Saturday, September 6, 2008

06 Sep 2008 11:57 pm

President. Sarah. Palin. (Gulp).

Like a lot of us, Sam Harris is having a hard time going to sleep at night:

As many people have noted, placing Palin on the ticket has made these final months of the already overlong 2008 campaign much more interesting. Is Palin remotely qualified to be president of the United States? No. But that’s precisely what is so interesting.

Continue reading "President. Sarah. Palin. (Gulp)." »

06 Sep 2008 10:20 pm

The Science Of Football

Jonah Lehrer digs into the statistics:

Although passing the ball isn't statistically riskier than running the ball, it feels riskier, as the ball is lofted into the air and is up for grabs. The end result is that teams gain fewer yards than they might otherwise, simply because the brain isn't good at accurately calculating risks versus rewards.

06 Sep 2008 08:42 pm

Face of The Day

Michaela Bartoi of Troy, Michigan, becomes emotional as she watches Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin speak at a campaign event at the Freedom Hill Ampitheatre in Sterling Heights, Michigan on September 5, 2008. By Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty.

06 Sep 2008 07:35 pm

"God ... Is Gonna Strike Out His Hand Against, Yes, ... The United States Of America!"

Remember a certain Jeremiah Wright's rhetorical flight of Biblical hyperbole? Petard, prepare to be hoist:

Continue reading ""God ... Is Gonna Strike Out His Hand Against, Yes, ... The United States Of America!"" »

06 Sep 2008 07:23 pm

The McCain Bounce

It looks like it's coming back to normal levels. I actually think the speech helped, however lackluster in delivery. It was a mellow, centrist speech and low-information voters, who haven't been paying attention to how he has waged his campaign so far, would have liked it. My guess is that Palin will electrify the Christianist base but make Florida much harder. A far right Christianist who believes in the end-times and whose pastor was first inspired by Jews For Jesus is not a great sell in Boca.

06 Sep 2008 07:12 pm

Wait And See

Ain't that good advice right now? Edward Stanwood's 1912 Atlantic article goes over some election superstitions held at the time; people believed "that no man possessed of a middle name could be elected President a second time" and that "that no senator can be elected President." His bottom line:

In the words of the sporting editor all records have been broken, and we may almost say that all the traditions and conventions of political campaigns and of political conduct have been affronted, if not violated. That being the case, it is somewhat late to consider whether the superstitions and traditions of a hundred or more years are to stand, in the result in November. All we can do is, to use the phrase that has become current in British politics: 'Wait and see.'

Marc made a related point a few days ago.

06 Sep 2008 07:04 pm

Papa Bear's Den

The first part of O'Reilly's interview with Obama:

06 Sep 2008 06:36 pm

What The Brits Think Of Palin

Here's a fascinating glimpse into how the rest of the world is reacting to the Sarah Palin selection. It's from a classic and peerless British weekly radio panel discussion show, called "Any Questions." A panel of four take questions from an audience taped live somewhere in Britain. Click on the button "Listen Again" for "Any Questions" for September 5. The discussion begins at the 34 minute mark. The question:

Why is being a soccer mom a qualification for being the second in command of the so-called global superpower?

By the way, what does Derb think? Bea Campbell:

Let's imagine that governor Palin was indeed a man. He wouldn't be interesting. He'd be outrageous. She is outrageous, actually.

06 Sep 2008 06:32 pm

What McCain Learned From Bush

How to obstruct justice:

In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation...

Continue reading "What McCain Learned From Bush" »

06 Sep 2008 05:40 pm

A Fiscal Conservative?

Who is McCain trying to kid? Here's Palin's record as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, from the vetting document (PDF) done by the Democrats in 2006, posted by Mudflats, the indispensable Alaskan blog. Yes, Palin has been vetted before - just not by McCain:

Debt Service Increased 69 Percent Under Palin.

In fiscal 2003 — the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget — the total government debt service was $658,662. In fiscal 1996 — the year before Palin took control of the budget—the debt service was $390,385. The increase was 69 percent. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 1]

Palin Left Behind Almost $19 Million In Long-Term Debt, Compared to None Before She Was Mayor.

