On the substance of it, I was relieved the speech was free of red-meat social issues. It was about economics, reform, cutting taxes and spending, and national security. In other words, it focused on the kinds of things that made McCain an attractive candidate beyond the social-conservative base of the party. After all the caricaturing of Palin in the past few days as some kind of religious extremist, the silence on these issues was noteworthy.
On the tone and style of the speech, there were some great one-liners for the party faithful to cheer, especially about Obama's lack of experience and real-world accomplishment. However, I found it just an octave too mocking and smug at times. I wonder how that played with undecided voters who are angry at Republicans but are unsure whether to vote for Obama.
For someone who's closer to McCain than to Obama on matters of economic and foreign policy, the main concerns about Palin are whether she has the knowledge, depth, experience, and general preparedness to be president. If you didn't have these concerns before tonight, of course, the speech was great. If you did, like me, the well-executed and poised delivery of prepared remarks does nothing to allay them.
Related Posts (on one page):
- McCain's moment:
- Palin's big moment:
- Palin's Speech:
She seemed really snotty in tone at times, which surprised me. I thought she would be trying to present a much more polished, gracious image.
If one has been following the news over the last few days, with the all-Palin-hysteria-all-the-time (or maybe that's just Andrew Sullivan's blog), you'd figure she couldn't string together three words without getting two of them wrong. This speech allays the concern that she's so out of her depth that she's basically a deer-in-the-headlights. But I would like to see her speak extemporaneously. I think she needs to go on Meet the Press or whatever, and show she has a grasp of issues as well.
By the way, I completely agree with your observation, but I'm getting tired of being accused of sexism and elitism.
I predict that you'll come around.
Of course, given that Obama's knowledge, depth, experience and general preparedness are virtually identical to Palin's, these should be the main concerns about Barack Obama too. But since he is male, nobody will bring that up.
Obama will be on O'Reilly tomorrow night. Good enough?
I have not read any of your comments, so I have no opinion about you personally. But generally, my reaction to those left-wingers who are complaining about being called sexist for attacking Palin based on the same issues that apply to Obama: if the shoe fits...
From the highlights I've seen of the speech I agree. I think the GOP would have done better by toning down her speech and not allowing Guiliani to speak.
Of course, the reason the remarks bite is that they're so close to the truth.
Of course its more disrespectful when it comes from an opponent rather than neutral observers (actually, stand up comics).
I'm also with Mr. Neiporent on that she needs to be away from the ruckus and let people know where she stands on the important stuff. Away from cue cards and such.
Of course you risk being labeled sexist and elitist for questioning the depth of her knowledge and experience without leveling the same charge against the man from Harvard. "
Maybe if you didn't drop "Harvard" in there as a factor predisposing you NOT to question Obama's "knowledge and experience." What Harvard has to do with "experience" is beyond me. And do you really think that someone from Harvard should be expected to have more "knowledge" of governance than anyone else in public life? Why?
I don't deny that Harvard is one of the world's great universities. But what this has to do with governing is unclear. The Harvard Alumi Association around JFK and LBJ gave us the Vietnam War, as David Halberstam remided us. Why the presumption of deference?
http://reason.com/convention2008/#128584
Nick Gillespie also furthers those comments in the article below that.
She was also cute the way she held her little brother Trig, licking her hand to get moisture to flatten down his hair. A natural future mother.
I think she gave the Dems both barrels.
I don't think the undecideds were the target audience tonight. Later, yes. Tonight, no.
To that end, despite his little factual flubs, I thought Huckabee was the most effective speaker of the evening. He managed to raise doubt about the opposition while still conveying a positive attitude. I underestimated him early on and still continue to be positively impressed and surprised by him. I wonder if he will run again.
One of McCain's main attacks against Obama is his experience, or lack thereof. Admittedly, Obama's resume is thin, although he is clearly talented, and I think his time as a constitutional law professor is a significant qualification. (The president frequently has to deal with constitutional questions - firing the town librarian, not so much.) However, the main, or at least most important, job of the vice president is to take over if the president is incapacitated. And McCain is 72 years old, so this is not just academic. Can anyone seriously argue that Sarah Palin is one of the most qualified republicans to take over the presidency if necessary? Even in the top 100? If she isn't, than the only explanation is that McCain picked Palin purely for political reasons, despite the fact that she would not be ready to take over if she had to. Is that really putting country first?
