Holy Crap!

[Linda]

Yeah, there is much to admire about the Republican running mate...but when you look at where the Democrats stand on the issues against where the Republicans stand, there is a big difference. It reminds me why I vote for Democrats!

[Alelou]

Qualification for me includes the ability to intellectually and emotionally analyze a problem and come to a rational conclusion and to formulate a intelligent response. Her speech gave me confidence she can do that by the amount of material she's had to digest and what she gave back in response (tonight's speech).

Um ... are you assuming she studied everything she's learned and then wrote that speech herself?

No modern politician writes his or her speeches all by his or her lonesome. In this case I hear there was a significant team involved from begining to end (as indeed there should be with so much riding on it). You can hear the major themes of the campaign all the way through.

It's a good speech full of the usual Republican gambits -- which in the Bush administration bore only glancing relationship to what they did (hello, cut spending, reduce the size of government? I don't THINK SO).

I particularly appreciated the suggestion that somehow Harry Truman had the same background and experience as Palin. Now that takes some balls.

Also like that she's sticking with her line about the bridge to nowhere, when there's already evidence that she only backed off of that only because federal funding wasn't forthcoming.

Here's the transcript. You can also watch it by backing the url up to the video.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/presi ... PEECH.html

[Elessar]

Btw, since we are talking about Sarah Palin (and for awhile there, the media coverage of her and whether it was fair), this is extremely pertinent, if a little comedic in its deliver:

Everyone Should Watch This Because Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry

[Elessar]

Also like that she's sticking with her line about the bridge to nowhere, when there's already evidence that she only backed off of that only because federal funding wasn't forthcoming.

Here's the transcript. You can also watch it by backing the url up to the video.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/presi ... PEECH.html

What's sad but true is that she's really no different than any other politician when it comes to mentioning the high points and ignoring the inconvenient truthes. For example, I freely admit that while Obama's camp lauds his home grown roots in Kansas and the time he spent with his grandfather, you wouldn't know it to watch his biographical bits on TV that he lived in Indonesia for a few years after his father left, or that his mother remarried an Indonesian man. Not that I give a crap, I'm not a nativist bigot that thinks only good ole boys oughta be president. But my point is, Palin does the same thing. Like you said with the bridge, Alelou, she was for it before she was against it. That's well known in Alaska. And in the people of Alaska's defense -- this bridge was going to go to an island with 50 people a regional airport. In alaska, that's like a suburban community! The rest of the country got wind of that and called it "the bridge to Nowhere", so it became horrendously unpopular to support it. My Marine officer friend often laudes McCain's "moral courage" that he doesn't see in Obama. Switching sides on having a bridge built because it get negative national press doesn't sound like moral courage in Gov. Palin at all.

What's actually a little depressing about the state of our democracy is that one's initial impression about situations like this might be - 'hey, if she's afraid of it becoming known that she changed positions on this, maybe she just won't use the fact that she rejected it as an accolade. Ya know, not to draw attention to it.' EHHH!! Wrong. And it happens all the time. Politicians actually have the balls to advertise the hell out of the fact that they carried a bleeding man 4 miles on their back to a nearby hospital even if the truth is that they beat that man to an inch of his life themselves. The sensationalism and focus of various media outlets, and the fact that their favorite media (FoxNews if they're a Republican, MSNBC if they're a democrat) won't report the negative side of the story. I'm actually a little hesitatnt to say MSNBC if they're a Democrat because I've seen MSNBC criticize Obama and the Democrats - usually for not being liberal enough. But I'm giving the universality of corruption the benefit of the doubt and not just assuming FoxNews is the only swirling abyss of Leninist propaganda in the news media.

Btw, I don't care what people say about her 'personal business' being personal. She's running on the platform to conservatives that she has good, family values. If this is one of those Madison Avenue families that has a nice dinner party with the kids all dressed up, high-brow city politicians at the table with a topping of perfection -- and then when everybody leaves the husband gets so drunk he drags his wife around by the hair while the daughter screws an entire biker gang in the walk-in-closet -- then she wouldn't exactly be truthfully representing herself. Relax, I was giving a radical example.

Besides, my Republican McCain-voting-Marine friend just argued to me yesterday that character attacks on Obama should be legit if he's going to run on a platform of his character - just like, then, that attacks on experience and the pertinence of his military career then ought to be fair game against McCain. In other words, in his opinion, whatever you're running on the veracity of, should be completely fair game, because that's the basis upon which you're asking the public to make their decision. You can't exactly say "I'm this, I'm that" and then get pissed when people question it. If that's true about Obama, then it's true about McCain and it is for damn sure true about Palin. Point being? 6 months ago (around the time she got pregnant), Bristol Palin changed highschools from Wasilla to Anchorage. I wanna know if her mother didn't approve of her beau (he IS described as a rough and rowdy badboy type) and they were separated until this whole fiasco when mommy said "You are marrying that boy!" because it would trash her credentials as the type of mother who raises a girl who doesn't get pregnant out of wedlock. Unpopular sentiment to express interest in her personal life, maybe, but like I said. IMO it's in the court if she's running on those values.

