Another pedigreed conservative decamps. Sure, she starts off with some silliness about how McCain won the last debate (the American people would beg to differ). But then she takes a look at the bigger picture of American political discourse, and it takes her to a remarkable place. Emphasis mine.
[W]e have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I’ve listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite-a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it’s unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn’t think aloud. She just . . . says things.
Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she’s not a big “egghead” but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? “I’m Joe Six-Pack”? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation-“palling around with terrorists.” If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn’t, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn’t seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don’t, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
Harsh words, inevitably true. And we’re still over two weeks from election day. If Obama wins this election, the recriminations amongst conservatives, and the battle for carrying the conservative banner going forward, will be epic. If Obama wins, the race for the 2012 GOP nomination will start on Nov. 5, and the two leading GOP candidates will be Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.
Pass the popcorn.
was just quoted as saying that she doesn’t follow campaign news because she doesn’t want to get “discouraged” or “depressed,” and said that she enjoyed visiting North Carolina, since it’s one of the “pro-America” parts of the country. As the WaPo drily notes,
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p>Are we there yet?
the Palinesque picture, I’m sure you’ve already seen Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s neofascist wet dream on Chris Matthews’ show tonight.
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p>Bachmann’s a 10 on the Official Crackpot Index, but still, if this is the rhetoric McCain’s campaign is tacitly endorsing for the next two weeks, hold on to your passports. Even Chris Matthews appears disturbed by what he’s hearing:
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Nineteen days left, and there aren’t too many ways you can go any lower. This campaign might disqualify itself from “family viewing time” according to FCC regs at this rate.
Still regret more GOPers not getting elected? How could any party that subscribes to the most puerile techniques of public discourse be describe as ‘the loyal opposition’? Such a party doesn’t add to the conversation and would only result in effective governance accidentally.
in less than 24 hours!
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p>http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
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p>This may be Bachmann’s ‘Macaca’ moment.
in less than 24 hours. Oh, the power of the internets!!!
72 hours after that Kos diary was put up, Tinkenberg now has $488K. Wow.
Since Zogby is no longer valid—-what’s Gallup doing?
Look it up yourself.
these polls (all of them, in all their daily tracking glory) aren’t all over the internet, or anything.
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p>Or maybe they stopped posting them on the right wingnut sites that MCRD frequents? If I were them, I wouldn’t want to look at them day in and day out!
Your most comprehensive reference
if obama comes through. and especially if it with a margin that could be characterized as a mandate.
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p>it would require a deft exercise in framing, but a decisive obama win would create the greatest opportunity in 2 generations to decisively discredit and bury the malevolent, anti-intellectual, trickle-down core of modern republican conservatism.
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p>the petty paranoid wahoo-ism represented by bush, and now palin, are rightfully an embarrassment to rational conservatives like noonan, and david brooks and chris buckley et al.
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p>if conservatives like them want to engage in vigorous and informed debate about issues and priorities that matter, liberals should welcome that. but the ‘palling around with terrorists’, ‘god hates fags’ strain of american ignorant hate that has masqueraded as a political philosophy should be banished from our national discourse in a explicit humiliating way.
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p>this is not a left/right issue. it is a fundamental decision of whether we are to be a vibrant entrepreneurial nation of ideas and shared vision, or a stagnant collection of fears, resentments, tribalism and ignorance.
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is exactly what the Republicans are trying to undermine with their overflogging of the ACORN stuff – which is no where even remotely close to as bad as the rightwingnutradio lugheads are saying.
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During the week of the Republican National Convention, Noonan referred to the Palin pick as “political bullshit.”
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p>And after the vice-presidential debate, Noonan wrote:
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p>I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America-small towns, sound values. “It’s time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency,” Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents “backwoods types,” or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I’m not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it-it’s possible they are-but this is subtly divisive.
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p>Indeed, it’s hard to find a respectable, old-fashioned conservative who hasn’t had something negative to say about Palin, McCain or both.