Arguing that Obama isn't qualified either isn't really a rejoinder to this question. We already know that McCain says Obama isn't qualified. So how does picking someone for VP who is at best similarly unqualified reflect on McCain's decision making? It seems its all about the winning, now.
If, one the other hand, one suspects that religious affiliation, ethnic identity, philosophical optimism or pessimism might have an effect in addition to the number on one's w-2, then the appeal of Palin is obvious.
And there are a lot of women out there who think men in general have handed them the short end of the stick just because they are women, not because karl marx told them, and those pissed off babes are not voting for yet another in a long line of harvard grads who talks down to women.
Please, please, please keep comparing Obama's knowledge and depth to Palin. Obama isn't the one who doesn't have a clue about what the VP does. Anti-intellectual demagoguery is ugly, too bad it has been shown to work. Not this year, I don't think, but the strategy, however ugly, makes sense.
"those pissed off babes"
Note to TLove, most women you would attribute this view to wouldn't take kindly to you calling them "babes", no matter how you might view them.
PS
Stating unpopular facts about the Chosen One is not being "nasty". Lying about McCain and Palin on the other hand is. Work on that, Pookie.
In this analogy, Palin is Bono, Obama is Manson, and Hillary Clinton is the Beatles. Obama stole Hillary's thunder in the Democratic primaries; now along comes Palin to steal not only Obama's own thunder, but also the thunder Obama had stolen from Hillary. By the time 2012 rolls around, Hillary may well find herself being the "other" woman in the campaign; for all we know she may even (heaven forbid) be up against a female incumbent.
(Cross-posted on, well, a whole bunch of blogs ;)
This points to the role of churches in providing much of the oratorical training public figures have acquired. The characteristic phraseology used by Martin Luther King, Jr., stems from the Southern Baptist black churches. Obama owes much of his skill to that model.
So both candidates may get help from professional speechwriters, but I suspect at least 30% of the language is theirs.
The ferocity of my feminist female friends reaction to the criticism of Palin on the grounds that she should go home and take care of the kids is remarkable (to me, at least).
I suspect there is, how do I put this delicately, mnore racism between white women and african-american men than the pollsters for H.Dean realize, a lot more. The dems failure to nominate HC, in combination with McCain's brilliance in nominating a working woman, is going to confound the marxists and H.Dean's pollsters.
Clastrenster,
She actually said in her speech that she was about to tell us what being mayor entailed... and then only said that it was more demanding than being a community organizer.
It seems odd to say "I'm about to tell you something" and then not actually tell it. I bet she either started veering off script and couldn't find a way back, or the teleprompter cut off part of that line, so she just skipped it on the fly (apparently, the teleprompter operator was rolling through applause lines).
Go Sarah!
I would have voted for McCain had he been the candidate in 2000. But this time around I'll be going with the candidate that appeals to the better angels of my nature.
Well, okay fine, the Senator's too fragile for it or people are afraid of being called bigots or something. But part of Presidential politics in America includes knowing how candidates can handle a little mocking and being made fun of and picked apart a bit here and there. We don't want these people getting too big for their britches. Bad things happen when they do.
We should feel free to go after these guys (and gals) because they are asking a whole lot from us, the Presidency, the most powerful position in the world. So just how tough are they? How do they take a punch? Just how self-reverential are they, how carefully do they expect to be handled by us, their employers?
This is one of the reasons why it hasn't bothered me that much, the otherwise despicable and scurrilous attacks on Palin from the leftwing blogs and some in the media. Because like I said politics ain't beanbag. And if you want the (second) highest prize in the land, let's just see what you're made of. I think she showed us that tonight.
