As a black man this infuriates me. There is no way that an African-American who sounded like Palin would ever be taken seriously. No way. Obama almost had to be a Harvard Law magna cum laude grad just to be plausible, taken seriously. But that very fact makes him an elitist. This country is a complete joke. Please tell me why I shouldn't damn it to hellBecause a few hundred years ago, your ancestors came here in chains. It may take awhile, but this too shall pass. Obama has created the strongest hope yet. Let's hope he can live up to it. But even if he fails to change things for the better, life goes on. Or so we must continue to hope.
Palin: there’s a lot of mocking of my personal faith, and my personal faith is very, very simple. I don’t belong to any church. I do have a strong belief in God, and I believe that I’m a heck of a lot better off putting my life in God’s hands, and saying hey, you know, guide me. What else do we have but guidance that we would seek from a Creator? That’s about as simple as it gets with my faith, and I think that there is a lot of mocking of that. And you know, so bet it, though I do have respect for those who have differing views than I do on faith, on religion. I’m not going to mock them, and I would hope that they would kind of I guess give me the same courtesy through this of not mocking a person’s faith, but maybe perhaps even trying to understand a little bit of it.If that's truly the extent of Palin's faith, I have no problem with it. Like Coates, I surely want to understand what's going on here. That's part of why I began writing on them here 'Internets'.
Hewitt: Have you followed the attacks on you, say, via Drudge or the blogs? Some of them are just made up and out of left field, others are just mocking. Do you follow those?Gasp! She's not looking at me, is she? Make it stop! ... I would like to take this moment to apologize to Sarah Palin for mocking her.
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?So Palin has "great appreciation for the press, for the media" but she won't mention any one by name?
Palin: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —
Couric: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
Couric: Can you name any of them?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.
suppose for instance she had tossed out a couple national newspapers or magazines. Let's say she'd said, 'Oh, I pick up the NY Times occasionally, or the Washington Post, or Time or Newsweek. Well, then Katie would have pounced with the 'follow-up' gotcha... 'Oh, you read the NY Times? Who's your favorite columnist?' or 'So you read Newsweek? What do you think of their cover story on the crisis in Georgia?'Yes, it's gotcha journalism to ask whether a presidential-level candidate stays well-informed via the press. We couldn't possibly have a legitimate reason to be skeptical of Palin's credentials on this point. Your man Hannity's "interview" was much fair and balanced-ier:
She was very smart to say nothing. Don't even play the game...
Gotcha journalism at it's worst...
Hewitt: Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews. Do you share that opinion?Ah yes, Palin's education. So complete, it took five colleges. One college just wasn't enough to satiate Sarah's vast appetite for knowledge & understanding.
Palin: Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago. But I’m not going to pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrelful. I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay, those are good testing grounds. And they can continue on in that mode. That’s good. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.
Andrew may not have heard, but there have been a few interesting developments in the financial markets over the last few weeks. As an economics blogger, I was regretfully forced to forgo full time devotion to the vice presidential race and turn to more trivial matters.Touché...go read the whole post.
you're a complete fucking idiot if you dont see the difference.
The people in those videos are praying to God. Not singing praise to political candidate who is just a mere mortal human being.
Nice try but not even close to the same thing. The two videos you post are wacky, yes. But they are both praying to God. Not in a way that I would, but whatever. The Obama video is sick because they are singing to him as if HE were God. So basically I agree about the contents of your skull.Okay people, try to think about it this way:
Politico previews Biden’s likely strategy when he faces Palin at the debate:
I now think the veep debate is going to matter squat given the economic climate we find ourselves in and what Palin, McCain, and Republicans have done to discredit themselves elsewhere.If Sarah Palin goofs, flounders, stumbles or blunders during her debate against Joe Biden on Thursday night, Biden is going to let it slide.
“If she makes a gaffe, he underplays it,” one of the people prepping Biden for his vice presidential debate told me. “At most, he says, ‘I am not sure what Gov. Palin meant there.’”
...
“Joe Biden’s No. 1 job during the vice presidential debate is to keep the focus on the top of the ticket,” the Biden debate prepper told me. “He is going to keep the focus on John McCain.”
