I was reading more on Palin (for the life of me, I cannot understand why I can't let it go. Her story is not particularly interesting, other than the insanity that it reflects in McCain for having chosen her, and in others for supporting her. Maybe it's just that she's so easy to rip on that everyone's having a field day. Anyway.) and I found that even Maureen Dowd --the Sarah Palin of NYT editorialists (yeah I'll say it)-- gets her barbs in. Excerpt:
Palin has rocketed in the polls, drawing women and men with her vapid — if vivacious and visceral — scripted cheerleading. But if you’re reading this, Charlie, we want to know everything, including:
What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?
Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn’t all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?
What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs — as mayor and as governor?
When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?
Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?
Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?
As Troopergate unfolds here — an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law — it raises this question: Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.?
Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter? And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian? "
NYT gives her a bum rap. She's uber-secretive, cronyistic, petty, ignorant, and has ties to religious fanatics. Sound familiar? No wonder McCain thought she might energize the base.
Here is an excellent editorial by Marc Fisher that comments on the sort anti-technocracy that I've bemoaned before. An excerpt:
Most people I spoke to readily conceded that Palin lacks experience with or knowledge of many important national and foreign issues. But, as Allison McGarvey, a teacher who lives in Stafford County, said, Palin is "a courageous woman, and what she doesn't know, she can learn quickly. Let's face it, no president knows all the issues. Anyway, I don't see how a candidate can pick one stand and just stick to it. The world situation changes every day. It's their moral and ethical background that's important."
In this hyperdemocratized society, the national conviction that anyone can succeed is morphing into a belief that experience and knowledge may almost be disqualifying credentials.
Like many at the rally, Victoria Robinson-Worst sees Palin's lack of experience as an asset. "I know people who have experience who are totally incompetent," said Robinson-Worst, who lives in Loudoun County, designs wedding flowers and raises two children. "And I know people who have no experience who step in and get it right. I mean, women can do amazing things."
This is where culture wars, identity politics and self-suffocating academic theories of deconstructionism have led us: Authority is suspect. Experience is corrupting. Ignorance is strength?
Next will be "war is peace." Or have we already heard that one?
Wonkette nails it. Condi's apologia is so piss-poor it's laughable. Condi ends by saying, "There different kinds of experiences in life that help one to deal with matters of foreign policy." Chief among these: dealing with matters of foreign policy. Shitty among these: having babies, winning beauty pageants. Which ones does she have again?
Finally, an authoritative fisking of Palin's stance on the "bridge to nowhere," with damning photo to boot.
The reviews below also really hurt, since the worst (in my opinion) are plucked from the National Review, an arch-conservative publication with highly apologetic tendencies towards bush. Ouch. If I'm agreeing with Bill Kristol, something is terribly wrong.
I'm a little disappointed that I missed on my forecast of Lieberman for veep, but I am stoked that my prediction of "the perfect storm of electoral failure" still looks on the money. I mean, what was he thinking?
"She's a moose hunter. That sounds like a euphemism for something, but it's not. She actually hunts moose."
Two main points from the NYT article on McCain's pick:
Ms. Palin appears to have traveled very little outside the United States. In July 2007, she had to get a passport before she visited members of the Alaska National Guard stationed in Kuwait, according to her deputy communications director, Sharon Leighow.
Whooops! said the McCain staffers who initially tried to claim that Palin's travel abroad would help offset her lack of "formal" foreign policy experience. This was an asinine claim even if it had been based on reality. Also:
Ms. Palin is known to conservatives for opting not to have an abortion after learning that the child she was carrying, her youngest, had Down syndrome. “It is almost impossible to exaggerate how important that is to the conservative faith community,” Mr. Reed said. "I mean, these people are themselves -- almost without exception -- born with severe mental retardation."
Okay, so Ralph Reed didn't actually say that last bit. But he's proven it many a time.
