Sarah Palin: Pros and Cons [Thread Retitled]

[pizza]

Whaddya suppose the MSM reaction would be if McCain had been careless enough to have said: "Let's call a spade a spade. Obama should admit his mistake and stop being so niggardly with his apologies!"

[Corlyss_D]

Without a doubt it “Lipstick/Pig” was a bad choice of words for Obama

I can't believe you, Chalkie, Madame, and I are the only ones to phathom how damaging this remark is. Of course I'm delighted with this development. I hope he makes more. I can't wait for Biden, wherever he is, to rejoin the campaign so he can start pissing into the wind too.

For the rest of yis, stop rationalizing this wildly stupid and offensive remark. We all know it's a common expression. That's not the point. The point is, there should have been a brain filter somewhere in Team Obama to tell him that once Palin made that hockey mom/pit bull analogy, "lipstick on a pig" was going link to it immediately in the minds of listeners, critics and well-wishers alike, and redound to his discredit. How could it not? When was the last time that 37 million people heard "lipstick"? In her speech. If you saw the vid, it was obvious that the adoring fans got his inference. He meant them to understand his allusion to Palin. So did everyone else. Pizza is right. He should shut up about it and move on. But no. Today in Norfolk, he's attacking the McCain campaign for distorting his meaning and blowing it all out of proportion. He wants a freebee: he wants the benefit of having made a clever quip without having to take responsibility for the meaning. Rob, when you're explainin', yer losin.' Ms. Pickler can feign all the indignation and outrage she wants, but McCain didn't make the comment. Obama did. Good luck with that.

[Corlyss_D]

OK, this is my last post in this thread, because it's clear that my statements have been turned into a straw man and blown down by those who yell "prejudice, not valid opinion".

I apologize if I gave you that impression. I was trying to get you to see how unlikely are the outcomes you posit given the polticial facts on the ground in Washington. Congress is in the driver's seat on most if not all of the developments you fear. Congress is not likely to change its complexion for the foreseeable future; indeed, it's likely to become more Democratic, perhaps for the next 10-15 years. Americans like divided government and the way they have liked it best over the last 40 years is president party A, Congress party B. I just was trying to inject a little realism into the parade of horribles.

[Corlyss_D]

There Will Be Lipstick, Day 2

By John Batchelor. posted on September 10, 2008 at 11:59 AM

Who Benefits from the Breakdown in the Obama Campaign?

Mr. Obama guarantees a second day of "lipstick on a pig" coverage when he begins an event in Norfolk, Virginia (left) by accusing the media and the McCain campaign of distorting his "innocent" remark about lipstick. Guarantees that this coverage will now spin through the cycle on TV and radio and the blogosphere, and that the evening news will include clips of his accusations and what appears to be genuine anger at "them" and also the "their campaign," by which I presume he means Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin. Mr. Obama never leaves Mrs. Palin out of his passion. (I do like that he believes the media is addicted to "catnip," as this makes the press corps seem so much more recognizable as large kittens.)

"I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics. Enough is enough," he said.

"What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad because they know that it's catnip for the news media," Obama said.

The pressing turn-of-the-screw question now, since the facts of the breakdown are apparent to everyone, and the word "rattled" no longer seems an adequate modifier, is who benefits from the Obama-Biden campaign running so badly off course? Not the Democratic Party, since the Congress has real needs to run alongside of Obama's popularity and reach into purple states. Not the Republican Party, since the GOP cannot risk being drawn into a mud-slinging contest. Too many chances that Mr. McCain himself will speak poorly and offer the DNC a pushback ad. The only person I can figure who benefits from all this is, on the surface of it, far-fetched. Mrs. Clinton cannot hope to get the nomination. This must be the plan that I have overheard being overheard. Wait out the Obama-Biden disappointment, then run against the aged McCain, or the overwhelmed Palin, in '12. I like it. It's Clintonesque.

Does Obama Hear Mrs. Clinton's Silence?
Is that the silent voice that he heard when he jumped up front in the Norfolk school library today (right) and started in again re Sarah Palin? Does he hear the silence of Mr. Clinton? Does he have anyone on the plane or back in Chicago who can get on the phone with him and say,"Get a grip and change the story." No. What is the worst case scenario? The money. Watch the money. (Update 230 PM Eastern: And watch the catnip eaters: the WSJ Amy Chozick has just posted a dry explication of the event on the front page of the website for the market traders to digest. The Street can feel the panic. What's the difference between Lehman and Obama right now? You can't short Lehman.)

Meanwhile Back at the Lazy McCain-Palin Ranch
Almost a half-hearted release of a new webad entitled (below) "Lipstick." This looks as if they were going easy. No reason to take risks with a lead, and maybe a big lead. The money must be blinding now, and the word comes that the rallies today in Virginia are spectacularly well-attended with cheerful women. Waiting on the report if lipstick is the new expression of GOP support.

Bill Clinton Knows
Also I mention that my colleague Aaron Klein in Jerusalem has written up the unusual coincidence of the Democratic Party blogger Elizabeth Berry posting on August 30 of Mrs. Palin as a pig, complete with graphic (left). This story just posted as the lead on the widely watched WND, and it does encourage more mischief through the day on radio and TV, and this was before Mr. Obama chose to begin the Norfolk event with an underline that he is in trouble. Who uses the words, "Enough is enough?" That seems a way to speak to schoolchildren? Or subordinates of some sort Odd for a man who likes to be liked, but then everything about this so far is unpredictable. Bill Clinton would know how to get out of this mess. Note that I believe President Clinton is scheduled to lunch with Mr. Obama tomorrow in New York City, during the events remembering 9-11. Later Mr. Obama will share a stage with Mr. McCain at Columbia University. There will be lipstick.

[JackC]

Without a doubt it “Lipstick/Pig” was a bad choice of words for Obama

I can't believe you, Chalkie, Madame, and I are the only ones to phathom how damaging this remark is. Of course I'm delighted with this development. I hope he makes more. I can't wait for Biden, wherever he is, to rejoin the campaign so he can start pissing into the wind too.

For the rest of yis, stop rationalizing this wildly stupid and offensive remark. We all know it's a common expression. That's not the point. The point is, there should have been a brain filter somewhere in the Obama campaign to tell him that once Palin made that hockey mom/pit bull analogy, "lipstick on a pig" was going link to it immediately in the mind of listeners, critics and well-wishers alike, and redound to his discredit. How could it not? When was the last time that 37 million people heard "lipstick"? In her speech. If you saw the vid, it was obvious that the adoring fans got his inference. He meant them to understand his allusion to Palin. So did everyone else. Pizza is right. He should shut up about it and move on. But no. Today in Norfolk, he's attacking the McCain campaign for distorting his meaning and blowing it all out of proportion. He wants a freebee: he wants the benefit of having made a clever quip without having to take responsibility for the meaning. Rob, when you're explainin', yer losin.' Ms. Pickler can feign all the indignation and outrage she wants, but McCain didn't make the comment. Obama did. Good luck with that.

I agree that it is obvious that Obama was intentionally making use of Palin's lipstick remark, and saying that pointing Palin on the ticket was like putting lipstick on a pig. So he was calling her the "lipstick", and Republican policies the "pig."

But he clearly was NOT calling her a "pig", and it is politically fair game, if he wants to, to suggest that she was just put on the ticket to put a "pretty face" on bad policies.

What was stupid was that he didn't have the sense and/or the political ear to realize how such an ambiguous remark could be twisted. Also, it risks deeply offending women who while they realize he was not calling Palin a pig, he was demeaning her as a just pretty face (lipstick/eye candy) with no substance. Lot's of women get tired of being regarded in that manner.

What is also stupid is that he is whining today that he has been misunderstood or mischaracterized and the Republicans are unfairly smearing him. If he want's to throw these nasty one-liners (lipstick on a pig) around, then he ought to expect the response he got. To me he really looks like an amateur these days. We'll I suppose given his lack of campaign experience, he is.

[Corlyss_D]

Palin Energizing Women From All Walks of Life

By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 10, 2008; A04

LEBANON, Ohio, Sept. 9 -- Susie Baron is a Republican, a mother of two and a home-schooler. She voted for Mike Huckabee in the Ohio primary, but now -- because of Sarah Palin -- she thinks she is part of something much bigger.

