From Charles Franklin:
Claims of abandonment of Obama by independents (or lib-Dems or con-Dems) are substantially exaggerated over the past three months. Significant decline from May through August, yes indeed among Inds and Reps, but that trend halted in August.
Nate SIlver checks out a new poll:
I don't particularly expect a boost in the Democrats' numbers if they pass a health care bill: the plan, after all, has become somewhat unpopular. Their numbers might even get a little worse. But I'd expect a larger drop in their numbers if they fail to pass health care. Then, you're getting something close to the worst of both worlds: the people who don't like health care are still going to blame you for making the effort, but the people who do like the plan will become despondent and wonder what the whole point of electing Democrats to the Congress was in the first place
Today on the Dish was a particularly mixed bag. Andrew restated his support for the president and debated Frum over Iranian sanctions. Frum also defended himself to Palin supporters. Althouse sniped at our "odd lies," readers wondered whether Palin is a bullshitter or not, and another character in Going Rogue spoke out. More Palin fodder here, here, and here.
Kirchick put a spotlight on Uganda's homophobia, Goldblog sent a dispatch from the Rapture, Greenwald fisked Republicans over terrorism trials, Nate Silver rolled his eyes at global-warming denialists, Douthat looked forward to the 2012 race, and Ambinder looked back to 2008.
Andrew meditated to Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu and we all meditated to this MHB.
— C.B.
For reasons that took me quite by surprise, the View From Your Window feature is easily the most popular on the blog. There is no right or left to it, except visually. It can be red or blue. But it is always somewhere quite specific, where someone lives, and it seems to tell a kind of empirical truth in a very truthy world. The Dish gets emails with window views all the time. On the occasion of the publication of the "The View From Your Window", we thought we'd share a few emailed this year:
I love the feature on your site and always try to hide the place and guess where the photo was taken. I'm more often that not at least in the right ballpark. Funny how much info a picture can convey. The attached window is in Ellensburg, Wa, taken about 9:45 am.
I grew up in Telluride before the ski area went in. The photo you posted today literally caused me suck in my breath in surprise and release it with a deep smile. I've always thought these photos were neat; now I know they can also grab the heart. Thanks.
I was recently in Aksai, Kazakhstan, on business and took a picture out of the offices we were using. It's not particularly … descript, but there's always a home for mundanity on the internet!
From Nashville on, all the recent View From Your Window pictures make my heart clench in a way that when it lets go, I feel relaxed and at peace, if only for a moment. Please stick with this feature. I do like the non-traditional (read foreign) views which challenge my idea of what a liveable neighborhood is.
I love this feature! Hope to see my backyard on your page!
Submission guidelines here. You can buy the book version here.
A reader writes:
How interesting that she wades through so many lies to settle on the most innocuous of the bunch. And how fortunate that this lie (originally number 23 in your list) was so easily Googled that she could reference your admission of its tameness on the original source post rather than tackle one of the more illustrative and damaging examples.
Here's a very simple one for Ann to ponder: why has Palin herself admitted she lied when she told Sean Hannity that she asked the girls (but not Track) for their permission to accept the vice-presidential nomination – and that they unanimously agreed? How could she recall the specifics of the event when she now says it didn't happen at all?
Frum points to the polls:
I was interviewed on PBS last week about Palin’s book release. I said that Palin had an especially serious problem with women voters. This is just fact, again recorded in every survey…And yet this attested statistical fact is shrugged off with comments like, “when I saw her campaign in N.H., I was surrounded by moms with strollers”
[…]Sarah’s constituency is a relatively small cohort of conservative men. I offended a lot of these people last week by suggesting that there was some sexual dynamic at work in the enthusiasm for the politician whom Rush Limbaugh used to describe as “Governor Babe.” So let’s put it this way: Whatever impulse it is that so excites Palin supporters, it is not shared by their wives.
First year students from St Andrews University take part in a tradition of covering themselves with foam to honour the 'academic family' on November 23, 2009 in St Andrews, Scotland. By Jeff J Mitchell/Getty.
Another person featured in "Going Rogue" presents his side of the story. Money quote:
Why should anyone care about any of that? The reason they should care is that if Lynn Vincent aka Sarah Palin got as many of the facts, asserted and implied, about me in Going Rogue as wrong as she did, what does that say about the validity of the many other, much more important, “facts” in Sarah’s book?
Were any of the facts in this book checked? And who was the fact-checker at HarperCollins?
“His frequent speeches before large crowds all across the country are full of obtuse circular arguments about good and evil, and in interviews and small gatherings, like ones he has held for academics and journalists when he visits the United Nations in New York, he answers questions with questions, ending with a joyous smile that reads as a distinct putdown. His logic is seldom convincing, but then he cares little about what elites and experts think of him. He knows that the poor masses like his folksy style. Though he may seem comical, to many in Iran he comes across as daring and confident. They like his audacity, and especially the way he stands up to the elites, belittling their education, their wealth and their blue blood,” – Vali Nasr, on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Fundamentalist politics – whether Christianist or Islamist – often assumes the same basic structure. What must be resisted is logic, argument or follow-up questions.
Douthat considers both 2012 contenders in his column today. Ross hopes that someone who shares Huckabee's and Palin's "charisma" can lead "an intellectually vigorous conservatism." Isaac Chotiner counters:
Douthat's argument is tautological. Sure, it would be nice for the GOP if Palin and Huckabee were interested in policy. But if they were interested in policy, then they would not be so appealing to the GOP base. In other words, the problem is that a large part of the right has no interest in a policy wonk, and sneers at intellectuals and elites and the types of people Douthat would like to see running the party. A candidate who was interested in learning the ins and outs of the welfare state and health care policy is unlikely to ever achieve Palin/Huckabee levels of popularity with the grassroots.
Some numbers have started to trickle out of Iowa that show Huckabee ahead.
The Dish 