[blacknblue]

My remarks about Biden vs. Palin in the debate were based on Dialee's remarks praising the Palin speech. Obviously the woman knows how to talk.

I think Biden is in trouble because Women can generally out talk men. Because Biden has a long history of suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. And because no matter what he say, he always comes off sounding insufferably arrogant no matter who is talking to or what the subject is. I vividly remember the Clarance Thomas debates. When Biden came face to face with Thomas's female former employee's who had come for the purpose of supporting him and rebutting Anita Hill, the man ended up looking and sounding like a fool. He does not do well with extemporaneous verbal confrontations, especially with women. Thus, I predict that Palin will gut him like a moose.

[Elessar]

My remarks about Biden vs. Palin in the debate were based on Dialee's remarks praising the Palin speech. Obviously the woman knows how to talk.

I think Biden is in trouble because Women can generally out talk men. Because Biden has a long history of suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. And because no matter what he say, he always comes off sounding insufferably arrogant no matter who is talking to or what the subject is. I vividly remember the Clarance Thomas debates. When Biden came face to face with Thomas's female former employee's who had come for the purpose of supporting him and rebutting Anita Hill, the man ended up looking and sounding like a fool. He does not do well with extemporaneous verbal confrontations, especially with women. Thus, I predict that Palin will gut him like a moose.

Hmm... Well that was like 20 years ago, wasn't it? I thought Biden did exceptionally well in the Democratic debates. I remember noticing him for the first time when he spoke and going "Wow, he's a good debater. HE should be Obama's running mate!" We'll have to wait and see. Biden may put his foot in his mouth sometimes but he's got a sharp tongue. As long as he goes after her and we keep playing the clip of Palin herself saying a woman shouldn't whine about the way she's treated in politics (about Hillary) on loop, he should do fine.

Besides, I think judging the way she will perform against Biden by this one speech is kind of like watching someone knock down a dozen three pointers and then sticking them in a game against a professional team. Not to mention a professional team with years' experience, where you're throwing in a rookie. "The game" in this case being national political debate. She made a decent showing but let's not be quick to compare one prepared speech to a lifetime of experience with give-and-take debates, whether it be on the Senate floor or in presidential debates. I think you might be underestimating Biden, but like I said, we'll have to see.

[Alelou]

Btw, since we are talking about Sarah Palin (and for awhile there, the media coverage of her and whether it was fair), this is extremely pertinent, if a little comedic in its deliver:

Everyone Should Watch This Because Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry

Ah, I just eat this stuff up with a spoon.

[Alelou]

My remarks about Biden vs. Palin in the debate were based on Dialee's remarks praising the Palin speech. Obviously the woman knows how to talk.

I think Biden is in trouble because Women can generally out talk men. Because Biden has a long history of suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. And because no matter what he say, he always comes off sounding insufferably arrogant no matter who is talking to or what the subject is. I vividly remember the Clarance Thomas debates. When Biden came face to face with Thomas's female former employee's who had come for the purpose of supporting him and rebutting Anita Hill, the man ended up looking and sounding like a fool. He does not do well with extemporaneous verbal confrontations, especially with women. Thus, I predict that Palin will gut him like a moose.

Hmm... Well that was like 20 years ago, wasn't it? I thought Biden did exceptionally well in the Democratic debates. I remember noticing him for the first time when he spoke and going "Wow, he's a good debater. HE should be Obama's running mate!" We'll have to wait and see. Biden may put his foot in his mouth sometimes but he's got a sharp tongue. As long as he goes after her and we keep playing the clip of Palin herself saying a woman shouldn't whine about the way she's treated in politics (about Hillary) on loop, he should do fine.

Besides, I think judging the way she will perform against Biden by this one speech is kind of like watching someone knock down a dozen three pointers and then sticking them in a game against a professional team. Not to mention a professional team with years' experience, where you're throwing in a rookie. "The game" in this case being national political debate. She made a decent showing but let's not be quick to compare one prepared speech to a lifetime of experience with give-and-take debates, whether it be on the Senate floor or in presidential debates. I think you might be underestimating Biden, but like I said, we'll have to see.

I'll be very interested to see how she does. Biden surprised me with how well he did in the Dem debates (after a couple I honestly thought he'd 'won' them -- not that it mattered since he had no hope of winning an election). For that matter, it will be interesting to see how McCain and Obama do against each other. Obama is not nearly as good extemporaneously as he is with a speech, and McCain is not nearly as good at delivering a speech as he is extemporaneously.

I think David Brooks (a conservative columnist) has an excellent take on McCain's pick -- that he's chosen the person he feels is most like him in terms of independence and moral courage rather than someone who might complement him by bringing different strengths to the table (as, say, Cheney complements Bush). That makes perfect sense to me. McCain's genuine enthusiasm and delight when talking about Palin reminds me of a guy who's in the early stages of being smitten -- he almost seems irrational about it. It's probably very rare for him to find another politician who is like him in this way. (Not counting Leiberman.)

[Alelou]

And because I can't shut up, let me just say I hope we didn't encourage anyone to turn into John Stewart for this evening's repeat. Ye gods. What were they thinking?????

