I think Palin was at her best when she stared into the camera earnestly, dropped the snark, and tied key words, objects, subjects, and predicates together as she adressed the public as adults.  But this only came out in the glinting of very few moments.  The  majority of her split narrative smacked of snark, a character that comes off sounding like a waitress at a neo-Wymoing suburban steakhouse.  Perhaps Longhorn's.  This downhome folksiness, of course, is Bushian, and belies any attempts she made to distinguish McCain/Palin from Bush/Cheney.  That Steve Schmidt thinks it is adventageous to have Palin employ such snark when the subject is about something as grave as say, the Iraq War or the illiquidity of "toxic" assets, it is more than cliche and disingenuous; it is macabre.  Perhaps addressing the public as a winking trophy-wife curries favor among evangelical types, but it probably pisses off everyone else they were hoping to influence.

This is all fine with me, though.  I am losing five bucks in watching her stay in the race, which is a small price to pay (knocks on wood) in exchange for a Democrat landslide.  

Talk about poetic. Obama couldn't attack Clinton on inexperience grounds during the primaries because no matter how their CVs matched up on paper, in reality no one believed that the former first lady was inexperienced. And now, Palin is finding that, in the public's mind, U.S. Senator > Alaska Governor > Wasilla Mayor.

Biden/Palin was a pure sequel of Obama/McCain: one person substantive, calm, polite; the other screeching platitudes while attacking the opponent.

It boggles my mind that the McCain camp is so incompetent that they said, "Hey, that tactic was a total loser in the Presidential debate--let's use it again in the Veep debate!" In both cases independents didn't fall for it and punished the perps, as they should have.

In the next debate it wouldn't surprise me if McCain pulls off his shoe and sock, takes out a nail puller and yanks out one of his toenails. "Whaddaya think of THAT, America?" he'll say, waving the bloody toenail high overhead. Then after a few minutes of stunned silence from everyone else in the room, he says, "Nothing, huh? Okay, you leave me no alternative" and pulls out another one.

Meanwhile they should trot out Palin to every media outlet they can find to make the claim that Obama is the Anti-Christ. "Do you know what happens when a plague of frogs descends on your son's hockey game?" she'll ask, pausing to lick a fresh gleam around her tattooed lip liner.

Desperate times call for desperate actions. Or, to quote Goldwater, extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

Not only does he have no experience with Alaska, he's never shot wolves from a Cessna.

Not ready to lead.

Come on you guys, five weeks on the Presidential campaign trail mostly dodging the press and one debate format concoted specifically to mitigate the effects of with her mental deficencies?  No press conferences? Is this not superior experience to be President?

I mean, I know not one thing she's said abouther record has a glimmer of truth in it, but seriously - our very own wolfe shooting soccer Mom said Obama wasn't qualified and she was.  I think she has a case.  

Palin does not have the chops to be saying who is qualified and who is not qualified to run. She is a cult of personality, and Americans know it. Americans can accept that fact in their politicians, but they aren't going to allow it to substitute for years of experience or proven expertise in supporting her opinion. Think Reagain or Schwartzenegger; they absolutely started with a cult of personality, but they earned their chops in battle. She simply has not yet earned enough chops to be making these kinds of conclusions.

"Not only does he have no experience with Alaska, he's never shot wolves from a Cessna."

With all the talking points in his head he was probably afraid of getting Cessna and Chechnya mixed up.

Excellent point GSpinks - you capture the essence of what makes this so hilarous.  She's so arrogant, its shocking.

Oh come on people, you can't possibly take this seriously, or try to find arguments to "rebut" this brain-fart moment.  Right now, with my deepest apologies to Brig for the comparison, anything the Palin says makes as much sense as whatever comes out of the mouth of her Down's syndrome infant.  And should be afforded no more mental energy to "rebut", or argue agaisnt.  Just take out the Babywipe and clean the slime off your suit, and walk away.

huey, very funny!

As of now, I don't buy it.

But, darn it, if she winks at me when she says it, I'll be sold! I just can't help myself.

If she was a truck stop waitress, that wink would be worth an extra dollar on her tip.

When you're down in the polls, you do not climb back into the lead by telling the majority who are against you that they're gullible idiots for supporting the other guy. You climb back by making an assertive case for yourself that's even better than the other guy's assertive case. Plus, if at all possible, leaking true stories of your opponent's sexual mischievery.

When McCain or Palin says Obama isn't qualified to be president, what they're really saying is, "Hey, you! Yeah, you there, who's kind of leaning toward Obama. You're wrong, you know. And stupid. And wrong. Now please vote for me."

