Sadly, No!

Well. This is a rather Putin-esque approach:

No Questions, Please. We’ll Tell You What You Need To Know.

Posted by Jay Carney

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don’t care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace — in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough’s show — the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin’s scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads. Here’s the exchange:

Do watch that clip, because Carney is not exaggerating. Wallace just made the case that the only way people in this country should get to know Sarah Palin is through propaganda. We’re talking about someone who could become the single most powerful person in the world, and we can only learn about her through the lens of the GOP’s public relations department.

This is very, very, very dangerous. What Wallace is doing isn’t merely criticizing the behavior of the media — which everyone justifiably does — but rather attacking the idea that the media should exist at all. She wants to run a campaign where the American public only sees propaganda and never gets the contrary view. Ye gods, this is a dangerous and authoritarian mindset. If the media allow themselves to be bullied and if they stop asking questions because they fear that they’ll be tarred as “liberals,” then our democracy is truly dead.

Everybody got raptured at about 5:00PM EST.*

* Actually, I just rescued a ton of comments from the mysteriously overactive spam filter — which needs to be fixed once and for all, and I’ll see to it.

Above: Still in the throes of solitary ecstasy,
Steyn reaches for Kleenex.

A couple of shorters of The Human Steyn, who has apparently, in addition to his customary steyning of the rear of his trousers, made a few new ones in their front:

The hostess with the moosest

• Unlike Barack Obama, Sarah Palin is an authentic American who has a life outside politics, real experience, a willingness to drill, a huge gun, and a perfect rack… of, um, moose antlers. She’s exactly the kind of woman I came to America to masturbate to.

Momentary confusion

• ZOMG, she’s got a bear skin in her office! I bet it’s polar bear! [fap fap] In front of a fireplace! [fap fap] But of course her charms are totally lost on Andrew Sullivan, that fag.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Mark Steyn, jizzlobber. If such an older wanker can get so turned on by Palin, I’m almost afraid to check on Adam Yoshida’s reaction.

A lot of people were watching and the ticket will get a bump from this. She came in with a good narrative of being victimized by the press and tossed out ‘I’m a fighter against the elite Beltway media’ red meat with an attractively bemused tone that veered somewhat towards sarcasm but never seemed nasty, much less Nixonian.

It helped that the preceding speakers sucked in comparison, probably intentionally to make her look better as an orator. Rudy’s a fucking asshole to the bone, and that came through. The governor of Hawaii is a droner and an appallingly bad public speaker. Huckabee damned McCain with faint praise, then finished up with a bizarro Starship Troopers story about an Arkansas teacher who basically bullied her incoming students with the message that they wouldn’t be real citizens unless they went to war.

With that as an intro, and with the crowd absolutely willing her to shine, Palin couldn’t really miss. To her credit, she delivered her speech assuredly and dynamically. She came off exactly as she was supposed to — as a small town woman with small town values who done good and is gonna fight the good fight for small town folks and their values and ‘Salsa from New York City?’ etc. etc.

Not a lot of policy except for drilling in Alaska. I’ll get to the Obama-bashing in a second.

Couple things:

– How can Palin not overshadow McCain in the days after this convention? What does it say when the leader on your ticket is in the No. 2 slot? This ticket is ‘Palin and McCain’ — that’s how it should be referred to by Dems.

– She still has to prove herself facing tough questions, during press interviews and during the Biden debate. It’s one thing for the hockey mom to read teleprompter-driven applause lines with an empty net, another to perform on the fly with Biden coming at her.

– They overplayed the ‘community organizer’ slam. The party that wants to shrink government says service outside of government is worthless? The only service worth anything is as an agent of the state? The Dems need to start talking up community work, church work, charity work, volunteering to coach youth sports, etc. Palin and McCain say Little League coaches and scout leaders and food drive volunteers aren’t doing anything useful?