I read somewhere that if you really wanted to see vicious personal attacks on candidates, spend some time reading American history. Apparently our forefathers served up big helpings of whup a*s on each other pretty regularly. Maybe Obama can pick up a can of that himself the next time he goes shopping for arugula at Whole Foods.
The only problem is that Obama hasn't trivialized her experience. He has actually had mostly very nice things to say about her, with the exception of the perfectly valid point that her ideology and policies are even more in line with the Bush Administration than McCain's.
So far, the only demonstrated benefit of her experience, trivial or not, is that she is incredibly good at being snarky. Maybe someday she will be able to mock Ahmadinejad into compliance. But as Dale pointed out, nothing in that speech showed any ability to be a good president, only that she is good at verbal jabs.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that, in practical experience, a governor is far closer to a president than does a legislature. And it never hurts to put the other candidate in the trap of highlighting their own disadvantages; to America, "experience" means Washington-insider, "foreign policy" means disconnected from every-day life.
The loneliest guy in America tonight is Joe Biden. He could only be a politican from Delaware; VP candidate and I'll bet he can't beg a reporter to talk to him.
Perhaps she's a uniter of both parties.
Where's Tim Russert when we need him?"
Let's not get into zombies again? What's with you Obamaphiles and the undead anyway?
But seriously, LM, when Russert died, I said to my wife that this was a gift to Obama. Believe it or not, it was his appearance on Press the Meat the Sunday before Super Tuesday that more than anything led me to believe he wasn't ready.
You can find the transcript, I'm sure. Take a look at the questions on lobbyists in the White House, on option buy-ins to government health insurance, and (???--can't remember the third issue Russert pushed him on). These were issues that Obama had raised a signature issues, but when Russert held on like a bulldog, Obama retreated into vague, defensive comments. The "We'll have to look into that" sort of thing.
I'm not saying that Palin would do better. But I don't think your side really should be trying to use Russert-DNA to clone him before November. Not that MY advice will stop this . . . this . . . new Prometheus-like attempt to play God.
He refuses (or is incapable of) pronouncing her home town correctly. He dismissed her as a mayor of that small town, conveniently forgetting the whole governor thing. In light of these revelations, do you admit that he has "trivialized her expereince"?
The day George W. Bush started running for President, Suzy. My how quickly you forget.
When admission is cited as qualification for the presidency.
I heard the show. I'm sure I still have the podcast somewhere, so I'll listen to it again. It didn't make a big impression the first time, but your description doesn't sound implausible. I don't remember anyone nailing a MTP appearance on the merits, because every politician has things in his record that can't be reconciled if their feet are held to the fire, which is what Russert did. The best showings were usually just variations of "stick to your guns" style talking point repetition. Not a strength for someone like Obama, who hasn't learned how to save the nuance for actual analysis and decision making, and deliver straight bromides for public consumption. But I don't remember it being a poor performance, just not an outstanding one. Anyway, MTP was a useful trial by fire for every politician. It's a shame it's not available.
And Obama does?
So of course any criticism seemed like jarring snark. That's how the alarm clock always sounds.
See here, here, and here.
JHA
Dale, that perfectly captures what I had not been quite able to put my finger on with respect to my own reaction as I listened to the speech. Played well I'm sure to the audience in the hall and the true believers out there. Not so sure about everyone else.
You'd be pretty close to right.
I'm not sure why people insist on equating academic achievement with effective leadership skills. I think they involve two different, only slightly-overlapping abilities.
And I really do love my mother-in-law.
yes, they both give prepared remarks well. no one seems to mind that obama does as well.
all this doth not make a sexism charge, but rather a class one instead
Ok, brilliant one, why don't you take a stab at question. And, by the way, you might also want to look up the word "sarcasm" when you review her answer. Might help you understand the meaning (as opposed to the text) of her words.
Let's try this as one approach to your question.
Take the 50 sitting governers, and knock out Granholm and Schwarznegger who aren't natural-born citizens. Of the remaining 48, who would you rather see in office then Palin, and how different are their qualifications and political philosophy?