In fiscal 2003—the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget—the bonded long-term debt was $18,635,000. In fiscal 1996—the year before Palin took control of the budget—there was no general obligation debt. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 10]

Long-Term Debt Was $3000 Per Capita When Palin Left, Compared to None Before She Was Mayor.

Continue reading "A Fiscal Conservative?" »

06 Sep 2008 05:02 pm

In Hiding For Two Weeks?!

This is incredible, totally incredible. A vice presidential candidate isn't going to be available to the press for two weeks? Two weeks? In September. We have this total unknown who could be president of the United States next January. And she's in hiding for two weeks. Chris Matthews on this clip says that this is fine. Has he lost his mind? She needs to be in front of the press now. The United States and the world cannot have this total unknown foisted on the presidency without any serious vetting and without any press interaction. This is absolutely third world. Since when is the governor of a state given two weeks in hiding?

The sexism that implies that someone cannot stand up to reporters because she is a woman is appalling. This entire pick, of course, is incredibly sexist, and the handling of her in the last week the most sexist double standard I have ever seen in American politics. Can you imagine Hillary Clinton saying she wasn't going to answer questions for two weeks? Or Margaret Thatcher? Or Kay Bailey Hutchison? Or Elizabeth Dole? And none of these women were ever as close to global power as Sarah Palin now is. This is getting to Manchurian Candidate levels of creepiness. It's deeply sinister and slightly terrifying.

06 Sep 2008 04:45 pm

Southern Captivity

The last bit of Christopher Caldwell's article on 1998 article on the limits of the GOP:

The most profound clash between the South and everyone else, of course, is a cultural one. It arises from the southern tradition of putting values -- particularly Christian values -- at the center of politics. This is not the same as saying that the Republican Party is "too far right"; Americans consistently tell pollsters that they are conservative on values issues. It is, rather, that the Republicans have narrowly defined "values" as the folkways of one regional subculture, and have urged their imposition on the rest of the country. Again, the nonsoutherners who object to this style of politics may be just as conservative as those who practice it. But they are put off to see that "traditional" values are now defined by the majority party as the values of the U-Haul-renting denizens of two-year-old churches and three-year-old shopping malls.

Southerners now wag the Republican dog. How did the party let that happen?

And why does Sarah Palin's Alaska seem like Alabama with penguins polar bears?

06 Sep 2008 04:40 pm

Cheney-Bush '08

Larison on the dregs of Bushism:

McCain provides the basic policy trajectory of a third Bush term, and Palin provides the biography of a folksy pro-life ”reformer with results” governor of a large, oil-rich reliably Republican state in the West–it is pretty close to the Bush/Cheney ticket in reverse, isn’t it?

06 Sep 2008 04:38 pm

The End Of Expertise?

A bit from an interview by Harry Collins author of Rethinking Expertise:

I would say that the danger to democracy that my own discipline—social studies of science—is not doing enough to combat is the collapse of the idea of expertise. Current social studies of science has difficulty with the notion of expertise. The attitude that anyone's opinion on any topic is equally valuable could spread, and there are some indications, such as widespread vaccine scares, that suggest it is happening. A world in which there is said to be no difference between those who know what they are talking about and those who don't is not one that anyone who thinks about it wants. Such a society would be like one's worst nightmare, exhibiting many of the characteristics of the most vile epochs of human history.

06 Sep 2008 04:35 pm

Yglesias Award Nominee

Not every conservative has lost his mind:

I don't think academic credentials matter at all in the presidency. (Unlike eg the Supreme Court or the Federal Reserve.) I even believe that there is rapidly diminishing marginal utility for IQ. Clinton was surely smarter than FDR, Nixon smarter than Reagan, Adams smarter than Washington. We are talking about a particular set of decision-making skills - and there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that Palin possesses them. Worse, from my point of view, is the assumption that because she is a conservative Christian that she therefore has intelligent conservative views on every other subject, from what to do with Fannie Mae to what to do about Iran. That's a greater leap of faith than I can make.

But, David, you gotta have faith, faith, faith. That's all conservatism is now about!

