Month: September 2008

The Palin Farce

A reader writes:

After watching that interview, can anyone honestly say that they think that Sarah Palin, the person who would take over the country in the event something happens to McCain, has more knowledge of policy than Charlie Gibson, the person giving the interview?

And isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

…Okay, isn’t it at least supposed to be close??

Krauthammer: The Mask Slips

A fascinating column, because it reveals just how little Charles grasps yet of Obama’s abilities as a leader and a politician. Charles seems to believe that Obama is all celebrity and hype – even though he concedes that that celebrity and hype has lasted an awful long time:

Obama maintained altitude for an astonishing four years.

It’s only astonishing if you cannot recognize Obama’s skills, judgment and integrity. And does Charles really believe that Obama survived four years and a brutalizing campaign against him by the second most cynical machine in politics, the Clintons, purely because of hype and nothing? What contempt Charles must have for those millions who actually see that Obama has a first rate mind, a first rate temperament! But now check the purely partisan cynicism of his point:

     [Palin’s] job is easier. She only has to remain airborne for seven more weeks.

So having mocked what he believes is celebrity in a Democrat, he is depending on it to bamboozle the American people in a Republican. Does he realize how cynical that makes him sound? If mere celebrity is pathetic as a criterion in a world leader, why is Krauthammer not dissing Palin? I mean: we know nothing about her, compared to Obama. He has had four years to be vetted. She was vetted in five minutes.

Now we know how Krauthammer really thinks: what matters is not that what he has just described as an empty dress shouldn’t be president. What matters is that Republicans maintain power.

And Krauthammer thinks Obama jumped the shark? This absurd farce of a candidacy is exposing a lot of people, isn’t it?

How Swiftly She Abandons Her Faith

Sane evangelical David Kuo notices a fascinating aspect of the latest installment of the Palin farce released last night. It was her sudden abandonment of her faith for political expediency. Her speech at Wasilla was theologically orthodox when it talks of God’s will. As David puts it:

There isn’t anything terribly controversial in what Gov. Palin is saying. This is orthodox Christian theology – the idea that God controls the outcome of all things. It is true in lives and it is true in politics. It is only because we live in a time of massive theological ignorance that clips like these raise an eyebrow. It is the kind of thing that evangelical Christians say to each other.

And now her response to this:


David notes:

When asked what she meant about saying our leaders were sending our troops to Iraq on a task “that is from God,” Gov. Palin replied that she was thinking about Lincoln at the time.

The idea that she was thinking about Abraham Lincoln at the time she was giving those remarks is laughable. It is the kind of spin that comes from secular political consultants desperately trying to make Gov. Palin sound “not too religious.”

Gov. Palin was giving a speech to a theologically conservative evangelical church filled with Christians who understood exactly what she was talking about – she was saying she believed God had ordained the United States to invade Iraq.

 

In the interview she goes on to say, “I would never presume to know God’s will….”

 

Really? Truly? Does that mean that Gov. Palin is open to the idea that God’s will is for the United States to become a Muslim nation? One under Sharia law? Does Gov. Palin believe it might be God’s will for the United States to pass laws outlawing the freedom of speech? Is her faith and theology so insipid, so tepid that she has no idea what God’s will is? Or is it that she is simply trying to take the edge off her faith because her new political advisers say it is “too much.” I’m guessing it is the latter.

She has already sold out her faith for political expediency and did it "without blinking". Her trainers obviously suggested this Lincoln hooey – which I bet you she hadn’t even heard of till the last week of cramming.  What this suggests to me is that her faith has been a political tool in her career. She will use it when it helps – as in getting to be Mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska – and drop it when its in her way. There is something truly, deeply Rovian about Sarah Palin.

 

The Best The Base Can Do?

Reading RedState for response to the excerpts of the Gibson interview, we find this:

After all, she’s running for VP. McCain is running for President. McCain Has to be good on foreign policy. She has the chance to learn.

An honest red-stater. He is conceding that of all the people McCain could have picked, he picked someone who knows next to nothing about foreign policy. What really amazes me is why Gibson did not ask her about her own record in talking of foreign policy. Her one clear statement in December 2006 was that she heard about the surge "on the news" and wanted an "exit plan." So on the core foreign policy plank of McCain’s campaign, Palin is on record as being in disagreement. Here it is in full:

Alaska Business Monthly: We’ve lost a lot of Alaska’s military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe. Every life lost is such a tragedy. I am very, very proud of the troops we have in Alaska, those fighting overseas for our freedoms, and the families here who are making so many sacrifices.

Maybe Gibson has time to follow up on this. He really must. Russert would. Man, don’t you miss him now?

Obama Leads In Foreign Policy, Bush Follows

Obamahirokomasuikegetty

In some ways, Obama has been a shadow president for a while. Even JPod now concedes that Obama has been right about the terror war:

I was among many people who ridiculed the Obama proposal at the time, on the grounds that a) no nation violates the territorial integrity of an ally, even if that ally is problematic, and b) Obama’s bellicosity seemed entirely unbelievable, given that he spoke in the wake of his remarks about meeting with the leaders of the world’s worst regimes “without preconditions.” On the latter point, he was and remains wrong and foolish.

On the former point, though, he was, apparently, precognitive, and may be due an apology.

Ya think? Radley Balko adds:

Will McCain now condemn the Bush administration’s decision to go into Pakistan?  Or was this idea only naive ten months ago?  Was it only naive because it came from Obama? The Obama campaign should be making a much bigger deal about this.

Yes, they should. On one of the most critical decisions of the war, Obama staked out a position a while back that the Bush camp and neocons assailed as naive, disastrous, and revealing of his unfitness to be president. But like almost everything else Obama has said about the war, he was right and Bush was wrong. Obama was ahead of Bush in proposing to shift troops to Afghanistan, ahead of Bush in suggesting a timetable for Iraq withdrawal (subsequently embraced by Maliki), ahead of Bush in arguing we should talk directly to Iran, and, of course, right about not fighting the war in the first place.

The Bush administration – when guided by the saner forces within it such as Gates and Rice – eventually follows Obama’s advice. In that sense, Obama has been president for quite a while already. And proving he could be a shrewd, pragmatic and prescient one.

(Photo: Hiroko Masuike/Getty.)

The Lies Of Sarah Palin, Ctd.

The woman is pathological:

A fact-check report agreed that a part of Russia is visible from Alaska, as Palin stated. But it labeled “false” two other claims– that it’s common for VP candidates to have never met a foreign leader, and that she has not previously denied that humans play a role in global warming. Report said every living VP had met numerous foreign leaders before taking office, and quoted Palin recently saying she’s not one “blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.”

SO when confronted with a decision to own a previous public statement or to lie about it, Palin has lied twice on national television, with documentary proof that she is lying. Josh Marshall has to add two more to his seven demonstrable public lies.

What else is she lying about?