Who wrote the following?

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League. …

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. … If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true. …

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Michael Moore? Keith Olbermann? Howard Dean? Nope. It’s by Kathleen Parker, the stinging, stalwart conservative answer to Maureen Dowd.

Finally, someone gets it… The election can be about experience or personality, but it can’t be about both — and the economic events of the past couple weeks (along with the Georgia-Russia showdown, which is fading from memory) are bringing voters’ attention back to policy more than at any other time in my lifetime.

McCain and Obama both have great stories. War hero vs. biracial kid with a single mom and meager means. Maverick who goes against his party at times, but very publicly, vs. newcomer who’s relatively untested but who echoes Kennedy in both vision and inspiration. Oldest president vs. first black non-white president. But it’s not the stories that matter now, not when gas prices are high, home sales are stagnant, job loss is real, a generation of borrowers is going to be forced to rethink its habits.

Palin, as evidenced by the Couric interview (see previous post) and others, is not up to this task. Democrats know it (and are probably too excited about it), Republicans sense it (but quell it with talk of her “commonness” and that old shattered “glass ceiling”) — the question is, does John McCain care? He may be willing to lose an election to win a war (whatever that means), but is he willing to risk the nation’s leadership in the hands of a person who makes “George W. Bush look like Cicero,” if God forbid something should happen to him?

In the midst of a very long, very funny and sometimes very harsh reaction to John McCain’s last-minute pullout from appearing on “The Late Show,” David Letterman made this astute point:

Here’s what happens. The economy is about to “crater,” and you’re a senator, a fourth-term senator from Arizona. You go back to Washington, you handle what you need to handle. Don’t suspend your campaign! You let your campaign go on, shouldered by your vice presidential nominee. That’s what you do.

The conservative pundits who don’t spend their time “spinning” everything, but who simply analyze objectively through Republican visors, are seeing this move for what it is: A stunt, and one with no obvious upside.

(Watch a condensed version of Dave’s rant here, or scroll further for the rest of the blog entry. Note particularly, late in the clip, when they grab the live feed from CBS Evening News, where McCain found time to go on with Katie Couric. Hmmm…)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E[/youtube]

Obama got in a great dig yesterday, saying a president will need to do “more than one thing at once.” Andrew Sullivan notes that most Americans want the debate to go on:

A majority of Americans say the debate should be held. Just 10% say the debate should be postponed. A sizable percentage of Americans, 36%, think the focus of the debate should be modified to focus more on the economy. 3 of 4 Americans say the presidential campaign should continue. Just 14% say the presidential campaign should be suspended. If Friday’s debate does not take place 46% of Americans say that would be bad for America.

What, realistically, is McCain going to do, other than vote? Neither he nor Obama are on the relevant steering committees for the legislation, and their presence will only bring a lot of photographers into an already hurried and frantic situation. It’s not as if you can’t vote, then go debate.

The most straight-up, honest opinion of this I’ve read came from Politico’s Arena, where each day a number of notables, intellectuals, pundits and personalities comment on an issue of the day. This was the response from a guy named Mickey Edwards, a Princeton lecturer and former Republican congressman:

Oh, brother. What idiot came up with this stunt?

It ranks somewhere on the stupidity scale between plain silly and numbingly desperate. McCain and Obama are both members of the senate and they’re both able to help craft a solution if they wish to do so without putting the presidential campaign on hold; after all, I’m sure congressional leaders would be willing to accept their calls if they have some important insights to impart. And while one of them will eventually become president, neither one is president yet, nor is either one a member of the congressional leadership; I’m confident that somehow the administration and the other 533 members of congress will be able to muddle through without tapping into the superior wisdom and intellect of their nominees. Sorry, john; it really sounds like you’re afraid to debate. This sounds like the sort of ploy we used to use in junior high school elections. [bold mind-R]

P.S.: Apologies to any McCain-loving readers out there; I’m honestly not trying to rake your guy over the coals on a regular basis. But he (or more accurately, his campaign) continues to engage in dishonest behavior, press-bashing and cheap stunts, which happen to be a big part of the vision of this blog. When Obama’s campaign pulls this stuff, I’ll have harsh words for them, too. In the meantime, check out this clip of Joe Biden, who obviously has gotten a little dusty on his American — and technological — history:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noIfl1UcCZE&eurl=http://vodpod.com/watch/1032501-biden-rewrites-history[/youtube]

Housing is down. Wages are down. Gas prices are through the roof. Democrats, predictably, are set for gains in the House and Senate. 