Certainly Pawlenty--he was pretty much at the top of everyone's short list--so would you be just peachy with him as President? What about Linda Lingle? Or Haley Barbour? (Now there's a man with experience!) Jindal? Who else?
Dave3L,Let me guess--those angels are really, really lazy so you need Obama to make them get to work?
Now go ahead and tell me Joe Biden, who has changed his position on Iraq 180 degrees, is a "foreign policy expert."
You're joking, right?
The Obama campaign has constantly referred to her as "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy" while of course not being able to bring themselves to mention she is the Governor.
Jindal, no. He's got even less experience and, as someone who lived in Louisiana for many years, my conclusion is that his accomplishments are more imaginary than real. He's got a weird cult of personality building in right wing circles that puts anything of Obama's to shame. Places like Freerepublic were referring to him as the future president of the U.S. back during his failed 2003 governor's race.
So which line is least likely to occur in English? That one, or George Carlin's Yesterday I played softball with Hilter?
Which any Wittgensteinian will tell you does not count as an example of Godwin's Law, since it is a meta-reference.
I take it you don't watch much news. In a recent statement that was all over the news and headlined on Drudge, Obama attempted to demean Palin's experience by claiming his campaign had more staff and a bigger budget than the town she ran as mayor. The statement was so intellectually dishonest that Obama did not bother to acknowledge that Palin is the governor of Alaska, that as governor she manages many more people than Obama ever has, or that as governor she is responsible for a much larger budget. If Obama needs to compare himself with a small town mayor in order to look competent, then I would refer him (and the previous poster defending him) to the famous admonition of Mark Twain: "Better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
Wait! That's right. He's the one who doesn't know what the UN Security Council does.
(Enough already. Geez.)
Uh, aren't all girls natural future mothers?
If you were to line up all the sitting GOP governors from most qualified to be president to last, Palin would be very close to the back of the line, in terms of experience and accomplishments. She hasn't been governor of Alaska long enough to judge whether she's even really any good at that job. Then throw in all the legislators and former governors, and it is obvious that McCain took her not because he thought she would be even close to the most qualified VP, but because he thought she might help him get elected. That's not an improper reason to select someone, in fact its pretty typical. But McCain claims to be different. And if experience is so important, how can he justify selecting someone who, by his criteria, would not be ready to take over if something happened to him. Mr. "Straight Talk" is just as much a pandering politician as everyone else. He just won't admit it.
Thanks for taking a swing at it. To pursue the question a bit further:
If you wouldn't mind, could you amplify a bit on what this means for the experience/principles divide? In a crisis, you really want someone who would be good at doing the opposite of what you think should be done? (And no, that's not meant as a snarky rhetorical question, but as an illustration of what I don't understand about the "experience uber alles" point of view. I'm perfectly willing to accept that my restatement is a reductio ad absurdum, provided you explain why it is rather than just assert it.)
But Wayne, your reply is just another way of saying what you already said. Any chance of getting your take on those other specific governers I mentioned?
There are many things that are non-political and non-ideological. Emergencies are some of those. Natural disasters, disease outbreaks, nuclear proliferation, wars between foreign nations in which the United States has a stake (at least ideally these are nonpartisan), etc. There's also the simple matter of doing routine, noncontroversial things while being under intense scrutiny from the media and the general public.
I don't think being a small town mayor and governor of a quirky place like Alaska has prepared Palin for the scrutiny and pressure of the national stage. My opinion is that those come only after time and only after experiencing high pressure situations and intense scrutiny. A successful re-election campaign as governor in which you have an extensive record to defend under withering fire would be a step in that process.
Someone should explain just exactly what "high pressure situations" that have anything to do with running the government either Barack Obama or Joe Biden has experienced. Sitting for a Bar Exam doesn't count. I've done that and I'm sure no one thinks I'm qualified to be President.
Alaska is a "quirky" state? Wow, not too much condescension there. Clearly someone who hasn't traveled to very many states. Here's a tip: they're all quirky in one way or another.
"On the teleprompter issue, it's been confirmed that there were teleprompter problems about half-way thorugh her speech, and she winged much of the second half.