You don't question the voter's intelligence when you're behind. Because most voters are going to say to themselves, subconsciously and subtly, "Yeah, well, screw you. I know what I'm doing, and he looks qualified to me."

The "he's not qualified" thing is an argument that works only to reinforce the commitment of your existing voters (and those already leaning toward you). It is not a line of attack capable of changing minds by persuasion, and McCain is clearly in a position now where he must persuade a significant number of people who are already committed to Obama to cross the aisle.

I couldn't even make it all the way through williamyard's post, because I was laughing like a fool at the image of McCain ripping off his own toenail.

yard, you write: "It boggles my mind that the McCain camp is so incompetent that they said, "Hey, that tactic was a total loser in the Presidential debate--let's use it again in the Veep debate!"

But in Palin's case, what choice did they have?

They're both getting better, and it's a steep curve for both of them, but Obama started much higher up. Based on his trajectory I'd guess Obama will be on top of his game maybe by the end of his first 600 days or so, as JFK was. Based on Palin's trajectory, she'll be ready (maybe) by 2016.

Coming from you, tep, I'll accept that as essentially an Obama endorsement.

Nippers, that thought occurred to me a few times.

I guess it's my inherent sense of forgiveness and optimism. Take a guy who brutally rapes, kills, dismembers, and bakes his own children and then feeds their parts, disguised as candy, to Halloween trick-or-treaters. Now, some would argue that he's beyond redemption. Friend, that is so short-sighted. Something can be salvaged of him; he is after all a human being. He can be taught to work in the prison laundry, or to make license plates. In both cases he becomes as asset to society.

And so it is with Palin. I don't expert her to become an expert in, say, the intricacies of international child trafficking that Biden understands after holding hours of hearings on the subject as chair of Foreign Relations. But she can at least drop the simplistic attacks and hackneyed one-liners and instead stand up and say, "I know that, in any country, children should not play in traffic!" It shows her to be earnest and capable of learning.

It is Palin's way of making license plates, so to speak. And damn fine license plates they'd be, I'd bet.

Woody,

Truck stop waitress is too much credit: she's worked with oil execs.  I envisioned her waitressing at a pseudo-Western steakhouse or Bennigan's or some contrived chatchkies-on-our-walls chain, reassuring an inquiring patron that there's no reason the kitchen *can't* get her a baked potato instead of fries.  

Wrong model, tep. Obama is not JFK II, he's Lincoln II. And in almost all matters Lincoln was in peak form by June of his first year. (Took office in March, but he was preparing diligently from December, just as Obama will be.) He'll be fine, just so long as the South doesn't try to annul the election by seceding, as they did in 1860.

(And remember, Herbert Hoover had more proven experience with economic reconstruction than any man alive when he took office in 1929, whereas FDR had less experience in government than Obama when he took office in 1933. Which is to say, appeals to "experience" or to historical examples like JFK's learning curve are ridiculous on their face. Obama's resume will not be president, the man will, and there's just no telling except that the way a candidate runs his campaign is _highly_ predictive of how he will run his White House.)

dan - I'm not really worried about Obama anymore. I'm much more worried by what we've learned in recent weeks about our political class's extreme incompetence and ignorance of economics.

Who the f*** came up with the idea that 70% home ownership would be a prudent target for a nation in which more than half the households have negative net worth?

What does it say about the level of economic awareness of a political class whose most intelligent members pushed for this policy, EVEN AFTER top officials warned them it was a disaster in the making?

After reading the astonishing reports of Andrw Cuomo and Barney Frank's incompetence, and after viewing the sorry spectacle of Congress, Paulson, Bush et al running around like decapitated fowl these past couple of weeks, I conclude that we're in far worse shape than I could have guessed.

With the possible exception of Wm J Clinton, our leaders-- of BOTH parties-- truly don't know what the f*** they're doing, and wouldn't level with the public even if they did. It's terrifying. Any worries about Obama's readiness are trivial by comparison.

Teplukhin, Obama will be qualified to be President less than two years into his first term? You don't say!

Rhubarbs, not sure that la Palin can find out if Obama has a zipper problem.  www.nationalenquirer.com/.../65481

Story gets more credibility after they broke Edwards.

Her Foxy interview this morning brought to mind a Peter O'Toole quote from the movie The Ruling Class:

"If I had only known then who I was now. "

Would somebody please explain to me what tep is talking about?

"teplukhin2you said:

Who the f*** came up with the idea that 70% home ownership would be a prudent target for a nation in which more than half the households have negative net worth?