Despite the campaign's sharp break in Obama's direction in the last week of September, we need only remember the sharp break in McCain's favor in the first two weeks of the month to know that elections can change quickly. That said, I've been thinking over the last few days that if John McCain loses this election he will have lost much more than the presidency. His reputation as an honest and honorable politician will be wrecked, I suspect, for good -- particularly among centrist and independent voters and the centrist commentator class in New York and Washington.That's exactly it...stated more eloquent and mildly than I can manage at this point.
In his current guise, McCain would likely say that what the folks along the Northeast corridor think of him doesn't matter. But I don't think anyone who knows him believes that for a second. The man has spent the last fifteen years of his life assiduously cultivating these people. This after all is what people mean when they used to say that the press was McCain's 'base'. It's a big thing for his political viability and his ego.
...
My verdict may be a severe one but I think a lot of people -- a lot of former admirers -- are coming around to agreeing with the general outlines. McCain has revealed himself as a liar well outside the permissive standards applied to politicians. He's shown himself to be reckless to the point of instability, repeatedly putting the country at risk (exploiting the Georgia crisis, picking Palin, storming the bailout negotiations) for transparently self-serving reasons. And in too many ways to count, he's conducted his campaign in disgraceful and dishonorable ways.
Perhaps the most telling thing is that McCain was willing flush that reputation down the drain, betray everything he pretended to stand for, all to be president. If he wins, it will all have been worth it. He was happy to sacrifice one for the other. And now he may end up with neither.
The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions. After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.Sullivan comments: "Just let it sink in."
There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.
BTW: A helluva week for Sarah Palin to debate, huh?Omigosh! Not just Sarah, but Biden! This debate and its aftermath will be comedy gold.
My comment:Rachel Maddow’s show turns out to be quite the success for MSNBC.
I wonder how an Obama White House will deal with MSNBC’s flirtations with establishing itself as the progressive-friendly cable network. An incumbent administration has a lot of ability to reward particular reporters, hosts, and networks with access, scoops, and choice interviews. In principles, a White House inclined to think and act strategically about the media could do a lot to push MSNBC to transform in that direction while simultaneously bolstering the news credibility of Maddow and Keith Olbermann.
Eeek, I wanted to vomit. The last thing we need is another Fox.
I almost went off about Matt’s being ideologically aligned with this idea not making such a thing justified.
Then I realized that whole last paragraph could be very low-key satire.
I honestly cannot tell. Congratulations, you magnificent bastard.
New Deal 2.0 ? I'm sure there are problems with the idea... could you explain?I'm sure many people had the same type of question, and here is her answer.
Of the different forms of legalized gambling permitted in the United States the most common is also the least-justifiable — the state-sponsored lottery. That industry, meanwhile, is dominated by a firm called GTech. A firm that, as Ken Silverstein details, has extensive ties to the McCain teamBut -- if not the lottery -- how else are we supposed to tax people who are bad at math?
More than 131 House Republucans and 95 House Democrats vote against it.Yeesh, everyone wants political cover....
A rush to cash-in on T-bills...
Dow down nearly 600...
Will Pelosi hold the vote open to get 12 more votes?.
Where Were You When The World Economy Collapsed?CNN:
Where's Tom Delay when you need 'em?
Who gets blamed for the House Republicans? McCain? Obama? No one?
What's the contingency plan?
What can the government do by itself?
Legislation to bail out the U.S. financial system appears near defeat on the floor of the House. More than enough members of the House had cast votes to defeat the bill, and the vote was being held open, apparently as efforts were under way to persuade people to change their vote. The Dow reacted sharply, plummeting more than 700 points.developing storyMcArdle:
I've been watching the debate on CSPAN, and as of now, HR 3997 looks like it's just failed, unless this is some weird procedural vote I don't understand. Nays won 228 to 205, with 1 vote still uncounted. The markets just plunged, with the NASDAQ and the S&P both down more than 6%.FiveThirtyEight:
Democrats voted for it pretty narrowly -- 140 to 95. The Republicans shot it down 65 to 133. I find it hard to believe that they're voting their conscience; they're voting their electoral interest in November. I hope their constituencies enjoy the bank panic.
Actually, what I hope is that I'm wrong, we don't need a bailout, and after a period of liquidation, everything will settle down. If so, I will happily confess my error. But I'm very much afraid that I am not wrong, and things are about to get pretty grim.
