The Dish

Nate Silver makes his case:

Until she runs for office again…Palin's role is basically that of a celebrity on her own behalf, and a rabble-rouser on behalf of the GOP. Although each of those things can occupy a goodly amount of one’s time, the media is likely to tire of Palin if she’s not actually making news, and Palin herself may grow tired of not being the center of attention. Moreover, there’s not any evidence that laying low seems to help Palin’s standing with the public; on the contrary, her numbers seemed to have have declined a lot during the past several months, a period during which (until recently) she was not making much news.

The reason I suspect this may be the case is because Palin’s popularity seems to stem not from any particular attributes that she possesses as a candidate, but rather from the reactions that she seems to induce from other people. Only by being in the spotlight can Palin induce liberal pundits to say rude things about her, fellow candidates to behave awkwardly around her, etc. Only in this way can she be the martyr and the underdog, qualities that conceal some of her potential inadequacies.

I get the sense from the beginning of this tour that Palin may consciously want this and intend this, but is unconsciously seeking her own self-destruction. Her actions, as always, are not strategic. They are a function of emotion, paranoia, delusions of reality and some kind of professional death-wish. The question is simply how long she can continue before this whole thing implodes.

But then I've thought she was on the verge of self-destruction from Day One. I didn't think she'd be on the ticket by election day, remember. So what do I know?

Brian Montopoli reports:

Just 23 percent of those surveyed in a new CBS News poll have a favorable view of the former Alaska governor. That matches her favorable rating in July, when Palin announced she was resigning from her job as governor. Thirty-eight percent, meanwhile, have an unfavorable view of Palin — also roughly matching her July rating. […]

Among independents, Palin has a net negative rating, with 21 percent viewing her favorably and 36 percent viewing her unfavorably. Most Americans do not want to see Palin run for president in 2012. Two in three say they don't want to see a Palin run, while 24 percent say they would like to see her jump into the race.

When you listen to the Fox News right speak about this, they reveal amazing levels of fear. They have been truly spooked by these men with long beards and chilling eyes. They are so scared of them they are willing to drop any and all legal principles that the West has historically used with respect to mass murderers. Their fear brought them to institute torture, and to engage in mass brutality against prisoners of war in every theater of combat in a manner that will tragically taint the honor of the US military for a very long time. It led them to establish Gitmo, to create for the world a reverse symbol of the Statue of Liberty, and imprint it on the minds and in the consciences of an entire generation of human beings, whose view of America will never be the same.

It made speedy prosecution of any of those who allegedly plotted and planned 9/11 impossible – and will make actual prosecution of any of them extremely hard. It turns out, then, that the primary (if not the only) thing we had to fear – was fear itself. It was our fear that gave al Qaeda so many propaganda victories. 

And it is the refusal to be afraid that reflects the decision to bring this fanatic mass murderer back to the scene of the crime, to remind the world, all these years later, of why he is on trial, to restore a patriotic pride in the system we have, a system which it is al Qaeda's goal to destroy.

I believe this is the best symbolic answer to 9/11: a trial, with due process, after tempers have calmed somewhat, that exposes this evil for all it truly was. And also reveals the tragedy of an American government that lost its nerve and has now, under a new president, regained it.

An anti-immigration rally gets punk'd by an impostor.

Obama's fall approval ratings:

And on health insurance reform:

And the economy:

Norm Geras counters Yglesias:

The opposition Matt sets up here between war and crime – between 'a socially sanctioned form of activity, generally held to be a legally and morally acceptable framework in which to kill people', on the one hand, and murder or mass murder, on the other – is too sharp. War may (sometimes) be legally and morally acceptable, but that doesn't mean there is no criminality within war. There is – as defined by the laws of war. One is not therefore bound to choose between treating individuals as participating in a war and treating them as criminals, if that is what they are.

Razib Khan:

When it comes to evolution, liberals and Democrats who are not college educated are divided, as are liberals without college degrees on  abortion on demand. When it comes to evolution, college educated Republicans and conservatives are divided! This to me explains why there is no controversy about evolution in the Democratic party, the Democratic elite is totally unified, and can ignore the masses. By contrast, the Republican masses are unified against evolution, while the elites are split.

(Photo: Ida, the most complete fossil primate ever found by Mario Tama/Getty)

Andrew Gelman tries to answer:

Being a moderate is worth about 2% of the vote in a congressional election: it ain’t nuthin, but it certainly is not a paramount concern for most representatives….Incumbent congressmembers almost always win reelection.  And, when they don’t, they’re often losing as part of a national swing (as in the 1994 Republican sweep or the 2006/2008 Democratic shift).  And when an incumbent does lose unexpectedly, it can be for something unrelated to their votes (remember the “check kiting scandal” of 1992?).

Larison doesn’t think she has much of a chance at the GOP nomination:

If Palin is in so many ways a less serious candidate than Dan Quayle, it is worth remembering that Dan Quayle’s extremely brief flirtation with presidential politics in 1999 ended because he could not find enough people interested in backing him financially.

When there was already more or less an establishment candidate in Bush, no national political figure other than McCain attempted to oppose him, and McCain’s insurgency that year collapsed quickly enough. It seems to me that Romney is shaping up to be the prohibitive favorite and heir-apparent, just as McCain effectively was going in to the primary contests. Aside from his own money, Romney is an effective fundraiser, and he has the experience and the connections from the last presidential run to make it more difficult for any other contenders to gets funds and endorsements. Republican primary voting does not reward insurgent candidates. Barring some unforeseen implosion, Romney will begin as the frontrunner and likely remain in that position. Any contest between Romney, the competent, wonkish technocrat, and Palin, who is the opposite of all these things, would result in a win for Romney.

"The campaign against NIAC should be seen for what it is — an attempt to delegitimize any Iranian-American voices that are insufficiently hawkish for the neocons’ liking. Hawks in Washington and Jerusalem are faced with the inconvenient fact that few Iranians, even those harshly critical of the regime, desire to see their country get bombed or invaded, or for Iran’s most vulnerable citizens to die under the weight of sanctions that do nothing to help the cause of the Green Movement. Hence the attempt to portray any Iranian who opposes sanctions or war as a stooge of the regime — and the hawks’ recent turn against the Iranian opposition itself, for refusing to play Chalabi and tell them what they want to hear. As the battle over Iran continues in Washington, it is likely that the attacks on NIAC and other dovish voices in the Iranian-American community are only going to get worse rather than better," – Daniel Luban.