See here, here, and here. JHA"
i.e. restate and national review. Meanwhile, people that actually watched the teleprompter, or watched her reading from it the entire speech, said it had no major issues: it might have gotten ahead of where is she was here and there, but there was no winging it.
Seriously, isn't it enough to say that she gave a good speech without trying to turn it into some sort of mythical episode?
"The content? The actual content was pretty much nonsense from start to finish. She repeated the already well debunked claim to have been against the bridge to nowhere."
Have people forgotten how the English language works? If she was against it five minutes ago, the statement "She was against it." is true. Have at her with the "She was for it before she was against it," if you think you can make it stick, but calling it a lie is, well, a lie.
Am I being disingenuous? You really want to compare her record on earmarks with any other state pol? Congress?
She's a young Clinton (Bill). I was disappointed in his partisanship then and hers now. But the best, disinterested leaders didn't get there by being disinterested.
A successful re-election campaign as Senator in which you have an extensive record to defend under withering fire might equally well be a step in the process. Right?
But Obama hasn't been reelected to the US senate.
Obama's 2004 election to the US Senate could be called quirky. After all, the original GOP candidate -- who might have won -- left as a result of a scandal, and then the idiots in the Illinois GOP picked a carpetbagger from Maryland who leaned far to the right compared to most Illinois voters and elected officials to run replace the original GOP choice. The entire GOP was also in a disarray.
The reality is that Obama has also not been in the public eye for long. Chicagoans were familiar with him, but he wasn't even well know in Illinois until his race for the US senate in Illinois.
This doesn't mean Obama was a poor candidate when he threw his hat into the ring for President last year. Why does Palin need to be re-elected as Governor while Obama gets a pass on being re-elected as Senator?
In both cases, the scrutiny is now occurring. We'll learn more about Palin and see whether she holds up. Maybe she will; maybe she won't.
She was against it.
This wasn't "debunked" by you or anyone else.
1. If I don't pick her, I'll lose.
2. If I lose, Obama will win.
3. If Obama wins, then someone unqualified will actually be president.
4. That would be very bad for the country.
5. My winning would be very good for the country.
6. Therefore, even though she's not experienced, picking her is in the best interests of the country.
You can debate any of those points (except #2), but if one believes them, then picking her is the non-cynical choice.
Cook is a quirky county.
And crooked.
Essentialist!
Wasn't it just 2 days ago she was a rube with a degree from Idaho governing like 50 people?
Pure silliness.
The idea that Obama has been subject to "scrutiny" is obscene. He has been asked 1 time about his association Bill Ayers and he lied about it and simply got away with the lie.
Why?
Because he is not under any sort of scrutiny.
"Pressure"
What a joke.
I wonder how many viewers McCain will get?
you could say the same about hawaii. i've lived in both.
fwiw, i'd vote for linda lingle -- republican (in an overwhelmingly dem state) as well. but she's from hawaii. it's too "QUIRKY" AND HAS "LITTLE IN COMMON"
what crap.
was this argument used against howard dean? vermont is full of frigging HIPPIES (cartman)!!!!! how quirky!
it's wonderful to see people grasping in trying to diss palin. "quirky". kripes
Did you not notice I said
Obama entered the race as an unknown. He was largely introduced and scrutinized during the current race. During the primary, the public slowly grew to know who Obama is.
From now until November, people will grow to know who Palin is. (The difference is, in the case of the November election, we won't be learning as votes trickle in.)
If Palin does not hold up to scrutiny, she will crash, burn and take McCain down with her. But by November, if she has held up, she will have experienced precisely the scrutiny you describe as necessary.
I admit that had I been McCain, I would not have picked Palin. But the fact that I don't know much about her yet it not particularly important to me.
None of us need to decide who to vote for today. Many of us -- including me-- won't decide until late October or early November. By then, we will likely have the information we need.
Yes. You're being disingenuous. She didn't claim to be no worse than anyone else, she claimed to be virtually self-sacrificial on the earmark question. She picked out the most publicized earmark of recent years, one that was to come to her state, and made a big deal of her opposition as a sign of devotion to reform, etc.