I do feel bad for her daughter Bristol in all this. Not just because she's young a dumb and got knocked up, and not just because the whole country now gets to know about (and presumably pass judgment upon) this, but because Palin has declared that she's looking forward to her daughter's having the baby with "the man she will marry." So there will be a shotgun wedding so as not to torpedo her mother's political aspirations. Nice.
This is not right. The meth-heads with guns that wanted to to kill Obama were deemed "not a credible threat," but some dude in prison who wrote a nasty letter to McCain was dealt with swiftly and harshly.
This commentary pretty much says all you need to know about McCain's pick for VP.
Paul Begala also offers a few not-completely-idiotic thoughts, as he is wont to do when not seated opposite Tucker Carlson:
For a man who is 72 years old and has had four bouts with cancer to have chosen someone so completely unqualified to become president is shockingly irresponsible. Suddenly, McCain's age and health become central issues in the campaign, as does his judgment. (snip)
For months, the McCainiacs have said they will run on his judgment and experience. In his first presidential decision, John McCain has shown that he is willing to endanger his country, potentially leaving it in the hands of someone who simply has no business being a heartbeat away from the most powerful, complicated, difficult job in human history.
Yes, it's rhetorical and not particularly insightful, but it's also unquestionably true. She has no serious leadership credentials. Period.
I'd say the pick makes McCain look fairly desperate. I'm clearly biased, but I can hardly see any other way to construe it. I mean, while Biden may be a good choice for Obama as far as "shoring up weaknesses," I kind of wonder how many people really believe that that sort of thing decides elections. I half-suspect it just provides mouthy pundits (or wannabes, like, um, yeah, nevermind) with one more topic over which to engage in moot, mentally masturbatory bloviation. I mean, the fact of the matter is that people vote for the presidential candidate they want to be president. Veeps are an afterthought. So when McCain makes a reachy move like this (this might be the most "maverick" we've seen from him in a while), it seems almost like an admission that he can't beat Obama head to head. He's pulling out the gimmick playbook because he can't get it done with fundamentals. Once again, while I happen to really like Obama's pick of Biden, there is absolutely no question that Obama's campaign intends to win the election on the strength of Obama. He could have chosen just about anyone as his veep and it wouldn't have made much difference. Well, he couldn't have chosen "a first-term governor of a state with more reindeer than people" without raising some eyebrows about what type of campaign he was trying to run.
As for my predictions about the efficacy of this gambit, I suspect that it will fail spectacularly. The desperation of this pick will not go unnoticed, and I think the patent insincerity of his attempt to reach out to female voters (read: exploit disgruntled Hillary supporters on the rebound like Fratty McRoofie III at a kegger) will probably backfire. Not like, not work well. More like, blow up in your face you patronizing old pig.
Furthermore, in failing to choose an old Republican stalwart (for all his weaknesses, I think Tom Ridge would have been an excellent choice for McCain; they would present a united front of old, grouchy, militant geezers, which they might as well do, because only the die hard Red-Heads are going to vote for them anyway.) he will most likely continue to alienate the conservative branch of the Republican constituency. Much as he may think he can pick up points with traditionally Democratic demographics, what he really needs to do is ensure the thus-far tenuous support of traditionally Republican blocks. Some of the old boys from the party will not be pleased that he has chosen an upstart nobody of a woman from Alaska, while McCain, regardless of his running mate, is himself an awful choice for reaching to anyone not already in the fold. Not to mention he's running against Barack Muthafuckin Obama, the archetype of charisma and pied piper of the disillusioned, so even a more dynamic candidate would hardly stand a chance among the ranks of the undecided. In short, for a guy who touts his military expertise, McCain has done a terrible job of picking his battles. McCain would do better to base his strategy on ensuring maximum turnout from the Republican faithful: wave the flag, cut taxes, hate gays, love Jebus. Don't try to get cute and start pretending that women matter all of a sudden; in matters of fresh faces and fresh ideas, Obama is king.