"I wouldn't even call it a Palin movement, I'd call it a sleeping giant that has been awakened," Baron, 56, said at a rally here Tuesday. She described its members as a silent majority of women in Middle America who "are raising our families, who work if we have to, but love our country and our families first."

"And until now, we haven't had anyone to identify with," Baron said, adding that traditional feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women do "not represent me."

Since her rapid transition from obscure Alaska governor to GOP vice presidential nominee, Palin has reenergized the presidential race and also further polarized it, setting her instant fan base, which sees her as a pit bull with lipstick, against those who dismiss her as just another Republican who happens to be a woman and seems intent on rekindling a culture war.

The crowd that came to see her here Tuesday showed that Palin's support is rooted in conservative women such as Baron, with the addition of some independents and even Democrats -- women who are "fed up with a man's world," as one rally attendee said, and in some cases dispirited by the treatment of Palin and of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary race.

On the campaign trail, Palin has read the same remarks at each stop from notes or a teleprompter. She has answered no questions, except from People magazine, although she will give her first sit-down interview, to ABC News, this week. But her mere presence has been enough to generate huge enthusiasm.

The McCain and Obama campaigns are rushing to assess what the Palin force will represent. If it is a small but energized group of Republican women, it could have only marginal impact; if it is more, it could tip the balance of the campaign. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Palin has also mobilized liberal women.*

"There's no doubt she has helped solidify and energize the right wing of his party," senior Obama adviser Anita Dunn said of Palin and McCain, while acknowledging that Palin has drawn the curiosity of people "who are not movement conservatives."

"She's new, and a good performer of that speech that she reads, but that doesn't necessarily translate into votes eight weeks from now," Dunn said. "Obviously, people are going to be interested, because she's new, but the more you learned about her, the more you see she's like any other politician, male or female."

Other Obama advisers said that once women across the board begin considering Palin's stands on social issues such as human embryonic stem cell research and legalized abortion -- she opposes both -- their interest will fade. That was a line of attack used by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice presidential candidate, when he was asked Tuesday whether Palin's election would mean a step forward for women. "Look, I think the issue is: What does Sarah Palin think? What does she believe? I assume she thinks and agrees with the same policies that George Bush and John McCain think," Biden said. "And that's obviously a backward step for women."

The Republican National Committee responded by calling Biden's remarks "appalling and arrogant" and saying they are "better suited for the backrooms of his old boys' club."

"Sarah Palin's nomination as the Republican vice presidential nominee is a historic opportunity to break the highest glass ceiling," RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson said.

Several senior officials in both parties said they think Palin's attraction is the result, in part, of a generally negative mood among some female voters this year, first, as Clinton faced a "boys' club" mentality in the Democratic primaries and then as Palin faced intense questioning, much of it highly personal, after McCain named her as his running mate.

To Republicans, Palin's burst onto the national scene could be a chance to redefine the nature of feminism in politics, recasting it beyond traditionally liberal issues such as abortion rights. "I hope so, because I think it's been unfortunate that it's been so closely pegged, so closely defined, to just a few issues," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Murkowski, whose father lost to Palin in a 2006 gubernatorial primary, said Palin represented a "generational shift" for voters in her state, something that will bode well for her ability to appeal to younger female voters.

While Democrats reject the notion that Palin will somehow transform gender politics once her views are known, a few acknowledged that they have had little success in trying to define her. "I think there may be some hand-holding, but nobody's gone on a date yet," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), a prominent Obama supporter who predicted that female voters will eventually return to his camp.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) said the issues that matter to female voters, not Palin's sudden rise to the national stage, will determine their votes in November, but she said the Democrats need to explain those policy differences. "I think it's our job to show the truth. They are more focused on an agenda than a gender," Klobuchar said.

After just a week, Palin is as popular as either Obama or McCain. White women in particular express favorable views of the Alaska governor, according to a newly released Washington Post-ABC News poll. Positive ratings of her spike to 80 percent among white women with children at home and among white women who are evangelical Protestants.

The percentage of white women with "strongly favorable" opinions of McCain jumped 12 percentage points from before the parties' national conventions. And nearly six in 10 white women in the new poll said McCain's selection of Palin increased their confidence in the decisions he would make if elected. In the Post-ABC poll, it is white women who helped McCain erase Obama's late-August advantage and seriously cut into the Democratic nominee's lead as the one who would bring more needed change to Washington.

Republican adviser Juleanna R. Glover calls Palin "the future of the GOP," and that was certainly the consensus at this stop in Ohio on Tuesday. McCain and Palin performed a ritual of Republican politics, speaking from a stage in front of the Golden Lamb Hotel, billed as Ohio's oldest inn. More than 5,000 guests filled the streets, packing it as fully as it had been four years earlier, when President Bush made the same stop.

But this event was more reminiscent of the Clinton campaign earlier this year: Mothers held their young daughters on their shoulders to catch a glimpse of Palin. Women held up pro-Palin signs and wore "I Love Sarah" stickers. One sign read "Working Mom 4 Palin." Another: "Strike Oil with Sarah." And another: "Outspoken Conservative Moms for Palin."

Like other women in the crowd, Baron, the home-schooler from Maineville, Ohio, expressed frustration that feminism and women's issues have seemingly been owned by Democrats whose values she does not share.

Julia Burns, 72, a Republican from Lebanon, cut in: "Men had better jump back. Women are going to take over. We're sick and tired of playing by men's rules. We're coming out of the ground, and they had better move out of the way."

Staff writer Paul Kane and polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.
#####################################################################################

*As I always say, anecdotal evidence is just a bunch of individual stories, not statistical evidence. We'll have to wait to see if Mort Kondracke's adamant and unequivocal dismissal of random observations that liberal women might vote for Palin because of the way Hillary was treated turns out to be correct. Maybe moderately liberal women get it that regardless of her personal beliefs, a VP don't have enough power to influence policies in a way that goes against those of the P, and McCain has always been attractive to moderates.

[Corlyss_D]

But he clearly was NOT calling her a "pig", and it is politically fair game, if he wants to, to suggest that she was just put on the ticket to put a "pretty face" on bad policies.

I disagree. Here's the pic that accompanied the blogger's article on the Democratic Party website that allegedly gave someone, likely a 20-something low-level staff writer (because 20-somethings would think the allusion hilarious) the idea to use the phrase:



They did everything to point to her as the pig but run her picture morphed via Photoshop into a pig.

What is also stupid is that he is whining today that he has been misunderstood or mischaracterized and the Republicans are unfairly smearing him. If he want's to throw these nasty one-liners (lipstick on a pig) around, then he ought to expect the response he got. To me he really looks like an amateur these days. We'll I suppose given his lack of campaign experience, he is.

No doubt. He doesn't appear to have the sense enough, or is too tired, to realize he should shut up now.

[Chalkperson]

Quote of the Day 1: "A special thank you to our friends in the liberal media establishment. Who knew they would come through so spectacularly? The ludicrous media feeding frenzy about the Palin family hyped interest in her speech, enabling her to win a huge audience for her smashing success Wednesday night at the convention. Indeed, it even renewed interest in McCain, who seems to have gotten still more viewers for his less smashing -- but well-received -- presentation the following evening." -- Bill Kristol

Quote of the Day 2: "I admit it. The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." -- Bill Kristol

[Ted]

CD Writes:

I can't believe you, Chalkie, Madame, and I are the only ones to phathom how damaging this remark is

Gee, after all the chastising I've rained down on you re Bush’s stupid remarks, I can see how you’d gloat over this…But please tell me again, (and in light of my own excoriation of Obama) why is his comment so much more egregious than McCain’s?

[Corlyss_D]

But please tell me again, (and in light of my own excoriation of Obama) why is his comment so much more egregious than McCain’s?

Jack's disclaimer notwithstanding, I think Obama was trying to get away with calling Palin a pig. Did McCain call Hillary a pig, or some other barnyard animal? What did McCain say? I might think it was stupid too, depending.