She opposed it only when the feds cut the funding for it and Alaska was going to have to pay. So the claim of great virtue, almost the first thing she said when McCain announced his pick, was a big lie.
McCain people: you have been claiming that good speeches are nice but are no substitute for experience. Now, with Palin the opposite is true? I do not understand why your heads do not explode.
I don't know, but Obama's campaign seems to be doing it too.
When the professoriate decided that despising the US, and the West in general, was a good career move.
As I've said before. Hell, as I live every day. The anti-Americanism that gets attributed to liberals and Democrats in general does exist. It just isn't a characteristic of liberals and Democrats in general.
It is the special characteristic of a subset: The academic leftist. Joe Biden has about as much in common with their anti-American views as does, say, Huckabee. But because they are so vocal, and so rabidly pro-liberal Democrat in their advocacy, a lot of people on my side make the menatal jump and equate the people they support with them.
Which makes sense, but only if one also concedes that the Cubs can't hit curve balls, since I can't hit a curve, and I am a rabid Cubs fan. If you follow.
I am an academic. So I am not a college-bashing anti-intellectual. But I see the real limits of my professional colleagues, and thus of the education that one receives from them.
To be honest--and I'd say this if the candidates' alma maters were reversed--Palin may have access to a broader range of political opinions and scholarly methodologies at Idaho than she would have had she gone to, say, Dartmouth. I can vouch that there is greater diversity of opinion among the letters faculties of Wayne State U. than would be found at Ann Arbor.
This doesn't mean that Obama did not receive a great undergrad education at Harvard. But fetishizing the USNWR "Top 12" is one of the major problems we have in academia today. I don't want to import it into our politics.
By the way, Palin failed to note in her speech that BOTH GOP candidates are graduates of public institutions. Why not makes that claim public? There are a helluva lot more grads of Minnesota, Ohio State, and PSU than of Carleton, Oberlin, and Penn.
I'm sure that ACE can tell us all about his experience in life that is similar to running for national political office for 18 months with his every action open to criticism which will give him the reference point to make that claim. Step up and share your experience ACE.
She was against it."
Wow, ACE, you are really on a roll with your disinformation and in this case, outright lies.
"In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska's Congressional delegation during her run for governor."
No, she wasn't against it. She supported it and then flip-flopped when it turned from a political opportunity to a political liability.
As far as Alaska vs. Hawaii, there is not that I know of a single state whose economy is as one-dimensional as Alaska's. Over 80% of its economy is petroleum, most of the rest is fishing. Just like the rest of the country, right? Linda Lingle is far more qualified than Palin, but would never have been nominated since she is pro-choice. Pro-choice people are persona non grata in the little tent of GOP leaders.
Who said 2 months equals 21 months?
But how do you get 21 months of intensive press scrutiny for Obama? Whether I use new or old math, I can't figure out how you come up with 21 months of intensive intensive scrutiny for Obama. Surely you don't believe he was getting "under a constant spotlight" more than 12 months ago-- around the time of the August 2007 strawpoll? Surely you don't think the Obama scrutiny was "under a constant spotlight" before Jan 2008 Iowa caucus? Back then there were zillions of candidates and Hilary was inevitable, remember?
Heck, I'm in the suburbs of Chicago. Even the local papers didn't focus intensively on Obama until after he began to accrue votes which was certainly not 21 months ago!
The maximum possible estimate for the period of time during which Obama or any of the others who threw their hats in the political ring as a result of running for office is 7 months-- or maybe 8. At that, the spotlight was dimmed because the press was covering both the GOP and DEM sides of the primary. Of the subset of reporters covering the DEM side quite a few members of the third estate also covered Hilary. During early parts of the race, they covered other candidates who had not dropped out.
So, how long as Obama been under an spotlight? Maybe four.
So, in reality, the upcoming 2 months of scrutiny of someone who is the known choice is substantial compared to what you have tried to characterize as "21 months" of being in the spotlight!
Currently, Obama is under a bright spotlight. So is McCain. So, are Palin and Biden.
