Pure Wonderment

Dean Barnett can't believe his eyes.

Comments

[clarice]

See what I mean about term limits for pundits, Vern?

[M. Simon]

Where is Cohen going to find some rubes to sell that too? Hicks and bitches are not buying it. Nor are the bitter clingers (an overlapping demographic to be sure).

[kim]

The part that amused me was when Cohen contended that Kerry had at first thought the Swiftie allegations so ludicrous that he ignored them. Does Cohen not remember the threats of lawsuits against bookstores and of licence revocation for TV stations, or is he just plain flat out lying?

I was so mad about it that I almost commented but got distracted trying to find the right thread. As if that ever stopped me from off topic comments.
==================================

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

M.Simon: He has Randi Rhodes on board. I posted the link in another thread. She thinks McCain has lied about his treatment and really had it easy during his time at the Hanoi Hilton.

Randi Rhodes: McCain Was Well Treated at Hanoi Hilton

[Neo]

Obama gets personal .. now it's gonna get ugly.

"You can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."

[clarice]

Today Brocko said you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. I know that was very clumsy but you can be sure the pit bull with lipstick remark will be joined in people's minds with Brock's remark and whoosh--lots of heat over that.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

You can't buy this kind of moment

[kim]

The salmon slayers crew is going to resent the stink of old fish, too.

Obama is spiraling down in flames. Axelrod, it's time to gag him and get Biden out representing the ticket.
==========================================

[Extraneus]

Those little jibes of hers really stung, though, huh?

McCain's some kind of genius for sending the girl out to beat up Obama. Ouchie!

[kim]

You know, this guy is a mean asshole. He can't hide it much longer.
=========================

[Extraneus]

Everyone see the dominatrix with the moose thing?

[matt]

Gordon Brown, the British PM, just came out in favor of Obama. With his troubles and low reputation, that may be the kiss of death.

What we are seeing here is a denial of reality that is difficult to fathom. There was a time when people did what they said and said what the meant, and outside of the Blue belts, I think that is still true. Most people are who they say they are.

But with technology, self indulgence, virtual realities, and a simple lack of backbone, I think we are seeing a collapse of intellectual rigor and morality that is frightening. the NYT and much of the media have taken that final step over the precipice of credibility and will not be able to recover.

I don't fault Obama for his career. I just don't think it is up to the job he's interviewing for just yet. There was a time when young men set out to prove themselves in the world through deeds. I wish he had done this, as I would for most of what passes for our leadership these days. The job of president requires trial by fire. It's too important not to know the measure of the man or woman who holds that job.

The gyrations of the left will only hurt them, but at the same tiime, the right has to require more of itself. The republicans have no special advantage these days. They have squandered their legacy. Perhaps McCain and Palin can set things right again. The good of the country does matter, but it will take more than a president and vice president. Congress is a disgrace and needs a real cleansing.

[Neo]

Everybody take a deep breath while Obama destroys himself.

[Extraneus]

I think you're right about that trial by fire thing, matt, and that's exactly what Palin will get credit for once this is all over. She'll be able to claim she took their absolute worst and came through it. If she and McCain win, she'll be the Joan of Arc, slayer of Obama and the whole Democrat machine. They could have just ignored her, but they couldn't resist taking the bait and doing her a favor a minute instead. It really is a wonder to behold.

[kim]

Thanks, extraneous. Juan Cole calling Palin indistinguishable from Muslim fundamentalists just reminded me how far around the bend he is.

Winning the struggle in Iraq must have finally tipped him over the edge, and out to lunch. Let's see, where else can I locate him?
=======================================

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

It really is a wonder to behold.

I find it all rather unsettling and somewhat frightening to see how much the left hates, really hates, me and mine.

As a live and let live kind of person, I am extremely offended by Barack Obama's arrogant meanness, his supporters politics of personal destruction, and the attacks on a good woman, wife, mother and governor. I find it offensive when they go on the stump and say I'm too stupid to select my own health care, that I'm too stupid to understand our energy needs, and that I'm too stupid to understand what the agenda of Muslim extremists is. Or that I'm too ignorant about history to hear the red flags that scream at me communist/socialist/Marxist agenda.

