Christopher Hitchens: Don't patronize Palin

This is getting ridiculous Rod....have you thought of anything else since Palin got the nod?

I can't read Hitchens because this guy is just such a Boomer. Okay, a Soixant-Huitard. These guys are irrelevant. They don't even know what century it is.

Wait..let me see...ah, yes, the opening paragraph references a movie made in..wait for it...1964. And Gore Vidal!

Sigh.

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http://dailysource.org/palin

It has in-depth research, audio clips, videos, excerpts, and links to hundreds of articles, including many from newspapers and TV stations in Alaska. It has rare footage, including her telling the ‘08 convention of the Alaska Independence Party, whose aim is to give Alaska a vote on seceding from the U.S., to “keep up the good work.” The level of research is unparalled. The site’s editors and volunteers include an Emmy-award winning CNN reporter, the former operating editor of the Monitor’s web site, the former head of NPRs News Blog and the Executive Director of the Online News Association -

http://dailysource.org/about/team

Please repost email it to anyone who might want to know more.

I agree with you that Sen. Obama's team gets it, but they are still playing catch up. They don't really know how to go at Gov. Palin, and are probably as unsure of her record and views as a lot of us.

On the other hand, they did make a mistake with the abortion ad. Everyone's going to know Gov. Palin's views on that issue eventually. They should have concentrated on everything but the cultural issues, which might well be where the McCain campaign wants them to go.

Finally, no personal attacks. I know liberals want Sen. Obama to fight for this election, but I don't see such attacks helping him. Demonizing McCain and Palin is not going to work, unless the press finds something to embarrass them. But the Obama campaign should stay out of it.

I honestly don't have a horse in this race, but this whole thing has wandered into the range of being hilarious. At first I really did think that the Repubs were manufacturing outrage, but Hitchens is right - these people are going to lose Obama the election! Heck, I was just over at Slate where one of their liberal female bloggers referred to Bristol Palin as a sl-t! Heck, Palin doesn't even believe many of the things these people think she does (abstinence only sex ed? Nope, not true). And this whole "troopergate" thing is hilarious - the man in question tasered his kid, drank in his patrol car and made death threats! The only way that doesn't pay Palin's way is if they can find evidence that she tried to protect him. Then there's the whole "she didn't write her speech" so it doesn't tell us anything about her . . . except that she made fun of her political opponents in the speech which tells us that she's really mean. These people have really come unhinged. They will lose Obama the election. I think they kind of know that, but they just can't help themselves. I'm afraid Hitchens may be talking to walls here. The level of derangement going on is just too much for reason and self-control.

David J. White wrote:

[i]Of course, a big problem is the media's approach to this -- the idea that every "controvery" has "two sides" and that "both sides" must be presented "even-handedly". A friend of said that that media's attempt to be "even-handed" about evolution vs. creationism or intelligent design made him think that if someone came out claiming loudly that the earth was flat and the round earth was just a "theory", the usual media outlets would give him a hearing on an equal footing with another person defending the "theory" that the earth was round, and the headline would be something like, "Shape of the Earth: Opinions Differ."[/i]

David, I strongly agree that they way the media tends to deal with logically inconsistent claims is highly problematic. They tend to treat logically inconsistent claims as equally warranted. For example, the claim that humans descended from bacteria is not equally warranted to the claim that humans did not descend from bacteria. And some members of the media treat the claims as equally warranted. This is problematic. Because I think it makes it harder for some voters to realize what candidates would be best to vote for and which policies would be best to support. It makes it hard for people to realize that some claims are more warranted than others. And when one recognizes that some claims are more warranted than others, it often helps one realize what one should do. For example, if we know that the earth is not flat, then we shouldn't teach in the public schools that the earth might be flat.

Of course, there are instances when two logically inconsistent claims are equally plausible. For example, I have a quarter in my hand. The forecast "If I flip the quarter, it will come up head" is equally plausible to the forecast "If I flip the quarter, it will come up tails." But often some claims are more warranted than others.

Rod,

You are way too generous in saying the Obama Campaign "gets it." This operation is Dukakis Redux. Total ineptitude.

They are tacking desperately back and forth searching for some kind of consistent message. Whereas Clinton in 1992 focused laser-like on "The Economy, Stupid", the Obama team wants to talk one day about the economy, but the next day about his support for abortion. And the next day it's the laughable "McSame" theme, followed by bizarre talk of prosecuting Bush Administration officials for "crimes."

On Palin, they have no clue at all. First they thought she could be quickly destroyed, a la Quayle. Thus Obama dismissed her as the "Mayor of Wa-silly." Her convention speech made that strategy blow up in Obama's face. As of this past weekend, senior Obama strategists told the NY Times and other outlets that they intended to ignore Palin and just focus on McCain and the economy. But by Monday the avalanche of pro-McCain/Palin polling data caused them to shift back into attack mode, with both Obama and Biden personally talking at every stop about Palin.

All this is catnip for the idiot Left, which is overrepresented online and thus in the minds of the Obama strategists. But McCain is rising steadily in the polls, not only in horserace, but more importantly in the internals. And so is Palin.

And tonight Obama not-so-subtly referred to Sarah Palin as a "pig." So much for post-partisanship, and so much for Obama's presidential demeanor.

I can't recall ever seeing the wheels fly off a national campaign in such a short period of time. Obama and his people have never faced a contested general election contest, and it shows. They don't "get" anything. They are a handful of news cycles away from seeing an election that should have been easily won become almost irretrievably lost.

me
And this whole "troopergate" thing is hilarious - the man in question tasered his kid, drank in his patrol car and made death threats!

No, the man in question refused to fire 'that man', who had received a disciplinary hearing and been punished appropriately. (Incidentally, the supposed 'death threats' only showed up after all this was over.) That second man is still, quite correctly, working for the police, because none of his behavior reached a firing offense. He was disciplined and that was that. Nothing else happened to him.

The actual victim of Palin's behavior was a completely innocent person who was asked, illegitimately, to fire that person, and when he refused to do so, was fired himself.

Victor Davis Hansen has a good take on this, IMO:

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

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 seems to mean with his dual animate male/female references and why he probably evoked two metaphors: most would think that Obama is talking about both on the ticket and his anger how each has expropriated his change motif.

So in that sense he appears both to insult the 72-year old McCain as the "old fish" that is still going to "stink", and to refer 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" don't seem to be accidents and that's why the cooing crowd got the old fish=McCain, lipsticked pig=Palin immediately.

I'll leave it to others to deconstruct the historical use of pig as a sexist term in the recent climate of generic attacks on Sarah Palin.

P.S. The VP nominee was just announced and already Biden has called her "good looking" and now “a step back for women”; most know what he intended, but like most Bidenisms they come out wrongly and confirm a popular perception that he suffers from logorhhea and that there is a different standard of reference applied to Palin due to her sex.

Someone in the campaign has got to manage the ex tempore carelessness.

- - -

This is lower than Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson reference re: Obama's showing in North (?) Carolina. Obama has "Who, me?" written all over his face.

Pa-thet-ic.

It's hilarious watching the lunatic left complaining about Palin being an unqualified & ridiculous choice for VP when their presidential candidate is the most unqualified candidate in history. If she were really so unqualified, they would be celebrating at an easy win. The sad truth is if Obama were white, no one would be taking him seriously. I keep hearing the left complain that he may not be elected due to racism. I have spoken to many people who won't be voting for Obama, but it has nothing to do with race. I do however hear most of his supporters draw a blank when I ask them why they are voting for him, only to finally admit it is because he is black. Racism works both way. Just look at the youtube videos of his supporters admit they are voting for him because of his color.