– Her weaselly obfuscation on Obama’s tax plan was transparent. Mom & pop gas station owners and family farmers: ‘How are you — how are you going to be better off if our opponent raises your taxes adds a massive tax burden to the American economy?’ … cheap. Cheaply played, easily countered, easily seen through by even those famous ‘low-information’ voters. Obama wants to raise taxes on people with bank accounts the size of a small country’s GNP, and cut everybody else’s.

– The emphasis on the veto was a good one for Palin-McCain. A lot of voters like the idea of a mixed government that obstructs itself, which is absolutely what we get if Palin-McCain goes to the White House. On the other hand, in reality a lot of voters hate both this White House and this Congress because neither is getting shit done due to just that sort of obstruction. And I have absolutely no idea how to sell ‘single party power’ to voters. Maybe just leave this one alone.

– She straight up lied about the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.

– The foreign policy and war comments were just noise. ‘Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.’ 2004 called, it wants its fear-mongering back.

– The McCain tribute was nicely done. He’s a genuine hero. But it’s hard to escape the message that McCain’s greatness lies well in the past, not the future. That he should be honored for past deeds but that his second wind is trying to catch its second wind for what lies in the days ahead.

– Message: Drill. It’s all they’ve got. It’s every plank of the Palin-McCain policy platform. Everything else is soft narrative — some mighty attractive soft narrative dressing for the base, like ‘experience’, ‘heartland values’, ‘mom’, ‘maverickness’ and ‘war hero’ — but soft narrative all the same. No health care talk. No mortgage crisis talk. No kitchen table economics talk. No paying for college talk. No global leadership talk. No national greatness talk. The absence of all that stuff starts to become apparent again once the shine of Palin’s star turn starts to wear off.

– The Obama bashing. Good red meat for the RNC crowd. People who never planned to vote for Obama love it. Could even be appealing to some swing voters who want an excuse to not vote for him. But how well does it play to many for this unknown, second banana selectee to burst on the scene and immediately start slamming a guy who worked his ass off in the national spotlight for more than a year to EARN his spot on the top of his ticket? We’ll see.

End of the day, Palin’s good news for the Repubs. She should not be underestimated going forward. Obama’s still going to win, quite handily.

Seems that part of the picture of McCain meeting Bristol’s soon-to-be husband is missing.

UPDATE: Uh, in case anyone is really stupid, the point of this picture is that Sarah Palin is enforcing a shotgun wedding between Levi and Bristol. The gun is not pointed at anyone else. It is political satire, not a threat against anyone. Sheez.

What do GOP standbys Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy really think of the Sarah Palin pick? Just watchy-watch:

Hearing Peggy say the word “bullshit” is particularly gratifying and hilarious. Maybe she can send her dolphins to help McCain win this nomination.

(Via.)

Tintin adds: Apparently St. Peggy of the Dolphins thought that the election wasn’t over before she thought it was over. In today’s WSJ column, Peggy says that Palin “is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.” Hmmm. Then later she says “It’s over” into an open mike in reference to Palin. There are only two possible explanations for this. Either Peggy had consumed too many Grey Goose martinis before going on the air causing her to say shit she doesn’t mean or Peggy says stuff in her column to forward the Republican agenda without regard to whether she believes those things or not. Whichever is the case, it’s not a pretty picture.

ABOVE: Mary Catherine Ham (right) tries to figure out how
Rick Moran (left) will get out of his chair

---

Rick “Rapacious Yellow Men” Moran runs a wingnut blog called Right Wing Nut House and he’s wondering why the GOP isn’t showing him any love in Minneapolis:

Here on what is passing for “Bloggers Row,” there is plenty of grumbling about the accommodations supplied by our hosts. Some descriptives [sic] are not printable. Most reflect a huge disappointment with the way the GOP has shunted most of the bloggers off to the side, far from the action … .

But that’s not the, er, meat of Moran’s complaint:

The labyrinth one has to navigate to find the darn place would tax the abilities of a carrier pigeon. I honestly felt like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs when I went out for a quick smoke. Not that it would do any good. The food on our level is so bad that I have no doubt some ravenously hungry media type would have preferred the breadcrumbs to the greasy, tasteless crud they were serving at the kiosks. If I wanted the same stuff they serve at a hockey game, I would go to the Libertarian convention down the way.