And I'm offended that a woman who does not believe in the murder of the unborn is likened to a pig and called trailer trash.

I'm angry and I think there are millions out there who are too.

[Neo]

ABC thought Obama was talking about Palin ..

You know, you can put lipstick on a pig,” Obama said, “but it’s still a pig.” The crowd rose and applauded, some of them no doubt thinking he may have been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s ad lib during her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last week, “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”

[PeterUK]

Pig, Moose,dominatrix,That's got the Deliverance and fetishist vote sewn up.

[Sue]

I hate to be an I told you so kind of person but since I'm seldom right, I told you so. They are after Palin on her religion.

[Elliott]

Okay, I think I have finally figured it out: Obama doesn't want his true devotees to see his O'Reilly interview, hence Olbermann.

Has he become the first candidate to counter-program himself? If so, it is truly a vicious smear to say that the new politics is just more of the same.
__________________
*Accidentally posted this on the Woodward thread initially.

[MarkO]

Obama's right. I've seen lipstick on his pig.

[PeterUK]

Gordon Brown supports Obama - The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb.

The BBC also supports Obama,Liz Forgan former BBC and Guardian.
"I have been a card-carrying feminist for 40 years and this woman has found somewhere in me a little kernel of sexism. She causes me to make a failure of sisterhood. Sorry Charlie but I cannot stand her candy coated philistinism, I hate her crass creationism, I loath her parading of her family about the place, God forgive me I even hate her teenage hair ... I do really fear the fact that she touches something deep in America, something real in America I agree with you about that and that makes me very afraid and the only solution I can see to it is that the principal governors of super powers should be elected by global electorates ... There is a ray of hope. History shows that people who arrive with a stock in trade of being pure, innocent and untouched by civilisation often end up having terrible skeletons in their cupboards. And I am really hopeful that the dreadful hacks will find them out."

[Pofarmer]

I never knew that community organizers were such a respected/protected group.

[Neo]

The video

[Barney Frank]

Pig, Moose,dominatrix,That's got the Deliverance and fetishist vote sewn up.

I guess the strategy is you say something stupid one day then distract folks from it by saying something stupider and more offensive the next.
I pooh poohed Hillary's whining but it's becoming clear this popinjay has a problem with women.

[kim]

Oh, boy, Drudge is headlining the Belipsticked Pig story with a picture of Palin.

Somebody's going to break his face. Axelrod more likely than Todd.
======================================

[Pofarmer]

Say it loud Sara.

Washington needs a good bug bombing.

[clarice]

O cannot take the pressure. I told you so. As for that ex-BBC writer.. that is my fav thing about Sarah--It's killing them that the first woman in America to make it that high is not a NOW or NARALITE, not a member of the coastal elite, but a working class, ordinary beautiful woman and mother who belives in God.
Oh. My. God.
Now, it's clear..no one likes them, not even their own party which screwed Hillary, not their sisters in blue collars who they claimed to be "fighting" for, not men who flee them if they're smart. No. One.
Well--Maybe Mo Do.

[Ranger]

The way Sarah should respond is with a little bit of the same "respect" that Obama showed Hil after she cleaned his clock in Pen. She should say it doesn't bother her because she knows Obama is under a ton of stress and doesn't deal with stress well (while brushing the dirt off of her shoulder and sliding her glasses up her nose with her middle finger). Kill 'em with kindness.

[matt]

What amazes me is the failure of Europe in so many ways, and yet their now constant lecturing on how to live our own lives. American force guarantees that most of their oil flows and underpins their own freedom from Russian domination, and yet the surrender monkey smug self righteousness continues to morph into an out of control mania.

I thought women's liberation was meant to allow women the freedom to do what men were previously the sole arbiters of. And Palin seems to summarize all that is good about equal rights. And yet the Left descends further and further into a miasma. This really is unhealthy for meaningful progress.