Sullivan: "In the end, they were worried about re-election."Among 38 incumbent congressmen in races rated as "toss-up" or "lean" by Swing State Project, just 8 voted for the bailout as opposed to 30 against: a batting average of .211.
By comparison, the vote among congressmen who don't have as much to worry about was essentially even: 197 for, 198 against.
The best case: This is an example of America's democratic institutions reasserting themselves in the face of the attempt by a panicked technocratic elite to prop up reckless institutions that richly deserve to fail.That last line is the first sign of good news for the future that I've come across. Could it be so?
The worst case: You know what.
The most likely scenario, as of 3 PM this afternoon: The stock market continues to drop. Some version of the bailout passes in the next week. The American economy staggers into a recession, but passes through the storm without 1930s-style suffering; the Republican Party is not so fortunate. Even though most Americans claim to oppose the bailout [update: not anymore], the House GOP's obstructionism is widely viewed as having worsened the economic situation; the fact that these are contradictory positions does not faze an electorate that wraps all of the country's current troubles up, ties them with a bow, and lays them at the feet of the Bush-led GOP. John McCain loses by a landslide in November. The Democratic Party regains years or even decades worth of ground among the white working class, consolidates the Hispanic vote, and locks up a large chunk of highly-educated voters who might otherwise lean conservative. The much-discussed liberal realignment happens. And a politician running on a Ron Paul-style economic platform does very, very well in the GOP primaries of 2012.
I still get teary-eyed when I read about them beaming. I've seen it first-hand with my own black friends. Their eyes light up, even... it's a beautiful thing.Reality, Painful or Not [Jay Nordlinger]
Since it happened three times, I thought I’d tell you about it — it happened three times when I was in Denver, Friday and Saturday. In restaurants and other public places, young black men asked me whether I had attended the Democratic convention. I said yes. They said, “What did you think of the speech?” (meaning Obama’s). And I said I thought it was fabulous.
In each case, the young man beamed and beamed.
This sort of thing can’t be discounted this year. And if Obama loses, there will be pain: perhaps more pain than usually occurs in an election, in which there is always a winner and a loser.
We're just going to keep saying it until people get it, regardless of how well they program her with more dynamic talking points for 2 October. Or any time before 4 November, for that matter.Coming Around
My view on the first weekend was that Palin was the most reckless pick in modern American history. That's becoming pretty much the consensus three weeks later. Here's Carl Bernstein, echoing Fareed:
No presidential nominee of either party in the last century has seemed so willing to endanger the country's security as McCain in his reckless choice of a running mate.
The key thing about Palin is what it tells us about McCain: unfit to be president.
Maybe the IT department.You scored 350 out of 350 possible points, or 100.00%
A+
Not only should you vote, you should consider a career in politics.
Forget the top-line numbers -- note that the poll "indicated that the younger, less-experienced Obama has made strides since last week in convincing Americans that he can handle the toughest challenges facing the country, including the economy and international affairs. Obama was seen as more "presidential" by 46% of the debate watchers, compared with 33% for McCain. The difference is even more pronounced among debate watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage."Even the Fox News poll and Fox News focus group gave it to Obama by a good margin. My take was here and here.
Not a single post-debate poll gave the advantage to Sen. McCain.
I mentioned Parker's article earlier.Fox's News Site Pulls A Story
Guess which one? Conservatives questioning Palin's heft. The reason of Kathleen Parker is too much for Fox readers to handle, apparently.
..or retire at the end of this term in 2010, Senator. 75 is a good age, and you've served your country well in the past. Why not quit while you're ahead?Blake Hounshell passes along this chart. This is how John McCain believes we are going to get back to fiscal sanity. Kinda similar to his unhinged notion that we can get to energy independence by drilling at home. There's nothing wrong with cutting pork and off-shore drilling, done responsibly. But if you think these are actual solutions to America's real fiscal crisis, you really need to find another line of work:
ANCHORAGE -- Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinctReminds me of the old xkcd:
In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one -- the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.Are Americans stupid enough for such a thing to affect their vote? I'm going to assume yes.
Inside John McCain's campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."
Can Someone Please Explain This To Me? [Mark Hemingway]Ok I'll bite, the ad says:A new Obama ad actually imagines a McCain victory and doesn't at all explain why that would be bad. Am I crazy or does it just make McCain look like a winner?
