In my first post about Sarah Palin, I gleefully recounted how the governor had “already caused one liberal pundit’s head to explode in violent mixtures of irrationality, peevishness, and bitterness.” Among other things, I was referring to liberal cries about her inexperience.
At the time, I thought McCain had made a brilliant tactical maneuver: he would bait the Democratic ticket into making Palin’s political inexperience an issue then turn this argument right back on them with devastating effect. Exchanges like this between Marc Ambinder and a republican delegate made think this was going to work.
Like Glen Loury, I must now admit that this didn’t work. Part of the problem was Palin’s poor performances in interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. Another part of it was that — putting aside matters of substance — Obama just sounded so damned calm, collected, and presidential that it’s easy to forget how little he’s governed. His eloquence seemed to diminish his inexperience; Palin’s folksiness amplified hers.
The primary reason, though, was that in leading the Obama/Biden ticket into the Experience Trap, McCain/Palin fell head first into the Covered Pit of Superstardom. McCain’s choice of Palin electrified the Republican base by appealing to their silliest instincts: anti-intellectualism, Christian identity politics, pulling the patriotism card, and regional victimhood.
McCain’s decision to embrace Palin’s new-found rockstar status completely undermined his ability to lampoon his opponent’s arrogance and self-adulation. The timing could hardly have been worse; McCain had spent weeks trying to focus attention on the sheer weirdness of the Messianism the Obama Campaign had generated. As soon as his running mate began attracting equally adoring crowds for equally vapid reasons, McCain lost all focus and looked – rightfully – like a hypocrite.
What was even more depressing was how thoroughly the Conservative establishment bought in to this and how entirely unaware of its own folly it was. That partisan hacks – whether facile like Kathryn Lopez or clever like Hugh Hewitt – became enthralled by Palin should have come as no shock. That pundits as thoughtful and usually-level-headed as Victor Davis Hanson and Dennis Prager – who improbably declared Palin “The American Margaret Thatcher” the day McCain tapped her (here at the 23:00′ mark) – did is quite another story.
Conservatives have a lot of lessons to learn from this election and the last eight years. That we are susceptible to a lot of the same foolishness as liberals is one of them; that we might have squandered the national career of a promising young governor in the process should be deeply upsetting.
Tom posted this at 12:44 AM EST on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 as Conservatism, Audacity of Hype
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So…that happened.
Tom posted this at 9:27 AM EST on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype
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If it weren’t well known that one vice presidential candidate were a rambling buffoon, this might have made the tv news.
“You know why I think Jill likes Claire McCaskill so well, Senator McCaskill? Jill is one of five sisters, Claire is one of three sisters. And I tell you what, you women raised with sisters are different than women raised with brothers,” Biden said as both women joined him on stage.
“My sister is smart, runs every one of my campaigns; is beautiful; graduated with honors from college; is homecoming queen. But she’s a … she is what I call a ‘girl-boy’ growing up, you know what I mean?”
“And I tell you what? Girl-girls are tougher than girl-boys,” he said. “But there’s one important thing I noticed.The great thing about marrying into a family with five sisters, there’s always one that loves you. ‘Cause you can count on splitting them a bit. You know what I mean?
What makes Biden’s comments so goofy is that he knows he’s rambling in an incoherent and stupid manner:
“I shouldn’t be going off like this, but — hey, folks, 37 more hours, 37 more hours,” he then said.
This man is not just a fool, but the most dangerous sort of fool: the type who knows what he’s doing but doesn’t think what he’s doing is foolish. It’s like he’s constantly drunk, but impressed with his ability to still form grammatical sentences, so he shares. He shares. And he shares some more.
People who think Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to be president (like me!) think that because she hasn’t had the time or opportunity to prove herself. Joe Biden, though, has had oodles of time to prove himself. He’s had more than three decades in the senate, and the only thing he’s proved himself to be is that guy who works at a place so long that people just presume he knows what he’s doing even though he doesn’t.
I started this election cycle thinking Joe Biden was a serious person who occasionally said unserious things. I vote today believing that he’s an idiot, a fool, a buffoon, a walking carciature of the blowhard senator who doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about but doesn’t let that stop him from talking.
There’s one vice presidential candidate who is a genuine embarrassment to his candidate, and will be a genuine embarrassment to his country if elected. You’ll note I used the masculine.