It's as if Marx met Lewis Carroll....curiouser and curiouser.

[kim]

Sticks and stones.

Maybe she should say that Obama's lip doesn't stick.
=================================

[kim]

And boy, didn't he sound incoherent in the audio of his pig comment. Where's the baritone? He's whining a good half octave above his usual pitch.

I was shocked. That's not oration. It's just pitiful.
=================================

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Best detailed description yet of why Sarah has the right stuff:

The first myth to slay is that she is a political neophyte who has come from nowhere. In fact, she and her husband have, for decades, run a company in the highly politicised commercial fishing industry, where holding on to a licence requires considerable nous and networking skills.

Her rise from parent-teacher association to city council gave her a natural political base in her home town of Wasilla. Going on to become mayor was a natural progression. Wasilla's population of 9,000 would be a small town in Britain, and even in most American states.

But Wasilla is the fifth-largest city in Alaska, which meant that Palin was an important player in state politics.

Her husband's status in the Yup'ik Eskimo tribe, of which he is a full, or "enrolled" member, connected her to another influential faction: the large and wealthy (because of their right to oil revenues) native tribes.

All of this gave her a base....

...a seat on, and subsequently the chairmanship of, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission...launched her into the politics of Alaska's energy industry.

Palin quickly realised that Alaska had the potential to become a much bigger player in global energy politics, a conviction that grew as the price of oil rose. Alaska had been in hock to oil companies since major production began in the mid-1970s.

As with most poor, distant places that suddenly receive great natural-resource wealth, the first generation of politicians were mesmerised by the magnificence of the crumbs falling from the table. Palin was the first of the next generation to realise that Alaska should have a place at that table.

Her first target was an absurd bureaucratic tangle that for 30 years had kept the state from exporting its gas to the other 48 states. She set an agenda that centred on three mutually supportive objectives: cleaning up state politics, building a new gas pipeline, and increasing the state's share of energy revenues.

This agenda, pursued throughout Palin's commission tenure, culminated in her run for governor in 2006. By this time, she had already begun rooting out corruption and making enemies, but also establishing her bona fides as a reformer.

With this base, she surprised many by steamrollering first the Republican incumbent governor, and second, the Democratic former governor, in the election.

Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.

The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska's energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes - the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having "no international experience" particularly absurd.

In short, far from being a small-town mayor concerned with little more than traffic signs, she has been a major player in state politics for a decade, one who formulated an ambitious agenda and deftly implemented it against great odds.

IOW, she chews up guys like Obama and Biden, spits them out and picks her teeth with her field dressing knife in Alaska every day.

[Pofarmer]

And yet the Left descends further and further into a miasma. This really is unhealthy for meaningful progress.

I disagree. It points out the left for what they are, and shows where progress is actually occuring.

What has been pretty amazing the last few weeks is to see the contempt the media has for most of America.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Melanie Morgan, Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, and Obama, the Community Organizer. Read it all:

Revolution You Can Believe In

[kim]

It's mutual, Pofarmer. Witness the spontaneous demonstration against the media last week, and the chanting of 'NBC'.
==================================

[PaulL]

Imagine what is still to come? With Obama's ad outright saying that McCain and Palin are *lying*, and now with Obama calling Palin a pig, we can only wonder how much lower the different-kind-of-politician will sink.

It's almost as if Obama decided Olbermann was right during their "interview" and is following Olbermann's advice.

[PeterUK]

Clarice,
The Left will hate Sarah Palin as much as they hate Margaret Thatcher.Amazing that the detestation Thatcher's name arouses even though she is old and frail.Even though she has been out of power for nearly 20 years she is regarded as the fount of all evil.
On the bright side George Bush can look forward to a quiet retirement.

[matt]

The Telegraph in London has an article posted on Palin that is spectacular.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/09/do0904.xml

[Pofarmer]

So, what part of the U.S. population thinks that community organizers are important positions? My guess is less than 1%, YVMV.