[JackC]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanm ... ml?showall

So now I guess Obama has decided that the only way he can destroy Palin is to have women attack her. But to say that Palin's only qualification is that she "has not had an abortion" seems to me to be pretty offensivee, and way over the top. I can't believe that the Dems are not running a substantial risk of pissing off a LOT of women with this approach.

[Ted]

the Obama camp noted that McCain once used the same phrase about pigs and lipstick to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton's healthcare plan and President Bush's Iraq war strategy. Other Republicans using the phrase include prominent conservatives and congressmen such as Minority Leader John Boehner and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the Obama campaign said.

I've seen the McCain clip several times on MSNBC/CNN, he said the exact same thing

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la ... 3724.story

[Corlyss_D]

the Obama camp noted that McCain once used the same phrase about pigs and lipstick to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton's healthcare plan and President Bush's Iraq war strategy. Other Republicans using the phrase include prominent conservatives and congressmen such as Minority Leader John Boehner and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the Obama campaign said.

I've seen the McCain clip several times on MSNBC/CNN, he said the exact same thing

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la ... 3724.story

Hello! It's not the use of the phrase randomly before Palin's speech that exonerates Obama, I don't care how many times the MSM can find McCain using it to refer to a variety of targets. I'm sure Hillary never said the only difference between her and a pit bull was lipstick. If she had, McCain's reference would have been a deliberate knock on her. The intervening Palin quote widely publicized by the media and enjoyed enormously by 37 million people is what makes the difference here.

[Corlyss_D]

Quote of the Day 1: "A special thank you to our friends in the liberal media establishment. Who knew they would come through so spectacularly? The ludicrous media feeding frenzy about the Palin family hyped interest in her speech, enabling her to win a huge audience for her smashing success Wednesday night at the convention. Indeed, it even renewed interest in McCain, who seems to have gotten still more viewers for his less smashing -- but well-received -- presentation the following evening." -- Bill Kristol

Quote of the Day 2: "I admit it. The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." -- Bill Kristol

I guess you think that proves something. What's the timing on those quotes? Obviously the first was recent. When was the second? 2006? Only the blind would deny that the MSM being in the tank for Obama was what caused them to make such a big deal about Palin's daughter's pregnancy, to piss and moan about the great damage done to feminism, to truth, justice, and the American way, in nominating Palin. Who else did that but the MSM? McCain certainly wasn't pulling in the coverage. Some networks didn't even cover the Republican convention. So who was it?

[Ted]

Anyway CD, I wish I could argue with you about this, but truly, it's not worth the ink. Let's fry the bigger fish

[greymouse]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanm ... ml?showall

So now I guess Obama has decided that the only way he can destroy Palin is to have women attack her. But to say that Palin's only qualification is that she "has not had an abortion" seems to me to be pretty offensive, and way over the top. I can't believe that the Dems are not running a substantial risk of pissing off a LOT of women with this approach.

Wow, what does that lady even mean? That's a pretty strange thing to say. If Obama loses this election, it will be because he has some nutty supporters. You'd think from the last couple weeks that Palin's womb is the VP nominee given the way it's been so intensively vetted.

Obama is completely off message. He is not associated with a new plan for America because he has talked mostly about feelings, abstractions, and his opponents.

[Chalkperson]

The fact is "putting lipstick on a pig," is a common American idiomatic expression. It may not be common in Wales. It may not be common in Tribecka, and it may not be common among new citizens of Hispanic descent, whom McCain is trying to woo, but it is common everywhere else. It means trying to dress up a flawed idea or situation with as much glamour as possible. The best example I can think of that a Brit might be familiar with is Holbein's famous portrait of Anne of Cleves. She was really a quite plain, not to say ugly, woman, so Holbein went to some length to try to disguse that fact with all sorts of intricate clothing and elaborate headwear and jewelry. Not so much lipstick, as I recall, but you get the idea. Its not a literal term. Its an idiom, never meant to be taken literally.

I know a lot about Holbein from being a Portrait Photographer and trust me, I know every trick in the book...my point was that he could have used a different animal, and make it mean something else, I knew the expression of course, my objection was that he was dumb enough not to realise it's repurcussions in the Media, now they have ammunition that he could have avoided by using Barracuda and that would have stuck, but he speaks from the hip...it matters not a whit that he was talking to Country Yokels, anything he says gets reproduced anywhere, everything he does or says needs to be thought thru, we are not in the Primaries now, this is the Final Lap, he should listen to people around him some more, hate to say it again but it's an ego thing...

[Corlyss_D]

So now I guess Obama has decided that the only way he can destroy Palin is to have women attack her.

Oh, no question they were counting on the feminist sisterhood legions to do their op work for them. That's the benefit of 527s and interest groups. And they haven't disappointed. That article by Cottle is a politely intellectual cri de coeur compared to what you can find in the blogosphere. The less circumspect must be going completely berserk.

I can't believe that the Dems are not running a substantial risk of pissing off a LOT of women with this approach.

They do. But they can't help themselves. As George Friedman of Stratfor.com has noted, "Nothing has become cheaper than passionate discourse." It's hard not to think that Team Obama concluded somewhere along the way that the more strident it is the more effective it is in rallying the base certainly, if not the moderate/independents. But as Paul Begala noted some weeks ago, ""We cannot win with eggheads and African Americans. That's the Dukakis coalition which carried ten states." They can't win without the moderates and independents, who appear to be decidedly turned off by the viciousness and the baselessness of these diatribes in the press. Also something they have yet to realize is the damage that their uncontrolled and uncontrolable blogosphere can do to them. The netroots were under the radar until 2004, but now many eyes are turned on them and their inbred venomous borderline psychotic rants. It was an Obama supporter writing on her blog that unleashed the "guns and God" gaffe; it is an Obama supporter who birthed this idea of calling Palin a pig. Gotta love their instinct for self-destruction. If the McCain campaign is smart they will say nothing except and occasional pained "unfortunate."

Wow, what does that lady even mean? That's a pretty strange thing to say. If Obama loses this election, it will be because he has some nutty supporters. You'd think from the last couple weeks that Palin's womb is the VP nominee given the way it's been so intensively vetted.

At this point, Grey, coherence is not their long suit.

[Corlyss_D]

Its not a literal term. Its an idiom, never meant to be taken literally.

Rob, no amount of literary criticism is going to save this situation. Someone ought to tell Team Obama that ancient maxim found on walls in Pompeii and Herculaneum: "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

[Corlyss_D]

Trooper Stupor

Half the Washington press corps is now winging its way to Alaska to scour the record for something embarrassing on Gov. Sarah Palin. Luring them is a seeming scandal already called Troopergate that broke in July, when Mrs. Palin fired Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. In recent weeks the state legislature has opened an investigation into the dismissal and hired an independent counsel to determine if laws were broken.

Her critics accuse Mrs. Palin of firing Mr. Monegan because he had refused to fire State Trooper Michael Wooten, who had gone through a messy divorce with the governor's sister. If the charge is true, it would certainly hurt Mrs. Palin's reformist credentials -- although her powers of office entitled her to fire Commissioner Monegan for any reason or no reason at all.

Still, there is reason to suspect the scandal is little more than a political smear attempt. The investigation is being run by a Democrat in the state Senate (the Republican who would have been in charge recently stepped down to fight allegations of his own corruption). Mr. Monegan is a disgruntled former employee who never told anyone about the alleged pressure to fire Trooper Wooten before his own firing. And Mr. Monegan broke his allegations on a blog run by an also-ran gubernatorial candidate who was crushed by Mrs. Palin in the 2006 elections. What's more, Trooper Wooten's record would hardly seem to make him ideal state trooper material. He's a four-time divorcee whom Mrs. Palin says threatened to kill her father. He admitted to using a Taser on his 11-year-old stepson and to killing a moose out of season. He's also had to fight allegations of drunk driving and other infractions.

The scandal also seems trumped up in light of legitimate reasons Mrs. Palin had for firing Commissioner Monegan. The two disagreed over cuts in the public safety department's budget as well as her insistence that he focus state trooper attention on rural drug use. Mr. Monegan had been forced out of his previous job running the police force of Anchorage. The man who fired him then was Mayor Mark Begich, the Democrat now running for U.S. Senate against embattled Republican Ted Stevens.