06 Sep 2008 04:32 pm

Double Down

Bill Kristol on Sarah Palin. All he writes about in this piece of propaganda is electoral strategy and the people he hates in the media. In a week, he hasn't said a word about Sarah Palin's foreign policy views. I know she's being safely indoctrinated by Joe Liebermanand AIPAC as we speak, but the fact that Kristol, like the rest of us, has not yet been able to point to a single view of hers on foreign policy in her entire life, is eloquent enough. Aren't we at war? Isn't he supposed to care about national security? Is everything about pursuing power by any means to him?

06 Sep 2008 04:25 pm

The Softer Side Of a "F-ing Redneck"

06 Sep 2008 04:07 pm

What Real Americans Eat For Breakfast

"I hate to admit it, but a skinny white chocolate mocha is my staple in the morning," - Sarah Palin, in the WSJ glossy supplement out this weekend.

Now imagine if the Democrats had a vice-presidential candidate with no record of any views on foreign policy and whose favorite morning snack was a white chocolate mocha. Do you think Rush Limbaugh would be calling it a brilliant choice? Her workout pitfall? Drum roll:

 

"Being pregnant every few years. If I get lazy and go weeks or months without exercising it's not because of circumstances but because I'm being less disciplined. Shame on me."

Huh?

06 Sep 2008 03:59 pm

Vive La Resistance

"Every single human being has the right to a fair trial and to be treated humanely by their captors.  John McCain, of all people, should understand this.  He was a prisoner of war.  On the one fundamental issue that his entire campaign is centered around - the character-building experience of his POW stint - he gets it wrong.

America cannot be a shining beacon of light in the world when we condone policies of treating our enemies with the same standards as the Viet Cong treated their enemies...

Continue reading "Vive La Resistance" »

06 Sep 2008 03:34 pm

Drill, Drill, Drill?

Tyler Cowen reconsiders the benefits of drilling.

06 Sep 2008 02:21 pm

The View From Your Window

Popoyo, Nicaragua, 5.15 pm.

06 Sep 2008 02:20 pm

Religion Is Politics ...

... and politics is religion. With Sarah Palin, America has taken one very large leap toward a completely theocratic politics. For Palin, as for Rick Warren, there can be no distinction between politics and religion: all politics is subject to religious guidance and that guidance is to obey the literal truth of everything in the Bible:

In the address at the Assembly of God Church here, Ms. Palin’s ease in talking about the intersection of faith and public life was clear. Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.”

She also told the group that her eldest child, Track, would soon be deployed by the Army to Iraq, and that they should pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”

Everything in her worldview must be according to God's plan, and God's plan is revealed without any ambiguity whatsoever in the literal words of the Bible, Old and New Testament. There is no detail too small, no policy too obscure, that isn't vetted through this filter. This is the fundamentalist psyche in its most extreme form: think Bush but less intellectual. Think Bush's evangelical tradition combined with speaking in tongues and a belief in the Rapture. Yes, this is now conservatism. If you want to explore how it came to this, I gave it my best shot here.

06 Sep 2008 02:17 pm

To The Dogs

The North Carolina Senate race turns mean, and weird.

06 Sep 2008 01:46 pm

George W. Palin

Frum again:

George W. Bush had very slight executive experience before becoming president. His views were not well known. He won the nomination exactly in the same way that Palin has won the hearts of so many conservatives: by sending cultural cues to convince them that he was one of them, understood them, sympathized with them. So that made everything else irrelevant in 2000 - as it seems again to be doing in 2008. I do credit George W. Bush with great feats of leadership. In particular, I think his refusal to quit Iraq in 2005-2006 when everybody was urging him to, his insistence on fighting through to success, will be seen as a triumph of strength and conviction that saved the US from potential disaster. But he lacked other important aspects of leadership which is how we got into the mess from which he needed to rescue the country and himself...

I am not denying that Sarah Palin may have great skills. She may well. I am insisting that neither you, nor I, nor John McCain has any valid reason to believe that she does. This is not an argument about the attributes she lacks. It's an argument about the information we lack. I am pleading with my fellow conservatives: Please demand more and better knowledge before you commit yourselves to a political leader. That's all.