[qrstuv]

"In the biographies of both presidential candidates are episodes of pure wonderment....At age 22 -- a graduate of Columbia University and already making good money as a financial researcher, [Obama] walked away to work with the unemployed and alienated in Chicago."

Wait. Do you mean to say that a 22-year-old decided to go make the world a Better Place(tm)?!

I am astonished.

I stand in wonderment.

I certainly don't know anyone else who's made the same choice.

... Except my uncle, who's worked (for laughable pay) on election campaigns for leftists like Ned Lamont, instead of getting good money as an electrician and actually planning for retirement

... Except for assorted idealists I've met over the years who went into the Peace Corps.

... Except for the guy I knew in high tech. who decided to drop out of it and work on an organic farm (making less than third the income, I'm sure).

Where was I?

[Extraneus]

Yeah, kim. I didn't even notice it at the time (mesmerized as I was), but that must have really spooked the suits.

[RichatUF]

Sara-

It didn't take long for the "race card" to get dealt. I'm pretty sure if I look hard enough, I'd find that Paterson is an Axelrod client...

[Pofarmer]

Getting disjointed trying to get the kids to bed. My point is, that Obama is going to do a whole lot more damage to his brand by defending "community organizing" which most folks are going to connect with scamming, than what Palin did by indicting it.

[Neo]

classy guy

[hit and run]

Clarice:
It's killing them that the first woman in America to make it that high is not a NOW or NARALITE, not a member of the coastal elite

Wait, wait, wait.

We've been over this. If I hadn't used up my SSP, well, I'd show you.

[Pofarmer]

classy guy

I think we need to go over with the MSM who the trash is in this election.

[PeterUK]

Any bets on Obama's statement trying to extricate himself from the "pig" debacle?

"Of course ,some of my best friends are pigs".

[kim]

Watch her get in a 'Charlotte's Web' reference.
==============================

[PeterUK]

No,no,that isn't giving Hilary the finger,that is the Young Pioneer's salute.

[hit and run]

Biden will be along to say that while Obama is really clean, he may not always be articulate.

[Caro]

Sara,
Word.
I find it frightening because people I love are on that side.

[clarice]

Hit, I don't care what you say, she's not a member of the coastal elite! *Do I have to take out the old pistola?

[larwyn]

Obama calls Palin a pig

Stay classy, you Columbia-educated, Harvard Law-educated, University of Chicago-instructing multimillionaire.

Remember how Republican Sen. John McCain dumped that Cincinnati radio dude for using the middle name of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama?

Here's how Obama repaid that courtesy:

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig."

Obama should use some of that loot from his memoirs to buy some manners. Calling a woman a pig is inexcusable.

Maybe Democratic Sen. Joe Biden will dump him …

UPDATE: Jane Swift: Obama owes an apology.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2008/09/09/obama-calls-palin-a-pig/

AJad and his Pali buddies et al must be cheering.

[clarice]

PUK, I know a young Welchman (well he was young decades ago when I first met him) who left the UK and moved here because of his hatred of Thatcher. He was all lefty and for the power of the people, formed a union at the private school on whose Board I served, fought with me tooth and nail and...as time went on and his responsibilities increased, slowly became--to his chagrin--administration . Now he heads a private school for rich kids in Atlanta. Time flies..only losers stay behind.

[larwyn]

sorry, should have looked over thread first. Tried to do some chores put off for days as feeling a little better. Sadly, feeling didn't last very long.

[Rick Ballard]

"Of course, some of my best friends are pigs"

I don't think Bulldoggy would allow that one. As close to him as she is 'n all.

[Captain Hate]

Sorry Charlie but I cannot stand her candy coated philistinism, I hate her crass creationism, I loath her parading of her family about the place, God forgive me I even hate her teenage hair ...