In Alaska, politics always seems a little inbred. Mrs. Palin has remained mum since she was tapped to be John McCain's running mate nearly two weeks ago, but seven members of her administration have declined requests by investigators to be interviewed. The state legislature is now weighing whether to hand down subpoenas -- though it's unlikely that the governor herself would be subpoenaed. With so much fodder, however, any reporter with an eye for detail will be able to come back from an Alaska trip with attention-getting tidbits. You don't become a change agent by making friends, so there will be plenty of pols on both sides of the aisle eager to fill a reporter's notebook with their criticisms of Mrs. Palin. To beat this story, the McCain/Palin campaign may need to start filling a few of those pages itself.

-- Brendan Miniter

[Ted]

Here CD, one of McCain's two Lipstick/Pig comments

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfg ... y_id=30094

[Corlyss_D]

Here CD, one of McCain's two Lipstick/Pig comments

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfg ... y_id=30094

Ted, dahlink, I thought you were too busy . . .

[Corlyss_D]

As this shows, Team Obama was in trouble before "lipstick on a pig" hit the fan.

RealClearPolitics
By Jay Cost
September 10, 2008
Obama On His Heels

This campaign has taken a surprising turn since the Democratic convention. Everybody is still talking about the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

Who would have predicted this just two weeks ago?

When I say everybody is talking about Governor Palin, I mean everybody. It's not just that Palin has excited the Republican base and intrigued the press corps. She's also gotten the notice of Barack Obama. The Democratic nominee has singled Palin out for criticism on earmarks in general and the "Bridge To Nowhere" in particular.

This is peculiar. Typically, a presidential nominee does not criticize his opponent's veep. This becomes doubly peculiar when we consider that just a week ago the Obama campaign indicated plans to ignore Palin altogether:

The Obama campaign has no silver bullet to use against the Palin (sic). Instead, Obama has decided to largely avoid directly engaging her and will instead keep his focus largely on John McCain and on linking the Republican ticket to President George W. Bush. The Obama campaign will leave Palin to navigate the same cycle of celebrity that Obama has weathered, and the same peril that her nascent image will be defined by questions and contradictions from her Alaska past.


The reason for the change must be what the ABC News/Washington Post poll found - a huge swing toward McCain-Palin among white women. This is a very important voting bloc, as the following chart makes clear:



The GOP improved it's showing among white men by 17 points between 1996 and 2004. Among white women it improved by 16 points. This is how an 8.5-point Republican defeat transformed into a 2.4-point Republican victory.

The ABC News poll that set tongues wagging has McCain up 12 among white women - about the same margin as the final result in 2004. I had been inclined to write those results off, as I figured a post-convention poll like that is not indicative of where the race is heading. However, the course correction of the Obama campaign inclines me to believe that there might be something going on here. On September 4th, his campaign said that it was not planning to directly criticize Palin. On September 8th, it released an ad directly criticizing her. You don't do that kind of 180 unless something is up.

The Obama campaign's decision to attack is a risky one. Negative campaigns are always tricky, but this one is especially so. To some degree, Palin has been treated unfairly since her debut as McCain's vice-president. What the McCain campaign wants to do is tie all criticisms of Palin to the unfair ones, and ultimately remind people of how Hillary Clinton was treated. Team McCain is especially eager to do this for anything that comes out of Obama's mouth - hence the "lipstick on a pig" spot, which in turn induced a response from Obama.

We can assign winners and losers in this little skirmish; we can decide who has truth on his side and who does not. But that misses the point. Here we have yet another day when the focus is on the GOP's youthful, smiling, attractive, witty, female vice-presidential nominee. And for yet another day our ears are filled with the sounds of the Democratic nominee decrying how unfair the Republicans are - as if only one side hits below the belt.

Ultimately, I'm not a huge believer in the importance of "winning" news cycles. I do think, however, that the battle for the news cycle is an exhibition of a campaign's ability to move its message. And it has become clear that the McCain campaign is better at this. This "lipstick on a pig" incident will probably not affect a single vote - but it shows that the McCain campaign is ready and able to defend any real gains it might have made among white women. Once again, it's doing a better job getting its message across.

Nobody would have predicted this on June 3rd. That was the day Obama boldly stood in the Excel Energy Center and proclaimed an exciting new moment in American politics. Meanwhile McCain, sweating profusely, stood in front of a green screen and gave a rambling, disjointed speech. The contrast in messages was stark. Three months later, it's just as stark - but now it's Obama that's sweating and McCain that's exciting. What a turnaround.

[RebLem]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanm ... ml?showall

So now I guess Obama has decided that the only way he can destroy Palin is to have women attack her. But to say that Palin's only qualification is that she "has not had an abortion" seems to me to be pretty offensivee, and way over the top. I can't believe that the Dems are not running a substantial risk of pissing off a LOT of women with this approach.

And there's somebody else from the Tennessee DEM Party, I think, who said something to the effect that "Jesus was a community orgainzer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Sometimes, I do wish some of Obama's friends would keep their mouths shut. These two are among them.

Arugula lovers of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your guilt! RebLem

[Corlyss_D]

And there's somebody else from the Tennessee DEM Party, I think, who said something to the effect that "Jesus was a community orgainzer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Sometimes, I do wish some of Obama's friends would keep their mouths shut. These two are among them.

I just heard about this one on Brit Hume's show. This guy is the heroic first-termer House member who ran against a black woman who beat him up relentlessly that he was a white Jew trying to represent a largely black constituency. Her race card didn't work; he won the primary something like 80-20. I was rooting for him all the way, but I agree with you that his remarks were not likely to help Obama, although that was what he thought he was doing. Plus he made the remarks on the House floor where they were taped even if they disappear tonight from the CR.

[RebLem]

And there's somebody else from the Tennessee DEM Party, I think, who said something to the effect that "Jesus was a community orgainzer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Sometimes, I do wish some of Obama's friends would keep their mouths shut. These two are among them.

I just heard about this one on Brit Hume's show. This guy is the heroic first-termer House member who ran against a black woman who beat him up relentlessly that he was a white Jew trying to represent a largely black constituency. Her race card didn't work; he won the primary something like 80-20. I was rooting for him all the way, but I agree with you that his remarks were not likely to help Obama, although that was what he thought he was doing. Plus he made the remarks on the House floor where they were taped even if they disappear tonight from the CR.

I heard just a bit ago that he's also the guy who said that Hurricane Gustav, coming as it did at the beginning of the Repugnant Convention, was a "gift from God." Somebody needs to assign a minder to this guy.

In all the folderol over the Pig's Lipstick, has anyone noticed there is one person who has remained strangely silent? Sarah Palin herself. I have a sneaking suspicion she is pissed over the way Grandpa Munster is using her, in the words of Joan Walsh, as "an example of the worst, whiniest kind of grievance feminism."

Arugula lovers of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your guilt! RebLem

[DavidRoss]

Gee, after all the chastising I've rained down on you re Bush’s stupid remarks, I can see how you’d gloat over this…But please tell me again, (and in light of my own excoriation of Obama) why is his comment so much more egregious than McCain’s?

The difference: McCain clearly used the expression in reference to Hillary's health care plan; Obama clearly used it as a thinly veiled reference to Sarah Palin.

[Werner]

That's pure invention. Palin's referenceto lipstick was to apply it to a pitbull none other than herself - her quote! McCain's reference to the lipstick/pig - and Cheney's earlier use of the sme simile -were in different contexts. This whole brouhaha is a creature of the GOP propaganda machne.

[Brendan]

Even across the Pacific I knew Obama had shot himself in the foot as soon as I heard it.

[Chalkperson]

Eight Minutes of Kieth Olberman on 9/11...you can form your own opinion of this, i'm amazed they let him do it...


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 7#26649407

[Corlyss_D]

Somebody needs to assign a minder to this guy.

I wonder where the adults on Team Obama are. Someone he will listen to needs to get to Obama and tell him to stop digging. He was on Letterman tonight, droning on about what he meant. He doesn't seem to understand that what he meant doesn't matter anymore. What's important now is for him to shut up about it and move on.

has anyone noticed there is one person who has remained strangely silent? Sarah Palin herself.