<snip>

After reading the astonishing reports of Andrw Cuomo and Barney Frank's incompetence, and after viewing the sorry spectacle of Congress, Paulson, Bush et al running around like decapitated fowl these past couple of weeks, I conclude that we're in far worse shape than I could have guessed."

(my apologies if you responded to a similar plea I made a few days ago. i tried but couldn't retrieve the thread.)

Tep -- That is what has me worried also. Our representatives have relaxed and deregulated the finance industry to such a degree that I this "mess" is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not going to get better any time soon. The president that takes office in January had better be pretty gddmn smart on economic matters. That pretty much leaves out John "I don't know much about the economy, even though I've been in the senate for 26 years and pretty much 90% of the job is dealing with economic matters." McCain/ Sarah "Energy, I'm an expert on energy 'cuz, y'know, Alaska has some." Palin. As some one has said in other threads - We are so boned.

Dirk

Sat, whom she fucks is none of my business, as long it is not the country.

The one interesting thing is that the divorce papers of the Hansons was sealed earlier in September, at the request of the Hansons.

Rhubarbs - I am a huge Obama fan, but Lincoln Two? Not until Obama unleashed his wit again.  He's stiffled it.  

I'm sure you know every bit as much as I do that Lincoln was knee slappingly funny. He almost always used witty stories, allegories and folk tales to make his points and disarm people when he could.  Obama disarms with his unflappable temperment and ability to listen and process in a remarkably cogent manner.  But I wish he would use his wit more.  It's so there.

Let's see Obama use his deeply creative writers mind and eye to its full force.  I know he can't scare the white people right now by being too smarty pants and uppity, but when he wins, I'd like to laugh again - see real wit in my President if possible.  

I listened to Obama's first book on audiobook and laughed my head off.  His humor is so dry, self deprecating.  You should actually hear him say the words "a black woman's BEEhind" when telling a story if you want to experience him disarmed rather than just  read it.  Or the story of him sleeping in an alley the first night he was in NY.  And having a bum share his breakfast with him.  It's told in a very dry, witty, unsentimental way.

Jeesh, free Sarah Palin?  Forget that - free Barack Obama.

Incidentally, this is what she says about the Couric interviews.  

"In those Katie Couric interviews, I did feel that there were lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs. I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he's made about the war, that I think may, in my world, disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he has made about Afghanistan -- what we are doing there, supposedly just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless. I want to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that's also an indication of being outside the Washington elite, outside of the media elite also. I just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but to complain that reporters did not ask you the questions you wanted asked, and would not let you use an interview as a speech, demonstrates a totalitarian mindset.  The Palin's "annoyance" here suggests a lack of accountability greater than we see in the present occupant - this one just avoids the media, but does not claim, at least in public, that he has the right to speechify in an interview.  The Palin, however, is a budding dictator; a pathetic Chaplin in drag; a menace to the polity.

Tomeg, I agree with the 1st part of Teplukhin's statement "Who the f*** came up with the idea that 70% home ownership would be a prudent target for a nation in which more than half the households have negative net worth?" Sorry, not everyone can or should afford a home.  When you think of how high some home prices were at the height of the bubble around '05, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Around that time the NY Times did some article about the comparative long terms costs of renting vs. buying.  It showed for instance that in Washington, it was comparable, Chicago cheaper to buy, and SF much cheaper to rent.  In retrospect the sacrosanctity of owning a home seems foolish when that same sentiment, fueling cheap money, drives the price of a fixer-upper over $500K (Washington area).

I didn't follow the 2nd part that you excerpted, either.

Icarusr, your characterization as totalitarian of using the media to speechify rather than answer questions is intriguing.

Wandreycer1, hear hear about freeing Obama.  Alas, not until after he's elected.  Remember the flap last year about Mrs. Obama saying that their kids found him stinky and snory in the morning? Wasn't this one of the things that caused Maureen Dowd to dub him Obambi, before he disarmed her?

I read in Newsweek that this past February, Michelle Obama was giving a speech in WI.  The young lady introducing her flubbed her line, introducing her as "Michelle Obama, next president of the US."  To which Mrs. Obama replied, "great, thanks for the promotion.  Barack will get to be First Lady."  I thought that comeback was great, Newsweek was a little queasy.  It's sad but you never know whose little sensibilities and feelings will get hurt, or why.

Michelle Obama rocks.  I don't know the Robinsons personally, but I know their kind, and God bless them, they're the backbone of America.