We'll learn as much about Palin by November as we know about Obama now. We may learn more about Obama, since the full media focus is ramping up as November approaches.
As I said: I don't need to decide my vote until November, and I don't plan to decide. Many people won't. By the time people are voting Palin will either have survived or died. And if she's survived, your trying to use Obamas winning a nomination as experience will looks utterly silly. If she's crashed and burned, it will be irrelevant.
Actually, he didn't. His undergraduate degree is from Columbia.
Link
What precisely is your point? That Obama got some coverage in 2007? No one denies this. He was a senator. He threw his hat in the ring. He got some coverage. So did everyone who entered the race.
But, let me to very slowly. Announcing your candidacy does not automatically put you into some "spotlight" that reveals all to the American public. Nor does it mean there is an intense amount of investigation into your background. It means you got some coverages.
The fact that the first story in your link has a title
"FOX revelations of what Sandy Berger "might have" stolen and what they "may have" said, reported by Chrish, " does not exactly support your claim of that Obama under "the spotlight."
Sure if I use my Firefox your search tool, I can find some Obama stories on that page listing zillions of stories. I also also find clinton stories, biden stories, and stories on everyone who announced. There are stories on everyone who was running.
How is this "a spotlight"? It's precisely what I described earlier: The press provided diluted coverage of everyone back in Jan 2007
Not only that, the list includes "important" stories like:
"Should They Change The Name To The Chicken News Channel?, reported by Ellen,"
So, in other words, to prove your claim that Obama was under some sort of brilliant spot lint, you link a catch all list of stories. How is this intense scrutiny? It coverage-- but that's not always quite the same thing.
If your point is we know more about Obama right now than we know about Palin: Yes. Of course. No one denies that.
We will learn more about Palin in the next between now and november. At that point, we can decide what we think of her.
Some may decide that because they don't know enough this instant that they should make up their mind immediately. But that seems odd and unwise to me. I'm sure the media will now do what they always do and cover her.
Then, well learn more. So, as I said: By November, either she will have crashed and burned under the scrutiny, or she will have survived. Just like Obama.
And, of course, we will also learn more of Obama.
Indeed. She thinks she can get away with selling us a phony story about a bridge. She is also in the process of getting trapped in her lies regarding Troopergate.
You might want to try Googling "Troopergate Clinton" and see what you come up with. Then ponder how well your strategy worked for the Republicans against him...
Why the attempt to distract us from the real topic?
We all know the reason that Palin wants Bristol to bear her child is because Palin subsists on a diet of RAW BABIES!
Actually, he didn't. His undergraduate degree is from Columbia.
Columbia?
Well no wonder he was on cocaine!
Well said Sally, and I agree wholeheartedly. I would like to present another perspective.
Leading up to the speech there were despicable and scurrilous attacks on Palin from the leftwing blogs A pundit (George Wills, IIRC in the Washington Post) suggested, that Palin withdraw from the race to save herself embarassment; then McCain won't have to call mini-convention to choose a new VP candidate. She had to kick some ass; she had to tell the world that if you dis me, I'll kick your ass. This was business, not only personal. If she just meekly took the abuse, then George Will would be correct; then she should withdraw.
The camera panned to her family throughout the speech. And previously she made no secret that Bristol's boyfriend Levi had come to the convention. I at first thought thought it tacky ... this is business; don't drag your family into it. Then I realized what she was doing. She was saying This is my family, you got a problem? . And bringing Levi to the convention said In your face, in your face .
If man is insulted he would tend to punch his tormentor in the nose (metaphorically). Ms Palin, being a lady, sweetly slipped the stilleto between their ribs (methaphorically).
(OT a little, I feel better about her negotiating with the Iranians and North Koreans now.)
Well, that's my feeling of what was going on. I think the McCain team, including Palin, knew they couldn't ignore the despicable and scurrilous attacks and have a successful campaign. A great American philosopher said nice guys (and gals) end up last. Their response was brillant, IMHO. Nothing personal.
Just my 2 cents
klee12
klee12