Not so strange. Politics 101: When your enemy is destroying himself, don't intervene. We haven't seen the last of the fallout from this yet when Hillary supporters are flocking to McCain, Hillary chairmen are introducing Palin, and independents are starting to move.

[Corlyss_D]

September 10, 2008
November Lineup: Obama vs. Obama
By Dick Morris

Now that the conventions are over, it is evident that the battle of John McCain is over (McCain won) and the battle of Barack Obama will determine the outcome of the election. Now that McCain has definitively, and I suspect irreversibly, separated himself from George Bush, he has become an acceptable alternative to Obama for voters seeking change. The question now is whether Obama's extra quotient of change -- or the different direction that change will take -- is worth the risk of electing him.

Obama was wrong to invest so much in the Bush-McCain linkage. Any candidate can define himself at his convention. And if McCain chose, as he did, to use the gathering to distance himself from Washington and from the Bush administration, there was really nothing that Obama could do to stop him. He should have focused very specifically on McCain himself and taken shots at specific votes and bills that he introduced. Now, after the massive exposure McCain got at his convention and the demonstrable commitment to change embodied in the selection of Sarah Palin, it is too late.

The Obama campaign doesn't seem to get that it is running against McCain, not Sarah Palin. It spent the entire Republican convention and the week since attacking the vice presidential candidate. That's like stabbing the capillaries not the arteries. Nobody is going to vote for or against McCain because they want Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States, or don't. But Palin has served, and will serve, a key purpose in illustrating and demonstrating what kind of a man John McCain is. She stands as a tribute to his desire to bring change, his willingness to cut loose from the past and his courage in attempting innovation. No amount of criticism of Palin is going to stop that process. Obama needs to remember who his opponent is.

Now, the election will hinge on a referendum on Obama. Is the extra health care coverage he would pass worth the huge tax increases he will impose? Nobody buys his claim that he will only increase taxes on a few rich people and give the rest of us tax cuts. Voters can add, and they realize that his spending plans and tax cut promises come to a trillion dollars and that his tax increases represent only one-tenth as much. They know that everyone who pays taxes will end up paying more if Obama is elected. The question will be: Is it worth it?

Is his commitment to income redistribution and increasing tax "fairness" worth the risk his tax plans pose for the economy?

Is his plan to pull out of Iraq and his commitment to multilateralism in foreign policy worth the risk of putting someone with virtually no foreign policy experience in charge of our international relations in the middle of a war? Is his promise to respect the Constitution and ratchet back the intrusions of the Bush homeland security measures worth the extra risk of terror attack?

The answer to these questions will only partially depend on what Obama is proposing and on how sound we think his judgment is. They will also depend on the events that will transpire between now and Election Day.

If Iran moves closer to getting nuclear weapons or Israel attacks Iran to forestall that development, things could change in a hurry. If the current atmosphere of economic uncertainty and impending possible crisis -- signaled by the federal takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae -- deepens, it may make voters less willing to risk the high taxes and big spending that Obama will bring in his wake. If Russia continues to assert its imperial right to dominate Eastern Europe and restore a Soviet-style satellite empire, voters will wonder if they can take a chance on Obama.

But if things are relatively peaceful and uneventful, voters may bristle at the stagnation and turn to Obama in the hopes of change.

The key point is that this race is now not about Bush or McCain or Bill Clinton or Palin. It's all about Obama.
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... obama.html at September 11, 2008 - 02:16:41 AM CDT

[Corlyss_D]

Letterman Covers His Mouth, Stares

By John Batchelor. posted on September 11, 2008 at 1:29 AM

There is No One In Charge

The Obama campaign has lost control of the narrative. Mr. Obama arrived in New York City late on a beautiful September afternoon and travelled to the David Letterman set on Broadway to tape a chat with the host. The candidate could not stop himself and again and again explained his "lipstick on a pig" remark to a patient, powerless audience and camera. The rationalizations are banal. The tone is defeated. The performance is humorless, cramped, detached, halting. And the remains of the day are that the national audience will again get to pick apart what has already been established. Sarah Palin is the story. Barack Obama is not the story.

“This is sorta silly season in politics. Not that there’s a non-silly season but it gets sillier. It’s a common expression in at least Illinois. I don’t know about in New York City. I don’t know what you put lipstick on here.”

“In Illinois, the expression connotes the idea that if you have a bad idea, in this case I was talking about McCain’s economic plans, calling them change, calling them something different doesn’t make them better. Hence lipstick on a pig is still a pig.”

“Keep in mind, that technically had I meant it this way she [Palin] would be the lipstick…The policies of John McCain would be the pig.”

“We didn’t know much about her. Honestly, she’s a skilled politician,” Obama responded.

“There’s no doubt that she has been a phenomenon…I mean, as somebody who used to be on the cover of Time and Newsweek, those were the days,” Obama said. “I had a recent offer with Popular Mechanics, centerfold with a wrench. Look, she’s on wild ride and there’s no doubt that she has energized the base.”

######################################################################################

Oooo. "Look at me! I'm somebody too!" A touch of envy that he's not the brightest newest thing on the scene anymore.

[Corlyss_D]

Eight Minutes of Kieth Olberman on 9/11...you can form your own opinion of this, i'm amazed they let him do it...


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 7#26649407

Nothing Olberman would have to say on any subject short of "I'm checking myself into a sanatarium/rehab facility for a nice long rest" would interest me. And that doesn't take 8 min.

[pizza]

That's pure invention. Palin's referenceto lipstick was to apply it to a pitbull none other than herself - her quote! McCain's reference to the lipstick/pig - and Cheney's earlier use of the sme simile -were in different contexts. This whole brouhaha is a creature of the GOP propaganda machne.

That's pure obfuscation. Palin's reference to lipstick was to apply it to a pit-bull and none other than hockey moms, not vice-presidential candidates. The Obama campaign revealed its political stupidity and callousness, both of which our country can ill afford.

[johnQpublic]

"I mean, as somebody who used to be on the cover of Time and Newsweek, those were the days,” Obama said.

Translation in a Brando accent: "I coulda been a contenda"

Nothing Olberman would have to say on any subject short of "I'm checking myself into a sanatarium/rehab facility for a nice long rest" would interest me. And that doesn't take 8 min.

Wanna bet?

[slofstra]

If Team Obama is looking for an attack dog against Mrs. Palin, they may have to make another trip to the political pound.-- John Fund

It was Obama's decision not to give the VP to Hillary, his ego yet again, McCain made a very smart and very astute move...even though I am certainly far from a fan of his I think his move was brilliant...

But nobody knows the winner till the votes are counted...

I don't agree with your analysis, chalkie. You don't give any quarter to your key rival even if on the same team. With egos and all, she will work for the team, but not really work for the team, if you know what I mean.

I meant that he was losing ground badly, Obama was High on his Hill being Ordained and rather than take Romney, and unable to have his choice of Lieberman, he was stuck, then he remembered the woman from Alaska and he took a chance, first everybody thought he was nuts but then she spoke (OK Scripted) at the Convention (I of course did not see or here this) and the world changed overnight, she turned Obama's World around and she has yet to be interviewed or debated, for taking that flyer I give him due credit, of course I don't want them to Win, but I don't want Obama either, I, like Corlyss and Saul would like a new set of candidates please...

If you are referring to Hillary then understand my deep rooted resentment of both of them for not coming together to form a team, she refused to stop Campaigning and now has $20 million of debts and he refused to work with her, the Bill Factor would not have made it easy but at least they would have won...the race is/was so tight Obama vs Clinton for the Nomination or Obama vs McCain for the Presidency that it's impossible to tell who will win...Obama/Clinton would have Won but she wanted Clinton/Obama, they both refused to yield and the Dim's lost, my friends at the DNC have been predicting for more than a year that if he runs without Hillary he will probably lose (or a total landslide)...he is not qualified for the Job, truly he is not, he will be Presidential and a Statesman but as for running the Country forget it, Governors become Presidents because they know how to Govern and the President is in charge of the Govern(ment)...it always helps if you can at least have a fair crack at doing what the people below you can do (in any Business even yours or mine) and Obama has no F****N Experience...