PS: If the McCain campaign really thought those sore losers on the HillRod wagon were serious when they claimed they would vote for McCain if Obama won the nomination, they will prove sadly mistaken. On the other hand, this maneuver is somewhat more subtle than I've given them credit for. I cannot but imagine that McCain strategists appreciate that they will have little success in capturing the female vote at large. Palin's unique appeal is in her exemplification of a strange and paradoxical political entity that I call the she-o-con. There are a handful of Fox News pundits and such that also fit this mold, and they are essentially smart, attractive, conservative women wily enough to conceal their "masculine" political ambitions behind a pretense of dutiful motherhood. They are proud soccer moms who quickly avow their subservience to their husbands, lest they be castigated as uppity, but who are meanwhile clearly brainy and ballsy enough to handle the Machiavellian machinations of the political world. They're like the Republican equivalent of Hillary Clinton masquerading as Martha Stewart. A strange beast indeed. (Actually, I don't know enough about Palin to confidently assert that she is a she-o-con, since she's never really been in the media at all. But I extrapolate this from what little biographical information is available on her. If she is not she-o-con, then she REALLY doesn't have much going for her.)
PPS: I have been please with my calls about the election so far. Way back at the beginning of primary season, even after Hillary came out of the gates super strong, I predicted confidently that Obama would win the nomination. So I'll make another prediction, this time on the record, so that the legend of my political forecasting prowess will spread from - and be enshrined forever upon - a blog that nobody reads. Obama crushes McCain in the biggest landslide I will see in a presidential race in my lifetime. We're talking like 57%-40% of the popular vote, and carrying almost all of the big swing states to a thrashing at the electoral college level. It will be an embarrassingly lopsided lopsided contest. See "a thumpin'."
PPPS: I didn't mean to compare Palin to Hillary in a way that would validate McCain's oh-so-ridiculous strategy of placing a Hillary decoy on his ticket. Also, I just found that Wonkette feels similarly, calling Palin a "fake Hillary Clinton," and breaking the news (to me) that Palin is embroiled in a scandal. Oh Alaska, do you ever elect legislative types that aren't corrupt?
Here's a Biden video I had posted earlier that got taken down. I really do like this sumbitch. It's a shame he and Rudy fell out of the race so early, because their pointed remarks toward one another (an exchange that Biden got the better of) were nothing short of hilarious.
I also came across a nice Politico article elaborating on the notion that Obama's choice of Biden as VP really stuck it to McCain.
Here's the guy running off at the mouth, but in such a great way. Why can't more politicians talk like this? Dare I say, it reminds me of some sort of (now defunct) rapidly moving vehicle that conveys speech in a bullshit-free manner.
Non sequitir: An interesting way to think about the Olympic medal count.
And an awesome xkcd. For pure math nerdiness, this is about as clever as it gets.
Also, I have semi-fawned over Joe Biden before (here and here), so I must say I'm pretty happy with Obama's choice. Given that Hillary was essentially ruled out from the start (although I'm still not sure why it must have been so), I think Biden is one of the best choices out there. Truthdig gives him a review that is, not surprisingly, quite positive, and speaks to some of the more substantial strengths that Biden provides the Obama campaign. Most notably, he shores up Obama's foreign policy cred with a great deal of experience in that arena. It's also an interesting observation that this choice "hamstrings" McCain with respect to the sort of running mate he can now select. (Ha! Obama forcing McCain to be conservative; there's a punchline for ya.) I would also love to see Biden in some VP debates; I think he would give Lieberman (yes, I think it will be Lieberman; McCain is orchestrating the perfect storm of transcendent electoral failure) a pretty nasty whoopin'.
Custer Battles is a relatively new company in the booming field of so-called "private military companies" in Iraq providing veteran soldiers from around the world for various security jobs. Named for founders Michael Battles and Scott Custer, who are military veterans, the company quickly nabbed lucrative contracts in Iraq, where U.S. authorities needed firms who were willing to accept high-risk assignments.
I don't give a shit what your founders' names are, naming your fighting/mercenary outfit "Custer Battles" is re-fucking-tarded. Is that some kind of sick joke? What the hell is wrong with you people?