This is a parody taken from the Onion, right? Because nobody could willfully make such a simpleton ass out of oneself in print, no? Except Obonics and, well, he's special.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Roger Kimball:

The Palin Portfolio, Phase Two: Damage Control: or, The Clash of Civilizations comes home

...Sarah has devastated what was left of the mainstream media’s pretensions toward even-handedness. The curious thing about the Palin Payload is that (so far) the most conspicuous damage has been inflicted not directly by Governor Palin but, jujitsu-like, by the media’s efforts to destroy her. It’s been a spectacle of auto-immolation precipitated by the media’s confrontation with a phenomenon whose nature they misunderstood and whose power they gravely underestimated....

Nails it!

[PeterUK]

Clarice,Yes the establishment in very good at co-opting rebels.

[hit and run]

Clarice:
*Do I have to take out the old pistola?

Do I have to beg?

[M. Simon]

The Drill Sgt says

Small unit action. Morale. Winning. And why leo has lost his bravado.

Or why some people hold their ground no matter what when others can only hold when they think they are winning.

Read the whole thing.

[clarice]

I'm sorry you aren't well, larwyn.

Hit, yes, beg damn it.

PUK--don't blame me or the establishment--there's something about having to take responsibility for your actions and for the well being of others that focuses the mind and makes one turn from childish things.

[Barry Dauphin]

Wait, I sense Joe Biden will come to the rescue and tell us that all Obama was trying to say is that America doesn't want to buy a pig in a poke.

[clarice]

Well, Drill Sgt may be right but there's a surer test, candidates that Barbra Streisand sings for lose and she's warbling for O.

[MeTooThen]

Kim,

You know, this guy is a mean asshole. He can't hide it much longer.
=========================

LOL.

And not.

Yet, he may still win. In fact, I think he will.

Do not underestimate the MSM, Hollywood, or their benefactors, ala Soros, et al.

This is not a game, and the Left and the Democrats are playing for keeps.

I was firmly in the belief that nothing could stop Barack Hussein Obama II from becoming the next POTUS.

And along came Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, and not one Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, and things began to look different.

Now, John Sidney McCain III has chosen Sarah Louise Heath Palin and it seems like the Capt. McCain may have a chance.

Or not, again.

I think the former community organizer from Chicago may be his own worst enemy, or like many a tragic figure, he may be playing to lose, and yet will still win.

Just sayin'.

It sure looks and sounds like it.

[Pofarmer]

I've been noticing a lack of enthusiastic trolls here the last few days. Not that that's a bad thing.

[Elliott]

Why is Sarah Palin's adherence to the political consultant's dictum that when the press can recite your stump speech line-for-line you're off to a good start being taken as an indication that she doesn't have much more to say?

I mean, all those Bush speechwriters* didn't have 10 different speeches ready for her?

It would be nice if, for comparative purposes, the press could tell us how many times Obama gave the same stump speech.
_____________________
*Pay no attention to the time she spent working on her speech, whether in collaboration or on her own.

[larwyn]

VDH:
Was McCain the stinky old fish? [Victor Davis Hanson]

In all the furor over the Obama "pig" quote, commentators forgot to examine his entire attack:

"You can put lipstick on a pig. "It's still a pig."

"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

When read in the entire context you can see what he means with his dual animate male/female references and why he evoked two metaphors: Obama is talking about both on the ticket and his anger how each has expropriated his change motif: so he insults the 72-year old McCain as the "old fish" that is still going to "stink", and he refers to Palin, who had famously evoked the metaphor of lipstick in a nationally televised address, as still the pig despite the lipstick.

The fact that he used two metaphors to attack the two, and used expressions referring both to age and Palin's recent use of "lipstick" were not accidents and that's why the cooing crowd got the old fish=McCain;lipsticked pig=Palin immediately....GO READ IT ALL.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjhkNmYzOTVkNDgwNGFmNzEzNjc0ZDVkMDMxNWY2NjI=

[Extraneus]

So has she been vetted yet?

[DebinNC]

Comment at "lipstick" video link:

See, Barack can speak without a telepromptor.

[Mustang0302]

I'm probably too late, but...

Why's he talking about pigs...aren't they haraam?