"The Palin, however, is a budding dictator; a pathetic Chaplin in drag; a menace to the polity."

That is exatly what I see too Icarus: a total black-out level of arrogance, an entitled appartchik. Someone with no knowledge, no humility, a very dangerous person.

Satyendra - anyone who reads my ramblings knows I'm crazy about Barack Obama, I think he will be one of our finest Presidents ever.  And the very best thing about him is Michelle.

Sat: I lived in Iran in the first five years of the Revolution - and of course before, when we had a King of Kings who thought he was blessed by the Eighth Imam, whom he visited regularly in his sleep.  I know a thing or two about how totalitarian regimes function.  The first step in killing freedom is to question the media's right to ask questions; the second, is to do so on the prestense that you want to talk directly to the "people".  

I have no great love for the MSM or other media - I think US media in general have done an abysmal job of educating the people, of protecting the polity against official lies, of uncovering lies and fighting for the truth.  Be that as it may, NOT answering them, expecting them to ask the right questions "or else", whining about distortions when you refuse to talk to them, and the interviewing only with sycophants ... been there, done that, fled with $496 in my pocket and never returned to the land of my birth.  This kind of talk gives me the willies like you can't imagine.

But you know, all of this is academic.  Krauthammer the Hack has jumped ship.  McCain is toast; the rats are leaving the ship; may the Palin never see the inside of a debating chamber again.

"In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory. He has not at all distinguished himself in this economic crisis -- nor, one might add, in any other during his national career -- but detachment has served him well. He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well...

Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."

"a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament" - can't ask more in a Prez.  With enemies like this ...

Ah, icarusr, are from a family of Iranian diplomats, or perhaps academics? I ask because on another post you said you lived in the U. S. for a couple of years while your Dad was studying.

By the way, that part about your family being robbed in front of the White House is so bad it's bad.

I feel for you, having to live in fear and finally flee your native land.  I've known some Vietnamese boat people.  My mom's friend and her sister are actually the results of a French officer and Vietnamese woman, really, a family in addition to the one he had in France.  I only hope all your friends and loved ones are safely out.

Sat: after twenty years, I remember only the funny bits; or, rather, some of the scary stuff look funny in retrospect.  Lost friends and cousins to the War, the civil war and the executions that followed in 81-88; the story of many families in Iran.  Most relatives are spread around the world - from a cultural that is not used to migration, this is pretty hard, but such is life!   Let's just say I value the freedoms I have a great deal.  And there is a picture of the statue of Icarus by Sir Alfred Gilbert on my desk, to remind that sometimes, one must reach for the Sun ;-) ...

Thanks Wandrey! :)

Icarus, the main problem is that about 40% of the country doesn't care because Palin is one of them. And with the punditocracy suffering from a certain form of lack of blood to the brain after last night's debate, it behooves the more rational among us to continue to remain vigilant until matters have been taken "in hand" and "resolved". Otherwise, right on!

dylan,

Good point. I can completely picture Sarah P. wearing 21 pieces of flair - well over the 15-piece minimum.

Rhubarbs,  I generally like you, but the comparison's not quite apt.  before 1932, FDR had been eight years as Asst. Sec. of the Navy including during World War I, he'd been the Democrats' nominee for Vice President, stumping all over the country.  and four years as Governor of the Largest State in the Union (by population, not area) and the largest city as well.  That's a might bit more than Obama has.  

Crock, I defend the comparison to FDR thusly: Assistant secretary of anything doesn't count. It's the equivalent of being regional sales manager any given private company. (Which is why I don't share tep's enthusiasm for Bobby Jindal: Being a midlevel bureaucrat doesn't impress me.) Knowledge of seaborne troop transport logistics just isn't particularly essential for a future president, even one who will have to fight WWII. So FDR had just under four years as governor, and two years as a state legislator. Obama has just under eight years as a state legislator, and almost four years as a U.S. senator. Obama has simply been engaged in the business of elected governing for longer than FDR was.

Which I don't say to slight FDR, but simply to point out the absurdity of appeals to "experience." Such appeals are necessarily, deliberately blind to the reality of history. Of the three men almost universally recognized as our greatest presidents, one had extensive "experience" in elected office and in military command; one had little to speak of; and one had even less. On any scale of "experience," Obama would rate behind Washington but ahead of both Lincoln and FDR. Likewise, take any list of our worst presidents, and you'll find that some of them brought extraordinary records of experience to the office. James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover might be the best-experienced men ever to serve as president, and they are without argument two of the three or four worst we've ever had.