Apollo posted this at 8:20 AM EST on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 as Windbaggery, Audacity of Hype
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Sarah Palin went to town of 39,274 and drew a crowd of 18,000. Tomorrow will come and go, but I believe she will hang around for a while.
Apollo posted this at 10:54 PM EST on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 as Audacity of Hype
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Sigh.
If anyone else is still interested: We meet at dawn.
P.S. At least Obi Wan will be there.
Apollo posted this at 10:10 PM EST on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, DON'T PANIC
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Watching the news clips of the candidates, I’m particularly struck by how much more energy McCain has than Obama. Obama’s looked tired at every rally I’ve seen him at over the last few weeks; the clip today was of him forgetting what state he was in (Florida, Ohio, who knows?). Sarah Palin even looks a little draggy today. Meanwhile McCain’s shouting and pounding the podium and firing up crowds, and he’s a 72 year-old who’s had a cold for the last week. The rally I just saw a clip from was his fourth (!) for the day, and he was still shouting through a hoarse voice and looking very energetic.
McCain’s been through quite a bit of physical trauma in his life, not just the years in a Vietnamese prison but also a couple of bouts with cancer. He is a man of truly impressive constitution.
Apollo posted this at 5:14 PM EST on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 as Audacity of Hype
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A few days ago, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Post, and The Washington Times endorsed John McCain for president.
Now, Obama bans their reporters from his campaign plane. A few thoughts and observations.
Ronald Radosh sees an attempt to intimidate the press:
[T]he Obama campaign suddenly announced that in the few remaining days of the campaign, they were removing the reporters of The New York Post, The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times from the campaign plane. In their place would be journalists from Essence and Jet, two African-American monthly publications. Not only would the latter two be depended upon to offer fawning stories about Obama, by the time their articles got into print it would be two months after the election.
Despite disclaimers from the Obama spokesman, the reason was clear why the three press outlets were banned. They were all papers hostile to Obama and had endorsed John McCain for the Presidency. To get a place on the campaign plane, their papers had reserved space way in advance, and had paid giant sums to guarantee seats for their reporters. Yet when last minute coverage was critical, their people were pushed out.
This may seem like a minor story, and indeed, Saturday’s Washington Post had not one word about this development, although it was a front page story in the competing Washington Times.
It may not amount to much. Perhaps it was simply a matter of the campaign having too many demands on it for space among different news outlets. Yet anyone who thinks the choice of removal of three who were known opponents of the campaign was accidental is simply not reasoning clearly.
A thought experiment. What would the reaction be if John McCain banned, say, the New York Times and The Washington Post from his campaign plane for endorsing Obama, particularly if he replaced the seats reserved for these major papers for writers from, say, National Review and The Weekly Standard, who would of course be more sympathetic to him? A whole bunch of people would probably say that McCain was afraid of those papers, and suggest he grow a backbone.
It appears that Obama, like Nixon, has an enemies list. How much of the press will bend over backwards to stay off it?
Hubbard posted this at 9:12 AM EST on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 as Journalism, Audacity of Hype, DON'T PANIC
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I’m really tired of people saying that Obama campaigning in states that Bush won is a sign of strength. Whether Obama is strong or weak - hell, if he was 30% behind in the polls - he would have to campaign in states that Bush won, because otherwise he couldn’t flippin’ win. It’s not necessarily a sign of strength that he’s campaigning in Bush states, it’s a sign that he did well enough in grade school math to figure out that 254<270. The last guy who only won the states Bush didn't win didn’t win.
If journalists want to argue that Obama’s in the lead, it doesn’t take much creativity to do so. But “he’s winning because he’s campaigning in Nevada and Iowa” is as thoughtless as analysis comes.
Apollo posted this at 2:20 PM EDT on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 as Journalism, Audacity of Hype
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Barack Obama is possibly four days away from being president-elect, and he has the audacity to get pissy when he can’t take his daughter trick-or-treating without photographers following him? Does he think it’s routine for the most powerful man in the world to go door to door asking for candy, and that such activity won’t attract a little publicity? What office does he think he’s running for? He and Sarah Palin should talk.
Apollo posted this at 12:15 AM EDT on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 as Journalism, Audacity of Hype
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