UPDATE: The headline is a tad sarcastic. Yes, obviously I understand it's to motivate his base but I was baffled by how the Obama camp doesn't seem to see the unintended meaning could easily overwhelm the intended meaning.
"it doesn't have to be that way, vote for change"It takes a far-right apparatchik like this Mark Hemingway to not understand why such a message helps Obama, particularly since it urges people to vote, and new voters favor Obama by wide margins...
Bear in mind these polls reflect the pre-debate state of the race, as the overwhelming majority of the interviews for the these tracking polls took place before last night's debate was completed. A variety of reactions to the debate seem possible to me, including (in rough order of probability): i) a small gain for Obama; ii) no effective change; iii) a larger gain for Obama; (iv) a small gain for McCain. The reaction in the horse race polls in the days following the debate do not always match the overnight flash polls, as opinions about the debate may change once filtered through the lens of the media. However, since Obama won or tied essentially all objective evaluations of public opinion about the debate, material gains for McCain appear unlikely.Nate concludes:
Obama ticked upward a couple of points in our win percentage estimate, and is now given a 78.5 percent chance of winning the election. Our more eagle-eyed observers may notice that this improvement occurred even as our popular vote projection barely changed. There are two reasons to explain the discrepancy: (1) Obama got a comparatively "bad" polling result in California (+10 from SurveyUSA), and California has a fairly substantial effect on the popular vote but almost none on the electoral college, and (2) We are now close enough to the election where every day that goes by without McCain making gains in the polls makes him marginally less likely to win. So Obama's win percentage will be ticking up by perhaps half a point a day based on inertia alone.
Raises the question? Show me someone who says it was not a political stunt and I will show you a partisan hack.After last night’s debate, John McCain went to his condo in Northern Virginia (one of eight or so houses he owns) and he’s been around there ever since. Why not head to the Hill to help with bailout negotiations? Well:
Asked why Mr. McCain did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington to help with negotiations, Mr. Salter replied that “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.’’
Which of course raises the question of why he had to pretend to suspend his campaign in order to rush physically to Washington last week.
When I was in the Air Force we took a group of High School kids from the city on a tour of Scott AFB in late June. For those who have never seen Scott, AFB much of the base is surrounded by cornfields.
One of the kids asked "Why don't they mow down all those weeds?"
I told him. "Those aren't weeds, thats corn.
He responded. "Yeah right, you can't fool me! Corn is yellow!"
I wish he was kidding but I actually had to stop the car and grab an ear off the stalk to show him what it was.
Obama terrifies me: an intelligent, thoughtful, well-prepared, capably extemporaneous man ascribing a future holocaust to some sort of non-existent, fantastical, steroidal Iran; talking about unsanctioned cross-border incursions into Pakistan because we found bin Laden, or some such, and must "take him out"; warbling around about "main street" while, in a lawerly, circumlocutory way signaling that he’s ultimately going to get behind hundred-billion-dollar cash bailouts to institutions that ought to be dismantled, destroyed, scattered to the wind. He wants GM to make electric cars. He wants the American people to know that he will appear before them to make extravagant xenophobic declarations in order to assuage their insecurity about the rise of other competing economies. He does this all in a calm, perfectly reasonable manner, with a convincing boardroom demeanor, and judging by the reactions of my liberal friends, with whom I listened, this was basically pleasing to them.Shorter version:
McCain is of course out of his mind: forgetful, vicious, reactionary. And his ideas are even crazier than BO’s, but there’s a certain comfort in the fact that their insanity is laid so plainly and mercilessly bare by the grinning psychopath’s delivery. He provides no quarter for those who want to convince themselves that by Killing People for Their Own Good we are not actually killing them, or that by suborning corporate malfeasance we are combating it, or that by desperately seeking to maintain the geography of radial sprawl and the automobile we are seeking "energy independence."
The VP debate is worrisome as expectations are so low for Palin and there is an assumption after the Couric interview that Biden will wipe the floor with her. Anything other than Biden being really nice while annihilating her will be seen as a Palin "win" or holding the line.DTM:
Watching Biden tonight it dawned on me that this is what we are going to see in the VP debate: Biden hammering McCain. But in that instance, Palin is going to have no choice but to do something in response. Should be interesting.I think DTM is right, that's exactly what Biden should do. He should be courteous to Palin but hammer home all the problems with McCain.
