Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that's with the energy independence that I've been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
It's simply untrue that Alaska produces anything close to 20 percent of the U.S. "energy supply," a term that is generally defined as energy consumed. That category includes power produced in the U.S. by nuclear, coal, hydroelectric dams and other means – as well as all the oil imported into the country.
This article, written back in 1991 when housing prices were still on the rise, makes the case for smaller homes:
The chief obstacle to smaller houses on smaller lots is not the consumer, nor is it the home-building industry. It is those of us who already own our homes. Municipalities, reflecting the attitude of homeowners, have staunchly resisted the idea of modifying zoning regulations to permit the construction of smaller homes, or to allow the subdivision of land into smaller plots. The chief reason is, sadly, selfish: smaller, less expensive houses are perceived as a threat to property values and to community status, even though housing in the $50,000-$80,000 range is still accessible only to solid middle-class citizens.
Obama isn't worried, as Palin said, "that someone won't read them their rights" when it comes to suspected terrorists who are detained by the U.S. He does, however, support the right of detainees to challenge their imprisonment in federal court. That's the same position the Supreme Court took in June in a case called Boumediene v. Bush.
The term paper biz is managed by brokers who take financial risks by accepting credit card payments and psychological risks by actually talking to the clients. Most of the customers just aren't very bright. One of my brokers would even mark assignments with the code words DUMB CLIENT. That meant to use simple English; nothing's worse than a client calling back to ask a broker -- most of whom had no particular academic training -- what certain words in the paper meant. One time a client actually asked to talk to me personally and lamented that he just didn't "know a lot about Plah-toe." Distance learning meant that he'd never heard anyone say the name.
Climate change is a critical issue. Here is what Sarah Palin told Charlie Gibson in her first interview:
PALIN: I think you are a cynic because show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any affect, or no affect, on climate change.
Steven Pinker tackles Washington's misguided crusade against swearing:
....over time, taboo words relinquish their literal meanings and retain only a coloring of emotion, and then just an ability to arouse attention. This progression explains why many speakers are unaware that sucker, sucks, bites, and blows originally referred to fellatio, or that a jerk was a masturbator. It explains why Close the fucking door, What the fuck?, Holy Fuck!, and Fuck you! violate all rules of English syntax and semantics—they presumably replaced Close the damned door, What in Hell?, Holy Mary!, and Damn you! when religious profanity lost its zing and new words had to be recruited to wake listeners up.
When the subject of homosexuality came up, Charles Gibson asked the following question:
GIBSON: Homosexuality, genetic or learned?
PALIN: Oh, I don't -- I don't know, but I'm not one to judge and, you know, I'm from a family and from a community with many, many members of many diverse backgrounds and I'm not going to judge someone on whether they believe that homosexuality is a choice or genetic. I'm not going to judge them.
In fact, Palin does judge homosexuals in as extreme a fashion as you can imagine:
[Texting] grants us the gift of impersonality, which is not the same as
anonymity—it’s instead a heightened performativity; the posture of a
writer toward a public. It requires us to assume a certain
self-centeredness, to be sure, but it also respects the audience as
well, in that it doesn’t demand their immediate attention. So I think
Menand is totally wrong when he claims that “delay is the only
disrespect.” The whole point of texting is that delay is your
prerogative. You are not required to hold this radiation-emitting
device to your ear waiting for a response.
From the Atlantic archives, Alice Furlaud explains the old cult of French civility:
I used to smolder with quiet rage in Paris shops where I'd have to wait my turn while the proprietor or the clerk gossiped with another customer, talking of their winnings in the Loterie Nationale or the state of their livers, without even a sidelong glance at me. Finally, a Frenchman waiting in line ahead of me at my neighborhood department store, the Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville, while the cashier endlessly passed the time of day with another customer, explained why the expression "I'll be right with you" has never passed French commercial lips. "That would acknowledge a call to work," he told me. A job in France comes with a wide range of generous perquisites and retirement benefits, but one is not necessarily expected to work very hard at the job, and fawning on customers would be too much like work. Nothing uncivil about ignoring them.
One of governor Palin's very few actually documented achievements in office as governor has been what she has described as a breakthrough in constructing an oil pipeline. Here's how she put it in her convention address:
“And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural
gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence."
