Friday, September 5, 2008

05 Sep 2008 04:37 pm

Harvey Milk

Coming soon:

05 Sep 2008 04:22 pm

Reihan Misunderstands

He takes issue with this sentence of mine:

So the first reason we have Palin is the Christianist veto, not some reform fantasy that exists in David’s and Ross’s and Reihan’s brilliant heads.

His response:

I do think it’s worth noting that calling the project that David and Ross and I are committed to a reform fantasy is a little unfair.

Continue reading "Reihan Misunderstands" »

05 Sep 2008 03:49 pm

Reading The Polls

Rasmussen finds that Palin is more popular than either McCain or Obama. Survey USA reports that voters reacted favorably to her speech. What does it all mean? Mark Blumenthal does his best to explain. My view is that the GOP is now like Wile E Coyote about half a mile off the cliff suspended in mid-air. Yes, the speech was a great moment: a former sportscaster knows how to deliver a speech written for her.  But we have two months to get to know her, if she's still on the ticket in November.

05 Sep 2008 03:36 pm

Talk About Bush, Sarah

James Poulos wrestles with the claim that Palin represents national reform:

For Sarah Palin to come to terms with America, and for America to come to terms with Sarah Palin, she must make good on the promise of her lot in life. If she wishes to become a major figure in her part in a party on the ropes and depleted, with a world of rebuilding to do she must have the courage to begin explaining explicitly why Bush has failed and how she repudiates those failures as a public figure and a conservative Republican.

05 Sep 2008 03:11 pm

Troopergate

ABC News' devastating report. Palin clearly lied:

05 Sep 2008 03:11 pm

Voting For The Bottom Of The Ticket?

Dreher is struggling with his vote.

05 Sep 2008 03:00 pm

The Eagleton Scenario: A Poll

A poll - the Dish's first real one. But it's a burning question right now:

05 Sep 2008 02:58 pm

Viewer Numbers

A reader writes:

The 40+ million figure includes PBS' estimate. Without PBS, Palin's speech was watched by 37.2 million. Obama's speech still had more viewers, over 42 million, when adding in PBS estimates.

05 Sep 2008 02:42 pm

Family Values Update

Is the party of traditional marriage aware that the vice-presidential nominee actually eloped with her now-husband? And just in case you missed it: Scott Richter, Todd Palin's former business partner, has just filed an emergency motion to seal his divorce papers.

05 Sep 2008 02:37 pm

When Krauthammer Bails

You know it's rough:

The gamble is enormous. In a stroke, McCain gratuitously forfeited his most powerful argument against Obama. And this was even before Palin’s inevitable liabilities began to pile up — inevitable because any previously unvetted neophyte has “issues.” The kid. The state trooper investigation. And worst, the paucity of any Palin record or expressed conviction on the major issues of our time.

My italics. So Charles agrees with me. A person who heard about the surge "on the news" and wanted an "exit plan" is simply not a credible vice-president for John McCain. It can't be defended with any measure of intellectual honesty. It could be defended as a cynical electoral gambit. But it cannot be defended by anyone even faintly serious about national security. And so you see what people like Mark Levin and Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg truly are: fathomless cynics.

Watching the conservative intelligentsia divide into those who still have some grip on reality and principle and those who long ago took their leave of both is really fascinating. Charles has not lost his marbles, even if so many others have.

05 Sep 2008 02:29 pm

The Eagleton Scenario

Aired now on Instapundit.

05 Sep 2008 02:22 pm

The Bush-Cheney Albatross Around McCain's Neck

Toles gets it:

05 Sep 2008 02:13 pm

Cindy's $300,000 Outfit

You'd think the McCain campaign, in a time of economic distress, would avoid making stories like this one:

Vanity Fair editors estimated that McCain's fierce saffron shirt dress with the popped collar, diamond earrings, four-strand pearl necklace, white Chanel watch and strappy shoes totaled up to $313,100 ...

Continue reading "Cindy's $300,000 Outfit" »

05 Sep 2008 01:46 pm

Awaiting The First Interview

Kevin Drum is betting there won't be radio silence from Palin. How about Hugh Hewitt? He's a toughie.

05 Sep 2008 01:30 pm

The Libertarian Case For Palin

David Harsanyi makes it.

05 Sep 2008 01:27 pm

What Ethics? What Transparency?