OK i'm gonna play Assasin's Creed on my PS3, I need to kill a few Templars to calm me down before dinner...

What would actually happen with Obama as Prez is a crapshoot to call at the present time. A few observations:
a) Northrop Frye and others have observed that the president/ prime minister in a democracy is essentially a figure head and most key decisions will come out the same regardless of which party is in power. This is why parties often can't execute their promises because when they face the music it's a different story. (I'm thinking of a withdrawal from Iraq - ain't going to happen until it's a vassal state).
b) We don't know what he will have to face. It may be a relatively calm 4 years; but who knows ...
c) Some men are born to greatness, some rise to it, etc. He has risen to a number of challenges already and pulled it off - Berlin, Israel, and so on. So - his inexperience may also be an asset.
d) There will be a great tide of optimism in the Western world if Obama gets in - which will help him and the USA. Even if that optimism is dispelled by a new world war or some other catastrophe that initial rush of good will will help the USA.
e) A new broom can be good. Probably fewer butts kissed and less favours to return which is always good.
f) Youth and energy! Our PM is not yet 50, and has handled a G7 summit, trips to Afghanistan to see the troops, tet a tet with Bush and Fox, all in a short 2 years. And many other things besides ...


Do we really want these old guys like McCain? Why not give the up-and-comers a chance and let them make a few mistakes. The old guys have a limited shelf life, remember that.

[Barry]

... a) Northrop Frye and others have observed that the president/ prime minister in a democracy is essentially a figure head and most key decisions will come out the same regardless of which party is in power. This is why parties often can't execute their promises because when they face the music it's a different story. (I'm thinking of a withdrawal from Iraq - ain't going to happen until it's a vassal state).
....

There is some truth to that, but it's far from entirely accurate. But it's undoubtedly true that the the policies favored by McCain and Obama are much more in line with each other than either is with what Europe and much of the rest of the world wants from us. They want us to just stop using military power to accomplish foreign policy objectives, period. While Obama and McCain merely differ on how and where to use military power; not whether to use it.

On older leaders, we had one relatively recently that showed he could run rings around up-and-comers.

[Chalkperson]

Somebody needs to assign a minder to this guy.

I wonder where the adults on Team Obama are. Someone he will listen to needs to get to Obama and tell him to stop digging. He was on Letterman tonight, droning on about what he meant. He doesn't seem to understand that what he meant doesn't matter anymore. What's important now is for him to shut up about it and move on.

God, he was BAD, he was just oozing inexperience...you can watch it here...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/1 ... 25509.html

[Chalkperson]

What would actually happen with Obama as Prez is a crapshoot to call at the present time. A few observations:
a) Northrop Frye and others have observed that the president/ prime minister in a democracy is essentially a figure head and most key decisions will come out the same regardless of which party is in power. This is why parties often can't execute their promises because when they face the music it's a different story. (I'm thinking of a withdrawal from Iraq - ain't going to happen until it's a vassal state).
b) We don't know what he will have to face. It may be a relatively calm 4 years; but who knows ...
c) Some men are born to greatness, some rise to it, etc. He has risen to a number of challenges already and pulled it off - Berlin, Israel, and so on. So - his inexperience may also be an asset.
d) There will be a great tide of optimism in the Western world if Obama gets in - which will help him and the USA. Even if that optimism is dispelled by a new world war or some other catastrophe that initial rush of good will will help the USA.
e) A new broom can be good. Probably fewer butts kissed and less favours to return which is always good.
f) Youth and energy! Our PM is not yet 50, and has handled a G7 summit, trips to Afghanistan to see the troops, tet a tet with Bush and Fox, all in a short 2 years. And many other things besides ...
Do we really want these old guys like McCain? Why not give the up-and-comers a chance and let them make a few mistakes. The old guys have a limited shelf life, remember that.

That's all fine, BUT he can, and at his own choosing override other peoples opinion, that's when inexperience becomes a problem...I don't want McCain either but we are going to Elect one of two very flawed characters for POTUS...

[slofstra]

Somebody needs to assign a minder to this guy.

I wonder where the adults on Team Obama are. Someone he will listen to needs to get to Obama and tell him to stop digging. He was on Letterman tonight, droning on about what he meant. He doesn't seem to understand that what he meant doesn't matter anymore. What's important now is for him to shut up about it and move on.

God, he was BAD, he was just oozing inexperience...you can watch it here...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/1 ... 25509.html

I've been ignoring all this lipstick stuff, partly because I hate soundbite politics. But I decided to watch your clip because I wanted to see how Obama held up on Letterman. Not bad, in my view. The last line about how he used to be on the cover of Newsweek was good - I like "self-deprecating"; it looks good on him.

So, after hearing Obama explain his "lipstick" comment, I decided to youtube the comment in question, and have to agree. Obama was clearly talking about McCain's policies and nothing else!



Watch this and tell me he was talking about Palin. No way.

Chalkie, at some gut level Obama is inspiring a negative reaction in you, which I can kind of see in that Letterman clip. Perhaps he seems a little too confident and rooster-sure. But he is a politician after all.

[DavidRoss]

What would actually happen with Obama as Prez is a crapshoot to call at the present time. A few observations:
a) Northrop Frye and others have observed that the president/ prime minister in a democracy is essentially a figure head and most key decisions will come out the same regardless of which party is in power. This is why parties often can't execute their promises because when they face the music it's a different story. (I'm thinking of a withdrawal from Iraq - ain't going to happen until it's a vassal state).

If you really believe this, then why do you blast Bush? Are you aware of how incredibly weak this argument is in support of Obama? (Vote for O because it really doesn't matter who's in office!) Northrup Frye should stick to literary criticism where he actually might know something (even if much of it has no merit except as fodder for the academic mutual-admiration enterprise).

b) We don't know what he will have to face. It may be a relatively calm 4 years; but who knows ...

I don't understand how you think this supports Obama's candidacy. (Vote for O because who knows what may happen!)

c) Some men are born to greatness, some rise to it, etc. He has risen to a number of challenges already and pulled it off - Berlin, Israel, and so on. So - his inexperience may also be an asset.

Can you please list some of these great challenges to which he has risen? Surely there must be more than just giving a pretty speech filled with meaningless platitudes?

d) There will be a great tide of optimism in the Western world if Obama gets in - which will help him and the USA. Even if that optimism is dispelled by a new world war or some other catastrophe that initial rush of good will will help the USA.

Is there any basis for this claim other than wishful thinking? And who's to say that a McCain Presidency won't also usher in "a great tide of optimism? (Not counting the partisans who lie about him as a Bush clone--good grief, just how stupid do they think the voters are? Pretty damned stupid, I guess...or at least the ones they think likely to vote for the Demo ticket.)

e) A new broom can be good. Probably fewer butts kissed and less favours to return which is always good.

This sounds like an argument favoring McCain, not Obama. Or do you not understand that Joe Biden shows just how many favors Obama owes, how many butts he has kissed and must still kiss, and how far he is from being a new broom with his support of the most stale old failed policies still flogged by those slow-learning liberals. McCain, on the other hand, has a long record proving that he's no butt-kisser and no Party puppet.

f) Youth and energy! ... Do we really want these old guys like McCain?

So age-ism is an acceptable form of bigotry in your value system. I can see the virtue of comparative youth in hiring a professional athlete, but when it comes to national leadership, most cultures throughout history have sought guidance from elders whose wisdom based on years of practical experience provides a perspective that cannot be gained otherwise.

Why not give the up-and-comers a chance and let them make a few mistakes.

For those of us who care about the welfare of our children and grandchildren, the stakes are much too high. Palin appropriately skewered Mr. Obama when she said, "The American Presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery." He may be the most un-tested major party nominee of all time. If the choice were whether to have Obama or McCain over as a dinner guest, I'd probably choose Obama in a heartbeat--he's glib, smart, entertaining, expresses many idealistic principles that I share, and I feel much more personally sympatico with him than with McCain. But come November we Americans are not being asked to choose a party guest. We're being asked to choose a chief executive officer for the Federal government and a commander-in-chief for our military. And there is no time in history, let alone our present time, in which "giving the new guy a chance to make mistakes" is even a remotely rational consideration for such a choice.

