September 7, 2008 6:10

Palin Interview

The first one goes to Charlie Gibson. What would you ask her?

UPDATE AT 6:30 P.M. EASTERN: Must-see TV for politics nerds. C-Span is airing a 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate.

UPDATE2: Weirdest question so far: Where else in Alaska would you live?

September 7, 2008 12:13

What's Up With Huck?

Mike Huckabee has been rewriting the lyrics to the Clapton hit "Cocaine." The new version: "McCain."

My story on the post-primary Huckabee is here.

September 6, 2008 10:10

No, Actually, It's that the Economy is Falling Apart

It has been fascinating to watch the right-wing press lap up the anti-media nonsense put out by the McCain campaign's Steve Schmidt regarding Sarah Palin. The latest is Jeffrey Bell, in the Weekly Standard, who makes the media's attempt to find out just exactly who Palin is part of a seamless, anti-clerical cloak that goes all...the...way...back...to...the French Revolution:

The most important thing to know about the left today is that it is centered on social issues. At root, it always has been, ever since the movement took form and received its name in the revolutionary Paris of the 1790s. In order to drive toward a vision of true human liberation, all the institutions and moral codes we associate with civilization had to be torn down. The institutions targeted in revolutionary France included the monarchy and the nobility, but even higher on the enemies list of the Jacobins and their allies were organized religion and the family, institutions in which the moral values of traditional society could be preserved and passed on outside the control of the leftist vanguard.

Wow. What hogwash. The deviation from the actual truth of the matter--pretty close to 100%, I'd say--is astonishing. If the Democratic Convention is any gauge, liberals aren't very much interested in social issues at all--but they are obsessed by the frightening economic conditionss we're facing right now. (Mr. Bell might consider taking a gander at the front page of the paper today--6.1% unemployment, the costly collapse of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.) They are concerned about making the tax code as progressive as it was during the Clinton boom, and also about rebuilding the country's infrastructure, finding new jobs in alternative energy industries and making health insurance available to all Americans. You may feel positive or negative about their solutions, but that's what liberals care about.

Then there's this:

From the instant of Palin's designation on Friday, August 29, the American left went into a collective mass seizure from which it shows no sign of emerging. The left blogosphere and elite media have, for the moment, joined forces and become indistinguishable from each other, and from the supermarket tabloids, in their desire to find and use anything that will criminalize and/or humiliate Palin and her family. In sharp contrast to the yearlong restraint shown toward truthful reports about John Edwards's affair, bizarre rumors have been reported as news, and, according to McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt, nationally known members of the elite media have besieged him with preposterous demands.

Again, hogwash. The vast bulk of mainstream media reporting has been about Palin's record as a public servant and her personal beliefs as a politician. The tabloid media are treating her precisely as the tabloid media treat everybody. Steve Schmidt has done a brilliant--fabulously dishonest--job of setting up straw men, but it's a smokescreen to hide the fact that McCain rushed into this choice and didn't vet her properly. All these vast requests for personal information about Palin's family have produced--what? No major news outlet has gone with the various personal rumors that Schmidt is trying to promote. Only Sally Quinn and a few others raised the question of whether Palin should be home taking care of the children--although when the noted feminist Rudy Giuliani made that a part of his speech, the cable networks suddenly took it up, in their reliably Pavlovian fashion.

Maybe I'm getting old, maybe it's that I've seen this act so often before, maybe it's that the people I talk to when I go out on the road really are having a harder time paying for things like health care, gasoline and college tuition, but I'm finding the Republican attempts to derail the conversation from the actual state of the country really depressing and disgraceful this year. They practice Orwellian politics of the crudest sort. They are trying to sell a big lie--that the election is about the social issues of the 1960s, or Barack Obama's patriotism or his eloquence, or the "angry left," when it's really about turning toward a more moderate path after the ideological radicalism and malfeasance of the past eight years.

September 5, 2008 5:10

Why It Matters

David Frum, conservative author and former Bush speechwriter, weighs in over at NRO on the question of why we should care whether or not Sarah Palin should be subjected to taking questions from the press. His answer: it was the same contempt for elites, both in the media and more broadly, that caused the Bush communications effort to fail after the president's post-9/11 popularity began to erode. Political operatives love to talk about circumventing the media and other co-called "elites" -- i.e., independent specialists, observers and thinkers. The operatives convince themselves they can take their candidate's message directly to the people -- on their terms, without all that poking and prodding and skepticism. That's propaganda. In a democratic society, it rarely works for long.

September 5, 2008 3:16

The Eastern Media Elite

Dana Milbank exposes the truth:

September 5, 2008 10:23

Reality Bites

This may matter more in determining the outcome of the election than any of those speeches we've heard in the past two weeks.

September 5, 2008 1:03

The Palin Surprise

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
A dispatch from the road on how the Obama folks have handled, and are handling, the Palin surprise.

September 4, 2008 11:09

The Speech

A mixed performance. The ending worked, though in the hall I doubt anyone could hear him very well as he spoke through the crowd's applause. The final peroration -- "We're Americans. We don't hide from history. We make history" -- was strong stuff.

September 4, 2008 10:52

"I Hate War"

The difference when he's talking about something that truly animates him is startling.

September 4, 2008 10:48

Blue Screen?

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
I'm watching McCain on TV, like most of America. I know the backdrop has been solid colors for most of the speakers, with a larger image above them, but that comes from watching the convention the past few days. For anyone tuning in tonight what they see, for the most part, is McCain in front of a blue screen -- leading me to wonder: are there advertisers missing an opportunity here?