So, why is Obama behind? 

Go elsewhere to find the answer, as that question has been a hot topic in recent weeks. But if ever there was an opportunity to be grabbed, the Dow’s huge drop today in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ fall is it.

For all Sarah Palin’s attractiveness — both as a fetching woman and as a conservative firebrand — she doesn’t bring any substantial economic prowess; John McCain infamously quipped that he doesn’t know much about the economy, and today uttered the bold claim that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” 

If Obama can hammer this, via ads and stumps and especially in the debates, I don’t see how he loses. Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid” was potent in Bill Clinton’s day, when the economy was in significantly better shape than it is today. 

So forget lipstick on pigs, experience, reform, funny names and old age. Here, now, is the formula for an Obama victory in November. Either way, though, let’s hope these candidates don’t shrug off the issues any longer.

The average voter may not know that a recent John McCain ad, claiming Barack Obama sponsored legislation to teach sex education to kindergartners, is entirely false (even the cut-throat GOP operative Karl Rove said so). She may not know that Sarah Palin’s claims about her opposition to earmarks and the infamous Bridge to Nowhere are stretched truths, to say the least. The average voter may have heard Barack Obama’s promise to cut taxes to most middle-class people, and McCain’s own promise to cut taxes and his insistence that Obama’s claims are untrue — but it’s unlikely they know which (if either) holds more water.

The reason? “Objective balance.”

For years (maybe decades), it’s been widely held in journalistic circles that the proper way to approach a story is to get all sides of a story, and pay equal attention to all the sides. But there’s an obvious flaw in this approach: Namely, that the reader is given no indication of which side is more correct. That’s beginning to change, however, thanks to a bustling blogosphere/new media that has no such convictions. It must be taken with many grains of salt, sure, but as Fox Mulder would say, “The truth is out there”… somewhere.

Ex-Clinton campaign co-manager Paul Begala recently mocked this approach as the Neil Armstrong situation. (I’m paraphrasing from here on.)

Candidate A claims the moon is made of green cheese, while Candidate B claims it is made of rock. Most news channels would call it “Candidates Clash on the Moon!,” invite representatives from each campaign and let them yell at each other for a few minutes. 

Instead of just calling Neil Armstrong and asking him which one is right.

As I mentioned above, the McCain campaign ads this cycle have been SO false, and the campaign’s claims SO absurd, that even the “old guard” media is starting to play truth detector. 

Meanwhile, I’ve been particularly upset with a days-long debate over whether or not Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a “pig.” (I’d be shocked if you haven’t heard too much about this already, but if so, click here and here and here.) The way this thing has been covered, you’d think this is a really important factor in deciding our votes! Yet the issues of the day (Fannie Mae? Lehman Brothers? Going into Pakistan to find bin Laden?) have been ignored. 

This thread from a feature called “The Arena” on Politico was particularly apt. Various experts were asked the question, “Why does the press cover seemingly trivial matters like the ‘lipstick on a pig uproar’? (Or name your own trivial uproar.) Is the press complicit — or even the principal engine — in making politics so conflict-driven and superficial?” A particularly apt bit of discussion is below.

Steven G. Calabresi, Professor of law, Northwestern University:

This story was newsworthy because Obama had promised to lead us to a new post-partisan politics of hope and has instead resorted to partisan attacks.  What other promises will Obama break?

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of law, Stanford (responding to the above):

The press is trapped by the view that it can’t say what’s true if that would be seen to have an effect on an election. Think about the New York Times’ decision to withhold what it knew about the Bush Administration until after the 2004 election, for fear that if it had revealed that before the election, it would have been called “biased.” Somehow we need to elevate the idea that truth is a complete defense to the charge of bias. Armed with that complete defense, I suspect more would be willing to call the McCain campaign on this shameful misuse of what Obama said. Talk about a question of judgment: If a student of mine had read what Obama said in context, and then suggested he was really talking about Palin, I would seriously worry about whether we should arm that student with a law degree. But a law degree is a much less dangerous power than the Presidency. [bold mine-R]

And come on, Steve. A “post-partisan politics” can’t possibly mean you’re not allowed to criticize the policies of your opponent. It should instead mean you don’t make truth a function of which party it happens to benefit. That ideal should begin with us. The “interpretation” of Obama’s statement offered by the McCain campaign is absurd. If we can’t say that, then how can we expect anyone to be able to speak it?

