Sarah Palin Live . . .

. . . in Ohio, giving an excellent (effective) speech, confident, hard-hitting, and crowd-pleasing.  You need to watch her do this if you think she's a total idiot or a detriment to the McCain ticket. 

It's funny how Cindy McCain stands between them, almost like a chaperone.  It does look idiotic how she nods and shakes her head (the spouse-bobblehead act, á la Hillary Clinton) as Palin feeds the crowd red-meat "us good, them bad" lines, to which the crowd childishly goes "YAAAAY!"  "BOOOOO!"  (Politics isn't even high school, it's kindergarten.)  The lines are well chosen, though; they're about Obama's well-documented failure to cross the aisle or to challenge his own party.

McCain now, saying "I'll never be a president who sits on the sidelines when our country faces a crisis."  What's he talking about, My Little Goat?  Oh, it's Obama he's describing -- "watching from the sidelines.  Watching from the sidelines is exactly what got us into this mess."

Even though the pungent combativeness (the stink of aggression pheromones is in the air -- I've been reading about ants, sorry) and the blind jingoism and buy-me boasting and "my friends" blandishment all set my teeth on edge, I see that it raises people's spirits, like stamping your feet and drinking cocoa on a cold day.  And I find myself not only planning to vote for McCain, but hoping he wins.

(With very rare exceptions, I buy products in spite of, not because of their advertising.)

Comments

[Bookworm Girl]

i think sarah palin as a running mate is an excellent pick by mccain. the malice and hostility by the liberal media is beyond baffling and unprecedented.

[Ally]

We already know she can read a speech. You really have to do a contortion act to think that means anything.

[amba]

I'll take her over Pelosi any day.

[Ally]

Choose your poison.

[Peter Hoh]

Of course Cindy has to stand between them. Otherwise, this happens.

[Peter Hoh]

Yeah, she can read a speech quite well, and she fires up the base. As long as McCain is alive, okay. Otherwise, look out.

Goldberg notices that Palin was unable to answer a question about Hamas.

[amba]

Peter:

1.) There's life in the old goat yet.

2.) "Dan Quayle was Metternich by comparison." Ha.

I think a lot of the "she's like me" Palin supporters don't mind that she's ignorant because they are. The believe it's enough to have a good heart, love America, hate evil, and be fierce in our defense. Screw the details.

Yes, that is scary. If she became president anytime soon she sure as hell would need her own Dick Cheney. She would be a figurehead/sock puppet president, at least for a while, while she got her remedial crash education. Not quite what Charlie meant by OJT.

[amba]

Donna: I'm not talking about you.

[Ruth Anne]

We already know she can read a speech. You really have to do a contortion act to think that means anything.

Change the pronoun to 'he' and you've got my opinion about the top of the Dem ticket.

[Ally]

Comparing Obama to Palin is like comparing F. Scott Fitzgerald to Danielle Steele.

[Melinda]

I see that it raises people's spirits

John McCain: Hero, Maverick, Anti-Depressant.

Peter, funny video! Thanks for the laugh.

[huxley]

Comparing Obama to Palin is like comparing F. Scott Fitzgerald to Danielle Steele.

I do love how Obama supporters always counterattack rather than defend their candidate! And often with some witless analogy like the above.

I've had a long-running email conversation with an old college friend who is still a Dem. She has yet to explain her support for Obama (as opposed to Generic Democrat) with facts and reasoning.

I finally confronted her on that and she is honest enough to agree, but it's been two weeks and she still has not gotten those facts and reasoning back to me and recently admitted that maybe it might be better to drop the whole thing.

[huxley]

However...speaking of F. Scott Fitzgerald, I had just reread The Great Gatsby when I started paying attention to Obama.

Obama struck me then, as he does now, as the Gatsby of our time--a striving, empty guy out to fulfill his ambitions and not too careful about the means.

[Ally]

Well, then, Huxley, to take your "witless analogy" a couple of steps further, McCain is Tom Buchanan and Palin is Myrtle Wilson.