And here's how she put it earlier this year:
When the Legislature ratified the choice of TransCanada this summer,
Ms. Palin called a news conference to hail the deal, saying that the
state had finally obtained a commitment to build the pipeline.
In fact, the entire pipeline is at this point as reality-based as that "Mission Accomplished" banner:
On the question of extending the Endangered Species Act to polar bears, Sarah Palin hews to the Stephen Colbert position. And in her defense, she cited a study by her own state government in an op-ed for the New York Times earlier this year. In that article, she wrote:
I strongly believe that adding [polar bears] to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And there is no evidence that polar bears are being mismanaged through existing international agreements and the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Yep: you guessed it. We found out subsequently in the New York Times that the state's wildlife officials discovered no such thing:
The Atlantic has been redesigned, combining its look in the early 1960s
with something much more contemporary. That's not an easy thing to do. The process is explained here, here, and here. I write about the new issue - a fantastic one - here. Subscribe! If you enjoy the blogs, read us in greater depth and help support us online. The new issue also has my new long-form essay on what blogging has done to the act of writing, or "Why I Blog."
A Shiite demonstrator holds a Quran during a protest against a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact October 18, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq. Supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr protested against the agreement which would replace the existing U.N. mandate authorizing the U.S.-led forces in Iraq. The new agreement would require American forces to leave by December 31, 2011 unless the Iraqi government asked them to stay. By Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty.
Back when she was increasing the long-term debt of the town of Wasilla by 69 percent, Mayor Palin also fired the town's police chief and librarian, Irl Stambaugh and Mary Ellen Emmons. The accusation was that they were fired because they had supported her opponent in the previous election. Palin denied any political motivation. But whatever the merits of the firing, what is salient is Palin's reflexive instinct when confronted with the fact. From the Anchorage Daily News:
Reached at her home ... Palin said she planned to meet with Stambaugh and Emmons this
afternoon. She also disputed whether they had actually been fired.
''There's been no meeting, no actual terminations,'' she said.
You know what's coming:
Stambaugh's response was to read part of the letter given to him.
''Although I appreciate your service as police chief, I've decided it's
time for a change. I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts
to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your
employment. . . . ''
''If that's not a letter of termination, I don't know what is,'' he said.
Many papers that backed Bush in 2004 are endorsing Obama now:
The Denver Post, which had backed George W. Bush in 2004 and is owned by Republican-leaning William Dean Singleton, this evening endorsed Barack Obama for president. So did the Chicago Sun-Times, Kansas City Star. Southwest News-Herald (Ill.) and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And to top it off: another Bush-backing in 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.
I thought I'd pass on an anecdote about my daughter and other kids
I've come into contact with during this ungodly long election cycle.
I
voted for McCain in the primary. As a political reporter and columnist in Michigan,
I have the
news on in our house with some frequency. That's how my now
6-year-old got to know Barack Obama. And she loved him. She asked to
tag along when I went to cover his events. Maybe it's the smile, the
calmness. But she felt very assured by the idea of this man being
president, long before I was ready to switch my vote. She was the one
trying to convince her grandparents to vote Obama last winter.
And I've found that Obama has the same effect on lots of kids,
whether they come from liberal or conservative homes. He is a rock star
with the under 10 crowd, believe me. And I have to say, as a
journalist, I found their reactions fascinating in light of both the
race debate and the fact that kids tend to be carbon copies of their
parents. So that Scholastic poll doesn't surprise me at all.
So the next time you see a kid with an Obama shirt, she just might
have asked for it for her birthday, like mine, instead of having it
foisted upon her by overbearing parents.
The texting function of the cell phone ought to have been the special province of the kind of people who figure out how to use the television remote to turn on the toaster: it’s a huge amount of trouble relative to the results. In some respects, texting is a giant leap backward in the science of communication.
Move over, Job. A former Nebraska state senator tried to sue God "seeking a permanent injunction to prevent God from committing acts of violence such as earthquakes and tornadoes." The case was thrown out because "you can't sue God if you can't serve the papers on him." Ilya Somin isn't sure about this legal reasoning:
In her speeches, Sarah Palin routinely and repeatedly uses the phrase: "I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere." In the McCain-Palin ads, the claim is that she "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."