For my part, I think the media is complicit: Not just because it pays too much attention to the sensational and not enough to the substantial (old media, including cable news, is losing ad revenue at an alarming rate, and it shouldn’t be surprising that these people air the stuff they think is exciting, which seems to bring in more viewers/readers), but also because it tries TOO HARD to be “objective,” when really it is only being “balanced.”

Balance, however, tells you nothing about the actual merits of something, unless you already know the underlying issues well. And it doesn’t take an avid viewer of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” to know that, well, maybe a lot of us don’t know all that much.

Charlie Neibergall/AP
John McCain makes his way through Hurricane Palin on Thursday night at the RNC.

“My friends,” we knew most of this going in.

John McCain is not a great orator. John McCain’s body language is awkward. John McCain’s attempts to rally the base seem unconvincing, while he seems most at ease when talking of bipartisanship and “reaching across the aisle,” which the base is not too interested in. John McCain’s campaign is just not good at backdrops — he was back in front of a lime green sea once again Thursday night, months after being mocked incessantly on the cable outlets for a similar scene.

But, then again, John McCain’s not your average politician, and he doesn’t need to be.

Seldom has there been a more stark difference in styles: Barack Obama’s cool, laid-back attitude and utter mastery of cadence; McCain’s stilted but (dare I say it?) straightforward speaking style and his obvious grasp of the seriousness of his task. And this speech was no different: The biggest rounds of applause he got all night were when he mentioned Sarah Palin, and later when he was joined onstage by Sarah Palin.

His speech, like hers, was relatively short on policy — and unfortunately, in my view, the policy he did offer often sounded like Republican boilerplate (“Education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century” is almost word for word from Bush circa 2000) — but it was candid, and lighthearted, and certainly helped to reinforce the idea that this is a man of CHARACTER. It’s hard to imagine someone telling you all about their POW days (especially after it was told by others constantly over the course of three days) without seeming boastful or arrogant, but he did. In fact, it was the best part of the speech, I think… it doesn’t give you a good reason to vote for him, but it at least gives you the sense that if he wins, it’s going to be OK.

Where Obama is too cocky, McCain seems a little too comfortable dealing in generalities (tax cuts are good, health care reform is bad), but I was thankful he’s stopped quesitoning Obama’s patriotism and instead shifted to why people should invest their time FOR McCain and not against Obama. Yet his was a speech urging people to vote AGAINST something: Against “Washington,” a “culture of corruption,” a “do-nothing” Congress and politics as usual.

Two very different men, two very similar messages — and one overarching question: Can either of these guys really change the system — and will they?

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Palin fever has gripped the nation — quickly making an unknown governor the entire hope and breadth of the conservative movement in one fell swoop.

The turning point came here on Wednesday, when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took to the stage and delivered a “barn-burner” speech that chronicled her family life, hockey mom cred, self-proclaimed “reformer” status and her plan to “Shake up Washington” with the Original Maverick® John McCain. (Full speech VodPodded at left.)

“What a breath of fresh air!” crowed ex-Sen. Fred “Law & Order” Thompson the night before (in what Jon Stewart correctly noted was a hands-down impersonation of Foghorn Leghorn, “I say, I say!”).

But the air she brought wasn’t as fresh as it was hot — intensely heated rhetoric that dismissed Democrat Barack Obama as an unqualified, tax-raising, head-in-the-clouds wimp that she could pulverize with one hand while pumping milk (her analogy, not mine, from earlier in the week) with the other.

Palin drew stark distinctions between her work as mayor and then governor of “small-town” America, and Obama’s totally lame “community organizing” in the “cosmopolitan” (Rudy’s work) depths of Chicago. (She surely meant to remark on all that he’s done afterward, such as a landmark ethics reform bill, but probably missed it because the teleprompter backfired — and yet she made it through, adding a new legend to her already mythic if sudden candidacy.)

She drew prolonged, pulsating applause as she spoke of family values and reforming Washington — where her running mate has spent most of the last three decades as a “leader” — and got possibly the best zinger of the night in about what is left after Obama’s “Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot” (presumably the same lot where President Bush got them in 2004).

She also drew a lot of applause on “Thanks, but no thanks” on the Bridge to Nowhere (forgetting to mention — again, probably a teleprompter error — that she’d supported it until it got panned on national television), and brought voters’ eyes back to what really matters: never using the word “bitter” while running for public office, because it will be taken out of context over and over, thereby proving that the utterer is unfit for command.