This ad, released during the debate, gets razzed by Ezra Klein, Hilzoy, and Jonathan Cohn. Its premise is one of the saddest aspects of our current politics. According to McCain, a man able to concede in an argument where the other guy has a point is thereby proving he cannot lead. Do we really need more politicians unable to be graceful to their opponents at times? Is that really what leadership is? Haven't we already had eight years of that?
And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ...I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.
Late Monkey Science Update: In case anyone's wondering, I looked up TPM Reader TB's page at the University he teaches at. And no doubt about it, he appears to be a genuine monkey scientist, or to be more specific a researcher on social cognition and behavior in primates. I'd link to his page. But readers remain anonymous, save for their initials, until they tell us otherwise.
This is a pretty traditional debate performance for Obama. Strong on substance. Few mistakes. Little in the way of killer instinct or decapitating lines. McCain, by contrast, is offering an uncommonly strong performance powered, as far as I can tell, by his raging contempt for Obama. He won't look at him. He's using "what Senator Obama doesn't understand" the way Joe Biden uses "ladies and gentlemen." His constant refrain is the places he's visited, leaders he's befriended, aging advisers and presidents he's known. Obama is conveying the fact that he thinks McCain wrong. But McCain is conveying the fact that he thinks Obama an unprepared lightweight. One of these is a stronger claim than the other.Sullivan covers a variety.
When the details of this encounter fade, as they soon will, I think the debate as a whole will be seen as of a piece with Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, Reagan-Carter in 1980, and Clinton-Bush in 1992.
In each of those cases, a fresh, new candidate (although chronologically older in Reagan's case) had been gathering momentum at a time of general dissatisfaction with the "four more years" option of sticking with the incumbent party. The question was whether the challenger could stand as an equal with the more experienced, tested, and familiar figure. In each of those cases, the challenger passed the test -- not necessarily by "winning" the debate, either on logical points or in immediate audience or polling reactions, but by subtly reassuring doubters on the basic issue of whether he was a plausible occupant of the White House and commander in chief.
Crowley has a theory as to why. Chris Orr offers his own thoughts. My own view is that the Hannity interview doesn't count as it was an infomercial. And Gibson was pretty easy. Couric may have rescued her career with that interview. In other words: There's no Palin decline. There was nothing to decline from. There is no there there but ambition, fundamentalism and a bizarre personal life. And the pressure of her countless lies - especially about her personal life - must be beginning to tell. My own view is that she is such a massive joke she will kill the ticket; but if McCain asked her to withdraw, it would so destroy his own record of judgment, he would also lose. So we have two scenarios: either they struggle on, keep the Schmidt fireworks to distract from reality, and hope that racism and Christianism will somehow get them to the finishing line - or we start all over with Romney. But it's getting too late to switch GOP candidates.I too think this helped rescue Couric's career. I never liked her as an anchor, but this interview showed the usefulness of having one woman interview another. No one can pretend Couric was sexist/demeaning/disrespectful/professorial, as they did with Gibson.I don't think the Palin problem is fixable. She is who she is: an unqualified fundamentalist liar with no nowledge of or experience in national domestic or foreign policy. And McCain had absolutely no idea who she was when he picked her.
Two natural reactions are: to laugh at the "Putin rears his head" part, and simply to avoid concentrating on the rest. But given her candidacy for national office, neither of those is enough.For my part I'm beginning to think the "L" in Palin is superfluous.
I am not aware of any other current figure in national politics -- by which I mean any member of the Senate or House -- who would do a worse job under questioning. There could be some I don't know about. But they're not on a national ticket.
