward the puppy farm, even if Rove is playing one hell of an entertaining song on it as it falls.

Posted September 4, 2008 11:36 AM by albatross

In the "oh good grief" category:

Apparently the Republican Party, hearing criticism about Palin's lack of foreign policy experience, has decided that Alaska's proximity to Russia is justification enough.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/04/politics/animal/main4414663.shtml

I thought it was stupid when Doocy on FoxNews said it, but McCAIN???

Posted September 4, 2008 11:39 AM by John L

It doesn't really matter if it's reasonable or not as a VP pick.

The argument is between the folks who want to make decisions based on rules of social propriety and folks who want to make decisions based on the results of measurements. Pretty much everything else is noise.

Very few people on either side are willing to consider fundamentally changing how they conduct their lives.

Getting tangled up in arguing about the rules of social propriety is inherently divisive (we don't all come from the same social background/culture!) and it is of its nature a net win for the "decisions on rules of social propriety" group, because it is proportionately more likely to depress or disgust those on the measurement side.

The effective category of response from the "decisions from measurement" side to go find things (like deficit per-capita and tax burden per capita in Wasila) to measure.

The corporate media is pretty much completely, and pretty much inherently, in the "decisions by social propriety" camp; this cannot be changed. So it's really not either here nor there what they say; they're going to say whatever they think most benefits the Republican. Nothing can change this except temporarily, if they're faced with a threat of looking so ridiculous as to lose social position.

Posted September 4, 2008 11:45 AM by Graydon

Paula Lieberman @ 101... If I may steal someone else's joke...

"Mr. Chambers... Mr. Chambers, the first page is just a collection of English words with their own translation. But the rest of the book... the rest of the book - To Serve Man... It's a tennisbook!"

Posted September 4, 2008 11:56 AM by Serge

Jen #102:

Thanks! That's a nice link, and it seems to contradict a bunch of stuff I've seen claimed, like Palin being opposed to contraception.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:02 PM by albatross

Matt McIrvin #79: Of course all the people working with communities in Appalachia, or all white rural communities in the deep South or Midwest, are completely invisible!

Posted September 4, 2008 12:04 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Actually, I've been wondering about something, and maybe those posters who visit here from Alaska can clarify it for me.

Way back when George W. was first running for President, one of the arguments in favor of his "executive experience" was that he'd been Chief Executive of a Big State. Then came an article by Molly Ivins (I think) pointing out that Texas has a "weak governor" system, so running the state of Texas was in no way analogous to running the country. I no longer remember the details, but the column and subsequent discussions left me with the realization that the word "governor" does not mean the same thing in all state governments--that sometimes the governor has great power and responsibility, and sometimes all he/she does is schmooze the legislature (or something like that).

So what I'm wondering is, how would Alaskans describe the system in Alaska? Is the governor of Alaska the equivalent of the governor of Texas (with more land-mass and a smaller population) or the governor of Illinois? Or what?

I hasten to add that the information won't change my vote or my opinion of Palin's experience, really; I'm just curious. Thanks!

Posted September 4, 2008 12:06 PM by Mary Frances

Cat Meadors #83: Help the wrong sort of people get jobs? How horrible!

Posted September 4, 2008 12:09 PM by Fragano Ledgister

I thought Palin handled her spokesmodel duties well enough.

Interesting that the GOP is fronting itself as the Mommy Party at the moment, after tarring the Democrats with that brush for so long.

Anyone here see the film To Die For? I only read the book. But Palin reminds me of Nicole Kidman's character. Too bad it wasn't a bigger box office success, or it could be a valuable point of reference.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:13 PM by Chris Quinones

Paula Lieberman #90; Jonestown, not Jonesville.

Posted September 4, 2008 12:14 PM by Fragano Ledgister

The cain campaign has officially stated that this election is NOT about ISSUES. It's about narrative.

Their narrative is that here are 2 mavericks who are D.C. outsiders coming in to clean up the dem stygian mess of Big Gummit, earmarks and liberal media. They will succeed because it is Gawd's will, and the sign that this is Gawd's Will is because they have the Gawddess of Alaska running, and it is Gawd's Will that the new 'Laska Pipeline Be Built and thus it is also Gawd's Will to drilldrilldrill, especially in the ANWR. And so the Gawdess will Save America by laughing at Climate Change That Isn't Your Fault. Besides since she is a Gawddess she can clean up anything, and if it won't clean she'll shoot it with her great big gun