If the national press is cowering, Alaska's paper, which is now indispensable for news about the Palin disaster, is not. Here's their amazing editorial on Troopergate today:

Gov. Sarah Palin is taking the wrong approach to Troopergate. She should be practicing the open and transparent, ethical and accountable government she promised when running for governor and boasts about now that she's on the national stage.

Instead, Gov. Palin has begun stonewalling the Legislature's attempt to get the bottom of allegations that she, her family or staff violated ethical or state personnel rules.

As a result, the Troopergate allegations hang over Palin's future and cloud her candidacy for vice president...

Continue reading "What Ethics? What Transparency?" »

05 Sep 2008 01:26 pm

The Pitbull From Alaska

Fleeing?

05 Sep 2008 01:19 pm

The View From Your Window

Comanche, Texas, 9.25 am.

05 Sep 2008 01:16 pm

McCain And The Gays

Kirchick is impressed:

...the difference in tone on gay issues -- for those who were listening specifically -- between this convention and the last is markedly different. Which isn't much of a surprise, seeing that McCain's entirely comfortable around gays and has no interest in the GOP base's anti-gay hysteria. The Advocate's Sean Kennedy, no McCain partisan he, notes that, aside from a Mike Huckabee promise to save marriage from the gays, "there was an utter lack of rhetoric on gay issues" at the convention.

Continue reading "McCain And The Gays" »

05 Sep 2008 01:11 pm

Does Bush Believe McCain Was 'Tortured'?

I ask again. Background here and here. Can't some reporter ask the White House spokesperson in the daily briefing? It's important to use the explicit word "torture." Can we get the president of the United States saying on the record that his hoped-for successor was "tortured" in Vietnam? Just asking.

05 Sep 2008 01:04 pm

Where Are Biden's Medical Records?

I ask again. This is routine for all candidates. Biden appears to be dragging his feet.

05 Sep 2008 12:43 pm

That Green Background

Did the tech people confuse Walter Reed Middle School with Walter Reed Army Medical Center?

05 Sep 2008 12:40 pm

Mental Health Break

Because God knows we need one.

(Hat tip: Ezra Klein)

05 Sep 2008 12:11 pm

The Education Of David Brooks

A poignant column today. Boy, oh boy, do I wish Sarah Palin was chosen because she is the real embodiment of Republican "reform". And I'm sure that was one argument that persuaded John McCain to pick someone he didn't know and who hadn't been vetted in anything but an almost comically amateur fashion. As David concedes, the reason we don't have Lieberman is because David's party is a religious organization that would not accept a pro-choice Jew on the ticket. So the first reason we have Palin is the Christianist veto, not some reform fantasy that exists in David's and Ross's and Reihan's brilliant heads.

And what has Palin reformed? Here's David's money quote on this:

The key fact is this: When the testing time came, she quit her government job, put her career on the line and took on the corrupt establishment of her own party.

Does David really buy this? Let's look at her career and what sustained it. I will use Wikipedia, a resource the McCain campaign might want to know about. In her run for Mayor:

Continue reading "The Education Of David Brooks" »

05 Sep 2008 12:09 pm

McCain's Protesters

Dana Goldstein gets an interview with one. He's a Paulite:

I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter since the beginning of this campaign. Since before this campaign started, actually, I’ve been a fan of Paul. So I’ve got a lot of friends in the Ron Paul crowd. And he’s got a lot of delegates in there. More than the Republican Party is willing to admit. And the fact that I got into there is proof of that. One of Paul’s alternate delegates got me a guest pass.

05 Sep 2008 11:49 am

Here We Go

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

05 Sep 2008 11:46 am

40 Million Watched

A staggering figure and a sign of what a storm we are now in. I'm not surprised the Palin speech was watched by more than the Obama speech. My own insight into this is my own traffic. This single page got a million pageviews on Wednesday and a million yesterday. I've had jumps and dips in traffic before, but I've never really gone above around 300,000 a day. I'm now three times that and holding. This story is now in the stratosphere. And the McCain peeps think that they can keep her indefinitely from the press corps? And that this story isn't going to go on and on and on, drowning out anything McCain says or does?

05 Sep 2008 11:38 am

Heart: Cease And Desist

Ann and Nancy Wilson want the McCain campaign to stop using their song, Barracuda, as Sarah Palin's theme. I mean: think what it does to the brand.