The Casualties [Rich Lowry]
A friend sends the list so far:
1. Fannie Mae
2. Freddie Mac
3. AIG
4. WAMU
5. Lehman Brothers
6. Merrill Lynch
7. Countrywide
8. IndyMac
9. Bear Stearns
10. Goldman Sachs (had to become bank holding company)
11. Morgan Stanley (had to become bank holding company)
So much for the "pro-Obama advocacy organization".In all, Mr. Obama has released at least five commercials that have been criticized as misleading or untruthful against Mr. McCain’s positions in the past two weeks. Mr. Obama drew complaints from many of the independent fact-checking groups and editorial writers who just two weeks ago were criticizing Mr. McCain for producing a large share of this year’s untruthful spots (“Pants on Fire,” the fact-checking Web site PolitiFact.com wrote of Mr. Obama’s advertisement invoking Mr. Limbaugh; “False!” FactCheck.org said of his commercial on Social Security.)
a lot of what I like about her could be projection. I’m not where my friend Kathleen Parker is — wanting her to step aside to spend more time with her family and Alaska — but that’s not a crazy suggestion. She's right to say that something’s gotta change.Could be projection? You think? This is exactly what happens when you're more interested in projecting your theology into the White House than supporting a capable candidate!
Not in partisan minds.I don't understand how Rich Lowry can write this while keeping a straight face:
Does Palin know enough to be a national candidate right now? No, but she can be mostly walled off from the press. Will attacking Obama on Fannie and Freddie open McCain to attack because one of his top aides lobbied for the organizations? Yes, but he can bulldog through it. Is going to Washington going to help much of anything? Probably not, but the symbolism matters.
Does nothing matter but this absurd and reckless partisan game?
Really? Officially reciting the pledge with "under God" in public schools or other government institutions is a cause worth dying for?I like this gal more and more [Mark Steyn]
An Alaska mayor writes to a California newspaper:
“Dear Editor,” Palin wrote in 2002. “San Francisco judges forbidding our Pledge of Allegiance? They will take the phrase ‘under God’ away from me when my cold, dead lips can no longer utter those words.”
Q: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?Blatant pandering to the mediumship base! Didn't you know? It's true...
PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
I wish he was kidding. This man could be the president.No Kidding [Byron York]
From Brian Williams' interview with John McCain:
WILLIAMS: If you were a betting man, would you bet that we'll see you in Oxford, Mississippi tomorrow night?09/25 07:12 PM
McCAIN: Well, I am a betting man.
Couric deserves better ratings for the CBS news based on the steely relentlessness of her questions. Unlike Charlie Gibson, and unlike Joe Biden in a (possible!) future debate, she has no background complications of the older white man bullying the younger, attractive woman. She was a professional woman who has clearly earned her position grilling someone whose bona fides she clearly doubted.Nailed it.
And Couric displayed one brilliant technique I recommend to all future questioners. When Palin ducked a question about financial-bailout provisions, saying that "John McCain and I" had not yet reached a decision, Couric asked the deadly question: "So what are the pros and cons?" There is no way to fake your way around that. As Palin showed.
an excerpt from my inner monologue, as transcribed while watching various clips from Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric (I can't link to them; they're too painful):I don't think I can offer odds on that .... I may link to the Couric interview when I'm done being at a loss for words."And that, Douthat, is why nobody's ever going to hire you to help pick their running mate."But hey, maybe it's all just effing brilliant rope-a-dope for the Biden debate ....
Couric's questions are straightforward and responsible. Palin is mediocre, again, regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. Palin's just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero.He was in love with her last week.
Information technology is a true gift from God mediated through the creative genius of men and women. Not to use it, to refuse to understand it, is to reject a gift of God.You mean the internet isn't a sign of the apocalypse?
[North Carolina] had been stuck on about a 3-point McCain lead for months, but with the Obama campaign having worked the state harder than McCain, it's not surprising that we finally had a poll that showed him with a [+2] lead there. Still, the model is hedging on considering the state a true toss-up because of that McCain +20 poll from SurveyUSA, and the McCain +17 from Research 2000, each of which came out a couple of weeks ago. If SurveyUSA and R2K resurvey North Carolina and give Obama a better number, he will gain ground fairly quickly. Until then, caution is warranted. One other thing to keep in mind -- North Carolina is a big retail banking center, so the candidates' positions to the bailout may get extra scrutiny here.
Pennsylvania and Michigan appear to be drifting past one another like slowly-moving tectonic plates. While Pennsylvania had appeared to be a stronger state for Obama for most of the cycle, we now have it projecting as an Obama +4.1, to Michigan's Obama +5.3. If an election were held today, Obama would almost certainly win both -- but if things tighten again, Pennsylvania rather than Michigan may be the focal point.
Political Browser | washington
