WSJ: Pay no attention to those large crowds at Palin rallies

I'm starting to see why the Wall Street Journal is so attracted to Peggy Noonan (link in the original, emphasis mine):

Gov. Palin delivered an energy-policy speech here Wednesday, one of only three she has done. Although her speech last week on children with disabilities was widely covered, an address she gave on women earlier this month received very little pick up. "We didn't get much coverage on that by the way," she said to an aide with frustration in her voice. "They started talking about my clothes instead the next day."

The Alaska governor's star power and light foreign policy credentials have led the campaign to relegate her to large-scale rallies -- a grassroots motivating tool with no risk of "gotcha" moments.

So first we are told that Gov. Palin is a policy lightweight.  Then she starts giving substantive policy speeches and suddenly it is very important that we know about her wardrobe. 

Secondly, I was unaware that having rallies where tens of thousands of enthused voters show up is something negative.  It certainly wasnt presented that way when Hopey McChange was drawing those crowds (with the helpful assists of free food and Decemberists concerts, by the way).  And I still can't remember any policy speeches given by The One, and he's the presidential nominee. 

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Who caused the St. Louis Blues' goalie to get injured

The Great Satan herself, of course. 

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I admit it, I'm a sucker...

...for any Kathleen Parker take-down that I don't have to write. 

Jack M., doing my work for me. 

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 10:32 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The One sneezed on the follower, and lo, he was healed

You know that this absolutely made this reporter's day.  It would be like touching the hem of Jesus' robe:



What would you say in this situation if you were the reporter?  I mean, "God bless you" doesn't really have the same ring to it when you're saying it to your God. 

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New Palin Scandal: The RNC bought her some new clothes

Or, alternately, "Why Vintage should be the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee."*

Who would have thought that the Governor of Alaska might need a professional wardrobe suitable for places outside the tundra?  For shame!  I can just imagine the outrage that would ensue if this was a Lingle-Palin ticket.

*As the GOP vice presidential nominee, I would relinquish half of my shoe budget would go to alexthechick.  Slip on Vans don't cost that much.

Update:  Maybe they'd be spending more money teaching me how to spell than with my fashion.  I am lost without spell check.  (That is, unless potential employers are reading, in which case I meant to say "show" instead of "shoe.")

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 10:03 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Hey, take that back!

As a proud Moron, I find this post by Patterico highly insulting.  GOOD DAY, SIR!

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Serious journalism

If you're looking for some serious analysis of Sarah Palin's recent debate performance, well, you probably shouldn't be reading the Los Angeles Times:

She's a winker. She winks on rope lines and at rallies. She winked at least six times at 70 million viewers on the vice presidential debate platform opposite her rival, Sen. Joe Biden, who weighed in on the nonverbal communication scale by grinning like a nutcracker.

But it was the wink that ricocheted like a bullet across America, leaving some voters smitten, some confused and others nauseated.

A honking sound from her armpit might have generated less buzz. That would have been just weird. The wink is ambiguous, one of those rich, laden, intriguing signals of unspoken human messaging that is difficult to decipher but impossible to ignore.

It goes on in that vein for another 898 words, discussing the origins of the wink, other cultures' interpretations of the gesture, actors who have winked on television and in the movies, interpretations of winking discussed on the internets, several professors professing their thoughts on winking, mentions of other candidates who have winked in the recent past, and a Seinfeld episode where George Costanza gets squirted by a grapefruit and ends up winking a lot.

All of this "serious journalism," it should be noted, is not in the entertainment section of the paper. No, it's in the Washington section. Yeah.

(h/t)

Related

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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They get (incomprehensible) letters

One Pauline Chavez of Huntington Beach, CA, writes the Orange County Register with the following:

Bush signs a pact with India – agreeing to sell them nuclear technology to strengthen and to encourage them to engage in nuclear trade with other countries ["India nuclear pact a good deal," Editorial, Oct. 13]. I'm sure Iran will be their first customer. Bush also took North Korea off his "axis of evil" list.

Oh, and just lately he allowed the sale of $60 billion worth of military arms to Taiwan. I guess he's trying to put all his goodies in one basket before heading on down to Crawford in January.

What? I can only guess that "Pauline" is some sort of International Woman of Mystery, and that her letter is some sort of code to a fellow spy dealing with matters of global intrigue. That, or she's a nutjob who doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to trade with our allies.  But I like to think it's the former.  Sounds sexier.