05 Sep 2008 11:33 am

Elitism, Jonah And Sarah

As I understand Jonah Goldberg's view of elitism, it is that there are two kinds of elitism, good and bad. The good is a society where genuine talent and expertise and education are valued, and regarded as virtues in a public official. Conservatives - until they turned into religious populists - believed it was a good thing that our leaders have advanced education, for example. This is a good elite, and we need it. The bad sort of elite is when the educated class starts looking down their noses at the wisdom and common sense of ordinary people, insulate themselves from where they came from and their families and have contempt for the mores of many less educated Americans.

Let me say upfront, that I agree with this. But how can Jonah believe this and honestly say that the selection of Sarah Palin is not an attack on the idea of a good elite? Her own education is a remarkable thing:

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin attended five colleges in six years before graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987.

Continue reading "Elitism, Jonah And Sarah" »

05 Sep 2008 11:18 am

Hiding From The Press

This is unbelievable:

Jay Carney:

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

They are headed over a very steep cliff - and they're accelerating. That's what these people do. They cannot acknowledge an error, even when it's staring them in the face. So they up the ante. They have to whip up the most almighty cultural war to find a way through this. Will the press perform its constitutional duty? Or be cowed by the Rove bullies?

05 Sep 2008 10:58 am

Palin In Wasilla

A reader writes:

Good God!  I watched that video of Palin at her church through twice.  The Assemblies of God are Pentecostals, of course, the real "holy rollers"--ecstatic experience of the Godhead in your own body, rolling in the aisles, talking in tongues. When I got some exposure to them, they were extremely conservative and strict (no dancing, no lipstick, no short skirts) but Palin is evidence of how they've mainstreamed themselves.

I wonder if the average reader would hear the references she makes and understand them?  Master's commissions--this is a program they run to evangelize non-believers, in Alaska especially native Americans. Notice that our foreign and defense policy is simply God-given - not to be weighed, studied, deliberated, only to be implemented as we're taught by our betters.  And notice that her political program - build a sports complex, a pipeline, change a tax bill, all likewise simply becomes a matter of religion.

For twenty years the most hardcore Christianists have been held in the background. Now one of them is the vice presidential nominee next to a man who's 72 and a repeated cancer survivor.  This is mortifying.  How could John McCain do this to our country!

By accident? Second half of the Wasilla appearance after the jump.

Continue reading "Palin In Wasilla" »

05 Sep 2008 10:29 am

Wealthy Culture Warriors

Yglesias cites Andrew Gelman's Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State while arguing about the culture wars:

Overall, low income back strongly and consistently back Democratic candidates. Where you see culture war voting is among rich people.

05 Sep 2008 10:17 am

View From The Convention

Dave Barry:

Critics continue to ask how much McCain really knew about Palin before he selected her as his running mate, especially in light of that fact that he keeps referring to her, in speeches, as "Whatshername." But McCain's staff insists that it conducted a thorough investigation of Palin, which included not only inspecting her driver's license, but also, according to a campaign spokesperson, "reading almost her entire Wikipedia article."

05 Sep 2008 09:51 am

Obama's Palin Strategy

He's following Ross's advice:

The Obama campaign has no silver bullet to use against the Palin. 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.

Very shrewd and smart. She will come undone by herself. But the press needs to do its job and not be intimidated by the nutcases in the rightwing echo-chamber.

05 Sep 2008 09:43 am

"Drill, Baby, Drill!"

A reader writes:

The Republican obsession with drilling seems so jarring because it's a glaring example of either the modern GOP's disconnect from reality, or its cynicism, or both. Either a lot of them believe (despite all available evidence to the contrary) that the energy crisis can be significantly ameliorated by offshore and ANWR drilling, simply because they'd like it to be so; or else they think that this is could be a nice wedge issue aimed at the pickup truck set (e.g., "Those guys care more about moose and polar bears than they do that you're paying $4 a gallon for gas.). Or both. Either way, it's clearly a symptom of a party that has no interest in engaging seriously with reality.

05 Sep 2008 09:37 am

The Loneliest Republican

Former McCain advisor Mike Murphy speaks out:

I think she’ll ultimately be a polarizer. After last night’s smash, Republicans are in deep love. Nothing thrills ‘em like a good “us vs. them” speech. But I’d guess that most Democrats had the opposite reaction. In a year where the Democrat generic numbers are 10+ points better than the Republican, I don’t like the math of a strategy that just polarized the election along party base lines. Among the vital sliver of voters in the middle, I think Palin’s rock solid social conservatism will be a turn off. And while voters may value vision over experience, Palin’s inexperience is a weakness, denying McCain an argument that has been helping him against Obama.