These are, again, demonstrable lies. Again I will cite Wikipedia, since it's the fairest summary of the facts of the case, and includes all the links for you to see for yourself:
In 2006, Palin ran for governor on a "build-the-bridge" platform,[101] attacking "spinmeisters"[102] for insulting local residents by calling them "nowhere"[101] and urging speed "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."[103]
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a parable or some third hand account of an actual event or a lost sketch from the Dave Chapelle Show, but it still has an air of truth about it in this election:
So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania.
Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She
isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off
in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back,
"We're votin' for the n***er!"
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."
You can feel a bloodbath coming. Conor imagines a possible future:
Overall I'd say the best case for conservatives is an Obama Presidency whose overambitious agenda provokes a GOP backlash in the 2010 midterms, causing a chastened Obama Administration to focus on bipartisan entitlement reforms that only a Democratic president could pass. As I think about it, what I'm saying is the best we can hope for is another Clinton Administration sans the affairs while the right regroups, casts aside the corrupt yes men who enabled the Bush Administration to do so many un-conservative things, and develops a coherent, appealing domestic agenda. My assumption is that such a process could not proceed with John McCain and Sarah Palin in the White House.
Republican radio host switches to Obama primarily because of the over-riding issue of Islamist terrorism and because of Bush's and McCain's lack of seriousness in pursuing al Qaeda. My view entirely.
On paper, McCain presents the type of economic program The Times has repeatedly backed: One that would ease the tax burden on business and other high earners most likely to invest in the economy and hire new workers. But he has been disturbingly unfocused in his response to the current financial situation, rushing to "suspend" his campaign and take action (although just what action never became clear). Having little to contribute, he instead chose to exploit the crisis.
We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama's critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.
"Don't underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Don't underestimate our ability to screw it up," - Sen. Barack Obama.
This weekend, I'll be re-posting all the factual untruths that Sarah Palin insists are still actually truths.I've updated each item to keep up with the new information that has come out since the original posting.
I'm doing this because Sarah Palin's contribution is to introduce a new level of detachment from reality to our politics. After Bush-Cheney, this would be hard for anyone. But youbetcha she can.
This has been the pattern from the start of her career: a denial of reality combined with an almost unhinged and unlimited ambition. Since the press is barred from questioning her thoroughly, since we will never know how she responds to the long list of untruths she has told - from the smallest biographical detail to the biggest policy - all I can do is remind my readers of the record one more time before November. There are nineteen assertions of factual untruths that I've been able to document.
My only complaint about the crawler is that CNN removes it from the screen when the debate finishes. I absolutely wish that they continued to show the favourable/unfavourable reactions of the dial-testing focus group to the talking heads on the news afterwards; you’d be able to see the worm plunging every time Wolf Blitzer opened his gob...I suspect a few uncomfortable home truths would arise out of that one.
"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation," - Sarah Palin, in North Carolina.
A boy band appeals to moms for Obama. The next generation is deadly serious about this country but they also manage to have fun with it. That's the Millennials' real message, it seems to me:
Ironically, given the candidate’s own penchant for drama, a McCain administration would probably exercise a calming influence after the staggeringly eventful last eight years we have experienced. It would claim to be historic but it would largely be a transitional caretaker government — in a time of transition when some serious problems need to be taken care of. It would be more right than left, but less ideological than any presidency we have seen in a century.
Calming? And the Palin pick as "less ideological"?
James Surowiecki sorts through financial media spin:
Take, for instance, this headline from this morning’s A.P. story on pre-market action: “Stocks open lower after data show larger-than-expected drop in new home construction.” The assumption in that headline is that a big drop in new home construction is a bad thing for the economy. And it’s true that in the short run, the drop in home construction is not great for construction companies, homebuilders, equipment manufacturers, etc. But for the economy as a whole, this drop is actually a very good thing. In fact, it’s precisely what we want.
"I'm 84 years old. I had a lot of good colored people. They didn't bother me. They was good to me, I was good to them. That's all I can say," - Steve Nagy, retired miner in West Virginia, to David Greene of NPR.