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Yeah, right

Stephen Hayes, writing today at the Weekly Standard's blog, engages in a little fantasy:

After the outpouring of anti-McCain sentiment at yesterday's Obama rally in Philadelphia I'm sure David Gergen is going to call for the Democrat to tone down his rhetoric. And the mainstream media will start reporting on the dangerous left-wing "rage" that's taking over the campaign in its final weeks.

I think we can all agree on the proper response to that scenario.

Update: Michelle Malkin has a rather detailed post on the subject of the "insane rage" that seems to be gripping  a certain side of the political spectrum.

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Expert opinion

Never mind what the professional analysts or political science eggheads thought about McCain's or Obama's performances at the latest debate, the L.A. Times has the most important analysis of all!

Karen Bradley, a University of Maryland dance professor and expert on body movement, saw the event, perhaps not surprisingly, as "a little dance."

Apparently, they couldn't find a basket weaver for comment.

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Yawn...Katie Couric takes a cheap shot at Gov. Palin

She gets caught on the streets on New York by TMZ, gets asked what newspapers and magazines she reads, and has a strangely familiar answer....



(h/t)

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 11:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The King Code

Many of you probably read Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column today and totally missed the hidden subtext of his political denouncement of John McCain.
 
That's because many of you are dimwitted cretins.  Fortunately for you, I am here to spell it out for you.
 
The background is this: King has sworn off political commentary this year in order to avoid alienating his readers, as he did during the 2004 and 2000 elections by his rampant boosterism of Democratic candidates.  He made this vow two weeks ago.
 
Last week King came under fire by readers for re-airing a Chris Rock quote about Sarah Palin, where he said her choice for VP was so bad he expected it to have come from Al Davis.  Many equated this to political commentary and let King know how displeased they were for violating his promise.
 
King renewed his vow, declared to be apolitical, and closed up his column by noting that he could listen to Keith Olbermann talk all day.
 
Translation:  from now on, King will send his shout-outs via coded message.
 
So what were his coded messages this week?  They are on this page.  Just after praising Spike Lee's new film (calling into question King's tastes in movies), he tells us that:
 
l. Finally got to see the premiere of Family Guy, and if I had to pick, I'm not sure which TV character I'd chose as the best in history -- George Costanza, Barney Fife, James West or Brian the dog. Brian's quite a maverick.
 
We know from the use of the word "maverick" that King is referring to John McCain.  And look at the list of characters that come before: loser Costanza, incompetent Fife, womanizing West, and Brian, who is an alcoholic dog.
 
What King's really saying:  John McCain is a dying racist who plans on turning this country over to a crazed Christianist who will drive the Zionist agenda and lead us all to destruction, where we will be forced to eat dogs to survive.
 
I see through your ruse very clearly, Mr. King.  Shame on you for violating the sacred trust between coffee-breathed sports journalist and reader!
 
King ends with this point:
 
m. Best pizza in New York, if you like thin crust similar to the best pizza in Italy: Fiorello's, on Broadway, between 63rd and 64th.
 
Which, as you no doubt realize, is a tacit admission that he likes to dress up in ballerina costumes and drink camel urine in hopes that they will help rejuvenate his waning libido.  Oh, and he's frustrated because the only thing he's gotten by consuming up to 64 cases of penis-enlarging pills is massive flatulence.
 
Any idiot can see that in the subtext.

Posted by: plebian at 02:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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A brief lesson on acceptable and unacceptable questions

Acceptable question: Sarah Palin wearing a Pat Buchanan button when he visited Wasilla while she was mayor. 

Unacceptable question:  Barack Obama being BFF with an unrepentant domestic terrorist. 

Funny how that works.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 02:14 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The 5 most important people in American politics (who aren't running for president)

Three are McCain people and 2 are Obama people (identified in the post as "the media").

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New Palin Scandal: She has more money than many Alaskans

This is getting ridiculous. 

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Shocka: LAT editorial board not Palin fans

There's so much condescension dripping from this editorial that I'm afraid it's going to short out my computer [my emphasis]:

Republicans can now remove their hands from their eyes. Gov. Sarah Palin shared a stage with Sen. Joe Biden and for 90 minutes skirted the edge of the abyss but avoided the plunge. Luckily for her, their debate Thursday night avoided serious civics -- no questions about Supreme Court rulings and only the briefest exposition on what constitutes the vice presidency. She did nothing to arrest her slide from phenomenon to embarrassment, but her conservative supporters, many jumping ship in recent days, can take solace that she correctly pronounced the names of several world leaders.