05 Sep 2008 08:42 am

Her Appeal

Will Wilkinson thinks about Palin and talks to his gut.

05 Sep 2008 08:26 am

Meeting The Press

Andrew Romano, along with Marc and Ben Smith, wants to know about Palin's press strategy:

If Team McCain does shield Palin from the spotlight for the remainder of the month, voters could react one of three ways.

Continue reading "Meeting The Press" »

05 Sep 2008 08:02 am

Obama, McCain, Integrity

A reader writes:

Way back in the heat of the Democratic primary, I told all who would listen that if it came down to Hillary vs. McCain I'd vote McCain.

If Senator McCain was still around, I suppose I wouldn't regret that claim, but somewhere along the line, Senator McCain got replaced by Candidate McCain.

I was dwelling on this a bit today and it struck me. One benefit of this long campaign is that it really does show a person's character. And I realized. We have two men running for president right now. One has stayed true to himself throughout despite all the pressure. The other really hasn't or maybe we've just seen what he really was all along.

Obama said at the outset that he wanted a civil campaign on the issues. He said he would avoid the politics of person destruction. He demanded a cool, no drama organization -- much like himself.

Continue reading "Obama, McCain, Integrity" »

05 Sep 2008 07:57 am

Quote For The Day

"This is the most compelling and exciting Republican politician in a generation," - Jonah Goldberg, National Review, on Sarah Palin.

05 Sep 2008 07:21 am

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I've been reading your blog for years and consider it one of the best and most objective political blogs on the web.  I truly admire your expertise and understand many of your criticisms of Palin and McCain's vetting process.  But enough is enough.  Your comments during Palin's speech were beneath your integrity.  There was no need to poke fun at her family, especially her baby, and compare her speaking skills to that of a high school student. 

Continue reading "Dissent Of The Day" »

05 Sep 2008 12:05 am

Gaffe Of The Night

Thursday, September 4, 2008

04 Sep 2008 11:47 pm

Email Of The Night II

A reader writes:

Immediately after the speech, I remarked to my wife that the tone of it was of a person looking back on a career, not beginning a new one.

That's how it felt to me too. And I don't blame him.

04 Sep 2008 11:27 pm

Email Of The Night

A reader writes:

As a young Democrat, I'm a little confused after this speech.  I think I finally saw in McCain's speech what the Republican party could represent. What a stark contrast to the other speakers at the convention. Brilliant but sad. 

He really was talking to America and not his base.  Still doesn't have my vote, but a little more respect.

What makes me sad is how so many young people have no idea any more what conservatism could mean if it were true to itself. (I gave it my best shot in my book, "The Conservative Soul.") But the corruption of this party is so deep - morally, ethically, philosophically - McCain can't do it.

I'm sure conservatism will one day recover - because it is right about the main issues: government needs to be kept in its place, taxes should be low and budgets balanced, individuals should be able to pursue their dreams as free of government control as possible, families do matter and need to be free from government interference, free markets and enterprise are the only guarantees of prosperity, moral choices - and their consequences - should be faced by the individual responsibly, and we have to be strong in our defense and prudent in foreign policy. This is the conservatism I still believe in. Deep down, I'm sure McCain does too. But it will only come from the ashes of this fundamentalist, mean-spirited, parochial, arrogant, big-spending, irresponsible shambles of a party. We have to repudiate the party of Rove and Abramoff and Romney and Dobson and Cheney and Bush II.

Burn it down and start over.

04 Sep 2008 11:23 pm

McCain Reax

Michael Crowley:

...this is a very underwhelming speech. Familiar points explained in pedestrian terms. No overarching themes--right now it's sounding like a State of the Union laundry list. Even the crowd in the hall isn't jazzed. This is the sort of reception Tom Ridge got.

Hugh Hewitt:

In a strong speech that crescendoed to a stirring close, Senator McCain laid out a classically conservative series of policy objectives, with a large emphasis on education reform --a very smart priority for the fall campaign. And his pledge to shake the spending culture of Washington to its roots is as sincere as it is overdue.

