Hard News: Weekend Warriors
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Definitely serious. She is doing a high profile exclusive for ABC. ABC will hype its publicity, the negative reaction by the other press will hype its publicity. The lead on ABC for the next two days is going to be Sarah Palin laughing at some of the rumours spread and a lot of people will be watching.
Its a controlled vanity piece. It may rate well..likely will but that doesn't change the fact they are hiding her from any serious questioning.
No, Simon I guess she isn't doing any of the low profile, barely noted interviews of the type Biden is putting out. Quite how this plays negatively though...
Once again Angus..seriously..you think that Meet The Press and the rounds of other Sunday shows are 'barely noted'? Really? Larry King? Really? Uhh, ok... I'm speechless
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Its a controlled vanity piece. It may rate well..likely will but that doesn't change the fact they are hiding her from any serious questioning.
And as someone I think already noted, it's unlikely to be hard questioning. To get the interview NBC possibly had to be the highest - in this case lowest - bidder in terms of 'topics we won't cover', person who will interview you, control over the structure of the interview.
You'd have to hope that a prospective VP - and possible future President - would be willing to face up to an open press conference where people got to ask questions, including the hard ones.
I've been more grilled by the ODT in the past week for a student politics story, than she's been by the entire US media for running for VP of the USA.
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At this time they could even benefit from Hagar the Horrible
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You'd have to hope that a prospective VP - and possible future President - would be willing to face up to an open press conference where people got to ask questions, including the hard ones.
You know what this reminds me of, he said shuddering? Berlusconi's rise to power. He descended onto politics out of the blue, forming a new party shortly before a general election, when the right was in total disarray. He called it Forza Italia (Go Italy!), for chrissakes. He put together a list made up of his employees and friends. He behaved outrageously, making sure among other things that he would never be interviewed except by friendly reporters on his own television stations. From the time of the announcement to the date of the election, the left talked about nothing else except Berlusconi's lack of qualifications (and many, many disqualifications). And of course they lost, he romped in, going from absolutely zero executive experience to the prime ministership.
I think Angus as a point, insofar as behaving outrageously - by not going to the sunday morning shows or to Larry King, for starters - may not cost Palin much with the low-information voters that the campaign is trying to reach through her. If what we hear about the state of the media in small American towns is true, these people would be more likely to get their news in soundbite form or through a screaming talkback host. Or at church on Sundays. Eschewing the traditional media vetting is exactly what Palin should do right now, because it keeps her mistique alive - and we know at this point she has an approval rating between Lady Diana and Jesus. So why change anything? She's a soap opera, she's American Idol, not a politician. And she doesn't need to be a politician right now, just pull McCain back into the election by appealing to people who might have not bothered to vote, or who barely know who McCain and Obama are. We don't know quite yet how big this Palin demographic is, nor how many voters she's pushing into Obama's camp. But I think there can be little doubt that her and the campaign know exactly what they're doing.
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And as someone I think already noted, it's unlikely to be hard questioning. To get the interview NBC possibly had to be the highest - in this case lowest - bidder in terms of 'topics we won't cover', person who will interview you, control over the structure of the interview.
Here's somebody's pick for the first question:
"Governor Palin, may I say just start by saying how damn hot you look. Your son is set to go to Iraq and you must feel awfully proud of him right now. The question I have is whether you would prefer to entrust his safety to a commander in chief who is a black America-hating homosexual angry Muslim from Illinois with no executive experience, or to a decorated war hero called John McCain?"
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And as someone I think already noted, it's unlikely to be hard questioning. To get the interview NBC possibly had to be the highest - in this case lowest - bidder in terms of 'topics we won't cover', person who will interview you, control over the structure of the interview.
Well, Charlie Gibson's McCain interview (the only extended face-to-face he gave during the convention) was hardly probing. But I feel a wee bit of sympathy for Gibson, because after the McCain camp's snarling about "liberal media" not showing Palin "proper deference", he's going to be under very close scrutiny. And if he's more Larry King than Tim Russert...
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I think Angus as a point, insofar as behaving outrageously - by not going to the sunday morning shows or to Larry King, for starters - may not cost Palin much with the low-information voters that the campaign is trying to reach through her. If what we hear about the state of the media in small American towns is true, these people would be more likely to get their news in soundbite form or through a screaming talkback host. Or at church on Sundays.