Yes, Sarah Palin delivered, big-time. But, as usual, there were some Hollywood elites who just wouldn’t listen — including high-falutin’ (if staunchly conservative) Ben “Win My Money” Stein.

“She should have Henry Kissinger babysitting her,” he said.

Ben Stein

Did we mention Barack Obama has no “executive experience”?

Wednesday night seemed to be focused on two things: No. 1, making Washington seem broken (because of liberals, mind you); and No. 2, pointing to a lack of governing experience on the Democratic ticket in order to boost the (albeit minimal) governing experience of VP candidate Sarah Palin. Giuliani started out with a “job application” illustration (one that went on for far too long… in fact, he spoke so long that the now traditional biopic film about Palin had to be scrapped). War hero? Check. Reformer? Check. “Loves America”? Double check.

By this point, you’d think the crowd at the Xcel Center would be tired of hearing about McCain’s days in the POW camp. But it remains the ultimate qualification, it seems, as judged by the comments of what I humbly call the Losers’ Parade — endorsements from seemingly every candidate (except Ron Paul and Alan Keyes) that McCain defeated.

Giuliani also rolled out the bizarre insult: Barack Obama was a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER! (Palin picked up on this theme, leading some pundits to wonder whether their shared speechwriter has some strange animosity toward those who involve themselves in their communities instead of taking up a corner office.) But the style was effective: Rudy was having fun at the Dems’ expense, and the crowd ate it up. (It is worth noting, however, that during a post-speech interview with Andrea Mitchell, Giuliani himself pointed out that McCain “needed help” in the “executive” area as well.)

Preceding him, unfortunately, was the always disappointing Mitt Romney — the candidate pundits love to talk about as a darling of the conservative movement, despite his utter failure to garner any significant vote totals outside Utah. No politician in recent memory evokes such a feeling of fakery, and Wednesday was no exception.

Media bashing? Check! Absurd overkill on the term “liberal”? Check! “Executive experience” argument? Check mate!

My favorite part was his call-and-response opener: “Is a Supreme Court decision that grants Guantanamo terrorists with constitutional rights liberal or conservative? It’s liberal! … We need change all right, change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington!”

Would someone — anyone — please inform Mitt that Republicans have run the “executive” branch for 20 of the last 28 years, and that Congress was in a Republican majority for 10 out of the last 12? If Washington’s liberal, it’s the GOP’s fault. But let’s be fair: Even conservatives don’t care about a word Mitt has to say. Conservative blogger Megan McArdle at The Atlantic made this observation:

Mitt Romney seems to use the word “liberal” in a randomly perjorative fashion. I half expect him to say “I was eating breakfast this morning, and my hash browns were all liberal. I sent them back and told the waitress to bring me some good, conservative hash browns.

He also seems to think that giving American citizens habeas corpus rights is some sort of crazy scheme dreamed up by liberal justices intent on destroying America’s proud tradition of secret trials and warrantless arrests.

But the best was yet to come… Sarah Palin, the bulldog, the barracuda, the “hottest governor in the coldest state.” And she delivered, big-time, in a way that likely has Joe Biden searching eBay for a flak jacket.

P.S.: I missed Mike Huckabee’s speech due to an irresistable urge for ice cream. Just finished watching Huck’s speech via Youtube. It’s not even worth VodPodding. Still, here’s hoping McCain loses, and Huckabee somehow gets the nod in 2012, if only because we can really start to talk about the many merits of the FairTax.

A sea of signs, LEDs and massive video screens all had one thing to say: “COUNTRY FIRST.” It looked something like a huge VFW convention, and the “tribute” videos seemed to confirm it. There was a lengthy tribute to President George H.W. Bush (made more interesting by the fact that his son, President George W. Bush, “couldn’t make it” — a “Daily Show” interview later in the night confirmed that plenty there didn’t want Dubya anywhere near), as well as a tribute (of course) to Ronald Reagan.

A message from current Bush followed, via satellite (the first time in decades, so I’m told, that a sitting president hasn’t attended his party’s convention). It was an awkward thing, to see the president doing his best to spread enthusiasm about longtime gadfly John McCain. (This NYTimes Magazine profile of Bush features some interesting revelations about their strained relationship.) He got some applause for a line about the “far left,” and a LOT of applause anytime he mentioned the real star of this convention, “The next vice president” Sarah Palin. All in all, though, it was awkward, mostly because he wasn’t there.

