VP debate expectations

In the VP debate previews (example, they talk about ways the VP candidates can screw up. For Joseph Biden, they talk about him making trivial gaffes. He might say something that offends some people. He might ramble on, and be a little smug. On the other hand, what they talk about Sarah Palin is that she won't answer with specifics, and that she needs to talk about how she's Jane Six Pack rather than get bogged down in complex political issues.

The way they talk about the two candidates implies that these are roughly equivalent in significance. Biden's pitfall? He often expresses himself poorly, so he needs to exercise some discipline in his answers. Palin's pitfall? She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about, so she's has to throw up a smoke screen of folksy crap in order to escape with any dignity. How are those at all on the same level?

Sarah Palin is just like someone you know

The thing I find fascinating is that Sarah Palin was originally popular because people could relate to her as someone they knew from their everyday lives: the bubbly, over-achiever hockey mom who really gets involved in the community. Why she's fallen, hard, is that people realized she was in fact another person they knew from their everyday lives: that crazy mom who turns even the PTA into an insane obsessive power-play and forms weird hostile rivalries she executes through byzantine yet childish plots, seasoned with a dash of Fear of Anything Different.

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The experience double standard

With Barack Obama, a lack of high-level political experience is a drawback. With Sarah Palin, it's a deal-breaker*. Why the double standard? Simple. The voters chose Obama. That doesn't necessarily reflect well on their judgment, but it is nonetheless their choice. Sarah Palin was chosen by no voters. Her selection also reflects less than ideal judgment, but in this case, it's John McCain's. You could make the argument that her potential election as Vice President counts as the voters choosing her, but it's at best an indirect choice. If the voters want to chose poorly with Obama, that's their right. However, they shouldn't be expected or even asked to endorse John McCain's poor choice.

* One of many.

Can't stop the talk

It's only 40 days until the election. They haven't had a single debate yet. They can't postpone. There just isn't time.

All 2008 presidential candidates are lacking

John McCain 2008 is not McCain 2000, and even McCain 2000 wasn't someone I'd vote for. He's the most likely to start a war, has been kissing up to the religious right, and, most fatally, does not appear to understand economics.

It doesn't matter how many times Barack Obama says the word "change." His policies are the same tired clichéed Democratic policies. His ability to deliver a speech is overrated, and the importance of such a skill vastly over-estimated. The man hasn't done anything.

I can't even make a protest vote this year. I might feel differently if Ron Paul was still running, but he's not. The alternative candidates in the 2008 election make me think maybe a 2-party system isn't as completely awful as I thought.

Bob Barr of the Libertarian? He found his "libertarian principles" at a convenient time, and his biggest issue is gun rights, which on a tolerant day I'm ambivalent about.

Then there's the Green Party. Cynthia McKinney? SRSLY? The woman who says George W. Bush knew about September 11th in advance? I guess the Green Party is happy with its place as a joke on the sidelines of American politics.

Constitution Party? Haha. I'd rather vote for McPalin than that reactionary fundamentalist they nominated. I don't know what Ron Paul was thinking when he endorsed him.

Ralph Nader? Flawed as he is, I guess he's all I have left.

Bush redux

The religious right's embrace of Sarah Palin demonstrates they have learned nothing from the lesson of George W. Bush. With Bush, they chose rapture over reason, ignoring obvious flaws because he shared their "values." Never mind that his abilities and record were weak at best. Now, while many of them have become disenchanted with Bush, they haven't figured out that the problem wasn't with Bush, but with them. You can't second-guess a result without second-guessing the process. Well, you can, but that would be stupid.

Sarah Palin's reproductive judgment

The big story with Sarah Palin's son Trig is how she had him even after she knew he would have Down's Syndrome. My question is different. How responsible is it for a woman who already has 4 children to decide to have another child at the age of 43, knowing the risks of things like Down's Syndrome? And, if it was an accidental pregnancy, how does a 43-year old woman with 4 children let such an accident happen? I know that no birth control is 100%, but do you really see Sarah Palin using contraception anyway? There's a 1% chance that it was pure accident, and a 99% chance that it was just plain bad judgment.

Presidential Portmanteaux

McCalin and Joe-Bama.

Sarah Palin, Guns Blazin'

Do you suppose that John McCain considered Bristol Palin's pregnancy to be a good thing? He knew it would invite controversy, which would then give Sarah Palin a justified platform to rant and rave and bash and boom. It would also cause Republicans to rally around her, just like they rallied around George W. Bush to defend his numerous flaws. Wheels within wheels.

Zell Miller (2004) ==Joe Lieberman (2008)

I don't see Lieberman challenging anyone to a duel, though.

The Democratic Convention is not news

Does anything meaningful happen? Isn't the conclusion pre-determined? So why is anyone paying any attention? Michelle Obama said nothing that we hadn't heard before. Hillary Clinton's speech was completely predictable as well. News implies novelty. It implies that there is new information to be had. The Democratic Convention is nothing but the same old thing recycled. It's a waste of attention.

A lovely shot of Hillary Clinton

Taken from this article.

I've always wondered if the media uses pictures like that to show people who's really in control. There are too many unfortunate photographs that appear in the media for it to be anything but intentional. On the other hand, the NY Times doesn't seem likely to take shots at Hillary Clinton, given she's one of New York's senators, and they endorsed her in the primary...

The Economist on Senator Jim Webb

"He looks like an angry potato."

p.46, June 21, 2008 issue.