[Peter Hoh]

Huxley wrote: I do love how Obama supporters always counterattack rather than defend their candidate!

Written, it appears, without a trace of irony.

Let me invite you to examine this thread more closely. It started with a post about Palin delivering a speech. Ally and I raised the issue that delivering a stump speech, no matter how well, does not answer the deeper questions about her candidacy.

In response to that critique, one of Palin's supporters counterattacked rather than defend her candidate.

Seems that the counterattack rather than defend shoe is well worn.

One could blame our two-party system, but I'm pretty sure that similar political maneuvers happen in countries with multiple parties.

[karen]

Amba, maybe it was you that pointed out that so many ~regular~ Americans felt good about Palin because they were (perhaps(i used the dictionary to find the *per as opposed to *pre))ignorant and felt better represented in Palin. I may have misunderstood.

I have no doubt ignorance abounds among/w/in my ranks of fellow commonfolk Americans, myself included.

Somehow- ignorant rankles.

I see the Potential in Sarah Palin-- i see a woman that got to where she now is w/out the advantages that many, many pols have(Ivy League ed-ie). I see a plain-talkin' gal that probably has more common sense than that current lot in Washington.

And, i see class&grace where the elites point out embarrasmt of accent, gestures, hair-- glasses, choices, hobbies and kin. The more they point, the more i see THEM. It's eye-opening.

[huxley]

Well, then, Huxley, to take your "witless analogy" a couple of steps further, McCain is Tom Buchanan and Palin is Myrtle Wilson.

How does that fit, other than for your convenience?

I've been reading about Barack Obama for months now and I still don't have a core sense of the guy, other than his relentless ambition. Obama has no accomplishments other than running for the next office.

Obama seems much like Gatsby -- bland, likeable, and amoral in his choices of associates whom he has used to move up.

At least Gatsby had Daisy, the love of his life, about which all his ambitions revolved. As near as I can tell, for Obama it is the Dreams From My Father.

Obama seems very much like a boy who lost his father and never got over it. It's a common enough story, but we shouldn't elect Obama president to make up for it.

[amba]

Karen: no doubt "ignorant" was a poor choice of word, but I consider myself ignorant. You've seen the Leno segments where he stops people (mostly young) on the street and asks them if they know where North Dakota is, or the years of WWII, or ... We Americans get along without much knowledge of facts. We have to rely on those who have that knowledge, and then we despise them because they've lost touch with their roots. Well, maybe. But where is the person who combines the two -- roots with a real hunger to inform oneself? Obviously, Palin can and has done that in the field of energy. She has not had either the time or the interest to do it in foreign affairs. In that respect, she's ignorant the way most of us are. She hasn't needed that knowledge to run Alaska. But she needs it as VP (and potential president) of the US, and she hasn't had time to acquire it. You have to hope that, as Charlie put it, she gets time for OJT. But it is a concern that shouldn't be dismissed. I would be terrified to have me in the Vice Presidency. Terrified.

[karen]

Sometimes i think my own definition of ignorant is not the same as yours. Or, maybe it's just that i'm lumping more than one def into the use of it. It wasn't a poor choice of word- it can be true and still rankle:0).

There's a book called "The Beans of Egypt Maine". A woman i know read it and laughed at the imagination of the author-- how clever, how entertaining. My Mother read it and nearly cried- she knows people just like the Beans. The chasm is so wide...

I think i would rather have Palin and her potential growth and eager ability than Biden and his ideological fences. I don't think he can get beyond his own skull, sometimes. Or, ego.

Amba, you're like flint. Your very strong and full of fire. And, you were born w/grace, too. I'm so fortunate to have found this place- i know i tell you often. It's escape, vaca and education all rolled up in one. Maybe this is what a manicured Summer camp does feel like.

[Melinda]

Obviously, Palin can and has done that in the field of energy.

Yeah, I've heard that, but I haven't heard much about her experience in the field of energy and it seems as if she's trying to fudge her lack of knowledge in all of the other areas.

I'd like to hear her views on energy, since I'm ignorant on that subject, and I'd like to hear Biden on foreign affairs.