Absolutely...the Rovian philosophy centres around an overriding assumption the voter is neither discerning or smart.
I'm, call me elitist but I'm agreeing with most of what Andrew Sullivan says here:
For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.
And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the White House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve. The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor, has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is not the man I thought he was.
And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive debate against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his opponent's patriotism.
And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a massive bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.
Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.
McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.
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The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person
I thought I knew that about Sullivan too, before he played chinese whispers in the Trig grandma fiasco. But yes, it's not an isolated incident. Quite a few people who used to despise his politics but respect the man, now despise both. You could pinpoint and replay in slow-mo the exact moment in which Jon Stewart came to that particular conclusion, after he asked McCain to come down against the "Obama is Hamas' candidate" smear. Tomasky is another. All liberal commentators, to be sure, and it's not as if he could count on their vote to begin with. Which is way the political calculation, sadly, makes sense.
What I find even more inexcusable than the Rovian tactics (and btw, the Clintons went there too, didn't they?) is the Palin pick - that's just beyond irresponsible.
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Quite a few people who used to despise his politics but respect the man, now despise both.
If we're talking about McCain rather than Sullivan (and your syntax doesn't make that entirely clear), I think there's still much to admire about McCain. But none of it has been on display since he started pandering to the theo-con base during the primaries. (And outpandering Romney and Huckabee is not an achievement to boast of.)
But it's not only that -- McCain's got the highest number of missed votes in the 110th Congress (63%!). The second placed Senator is Tim Johnson, who had the excuse of a brain hemorrhage that required major surgery and months of rehabilitation before he returned to work. Obama, Clinton and Biden filled out the top five, but at least they managed to front up for the warrentless wiretapping bill. Something the candidate who is running on his military experience couldn't find the time to do.
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Russell, Simon et al
read the clive crook respect post and subsequent posts and feedback to really understand how badly you and the Dems are blowing your cause.
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This is my favourite comment. Since we seem to have formed the habit of posting whole.
The essence of the issue lies here and there’s nothing ‘curious’ about it: “the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral. Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything.”
This is at the heart of the liberal media’s total inability to understand the claims of bias, no matter how often it’s pointed out to them. They believe that the Democrats are right in the same way, to the same degree, that 2 plus 2 equals 4 and the Earth revolves around the sun. They take the ‘rightness’ of liberal and Democratic views as such a given, that they are not even able to think within any other framework.
Conservatives, and I am one, understand that some people disagree with us and it’s up to us to sell our ideas and get their vote. Liberals think that their correctness is self-evident and that those who don’t agree are uninformed, stupid or evil. They should be lectured and if that doesn’t work, mocked or ignored. They’re the bullies in the schoolyard, only now they get a salary for it.
Those seem to be the only weapons in the liberal armory. If a liberal female columnist is snarky, that shows she’s clever and merits a Pulitzer. If a female Republican conservative is sarcastic, that’s being mean spirited. And so forth.
If a liberal believes in something no human has yet been able to prove or disprove definitively (man-made global warming) he’s a hero. But if a conservative believes in something that no one’s yet been able to prove or disprove definitively (the ultimate origins of life on Earth), they’re slobbering morons who’d cast us back into the Dark Ages. And so forth.
If a liberal black man running for president is mocked in an ad for his celebrity status, it’s all phallic columns, the fear of the ‘other’ and coded racism. If a conservative black woman in a position of more power and responsibility than the black male candidate has ever had, is portrayed by a white male liberal editorial cartoonist, it’s likely to be overtly as a slave. And so forth.
And even more interesting, this is the same crowd that on the one hand believes George Bush is a virtual moron while on the other asserting that he’s managed to manipulate everything from the collapse of the WTC to the voting machines in Ohio without so much as leaving a trace. Can you say ‘cognitive dissonance’?
But what I find the most astonishing is how so many people in the Democratic Party who are of such supposedly superior intelligence, with their fancy degrees, can’t learn from experience. Isn’t that the most basic part of learning?
As a conservative, I hope they continue to fail to learn and fail to win. And as a voter, I’m not buying what they’re trying to sell this time around.