[slofstra]

My post was not titled "Vote for Obama". It was titled "What would happen" ... I just suggested some points to put perspective on the evaluation. So I think most of your rebuttal is misaligned with my comments.

What would actually happen with Obama as Prez is a crapshoot to call at the present time. A few observations:
a) Northrop Frye and others have observed that the president/ prime minister in a democracy is essentially a figure head and most key decisions will come out the same regardless of which party is in power. This is why parties often can't execute their promises because when they face the music it's a different story. (I'm thinking of a withdrawal from Iraq - ain't going to happen until it's a vassal state).

If you really believe this, then why do you blast Bush? Are you aware of how incredibly weak this argument is in support of Obama? (Vote for O because it really doesn't matter who's in office!) Northrup Frye should stick to literary criticism where he actually might know something (even if much of it has no merit except as fodder for the academic mutual-admiration enterprise).

I never meant to imply that this means it doesn't matter who you should vote for. But doomsday scenarios based on either choice are overly dramatic, something you have a flair for. There are ways in which the choice matters, and ways in which it doesn't matter. As far as Northrop Frye sticking to anything, he has been dead for many years now.

b) We don't know what he will have to face. It may be a relatively calm 4 years; but who knows ...

I don't understand how you think this supports Obama's candidacy. (Vote for O because who knows what may happen!)

See my opening comment above.

c) Some men are born to greatness, some rise to it, etc. He has risen to a number of challenges already and pulled it off - Berlin, Israel, and so on. So - his inexperience may also be an asset.

Can you please list some of these great challenges to which he has risen? Surely there must be more than just giving a pretty speech filled with meaningless platitudes?

All I mean by this is that his relative lack of experience at high dealing won't by necessity translate into ineptitude. Also, I believe oratory is both a rare and important gift. He has it.

d) There will be a great tide of optimism in the Western world if Obama gets in - which will help him and the USA. Even if that optimism is dispelled by a new world war or some other catastrophe that initial rush of good will will help the USA.

Is there any basis for this claim other than wishful thinking? And who's to say that a McCain Presidency won't also usher in "a great tide of optimism? (Not counting the partisans who lie about him as a Bush clone--good grief, just how stupid do they think the voters are? Pretty damned stupid, I guess...or at least the ones they think likely to vote for the Demo ticket.)

I'm talking about the Western world ... outside the USA. You have to agree with this point or you don't have your ears to the ground at all.

e) A new broom can be good. Probably fewer butts kissed and less favours to return which is always good.

This sounds like an argument favoring McCain, not Obama. Or do you not understand that Joe Biden shows just how many favors Obama owes, how many butts he has kissed and must still kiss, and how far he is from being a new broom with his support of the most stale old failed policies still flogged by those slow-learning liberals. McCain, on the other hand, has a long record proving that he's no butt-kisser and no Party puppet.

All politicians deal in favours - it's the only way they get where they are. The longer they've been around in politics, the more cronies and butts are involved.

f) Youth and energy! ... Do we really want these old guys like McCain?

So age-ism is an acceptable form of bigotry in your value system. I can see the virtue of comparative youth in hiring a professional athlete, but when it comes to national leadership, most cultures throughout history have sought guidance from elders whose wisdom based on years of practical experience provides a perspective that cannot be gained otherwise.

There are things that go with age and things that go with youth. I've noticed that you scream "bigotry" very easily. I suggest a little less of the high horse would become you.

Why not give the up-and-comers a chance and let them make a few mistakes.

For those of us who care about the welfare of our children and grandchildren, the stakes are much too high. Palin appropriately skewered Mr. Obama when she said, "The American Presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery." He may be the most un-tested major party nominee of all time. If the choice were whether to have Obama or McCain over as a dinner guest, I'd probably choose Obama in a heartbeat--he's glib, smart, entertaining, expresses many idealistic principles that I share, and I feel much more personally sympatico with him than with McCain. But come November we Americans are not being asked to choose a party guest. We're being asked to choose a chief executive officer for the Federal government and a commander-in-chief for our military. And there is no time in history, let alone our present time, in which "giving the new guy a chance to make mistakes" is even a remotely rational consideration for such a choice.

A tad dramatic. Old guys make mistakes too, for other reasons. For example, McCain has problems with his temper; is he going to have a steady hand on the tiller in a time of crisis? And the other thing he has going against him - he's a Republican!

[Corlyss_D]

Swinging to McCain

The standard explanation of John McCain's post-convention, post-Sarah Palin bounce is that the maverick lurched to the right with his selection of the Alaska governor and brought the base back home. But a closer look at Gallup's latest poll results tells a different story.

While Sen. McCain's support among Republicans inched up to 90% from 89% pre-convention, his support among independents jumped to 52% from 40% at the end of August. Neither Mr. McCain nor Barack Obama had previously clocked majority support among independents in this election cycle, according to Lydia Saad of Gallup. Among what Ms. Saad calls "pure independents" -- those who say they lean neither liberal nor conservative -- Mr. McCain's support nearly doubled after the convention, to 39% from 20%.

Thus the combination of the convention and the Palin pick seems to have done much more than just shore up Mr. McCain's conservative base. It helped swing a substantial number of those precious swing voters -- for now. Whether the most recent numbers stick in the coming weeks remains to be seen. Even now, some 40% of these true middle-of-the-roaders say they are undecided in the race.

Still, the bottom line is that Mr. McCain seems to have broadened his appeal to moderates and independents by his choice of running mate. No wonder, then, the all-out push by the Obama forces to paint Mrs. Palin as some sort of extremist. The bad news for Mr. Obama is that, so far, it isn't working.

-- Brian M. Carney

[Barry]

... Still, the bottom line is that Mr. McCain seems to have broadened his appeal to moderates and independents by his choice of running mate. ...

Pollsters obviously know more about this than I do, but my impression was that McCain and others did a masterful job of reminding swing voters why they loved McCain in 2000. His speech received less swooning that Palin's did, but I thought it was brilliant in that he ignored the base in the hall and went right for the swing voters. That was probably the single best (for McCain) of Palin's locking up of the base. McCain was able to go back to being the type of candidate he was in 2000 without worrying about pissing off the right wing.

[Chalkperson]

Chalkie, at some gut level Obama is inspiring a negative reaction in you, which I can kind of see in that Letterman clip. Perhaps he seems a little too confident and rooster-sure. But he is a politician after all.

I have had to 'read' people all my life as a portrait photographer, I have to make them not look uncomfortable, I can tell to a degree what they are thinking, I can tell from the pitch of their voice if they are on drugs or alcohol etc etc, and each time I watch Obama I see inexperience, he did not even know how to passify the people at his Inauguration, he has not yet learned what to do with his hands, I could teach him that in a week but someone in their Campaign is not doing his/her Job, or are not being allowed to do their job,...as I have said before he will make a great Statesman and can go gallavanting around the World meeting other leaders and trying to repair our relationships and help to show the World that Americans are still kind, generous, God fearing people, it's the Administration that people actually hate, not American's...but being President is about more than that, the Oval Office creates the bubble no matter what, I just don't think he is qualified yet to take on that task, sorry but it's how I feel...and then there is this, Bush took cotrol of the rains and due to his inexperience he screwed some things up, can we really elect someone with even less experience next, I think not...if he listened to his handlers and got rid of some of the Messiah aspect I would like him better, let's hope that by his second term he has improved...

[Corlyss_D]

... Still, the bottom line is that Mr. McCain seems to have broadened his appeal to moderates and independents by his choice of running mate. ...

Pollsters obviously know more about this than I do, but my impression was that McCain and others did a masterful job of reminding swing voters why they loved McCain in 2000. His speech received less swooning that Palin's did, but I thought it was brilliant in that he ignored the base in the hall and went right for the swing voters.