Boy, they really know how to hit a guy where it hurts.

Worse, they’ve dethroned Queen Pammycakes:

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs found herself having to sit on the floor to blog.

This is, of course, a huge problem for Pamela, since it’s quite hard to pull stuff out of your ass while sitting on it.

Of course, while stumbling from one kiosk to another looking for the poule faisane en cocotte farcie à la poitrine fumée et aux truffes that he had been promised before he got on the Greyhound bus from Chicago to Minneapolis, Rick had an epiphany.

Bloggers could do just as well “covering” the convention by sitting in their hotel room. Or better yet, they could have saved a lot of money and stayed home and done as good a job.

And that is, of course, the first thing that Moran has said in his entire blogging career that is actually true, although not for the reasons he supposes.

… and the Republicans are lost at sea. Obama comes out of the DNC validated, vetted and formally introduced as a leader to the American people. The RNC is shaping up to be more about Palin than the presumptive nominee. Think about the hole that puts the GOP in.

Break up the remaining days before the election into three blocks — the convention season which finishes Thursday, the debate season that follows, and the GOTV season that occurs over the last couple weeks before Nov. 4. Obama’s still got plenty of work to do, but his own historic, inspiring candidacy emerges from his convention stepping stone as his side’s overarching narrative, whereas McCain’s is playing second fiddle to Palin’s. That’s just incredible at this stage of the process.

The two campaigns are positioned very differently at this point, and the advantage is easily Obama’s. Whereas the the GOP, as they wrap up their convention and approach the debate season, will be looking to make this thing close and tight again, the Dems are looking at a legitimate window to accelerate into ‘inevitability’ territory.

Will that happen? Who knows — there’s two more ‘seasons’ to navigate. But Obama’s absolutely in the pace car, which raises two crucial questions:

1. Can he, and we, keep up the energy to drive home to victory, and,

2. When will the night gremlins stop beaming Formula 1 analogies into my head?

Shorter Megan McArdle:

Sarah Palin: The Importance Of Being Earnest

• I warn you, liberals: Your outrageous and unprecedentedly barbaric attacks on Sarah Palin, which are deranged, are making me considerably less interested in voting for Barack Obama.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

With all the right-wing finger wagging about the inviolate right of children of candidates and officials to be above comment, I thought we might fire up the flux capacitor and travel back to that distant time in the past when Chelsea Clinton’s parents were in the White House and see what the right-wing was saying about Chelsea:

John McTheusalah:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.

Vicodin Rush Limbaugh:

Columnist Molly Ivins reported (Arizona Republic 10/17/93) this incident from Limbaugh’s TV show–“Here is a Limbaugh joke: Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?” And he puts up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea Clinton is 13 years old.

David “Ho Ho Ho” Shuster:

Filling in for Tucker Carlson yesterday, Shuster gave his opinion on Chelsea’s role in the presidential campaign, asking a guest, “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”

Immediately after the comment, Big Head DC has learned, people in the Clinton camp were angered — and the network began receiving angry e-mails and calls from viewers suggesting it was an inappropriate way for a reporter to refer to a former First Daughter.

Amazingly, Shuster chose not to apologize, even when the Clinton camp expressed their outrage directly to him — until MSNBC bigwigs forced him to do so

Alicia “The Suetonius of Staten Island” Colon:

Seems to me that she’s more of a pawn for her parent’s ambitions than a beloved child. …

John “Humbert Humbert” Derbyshire:

I hate Chelsea Clinton.

Be sure to read the rest of Derb’s mauling of the only female between 15 and 20 that he doesn’t find attractive.

And then bringing up the rear, of course, don’t forget Ed Klein’s claim that Chelsea was conceived when Bill raped Hillary.

So what’s all this now about privacy and respect and all that?