What debate were they watching? Oh, right. The "We're a bunch of smug, liberal MSM douches and no matter what happens, Sarah Palin is an idiot" debate.

To be fair, they don't seem to be big Biden fans, either, noting that his "looping answers drifted along a current known only to him," and saying that, consequently, "His best friend was the clock." Even so, they just can't help themselves:

In the end, Biden left voters with a more constructive vision of the government and a more compelling case for how it has failed the nation under President Bush.

But of course. Because it's Sarah Palin's job to tell the people about how the government has "failed the nation under President Bush." Yeah, I guess she really fucked up there.

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:27 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ifill's response

Gwen Ifill responds to questions over her objectivity.  Naturally, the race card is thrown,

Ifill questions why people assume that her book will be favorable toward Obama.

“Do you think they made the same assumptions about Lou Cannon (who is white) when he wrote his book about Reagan?” said Ifill, who is black. Asked if there were racial motives at play, she said, “I don’t know what it is. I find it curious.”

What an dishonest dodge, this isn't about race, no one brought up race. This is about ideology and political views, and whether someone writing a book partly about the "Age of Obama" can be objective.  We know Ifill is liberal, and have known for years.  Given how openly unobjective the media has been this election cycle, the fact that she's liberal and a journalist is enough to give us reason to question her objectivity.  That she's writing a book about Our Lord and Savior makes her doubly suspect.  Don't blame us, Gwen, blame your fellow journalists who can't help but abuse the public trust by rejecting objectivity and becoming Pravda USA for the Democrat Party.

Ifill also declares that Obama will only be a small part of her book...the book that is titled, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.  Age. of. Obama.

(H/T Veeshir)

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Kathleen Parker ignores the first rule of holes; UPDATE: Parker in 2003

The syndicated columnist continues to "David Brooks" herself. Her column asking Palin to get dumped from the ticket has had two results: lofty mentions in every MSM story on Gov. Palin since it was published and negative reaction from most conservatives.

If I were a conservative and something did was praised by the MSM and decried by most conservatives, I'd take time reevaluate my position. But I guess that's why I don't et paid the big syndicated column dollars:

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself.

Those are a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

Who says public discourse hasn't deteriorated?

Hmmm....she does say there were conservatives who respectfully disagreed and offerered reasoned statements to try to change her mind. But since she chose to throw bombs with the few randomly selected emails we may never know the true ratio.

Of course, no...ahem...intelligent defense of a dumbass column would be complete without a cry of CENSORSHIP!!!11!!!eleventy!! and a declaration of sistahood with the poor, poor Dixie Chicks:

Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one's own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

I'm sure it is coincidence that, upon the Palin column's publication, a conservative organization canceled a speech I was scheduled to deliver in a few days. If I were as paranoid as the conspiracy theorists are, I might wonder whether I was being punished for speaking incorrectly.

Or, perhaps, this organization wanted people to show up to their event?  Maybe they acknowledged, as you in this column do, that most conservatives are very displeased with you right now?  Is it possible that they could have received emails an phone calls form their supporters asking them to cancel your appearance?  

Nah, that can't be it.  It's the vast, right-wing conspiracy out to get you. 

Update: Tim Graham at Newsbusters weighs in. 

Update II:  It turns out that Kathleen Parker did have some interesting words on the issue back in 2003 when celebrities were being featured in nearly every TV show, radio interview, newspaper, magazine, and online forum discussing how their anti-war views were being censored by the media (emphasis mine):

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the cancellations (I disagree for the same reason one ignores a showoff), one thing needs to be clear. That chill wind Robbins feels isn't coming from a censorious or conspiratorial White House - which is busy frying somewhat larger fish - but is the cool response of consumers enjoying a free market. Welcome, in other words, to the real world.

Just as Robbins and Sarandon (and I) have a right to speak as we please, a free marketplace provides that consumers have a right not to buy, or listen to, or otherwise subsidize products, ideas or people they find unappealing. It's called choice, which everyone seems to understand when they're doing the choosing.

So in 2003, Parker disagreed with cancelled appearances, but respected the rights of organizations to do so.  It seems her position has gotten a bit more nuanced. 

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