CW is turned completely on its head if this Palin phenomenon continues. Yesterday I saw McCain/Palin being introduced in Fairfax, Va., Fairfax, of all places, the big heart of blue Northern Virginia, by the former Va. campaign chairman for Hillary. I listened to Mort Kondracke fairly shouting at his colleagues after Palin's pick that if McCain thought he was going to pick up Hillary's voters by trotting out this inexperienced nobody just because she was a woman, he was delusional. It's a sad thing to watch when a model of modern politics shatters and collapses. CW has been right all these years: nobody votes for the VP. All the insiders will tell you that. But women, disaffected Hillary voters who appear to be unconcerned that Palin's positions on the social issues doesn't reflect their own, and independents are flooding into McCain's column. And not just to vote, but also to contribute money and to work for the campaign. The disaffected Hillary voters merely bear out what the pollsters have been saying for months about the influence of social issues on likely or leaning voters: 5% or less are going to make up their minds based on them.

Poor Bob Beckel!


Palin Doesn't Matter, Numbers Do
By Bob Beckel

The Sarah Palin "boom" that has so traumatized Democrats and intimidated the press will have little if any impact on the presidential election. People don't vote for vice presidents, they vote for presidents. This race is about John McCain and Barack Obama not Annie Oakley from Wasilla, Alaska. It is also about turnout numbers and the electoral demographics in 2008 which overwhelm any impact Sarah Palin might have on the election outcome.

First the Palin "boom". It is the product of surprise (a short lived but powerful force in politics), an emotional outlet for the GOP Right, and post convention polls. In the intense coverage of politics by the ever expanding number of outlets for political information, what is new and surprising quickly becomes over exposed resulting in a short shelf life. The freshness goes away quickly. So it will be shortly for Ms. Palin. She has had the best week in this campaign she will have and the only direction now is down.

The large turnouts at McCain/Palin events this week are a result of an energized Right (which will vote Republican anyway) and say as much about the lack of enthusiasm on the Right for McCain before he picked Palin as it does about any shift in the electorate. As for post convention polls; they are the least predictive of the eventual outcome as any polls in a presidential election. Of course there was a "bounce" after 3 days of what amounted to an infomercial for McCain and a negative ad campaign against Obama. It will not last.

Despite the best efforts of the McCain campaign to control press access to Palin, they can hold back the press tide only so long. It is simply too big and prolific. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis said on Fox News Sunday they will continue to limit press access until the media shows some "deference" to Palin. Deference is for dictators and monarchs not for junior governors of sparsely populated states like Alaska who expect to be second in line to the leader of the world's oldest Democracy.

In the end all the Palin "boom" you hear today will be a whimper come Election Day.

Bob Beckel managed Walter Mondale’s* 1984 presidential campaign.


*And we all know how well that went!

[RebLem]

Trooper Stupor

Half the Washington press corps is now winging its way to Alaska to scour the record for something embarrassing on Gov. Sarah Palin. Luring them is a seeming scandal already called Troopergate that broke in July, when Mrs. Palin fired Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. In recent weeks the state legislature has opened an investigation into the dismissal and hired an independent counsel to determine if laws were broken.

Her critics accuse Mrs. Palin of firing Mr. Monegan because he had refused to fire State Trooper Michael Wooten, who had gone through a messy divorce with the governor's sister. If the charge is true, it would certainly hurt Mrs. Palin's reformist credentials -- although her powers of office entitled her to fire Commissioner Monegan for any reason or no reason at all.

Still, there is reason to suspect the scandal is little more than a political smear attempt. The investigation is being run by a Democrat in the state Senate (the Republican who would have been in charge recently stepped down to fight allegations of his own corruption). Mr. Monegan is a disgruntled former employee who never told anyone about the alleged pressure to fire Trooper Wooten before his own firing. And Mr. Monegan broke his allegations on a blog run by an also-ran gubernatorial candidate who was crushed by Mrs. Palin in the 2006 elections. What's more, Trooper Wooten's record would hardly seem to make him ideal state trooper material. He's a four-time divorcee whom Mrs. Palin says threatened to kill her father. He admitted to using a Taser on his 11-year-old stepson and to killing a moose out of season. He's also had to fight allegations of drunk driving and other infractions.

The scandal also seems trumped up in light of legitimate reasons Mrs. Palin had for firing Commissioner Monegan. The two disagreed over cuts in the public safety department's budget as well as her insistence that he focus state trooper attention on rural drug use. Mr. Monegan had been forced out of his previous job running the police force of Anchorage. The man who fired him then was Mayor Mark Begich, the Democrat now running for U.S. Senate against embattled Republican Ted Stevens.

In Alaska, politics always seems a little inbred. Mrs. Palin has remained mum since she was tapped to be John McCain's running mate nearly two weeks ago, but seven members of her administration have declined requests by investigators to be interviewed. The state legislature is now weighing whether to hand down subpoenas -- though it's unlikely that the governor herself would be subpoenaed. With so much fodder, however, any reporter with an eye for detail will be able to come back from an Alaska trip with attention-getting tidbits. You don't become a change agent by making friends, so there will be plenty of pols on both sides of the aisle eager to fill a reporter's notebook with their criticisms of Mrs. Palin. To beat this story, the McCain/Palin campaign may need to start filling a few of those pages itself.

-- Brendan Miniter

If reporters routinely depended for news only on those sources acting out of the purest, most public spirited motives, newspapers and all other news sources would be less than a quarter the length that they are. They also wouldn't print anything by a governor's, or a president's, press secretary.

Arugula lovers of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your guilt! RebLem

[Agnes Selby]

Even across the Pacific I knew Obama had shot himself in the foot as soon as I heard it.

Ah, Brendan, you should have seen the jubilation at Chatswood railway
station where the Arab taxi drivers gathered and sung praises
to Obama for giving it to that "American bitch".

Agnes.

[RebLem]

Chalkie, at some gut level Obama is inspiring a negative reaction in you, which I can kind of see in that Letterman clip. Perhaps he seems a little too confident and rooster-sure. But he is a politician after all.

I have had to 'read' people all my life as a portrait photographer, I have to make them not look uncomfortable, I can tell to a degree what they are thinking, I can tell from the pitch of their voice if they are on drugs or alcohol etc etc, and each time I watch Obama I see inexperience, he did not even know how to passify the people at his Inauguration, he has not yet learned what to do with his hands, I could teach him that in a week but someone in their Campaign is not doing his/her Job, or are not being allowed to do their job,...as I have said before he will make a great Statesman and can go gallavanting around the World meeting other leaders and trying to repair our relationships and help to show the World that Americans are still kind, generous, God fearing people, it's the Administration that people actually hate, not American's...but being President is about more than that, the Oval Office creates the bubble no matter what, I just don't think he is qualified yet to take on that task, sorry but it's how I feel...and then there is this, Bush took cotrol of the rains and due to his inexperience he screwed some things up, can we really elect someone with even less experience next, I think not...if he listened to his handlers and got rid of some of the Messiah aspect I would like him better, let's hope that by his second term he has improved...

I am sure your trained eye catches way more than mind do, but I have noticed some of these things, too. In another thread, on the Saddleback Church appearance, I noted that whenever Obama is ill at ease, his head tilts to the right side of his body. Now, as a result of watching subsequent interviews, esp the one with The Loffah Kid on FAUX, I modify that comment--the head tilts, but it can go to ether side--it tends to go toward the camera side, I think.

I have also noticed, as you have, that Obama's speeches are worst at the beginning, when he is trying to get started, and at the end, when he needs to make an exit. He doesn't seem to know how to do that. I would think that when you are starting, you smile kindly, but not smugly, at the applause, and stand still, your hands and arms at your side, and just wait for the roar to subside. Don't try to hush them before they are ready. Don't say, "Thank you," twenty times. When the roar starts to subside, and a few people begin to sit down who had been standing, then you can raise your arms, and bring them down in a "hushing" signal.

The way he ends a speech is sometimes even worse. It looks particularly stupid when you join in the applause. It looks like you're either narcissistic, or you just don't know what to do with your hands, or you are applauding the audience for applauding you. As I see it, the problem is not arrogance, or a Messiah complex, but exactly the opposite. He is so used to the idea of adjusting to the desires of others, and trying to meet their needs, that he finds command difficult. The best harbinger of things to come is that his campaign is fiscally one of the best managed in American political history; there, he has very effective control over the flow of money and what is happening, providing a particularly stark contrast to Hillary's chaotic campaign.

Arugula lovers of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your guilt! RebLem