Know hope. America is still out there, and may be about to speak in a voice no one will forget for a good long while.
David White, of Wayne, New Jersey, holds his Grand Champion sphynx, Good Golly Miss Molly, at a press preview for the 6th Annual CFA Iams Cat Championship at Madison Square Garden on October 15, 2008 in New York City. The cat show will feature New York's largest feline shopping mall and a cat adoption garden. By Michael Nagle/Getty Images.
He gets it. Here is a quote from an interview he gave to Chris Wallace last April:
I’ve learned that I have what I believe is the right
temperament for the presidency. Which is, I don’t get too high when I’m
high and I don’t get too low when I’m low. And we’ve gone through all
kinds of ups and downs.
People forget now that I had been
written off last summer. People were writing many of the anguished
articles that they’re not writing after our loss in Pennsylvania. On
the other hand, after Iowa, when everybody was sure this was over, I
think I was more measured and more cautious.
One day, conservatives will understand what an amazing victory against identity politics the Obama campaign has been. And how an Obama presidency could transform our racial debate in ways conservatives have long said they favored. Here's rock-ribbed conservative, Bradford Berenson, remembering what Obama was like as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review:
I think Barack took 10 times as
much grief from those on the left on the Review as from those of us on
the right. And the reason was, I think there was an expectation among
those editors on the left that he would affirmatively use the modest
powers of his position to advance the cause, whatever that was. They
thought, you know, finally there's an African American president of
the Harvard Law Review; it's our turn, and he should aggressively use
this position, and his authority and his bully pulpit to advance the
political or philosophical causes that we all believe in.
And Barack was reluctant to do that.
It's not that he was out of
sympathy with their views, but his first and foremost goal, it always
seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication. And he was not
going to let politics or ideology get in the way of doing that ...
Larison doesn't approve of Republicans comparing Palin and Reagan:
Another response is to make excuses steeped in anti-intellectualism: “Palin may not know much, but she has good instincts.” Why are the two always set in opposition to each other? Why is it that the people with good instincts are invariably uninterested in knowledge?
Despite the fact that pundits have claimed that Obama is not performing as well as he should be given the economic and political conditions, the models used by political scientists to predict election outcomes--models based on these very conditions--tell a different story. Obama is currently out-pacing the predictions made by some models and lagging only a few percentage points behind others. But his support does not stray more than 4.2% away from any of these predictions. Thus, there isn't much support here for the notion that Obama is greatly underachieving in this election. At least not at this point in the race.
But, according to Lanny Davis, he's only doing well because of the overwhelming support of the Clintons. No, I'm not kidding.
Devastating back-to-back election cycles are truly rare: They have happened only twice in the past 80 years (40 elections) -- to Republicans in 1932 and 1934 and to Democrats in 1950 and 1952. Usually, when voters kick the heck out of one party, their anger is satisfied and they move on. Voters rarely come back the very next time and kick the same party hard again.
This election isn't over, but it is looking very bad for Republicans -- and seems to be getting worse.
"The Bush administration, having entered office as social conservatives, leaves office as conservative socialists, proprietors of the most sudden large expansion of the state's role in the US economy since mobilisation for the second world war," - Brad DeLong.
They are social prohibitionists and economic leftists: the worst of all worlds from my point of view.
Ramesh Ponnuru doesn't understand parents who politicize their children:
I don't know if this sort of behavior is evenly distributed on the political spectrum or across elections; maybe I'm just noticing it because it's my first presidential election with a child. I just don't understand the impulse to recruit small children into sharing adults' political enthusiasms. I have not taught my little girl to pronounce the word "McCain."
Dreher adds his two cents. I find the politicization of children on bothsides to be repulsive. The use of special needs infants as political props is even worse.
While I enjoyed your commentary on the Diane Rehm show this morning, the real reason
I'm thanking you is because while I was tuned in to hear
you, I also heard about Sweeney Todd being performed at Catholic University. I'm
nervous about attending the show at such a school, but it still gives
me the opportunity to take a really attractive woman on a date
tonight. For that, I owe you my props.
October 12, 2008 - October 18, 2008
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