[hit and run]

For some reason due to extreme personal negligence, CNN was on in the background. What's her name (Campbell?) started in calling Palin's view on global warming extreme (she says Palin thinks humans play no role -- see #66) -- and then Jeffrey Toobin claimed that no respectable scientist today doubts that global warming in man made. Bay Buchanan fought back, but Toobin gave the roll they eyes like only rubes could hold such a backwards backwoods unscientific view.

Sorry. But if I had to sit through it, I'm not going through it alone.

[Tollhouse]

Check out that body language when he makes the comment, he is covering his eyes. His aides must have handed him that line to deliver, even he is embarrassed to say it.

[DebinNC]

Politico:
UPDATE: Obama aide Anita Dunn responds to the McCain campaign's claim that Obama compared Palin to a pig:

Enough is enough. The McCain campaign’s attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy – the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan just last year. This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run.

[Elliott]

Fresh off the inexperience skirmish, the Obama campaign gazes out like stout Cortez* and sees another chance to rout the opposition:

FIGHT OVER MCCAIN’S HONOR LEADS TO ANGRIEST, MOST PERSONAL STATEMENTS SO FAR.

[All caps in original; snip]

Obama strategist Anita Dunn calls McCain’s effort an “increasingly dishonorable campaign.”

Senator Parallel Public Financing System is charting a steady course...toward the lecture circuit.
__________________
*Mandatory noises about how it should have been Balboa.

[DebinNC]

McCain is "lying" and now "dishonorable. Are they baiting McCain, hoping he'll show his "hot temper"?

[Elliott]

Are they baiting McCain, hoping he'll show his "hot temper"?

That may well be the case, Deb. But, I suspect they will be quite disappointed to encounter Schmidt's razor.

[Danube of Thought]

I think it will be, "This isn't the pig I used to know."

And what the hell, Elliott, it's not that it "should have been" Balboa--it was Balboa. Keats was ripped on laughing gas at the time, that's all.

[MarkO]

Well, the One is clearly so post-partisan. There hasn't been anyone so new and fresh and clean in his campaigning since, well, Richard Nixon.

This elfin creep needs a punch in the nose.

[M. Simon]

∅bama is going from Magic Negro to Ghetto N*****.

Palin should just leave him alone. He is doing himself. I expect it will get worse.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

I could not bring myself to watch the O'Reilly/Obama interviews, but I have read that he has done okay in the first 2 aired segments. Now I read this over at Gateway Pundit and I'm blown away. Anyone else come away from tonight with the same opinion?

DISASTER!... Barack Obama Gets Chewed Up & Spit Out On O'Reilly

Holy False Prophet!... This was awful! Barack Obama went into the No Spin Zone and came out battered and bloody tonight. This interview with Bill O'Reilly was a DISASTER!

[M. Simon]

Telegraph London on Palin

Here is how you make permalinks:

<a href="url">text to display</a>

replace url with:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/
leave the quote marks

replace text to display
with: Power and Control

Power and Control

If you keep a cheat sheet (text file) up of your most commonly used forms it is really easy.

[Elliott]

P.G. Wodehouse:

Besides, even if it was Balboa, the Pacific was open for being stared at about that time, and I see no reason why Cortez should not have had a look at it as well. [Italics in original]

[clarice]

Looks like the messiah thought he could win yet another election on a technical--opening sealed divorce papers, challenging petition signatures. I mean, good grief,, this time he has to fight, answer questions, endure having any part of his record examined..So sad.

[Porchlight]

I can't bring myself to watch either, Sara. But I'd love to hear others' thoughts if you managed to get through it.

[M. Simon]

Well, Drill Sgt may be right but there's a surer test, candidates that Barbra Streisand sings for lose and she's warbling for O.

OK Clarice. I try to go for some sober analysis any you have to enhance it with wit. Yes the fat lady is about to sing. BTW you ever listen to Janice Meyerson? Cousin of mine and a love interest (her for me) when we were young. I'm way to right for her these days.

In any case I notice leo has decided that not only is bravado not his thing any more but hanging around is not his thing either.

[bgates]

I watched it. He comes across very badly. He tries to be as aggressive as O'Reilly, and comes across surly.