Freedom is just too much work

A bill to authorize the previously-illegal NSA wiretapping program is stalled in Congress, meaning the government will have to revert to the previous, i.e., legal, way of doing things:

A return to the old rules, they said, would mean that government lawyers, analysts and linguists would once again have to prepare individual warrants, potentially thousands of them, for surveillance of terrorism targets overseas.

Telecommunications companies would also have to spend considerable time shutting down existing wiretaps, and then start them up again if ordered under new warrants, officials said. In some instances, the broad orders given to the companies starting last August cover tens of thousands of overseas phone numbers and e-mail addresses at one time, people with knowledge of the orders said.

My goodness! Are they saying it would take time, effort, and possibly even paperwork!?!? We might as well surrender now.

McCain Compromises on Principles, Episode 354

John McCain claims that the post-September 11th warrantless wiretapping was legal. He used to be someone you could admire, but now he's methodically disposing of everything that made him admirable.

Barack Obama's VP

The Economist describes the numerous ways in which an Obama/Clinton "dream team" is less than meets the eye. As a loyal reader, I agree with everything. Furthermore, in the person of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius is a much more appealing VP candidate with many of Clinton's advantages and few of her disadvantages. I thought Bill Richardson before, but after seeing Clinton (somehow) sustain her appeal for so long, perhaps Obama would be better off with someone more like her. I don't see any Intrade contracts for her, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

The Next Hillary Clinton, again

The NY Times asks the same question that I asked 3 months ago: if Hillary Clinton isn't going to be the first female president, who will? They named basically the same names that I did. One thing that I noted was this:

That woman will come from the South, or west of the Mississippi. She will be a Democrat who has won in a red state, or a Republican who has emerged from the private sector to run for governor. She will have executive experience, and have served in a job like attorney general, where she will have proven herself to be "a fighter" (a caring one, of course).

I think perhaps the NY Times and I both suffered from a lack of imagination. Who would have guessed 6 years ago that the first black president would be someone like Barack Obama? You know, a first-term US Senator with a white mother who grew up overseas and in Hawaii... I would have guessed someone like Harold Ford: the scion of a political family from the South with a dozen years in the House, as well as having having a bit more of a national profile over that time. So I figure we could easily be wrong here, too.

Arlen Specter is a waste of space

A United State Senator getting involved in a scandal in football about some coach breaking a rule that shouldn't exist in the first place*? Yeah, because it's not like we have any real problems to solve that he might be pertinent to. Maybe it's for the best considering how utterly useless he was as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where he blew a lot of hot air about illegal wiretapping. If he got involved in any real issues, what little progress we might expect the Senator to make would get reversed.

* You can use a video camera on the field, and you can look at signals, and you can write things down, but you can't record signals? The genius who thought of that is probably the same guy who thought up DRM.

Florida and Michigan

Even though Obama will win the Democratic nomination, he won't win by much. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton's attempt to count delegates from Florida and Michigan is clearly a non-starter. I'm guessing that's just a strategy.

What would be fairest would be to run the primaries in Florida and Michigan again, on the grounds that the race is too close to give a clear mandate, so every state's Democrats should have their say, while also recognizing that the primaries that already happened were invalidated for a good reason. I don't know how hard it is to have a snap primary, though, logistically speaking.

It would be unfortunate to have the nominee with such a scant majority of the support of Democratic voters, but that is not at all something one can blame Hillary Clinton. She has many faults and weaknesses as a candidate, but the West Virginia results clearly show that a significant number of voters want her.

A destructive primary battle?

I don't think the extended primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is destructive. Yeah, maybe it would be nice to have a candidate now, but is it really that bad? Maybe it's because I'm not particularly impressed or inspired by either one of them, but this campaign isn't making me think any less of them. We've seen that Obama can be nasty; that's no surprise because he's human.

Look at how it's benefited them: McCain is hardly in the news. Clinton and Obama have developed organizations in states they would have ignored until later, maybe forever. That's going to make the Democrats more competitive in November, no matter who the candidate is. And they're still getting lots of money, which means they're getting lots of donors whom the eventual nominee will be able to tap for the election. I just don't see it as being that much of a negative for them.

In fact, this is how the system is supposed to work; most people seem to have forgotten that. Do we really want most states' primaries to be exercises in rubber-stamping an already-established nomination? The Democratic establishment needs to stop attacking Hillary because that accepts the premise that an early nominee is better.

Instead, they need to turn this around and proclaim that the system is working. The candidates have been forced to develop sooner, so they're better for it. All the people are getting a say, not just the ones in New Hampshire or Iowa.

They ought to go out and say that this extended contest is the result of having two great candidates, and that the relatively easy contest on the Republican side reflects the paucity of qualified candidates. I don't believe either one Clinton or Obama is a great candidate, but that's what the Democrats should say.

Weasel words from Obama

Re: Jeremiah Wright:

"His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church," Mr. Obama said, his voice welling with anger. "They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs."

Divisive, destructive, and the succeeding clause all refer to the effects of what he said, not its contents. I don't think he shares Wright's beliefs, but he needs to say that they are wrong and/or stupid. He wants to sound like he's condemning them, but if you read closely, you'll realize he's not.

Later:

"I'm outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Mr. Obama said. He added: "I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am."

The strongest thing he says is that he's appalled, but that's a reaction, not a judgment.

And then:

"Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this," Mr. Obama said Tuesday. "I don't think that he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don't think he showed much concern for what we're trying to do in this campaign and what we're trying to do for the American people."

In other words, whether he's wrong doesn't matter; the problem is that unwilling to shut up for the greater good. That's hardly inspiring.