I’m being presented with a guy who’s nearly 50, engaging enough, but with no record of any accomplishment anywhere and positions (such that I can identify them on any given day before he rethinks things) that I find unacceptable. He’s been able to spend his life talking his way up. That’s just the blunt truth of who and what Barack Obama is: a guy who’s written two memoirs before doing anything worth writing about. If he has any other record to stand on, it’s long past the time to show it.
And to add insult to injury, I am repeatedly told that if I don’t buy into this near-deification of a middle-aged underachiever, I am a racist.
Like they say, that dog won’t hunt.
Posted by: Cynical Observer | September 8th, 2008 at 7:12 am | Report this comment
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This is my favourite comment. Since we seem to have formed the habit of posting whole.
Sorry, it's a fail. It started with a fine premise in paragraph one, read PJ O'Rourke if you care to continue that line of argument. But the rest is pure, unadulterated tosh.
My favourite bits:
If a liberal believes in something no human has yet been able to prove or disprove definitively (man-made global warming) he’s a hero. But if a conservative believes in something that no one’s yet been able to prove or disprove definitively (the ultimate origins of life on Earth), they’re slobbering morons who’d cast us back into the Dark Ages.
The science of global warming = the science of creationism. Brilliance.
And even more interesting, this is the same crowd that on the one hand believes George Bush is a virtual moron while on the other asserting that he’s managed to manipulate everything from the collapse of the WTC to the voting machines in Ohio without so much as leaving a trace.
Does anybody on the left believe that Bush was behind the 9/11?
And to add insult to injury, I am repeatedly told that if I don’t buy into this near-deification of a middle-aged underachiever
Middle-aged underachiever? Go jump into lake superior, dude.
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Does anybody on the left believe that Bush was behind the 9/11?
Nah, everyone knows it was Darth Cheney
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This is my favourite comment. Since we seem to have formed the habit of posting whole.
Now, as much as I'm loath to post whole articles or large parts, I, and I think others here, only do so to underline points we either have made or are in the process of making..you however are posting another's thoughts and say 'this is my opinion'. You could at least do us the courtesy of arguing these so we actually know where you are coming from rather than some third party's thoughts. I've not forgotten that link you used as a backup a thread or two back that you'd clearly not read before linking.
I’m being presented with a guy who’s nearly 50, engaging enough, but with no record of any accomplishment anywhere and positions (such that I can identify them on any given day before he rethinks things) that I find unacceptable. He’s been able to spend his life talking his way up. That’s just the blunt truth of who and what Barack Obama is: a guy who’s written two memoirs before doing anything worth writing about. If he has any other record to stand on, it’s long past the time to show it.
Can this guy spell twaddle because he certainly knows how to spout it....maybe Cynical Observer can tell us exactly what he /she has achieved in his / her life before they start accusing others who have worked their way to the ticket for the biggest job in the word of having accomplished nothing..otherwise he /she is just a a mouthy armchair wanker. Sorry...
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ah simon that comment posted whole was just to wind you up. I know you missed me. The original crook FT post was the one making the real point well. Its a fine comment on self awareness or lack thereof. You might find it applicable. Probably not.
I have no doubt you will again be able to find a few statements that you think rebut the whole. They don't. That link you said I did not read was a fine example. I was not praising the conclusion, I was praising his description of the reason for the choice. Stop jumping on the wrong high horse.
On the religious point the warming science is not actually settled. Stephen Hawking has made his view known that there is nothing to explain the "before" and it is entirely possible there is a deity. If a man of his intellect is no atheist that is good enough for me. Not making him out to be a believer mind, simply agnostic. So for cynical guy I will allow that conflation.
and the cynic is not running for president so he does not have to prove anything. You do not rebut his point, simply attack the man. There seems to be a pattern forming there.
Over to you chaps, you have had some days rest from me but my wife has gone away again, so I have nothing to do in the evenings.... :^)
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And Craig/Simon/Sullivan - McCain is cynical. By giving the voters what they want. Which is someone they can identify with and will vote for. Like Palin.
This is.., you know.., like.., a democracy.., like.
Isn't that what the whole purpose of the exercise is? For somebody who can appeal to voters to run so they can lead the people who vote for them.
Or should elections be limited to those who appeal to the metropolitan liberal elite?
Take a pill Craig, take a pill. :)
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Over to you chaps, you have had some days rest from me but my wife has gone away again, so I have nothing to do in the evenings.... :^)
Cruising PA for rough trade when you could be whacking off over Sarah Palin . . . . . doesn't get much more elitist than that.