That was just a warm-up, though, to the real star of the show: Fred “Law & Order” Thompson (who died a quick death in the election after being urged to run by conservatives — many of whom worried that someone like John McCain might win!). He gave a very sobering, very matter-of-fact account of McCain’s time in the Hanoi Hilton… it may be cliché, but no one can question the guy’s character and the honor of his five years there. Thompson even put words to a thought I had, which was that “being a POW doesn’t qualify a man to be president”; his reply to his own rhetorical question was that it did show his CHARACTER. In the midst of it all, he roused the party faithful with energetic (if entirely simplistic) urgings against Democrats/liberals on the basis of taxes and war generally, and took a hard dig at Obama near the end by saying that we can “know” and “trust” John McCain, as opposed to his opponent. (Choice portion of speech VodPodded at left.)

All in all, Thompson strongly surprised me, given the utterly unremarkable nature of his performances in the debates. But how was this “red meat” (as commentators afterward called it) followed? By a self-proclaimed Democrat, of course!

Joe Lieberman (called “Loserman” by the same crowd just a while back) used his time to appeal to Democrats and independents, and made a lot up front of how party loyalty isn’t very important, how we’re all Americans and how what Washington really needs is “Compromise.” Of course, this wasn’t greeted all that enthusiastically by the GOP crowd. He even talked about all the accomplishments of the Clinton White House — even less applause here, and much more awkward. (Full speech VodPodded at left.)

More interesting than the speech was this interview immediately afterward with Andrea Mitchell:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHQ8PIjKhz4&eurl=http://vodpod.com/search/search?q=lieberman+mitchell]

Expect more of this parsing in the weeks ahead.

No commentary on this, just thought it interesting. Politico reports:

Besieged by blog rumors about her 17-year-old daughter, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — named Friday as running mate of John McCain — released a statement Monday saying her daughter is pregnant and plans to marry the father.

The governor and her husband, Todd, said their daughter Bristol plans to keep the baby.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that, as parents, we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,” the Palins said in the statement. “As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

Meet Sarah Palin. A 44-year-old mother of five. A gun-toting, pro-life, small-government Republican governor of the state second-farthest from Washington D.C. An ex-beauty queen and avid fisherwoman. Wife of a half-Eskimo dogsledding champion. A woman who undertook ethics reform (and who may, possibly, be a bit ethically challenged herself).

There’s a lot of talk right now on whether this is a good or bad move on McCain’s part. Personally, I think it’s a mixed bag.

Pros: She could help grab a piece of the Hillary vote, though her voting record on so-called “women’s rights” (mainly abortion, but also “equal pay) isn’t a strong suit. She’s young and fresh, possibly taking the edge off McCain’s self-proclaimed “oldness”. She’s seen by some (including herself) as a reformer who isn’t afraid to fight the big dogs. Most importantly, in my view, she’s nearly invincible in the vice presidential debate (but really, who votes on the basis of that?). I mean, do you recall how badly Obama came off when he attempted to rebuff Hillary on national TV? Well, Palin’s a lot more “likable enough” than Hillary, and an old fart like Biden had best watch his step.

Cons: She’s inexperienced — which takes away the central crux of McCain’s argument against Obama, which is pretty much the central crux of McCain’s campaign. She’s inexperienced — two years ago, she was mayor of a town of 9,000… that’s smaller than Shepherdsville, and by God I wouldn’t want my hometown’s mayor anywhere near the red phone. She’s inexperienced — she’s never been under national scrutiny, and two months isn’t ample time to work out the kinks.

Oh, and then there’s the fact that her relatively young record contains a number of things that directly clash with McCain and/or “the base”. She favors drilling in ANWAR (he opposes); she signed gay partner medical benefits into law in Alaska; she was one of the pitchfork carriers for Pat Buchanan’s 1996 bid.

That last is a plus in my book, but most GOPers have no use for the guy past his shilling for McCain on MSNBC, plus he’s widely held to be anti-Semetic, though there’s no basis for that. Buchanan himself today said this:

I think this is the biggest political gamble, just about, in all of American history.

Ultimately, the thing just doesn’t jibe. Politically, I guess, it makes as much sense as Romney. But does McCain really think it’s going to reinforce his constant assertion that he’s “ready to be commander-in-chief” that he — the oldest presidential candidate in history — is willing to put a first-term governor with no foreign policy purview a heart attack away from the Oval Office? You have got to be kidding.

Oh, and did I mention he’s a genuine war hero and that we honor his service?

P.S.: I found this from conservative stalwart David Frum AFTER I wrote the above.

If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?