This decision is not worthy of a great power. Whatever skills Palin may turn out to have, however fabulous a person she may turn out to be, even if she becomes the Eva Peron of Christianism, McCain

had no idea when he picked her.

He winged this. That's the critical, unavoidable, devastating point.

John McCain has demonstrated with this insane decision that he is unfit to be president of the United States. This was an act of near-criminal negligence. If he can behave this recklessly and impulsively with this decision, the idea of allowing him to become president of the United States is only a smidgen less terrifying than thinking of Palin in that position.

Whatever few doubts I may once have still had about this election, they are resolved now.

Obama has to win. The alternative is unthinkable.

06 Sep 2008 01:37 pm

Heh

Josh Marshall:

06 Sep 2008 01:35 pm

Where Are Joe Biden's Medical Records?

I ask again. I will ask every day till we get them. Fair's fair, right?

06 Sep 2008 01:22 pm

McCain's "Bounce"

Nate Silver explains:

You can all stop hyperventilating now ... Last night and tonight should be among the best individual nights of polling that the Republicans see all year. If the best they can do is close the race to a tie, or an Obama +1 on those nights, they are not going to win the race based on inertia alone.

06 Sep 2008 12:51 pm

Biden On Fire

One vice-presidential candidate is too fragile to talk to the press. The other is raising the roof. Man, this decision is easy, isn't it?

06 Sep 2008 12:23 pm

The Eagleton Scenario, Ctd.

Over 17,000 Dish readers have voted by 68 to 32 percent that Palin will still be on the ticket in November. That's a little better than two-to-one. I'll post the poll again in a week and see if the result changes.

06 Sep 2008 12:03 pm

One Palin Mystery Solved

From the Smoking Gun:

As followers of the Palin feeding frenzy know, the National Enquirer this week reported the "incredible allegation" that Palin had an extramarital affair with an unnamed former "business partner" of her husband.

Continue reading "One Palin Mystery Solved" »

06 Sep 2008 11:59 am

The First Amendment Lives!

We have a question and an answer! Over a week after a person who could technically be president next January was introduced on a national stage, the press has been allowed to ask one question and has received one answer. Drum roll:

Ms. Palin did not respond to reporters who shouted questions. But she made a single exception when an Alaskan television reporter posed a concern: Are you going to still be there for Alaska?

“I’m happy to be governor of Alaska,” Ms. Palin said, adding, “couldn’t be more proud, of course, of my position as governor of Alaska.”

This indeed is the level of questioning one expects from a third world dictatorship or a beauty pageant. And with today's GOP, we seem to be merging the two concepts.

06 Sep 2008 11:56 am

The Final TV Ratings

McCain beat Obama (just). The NFL helped.

06 Sep 2008 08:52 am

Still A Celeb

McCain's latest ad:

Friday, September 5, 2008

05 Sep 2008 09:50 pm

We've Got Questions

Frum explains why Palin shouldn't hide from the press. I'm simply staggered that someone who could be president in an instant next January has been in her position for a week and cannot be asked questions by the press corps. Has this ever happened before in American history? Again: unbelievable. And terrifying.

05 Sep 2008 09:16 pm

Face Of The Day

Former U.S. Representative and Libertarian presidential hopeful Bob Barr speaks at the National Press Club September 5, 2008 in Washington, DC. The candidate spoke at a forum on protecting privacy. By Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images.

05 Sep 2008 08:15 pm

The Christianists Now Own The GOP

Packer sees what the GOP has now become:

[McCain] gambled, all right, but it was in the direction of orthodoxy—for Palin is a creature and an icon of the Republicans’ evangelical base, which came into full possession of the Party this week and completed the G.O.P.’s conversion to identity politics...No wonder Pat Buchanan was so fired up on MSNBC, while Mike Huckabee wore the look of a man who missed his train because he was given the wrong departure time.

05 Sep 2008 07:39 pm

Palin, The Reformer?

Kimberley Strassel makes the case.