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Take a pill Craig, take a pill. :)
I do Sage, and unfortunately none of them make your Peters-like relationship with the truth easier to take.
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Or should elections be limited to those who appeal to the metropolitan liberal elite?
This is a ridiculous myth. As of last month, Obama had a huge lead among the poorest Americans, and an overwhelming one amongst the ethnic groups that get the shitty end of the stick. I doubt that's changed much since then.
Yes, some voters have clearly swung behind Palin in the belief that she looks like them. They're the same people who allowed themselves to be convinced that the silver-spoon brat of a Connecticut industrial dynasty was a good ol' boy from Texas.
That brat now leaves office as a standing joke; one of the least respected presidents in history, a man whose legacy is so rotten his would-be successor purports to campaign against it, who wasn't even welcome at his own party's convention.
And now these voters want to do it to themselves again, by voting for someone they hadn't heard of two weeks ago, irrespective of her lack of experience and her troubling history in positions of authority.
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And now these voters want to do it to themselves again, by voting for someone they hadn't heard of two weeks ago, irrespective of her lack of experience and her troubling history in positions of authority.
That's why I was making the Berlusconi comparison yesterday: they like her because she is not a politician, and complaining about her lack of political experience plays into that. It's quite well-balanced, really: with McCain they've got the insider experience, and yet he's a maverick, thirty years spent fighting Washington from the inside (not that I buy that, but it's the narrative); with Palin they've got the life story and the values and the looks and the religion. Plain folk, and folklore. I think the infatuation will simply wear off over time, the more people have time to think, but what do I know? It's more of a hope really.
Perot in 1992 for a while was polling alongside the two main parties, and then it gradually wore off. Then again, it was much further out in the campaign and being the top of his own ticket he couldn't withdraw himself from public scrutiny to the extent that Palin will be able to.
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And I'm going to call bullshit on the whole "metropolitan elitist" poo-argument. While I wouldn't have made it with the same vehemence, Russell is quite right about Bush's background. If the Bush family weren't at the heart of the New England Republican "elite" for generations, then the term has no meaning.
But let's take a look at the bits of John McCain's biography he doesn't emphasise so much: Son and grandson of four-star admirals, attended one of the most expensive and elite private schools in Virginia when the McCains returned to the US permanently, his second wife is a very wealthy woman her own right (not that there's anything wrong with that -- as long your name isn't John Kerry), and has problems remembering which of their houses he's got the kitchen cabinet stashed in. :)
Somehow, I have my doubts John and Cindy lie awake at night fretting about whether he's going to have a job tomorrow, or how they're going to make the next mortgage payment.
And was I the only person who noted the irony of Rudy Guiliani -- of all people! -- mouthing the "metropolitan elitist" poo-line. Unlike Governor Palin, he was the mayor of a real city -- one that employs over three hundred thousand. But that wasn't enough "executive experience" for Republican primary voters, as it turned out.
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One of CBS correspondents blogs on a trainwreck of a McCain interview, where he burbles thus of Palin:
Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America. She's a governor of a state where 20% of America's energy supply comes from there. And we all know that energy is a critical and vital national security issue. We've got to stop sending $700 billion of American money to countries that don't like us very much. She's very well versed on that issue."And, uh, she also happens to represent, be governor of a state that's right next to Russia. She understands Russia.
The utter stupidity here is hard to credit.
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BTW, talking about voting for people who "look like me", am I the only person who thinks its rather cool that Helen Clark (farmer's daughter) and Michael Cullen ( old boy of the most expensive and elitist private school in New Zealand) fit the social stereotypes of a National Party leader better than John Key and Bill English? And vice versa?
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And, uh, she also happens to represent, be governor of a state that's right next to Russia. She understands Russia.
I bet she does - in much the same way that Vladimir Zhirinovsky understands Alaska:
Zhirinovsky has advocated forcibly retaking Alaska from the United States (which would then become "a great place to put the Ukrainians"
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Meanwhile, nice to see the Kiwiblog Palin Squee Squad are keeping it focused on the issues:
Perhaps the problem is that, as a gay man, Craig sees Sarah Palin’s commitment to raising children and christianity as a threat to his lifestyle?
Nah... my problem is that I'm not psychotic. But thanks for asking!
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