[Elessar]

And because I can't shut up, let me just say I hope we didn't encourage anyone to turn into John Stewart for this evening's repeat. Ye gods. What were they thinking?????

Hm? Turn into John Stewart for this evening's repeat? What you mean?

Btw, as far as Obama's extemporaneous ability - I know what you mean because I had been worrying about that for quite some time, and then I saw him give a post-speech interview like while walking with Brian Williams, in Germany. It wasn't a debate, but he was speaking basically from the hip, they were not prepared remarks, and how he did just really impressed me because I had been of the idea that he was probably not so good on his feet just a really good orator. This experience, though, changed my mind.

One of the things I REALLY HOPE his people have been working on with him, particularly for these debates where you're talking to middle-of-the-fence people and not just die hard democrats, is his ability answer a question simply and succinctly if it can be done and if the question isn't... one of those questions that begs another question like, "Why did you believe America should surrender to terrorism?" Some questions he needs to answer in 1 or 2 words, since one of the Republicans' primary critcisms of him that he continues to live up to, is that he's verbose and the accusation that he avoids questions and jumps around the issue. I believe he's just a philosophical person by nature, he just wants to talk about the whole issue, but I really hope he's been told and practiced how to sometimes make it short and sweet to cut off at-the-knees the claim that he's wordy and evasive.

[blacknblue]

You are not old enough to remember the Carter/Reagan debates. Carter had the same problem you were talking about with Obama. He is an intellectual, a thoughtful man who likes to analyze a problem carefully. Reagan was a decisive, action oriented man. In talking, he knew how to cut to the chase. He could summarize things quickly and effectively. That's why Reagan got elected twice, and simply by his endorsement alone (in my opinion) he handed Geroge Bush Sr. the white house for his single term.

It MATTERS in a politician that they be able to explain things clearly and succinctly. Talking is what a politician DOES. It is their JOB to flap their jaws. It is all that they effectively have to offer, the ability to talk well. If a politician can't communicate well, swiftly and effectively, and get their message across to the people consistently then they might as well go home. Doesn't matter if they are "right" or if they are smart or dumb. If they can't communicate well then they won't be effective at persuasion. If they are not effective at persuasion, they are useless. The only practical purpose that a politician has is to persuade other people (in this case congress, the population at large, our allies if we have any left by the time the election is over, and especially our enemies) to go along with their ideas.

A president needs to be able to persuade congress to pass the laws they want, and not pass the laws they don't want. They need to wheedle congress out of money. To do that, they have to be able to talk fast and persuade.

A president has to be able to convince the population at large that he is doing a great job, even if he just shot himself in the ass. And if congress or anyone else goes after him, he has to be able to go to the people and talk fast enough to get them to bail him out.

A president has to be able to talk our allies to go to war with us. Need i say more? he also has to be able to persuade our enemies that yes, we really DO have the stones use those nukes.

A president with a mediocre brain, but good advisors and a fast tongue is better than a well meaning genius who can't get his ideas across.

[Alelou]

They run last night's show at 8pm on Comedy Central. So I tuned in, and it started with some awful gag about the men's bathroom in the Minneapolis Airport (Larry Craig) that just got more and more vulgar and less and less funny. Maybe they're all going nuts on the road or something.

[Elessar]

They run last night's show at 8pm on Comedy Central. So I tuned in, and it started with some awful gag about the men's bathroom in the Minneapolis Airport (Larry Craig) that just got more and more vulgar and less and less funny. Maybe they're all going nuts on the road or something.

Oh, Idk. I didn't watch the whole show, I just thought the segment I linked to was great because it revealed how hypocritical the praises of Palin are that are basically symmetric opposites of the same attributes used to criticize Kaine and Clinton.

[Elessar]

It MATTERS in a politician that they be able to explain things clearly and succinctly.

True. I don't think Obama's proved he can't do that, I just think he has yet to prove he can, which is undoubtedly critical to success in the fall.

Political pundits on both sides have repeatedly praised his campaign's "ruthless efficiency" and effectiveness, and they always seem to be one step ahead of the curve on a lot of things and have really good political intuition about how to survive controversies, like the Wright thing.

So hopefully, they are very well aware and very prepared for mitigating this problem in the national debates. They wouldn't necessarily have to worry about it during the Primaries b/c they were both courting democrats.

[Alelou]

They run last night's show at 8pm on Comedy Central. So I tuned in, and it started with some awful gag about the men's bathroom in the Minneapolis Airport (Larry Craig) that just got more and more vulgar and less and less funny. Maybe they're all going nuts on the road or something.

Oh, Idk. I didn't watch the whole show, I just thought the segment I linked to was great because it revealed how hypocritical the praises of Palin are that are basically symmetric opposites of the same attributes used to criticize Kaine and Clinton.

I LOVED that segment. I even loved the interview with Newt Gingrich, who looked like he was having an awful lot of fun in enemy territory.

And God knows I let my 13 year old watch a lot of stuff, but the opening of that show was too much for us.

The other joy of the night was on Colbert, where he said it was obvious the retired generals paraded out as supporting Obama were fake because one of them was named General (Something Normal) Fig Newton. Which is apparently real!