On the substance, his response to the question of why he's so close to Wright, Ayers, etc is that he knows thousands of people and he can't be held responsible for every tangential relationship he's ever had. O'Reilly either isn't quick or informed enough to go after that like he should, but he does point out that Obama went to Wright's church for 20 years and what Obama wants to call "soundbites that were looped on this show" were sold in the church lobby. Ayers, rather than "just a guy from the neighborhood", is now somebody Obama hasn't seen "in a year and a half".

I've seen worse examinations. Jack Nicholson admitting he ordered the code red. This was probably second.

[Jane]

You know I have a thought on what is going on with Obama - he has a glass jaw. When all that stuff was being hurled at Sarah before her convention speech I was really worried that she would react to it in her speech. That she would be angry, and show it. And she didn't.

For me, the hardest thing about trying a case to a jury was to not react to the other side, particularly when they make stuff up. (I don't know if others here had the same challange.) At any rate, Obama can't keep his blood from boiling, and Palin never ever shows any reaction to all the mud that is flung. Palin is a great advocate, Obama is a rookie.

I watched O'reilly. I thought O'reilly was a wimp. Obama limped thru it but it certainly wasn't a big moment for either side.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Via email:

Mccain-Palin 2008 Launches Truth Squad To Counter Attacks On Governor Sarah Palin

For Immediate Release
Contact: Press Office

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
703-650-5550

ARLINGTON, VA — With today’s Wall Street Journal report that pro-Obama Democrats have “airdropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers into Anchorage” to dig for dirt on our vice presidential nominee, the McCain-Palin campaign today launched the Palin Truth Squad to counter recent attacks on Governor Sarah Palin, her family, her friends and her record of accomplishment. The Palin Truth Squad will set the record straight against Internet and liberal smears of Governor Palin.

“We’re proud of Governor Palin’s leadership in Alaska and record of taking on entrenched special interests and the good old boys network,” said former Governor Jane Swift. “Governor Palin’s commitment to reform is well-known but there are those who would seek to distort that record with vile rumors and smears against her, her husband, her children and her friends. We will not allow those on the left and in the media to smear a woman who has always served her constituents with honor. We know the truth and are committed to ensuring it as well.”

In the event of false attacks, rumors and smears against Governor Palin, the Palin Truth Squad will issue alerts and statements to voters and the media to set the record straight. Additionally, the Truth Squad will be available to respond to inquiries from the media.

National Members Of The Palin Truth Squad:

Former Governor Jane Swift (R-MA)
Governor Linda Lingle (R-HI)
Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, (R-AK)
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
Congresswoman Thelma Drake (R-VA)
Congresswoman Mary Fallin (R-OK)
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX)
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
Congresswoman Candice Miller (R-MI)
Congresswoman Sue Myrick (R-FL)
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM)
Jo Ann Davidson, RNC Co-Chair
Rosario Marin, Former U.S. Treasurer
Meg Stapleton, Former Aide To Governor Palin
Kristan Cole, Lifelong Friend Of Governor Palin

State Members Of The Palin Truth Squad:

Former Lt. Governor Jane Norton (CO)
State Representative Amy Stephens (CO)
State Board of Education Member Peggy Littleton (CO)
State Representative Ellyn Bogdanoff (FL)
County Commissioner Mildred Fernandez (FL)
Former Iowa Senate President And Former U.S. Ambassador To The Eastern Caribbean, Mary Kramer (IA)
State Representative Jackie Walorski (IN)
State Representative Laura Brod (MN)
Former GOP State Party Chairwoman And Former State Rep. Barb Sykora (MN)
Jayne Millerick, Former NH GOP Chair (NH)
State Senator Jennifer Beck, Honorary Co-Chair NJ Women For McCain-Palin (NJ)
Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, Honorary Vice Chair NJ Women For McCain-Palin (NJ)
Bergen County Clerk Kathe Donovan, Honorary Co-Chair NJ Women For McCain-Palin (NJ)
DA Dona Ana County Susana Martinez (NM)
Former Lt. Gov. Lorraine Bono-Hunt (NV)
State Senator Barbara Cegavske (NV)
State Assemblywoman Heidi Gansert (NV)
Sue Lowden, Nevada GOP Chair (NV)
Kay Ayres, OH GOP Vice Chair (OH)
Betty Montgomery, Ohio Women For McCain-Palin Chair (OH)
Mary Taylor, Ohio Auditor Of State (OH)
Margie Hughes, Clackamas County Chair Of Women For McCain-Palin (OR)
Linda Neace, West Linn Small Business Owner For McCain-Palin (OR)
Deanna Smith, Women For McCain-Palin Chairwoman (OR)
Renee Amoore, PA GOP Deputy Chair (PA)
Joyce Haas, PA GOP Vice Chair (PA)
State Senator Lisa Baker (PA)
Diana Irey, Washington County Commissioner (PA)
Christine Toretti, RNC National Committeewoman and McCain-Palin Pennsylvania Co-Chair (PA)
Kim Ward, Westmoreland County Commissioner and McCain-Palin Pennsylvania Regional Chair (PA)
Former First Lady Susan Allen (VA)
Lori Ann Miller, Young Republican Federation Of VA Chairman (VA)
Former Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow (WI)
Peggy Oban Boze, McCain-Palin Chairwomen For King County (WA)
Susan McCaw, Former Ambassador To Austria (WA)
Della Newman, Former Ambassador To New Zealand (WA)

[Jane]

Did you guys hear the Mike Gravel interview?

"Palin is gonna come out ahead on troopergate"

[Captain Hate]

Jeffrey Toobin claimed that no respectable scientist today doubts that global warming is man made.

Toobin is a liar on that and should be called out on it. Is this what passes for intelligent commentary? Or is he employing circular logic by defining any real scientist who is skeptical as not respectable?

[M. Simon]

Jane,

What you describe is similar to an engineering design review. More vicious than the legal system I'm told. If you are well prepared understand your material and are prepared to defend it by trying to find faults with your own arguments and errors in your judgment, you sail through it untouched. (a minor scratch is ok).

OTOH if you haven't been looking hard for flaws in your argument your betters will find them and you will be humiliated among your peers. Not pretty. And engineers being barely socialized revel in humiliating the weak. It is a good thing though. It is what drives the weak ones out of the business and keeps the airplanes in the air.

[clarice]

I agree he is thin skinned , Jane. And as I said he's not used to this kind of scrutiny or any scrutiny at all.

[hit and run]

Or is he employing circular logic by defining any real scientist who is skeptical as not respectable?

Whoever the middle guy (in the picture, not ideologically) was (black guy, I know his name but it's slips my mind at the moment), blurted in after Bay Buchanan started pushing back by saying something like..."well you can find anyone out there to say anything you want but that doesn't mean they're legitmate...."

[hit and run]

I agree he is thin skinned , Jane. And as I said he's not used to this kind of scrutiny or any scrutiny at all.

And under scrutiny he gets bitter and clingy.

[Elliott]

SB 99. Is Schmidt playing fast and loose or is the Obama campaign "shocked, shocked?"

[Danube of Thought]

The glass jaw analogy seems apt to me. This guy has never had to take a punch in his life, and doesn't know what to do when he gets one.

He's floundering, and his people know it. And the surest evidence of it here is that the trolls so seldom come out to sing for us. Argumentation is no fun at all when you know you're losing.

[Jane]

I think he gets pissed - in a "how dare you" sort of way. It's worked for him for the entire campaign. He plays his racist card and it all goes away.

Sarah is a lot more feminine and likable than Hillary. And I think that has really upended him.

[centralcal]

I am so far behind on this thread and the others - returned from vacation to find I am buried in tax returns (corporate extensions).

That said, I have been surprisingly impressed with Greta's two days (so far) in Alaska, talking to people who know and love Sarah.

Obama not only needs to be worried, I think he's become like tarnished silver.