05 Sep 2008 07:12 pm

Michael Moore And The GOP

Michael Moore asks the press to lay off Palin:

But before everyone gets all smug and self-righteous about the Palin selection, remember where you live. You live in a nation of gun owners and hunters. You live in a country where one out of three girls get pregnant before they are 20. You live in a nation of C students. Knocking Bush for being a C student only endeared him to the nation of C students. Knock Palin for having kids, for having a kid who's having a baby, for anything that is part of her normalness -- a normalness that looks very familiar to so many millions of Americans -- well, you do this at your own peril. Assuming she's still on the ticket two weeks from now, she will be a much tougher opponent than anyone expects.

Dreher agrees with Moore. So does the Republican establishment. I'm not smug or self-righteous about this. I'm alarmed by what Charles Krauthammer has called

the paucity of any Palin record or expressed conviction on the major issues of our time.

Maybe we're being picky, but you kinda want to know those kinds of things when someone could be president of the United States next January. Does the fact that we know nothing about her foreign policy views not worry anyone?

05 Sep 2008 06:56 pm

How Many Votes?

Palin won re-election as mayor of Wasilla in 1999 by garnering a grand total of 909 votes. The most votes she has ever received for any public office is 114,697. Biden's largest tally? 165,465.

05 Sep 2008 06:33 pm

Quote For The Day

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle" - George Orwell.

05 Sep 2008 06:23 pm

Go Read The Anchorage Daily News

This story is fascinating in its coverage of a big shift in Alaskan politics last March 14.

05 Sep 2008 06:21 pm

Go Read The Corner

God knows how many times I send people to National Review: they have a policy of not linking to this site, although obviously not a policy of not reading it. But you've seen and read all the mounds of new data on Palin today, coursing through the blogosphere and Google, and NRO is fixated on ... Oprah.

05 Sep 2008 06:17 pm

Wage Insurance?

Kevin Drum thinks he may have found an actual policy proposal in McCain's speech.

05 Sep 2008 06:00 pm

Biden's Medical Records

Ben Smith says the Obama-Biden campaign will release them "very soon". Good to know. I won't relent on making sure that Joe Biden's full medical record is available to the press. And I'll keep you posted.

05 Sep 2008 05:55 pm

Three Weeks Earlier

The Troopergate report gets moved up.

05 Sep 2008 05:48 pm

Those Court Papers

A reader writes:

I know the court site is really slow to load, but I thought you'd like to know the motion to seal the divorce was denied:

09/04/2008      Order Denying Motion Case Motion #3: Motion to Make Case File Confidential

09/03/2008      Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); Case Motion #3

05 Sep 2008 05:25 pm

Needing To Swoon

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline states the obvious:

We conservatives have had a good time ridiculing the Obama phenomenon, especially its messianic feel -- the willingness of its adherents to pour so much hope and belief into such an empty, or at least incomplete, vessel -- and its elevation of "narrative" over substance.

It turns out that we were dying to have basically the same experience.

The difference is that Obama earned it; Palin was given it.

05 Sep 2008 05:17 pm

Does Anything Check Out?

McCain reveals the extent of his knowledge of Palin:

"You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay -- made a profit," he said, introducing Palin.

Nope. The state sold it at a loss of half a million dollars - and not on eBay. McCain picked her on thinly sourced anecdotes. At best.

05 Sep 2008 05:02 pm

Now You're Talking

Megan:

"McCain is a perpetual adolescent... a 65 year old man behaving like he's a frat brother."

I don't want an adolescent dealing with Iran, do you? With an end-times fanatic as his running mate?

05 Sep 2008 04:45 pm

Murdoch And Obama

Michael Wolff has been interviewing Rupert Murdoch for the last nine months. This is fascinating:

Obama...was snubbing Murdoch...It wasn’t until early in the summer that Obama relented and a secret courtesy meeting was arranged. The meeting began with Murdoch sitting down, knee to knee with Obama, at the Waldorf-Astoria. The younger man was deferential—and interested in his story. Obama pursued: What was Murdoch’s relationship with his father? How had he gotten from Adelaide to the top of the world?

Murdoch, for his part, had a simple thought to share with Obama. He had known possibly as many heads of state as anyone living today—had met every American president from Harry Truman on—and this is what he understood: nobody got much time to make an impression. Leadership was about what you did in the first six months.

Continue reading "Murdoch And Obama" »