Peter Suderman:

If anything is true in this world, it’s that Republicans don’t do stagecraft. How can you tell? The puke green background was back!...when combined with the white shirt and yellow tie, it has the effect of making McCain’s skin look sickly and yellow –  not exactly what you want when a crucial worry about your candidate is that he might be too old.

Bull Dog Pundit:

Got to be honest here folks.  Other than the heart felt love of country expressed near the end while talking about his time as a POW (that gave me a lump in my throat), and the discussion of public education being the “civil rights issue” of this century, and the part about Georgia, I can’t say I loved the speech.  It’s not that I didn’t like it, but it didn’t excite me very much. Then again he had a hard act to follow.

Continue reading "McCain Reax" »

04 Sep 2008 10:17 pm

Live-Blogging McCain

11.08 pm. Quite a deflation after the drama of last night with the sportscaster-governor. It made me realize how much I am still fond of this guy. And also clearer about why this is not his moment. The specifics were very vague, and the entire presentation based on biography, nostalgia and a kind of strained, exhausted mildness. His performance at Saddleback was much, much better. He seemed very tired to me.

11.07 pm. This country song is quite horrible.

11.05 pm. And then a final sudden, almost surprising rally of energy. He seemed to me to have more energy and passion in the last two minutes than the rest of the speech combined.

11.02 pm. I love the use of the feminine pronoun for a country. Very traditional and always moving. But it does age him. He seems elegiac to me right now, almost wistful.

10.58 pm. Ending with his war story. It's a beautiful story - about the limits of independence. Which again is a little odd for a conservative. Aren't conservatives the ones who highlight the joys of being on your own - especially Western conservatives? But it remains beautiful because the story is beautiful and noble. I'm just not sure it is a reason to vote for a president.

10.55 pm. An appeal for unity, not taking credit, bipartisan, etc. And a pledge for transparency and accountability. My worry is that he does not have the management skills to pull this off. That's not his skill-set.

10.52 pm. A much less bellicose appeal on foreign policy here. An appeal to his experience with foreign leaders and the military and a strong endorsement of peace. No real tub-thumping. Obviously, he's worried, especially after the impulsive and reckless Palin pick, that he might be playing into the unpredictable and volatile part of his personality.

10.50 pm. Reassembling the Russian empire? C'mon. Yes, Putin is a thug. But not like Brezhnev.

Continue reading "Live-Blogging McCain" »

04 Sep 2008 10:07 pm

A New Paradigm?

Mickey Kaus:

What we're witnessing, I think, is the death of a media paradigm that we lived with comfortably for, oh, the last year or two. And John Edwards is to blame!... The avalanche of questions to which [Steve] Schmidt is being subjected--and his discomfort--suggests that the MSM is in the process of shifting to a new role, in which it aggressively investigates and discusses rumors rather than waiting for the industrious blogosphere to force its hand.

Industrious? Moi?

The difference between the Edwards story and the Palin story is that when the Edwards story gained traction, Edwards was already out of the race.

Continue reading "A New Paradigm?" »

04 Sep 2008 09:55 pm

Quote For The Day II

"Does John McCain know he's leading a spiritual revival?" - Kathryn-Jean Lopez, National Review.

My guess is not.

04 Sep 2008 09:15 pm

What McCain Must Do

It's actually quite simple. We've had three truncated days of the RNC and I cannot say I have learned any over-arching policy argument from the podium. We've heard endless jibes at Obama and countless calls to drill for more oil. None of this addresses the serious policy issues in this campaign. I don't agree with Rick Davis who believes this election is about personalities, not issues.

So what McCain needs to do is tell us what he will do for the economy, for energy independence, for healthcare, for the debt, for Iraq and Afghanistan. If he doesn't, it's over. More to the point: it should be over.

Look: I like the man and have written countless columns in his defense over the years. I loathe what has happened to the GOP under Bush, as I think he does. But his general campaign has been a horrible Rovian tactic so far, not a serious program for reform. I'd like this campaign to be a credit to him. So far, it has been a disaster. I don't think he can rescue himself form the Palin pick, but if he can, he will have to start tonight.

04 Sep 2008 08:34 pm

What Real Vetting Means

Bob Reich explains the rigors of becoming a cabinet member. Whatever you think of Palin, McCain has just demonstrated in his first ever executive decision that he does not have the temperament to be president of the United States. He's too impulsive, emotional and reckless for a period in history like this. Many of us worried about this for a while. Now we know.