Comments will start below the cut:
10:06–I wonder if anyone is going to mount a campaign declaring that a war hero really isn’t a war hero. Nah. Who’d do something like that? Anyway, I think I’ll keep a running tally of how many times he mentions the word “Vietnam.”
10:09–Anybody see the website promoting the ticket of Saul Tigh and Laura Roslin? There’s a whole website. I think I’ll get some of the buttons. It’s really amazing how much Tigh and Roslin look like McCain and Palin.
10:14–I think Bill Murray’s guys from “Stripes” are entering. I hear them.
10:15–He’s against a green screen. I can’t wait to see stuff get animated behind him.
10:16-I could swear I just saw someone holding up banner that are anti-McCain. How’d he get in there? Yeah! There it is. “McCain votes against Vets.” They’ve shown that guy three times so far; more than Palin.
10:18–Funny he doesn’t mention George HW Bush by name. And he didn’t mention George W. at all.
10:20–His mother looks amazing for her age. 96 years. Kind of undercuts the notion that McCain, at 72, is at death’s door.
10:21–He takes the high road with Obama. He can afford to considering the abundance of cheap shots his VP took the night before. A little late.
10:22–“We’re going to win this election! Because we’re giving money to the companies building the voting booths!”
10:23–They’re hauling out “pro-choice” protesters.
10:24–He’s trying to keep his temper. I’m not altogether sure the people shouting “USA” are GOP.
10:26–Does being investigated for corruption count as tackling corruption?
10:26-She’s worked with her hands and nose? Oh…with her hands and knows–… Got it.
10:27–She’s never been to Washington? Weird.
10:28–So the great McCain vision is to co-opt Obama’s campaign catchphrase of “change”? That’s forward thinking.
10:29–He’s not wearing a flag pin. I wonder if right wing pundits are going to harrangue him over that.
10:30–I think they’ve managed to throw out everyone who was protesting him.
10:31–Okay…he DOES know we haven’t won in Iraq, right? Plus the Taliban is resurging and bin Laden is still free.
10:33–Where is it written that Presidents and presidential aspirants always have to start pulling out the names of various random citizens to show they have touch with the little people?
10:35–“we have let Washington change us.” Yes. So says the one-time Centrist who has moved further right and brought on a further right VP candidate so he can get elected.
10:36-But the reason your party has strayed so far from basics is because of the policies and activities of George W. Bush, with whom you voted 90% of the time. I don’t think you can be both part of the problem AND the solution.
10:37–Now he’s hauling out the activist judges saw.
10:38–You know what? The history of Republican tropes against Democrats is kind of like synagogue, where the same thing is said over and over again and the worshippers respond exactly the same way. You can cut and paste anti-Democrat rants from 20, 30 years ago into today without a hitch.
10:41–Okay. Sounds good, finding more jobs that won’t go away. how?
10:42–So…the government is going to make up the difference in job wages while you’re training for a new job? But…if Obama put that forward, wouldn’t that be criticized by the GOP?
10:43–“GENERAL Obama?”
10:44–I like the shot of the guy yawning in the audience. Kind of sums up what I’m seeing: A flat and not especially exciting delivery of an uninspiring speech thus far.
10:46–I love how mentioning drilling brings Sarah Palin to her feet. How a governor of a naturally glorious state like Alaska can be anti-environment in her policies bewilders me.
10:48–Playing the terrorism card. Right out of the W playbook, although Bush remains unmentioned.
10:49–“But I’m not afraid of them. I just want to make YOU afraid of them.”
10:50–There’s one. But that’s not much.
10:51–Except there has been nothing in any of his various speeches or comments leading up to this that indicate he’s anything other than a hawk rather than someone interested in peace. Meanwhile Obama, who talks of negotiation and peace, is pilloried as being soft on security and on our enemies.
10:52–But don’t the Republicans bear a sizable measure of responsibility for Washington being the way it is?
10:54–Yeah, and Bush was a uniter, not a divider. We’ve already heard a GOP presidential candidate talking about working with the Democrats. Haven’t seen it happening.
10:55–Two mentions of Vietnam thus far.
10:56–It’s a compelling story; I just wish he had some different inflections in how he told it. He makes everything sound exactly the same. I feel as if he could be talking about being tortured or giving a brownie recipe, each is going to be given equal emphasis with no variation.
11::00-“I wasn’t my own man; I was my country’s.” Took 50 minutes, but he finally got to the sound bite.
11:02–“nothing brings greater happiness than to serve a cause greater than yourself.” Nice line.
11:04–Ðámņ. I was so hoping he’d say “Never give up, never surrender.”
Same dámņëd thing as Obama. He started to get on a roll and then, boom, that was it.
As a speechmaker he still can’t touch Obama. But speeches have never been his strength. He does far better with town hall formats or being folksy during discussions, which Obama still hasn’t got the hang of. The next few months should be…interesting.
And Bush was never mentioned.
• 
So you’re complaining (again) that Obama dare to defend himself against attacks? FYI, the only place I’ve read that such an e-mail was sent out was from you, on this site. I’ve never read about it in the media, so what commentary have they provided that I’ve obviously missed?
Perhaps you should be more worried about the McCain camp, and the fact that McCain seems more interested in hiding Palin away from the world and the attacks against her rather than let her prove that she is in fact ready to be VP.
Wow, they finally found an Alaskan willing to give an opinion on Palin that wasn’t fawning…
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp
I have a sick feeling that we’ll be hearing about the resulting harassment against the woman who wrote that letter.
It’s good to see that snopes checked that letter out. There is a ton of interesting stuff in it, but I didn’t want to quote it until it was confirmed.
I just wanted to comment on the protesters during McCain’s speech.
There are two reasons why more radical left or right wing groups would do something provocative that could antagonize even members of their own wider camp — like disrupting McCain’s speech.
1) If they feel that the subject they want to promote is not getting enough attention by the mainstream/consensus, they might reason that by doing something provocative they might draw attention to the issue they want to promote, even if people will say that they acted behaved badly. After all, since they are a fringe group do not participate in elections anyway, they can risk public criticism even inside their own side of the spectrum to promte their issue.
A famous example of this way of thinking was the freedom riders. At the time people probably felt that they were just causing problems and provocations, but it was worth the risk to draw attention to segregation.
2) The 2nd reason is similar to the first. Fringe groups don’t have to worry about the opinions of the mainsteam, since they are not popular anyway. But they have there own fringe audiences and activists and donors. By doing something provocative that get they energize their own tiny public and show the donors that they are doing something, that they are making waves, that they matter. You watching TV might not have liked what you saw, but I’m sure in their E-mail nesletters these guys were hailed as heroes.
That said, just being provocative, feeling like great heroes in your own little sawmp while pìššìņg øff mainstream audiences who you are trying to influene is not a cause in itself. Being provocative or being active is not enough — you also have to be smart, have a tactical understanding, create the right story. If you don’t, then you are not doing anything by jërkìņg øff.
When I look at he success of the civil right movement in the 50’s and early 60’s, I think they were successful not only because they were daring and provocative and couragous, but also because the image they prijected was one that could reach the mainstram white public and create the change. Yes, they were provocative. But they also wore nice suits and spoke nicely about non violence and brotherhood. Later when they started going more in the direction of black power and anger (which is understandable), they lost much of their influence even if they were still and even more popular inside their own communities.
I spend about two years, maybe less, maybe more, trying to explain this to people in my country’s extreme and very extreme left. But the more moderates were too afraid to be provocative, and the more radical were too happy to be provocative but not happy enough to actually thing about having to engage people outside their e-mail lists.
In this specific case the provocation was not worth it for the sake of the cause. Opposition to the war is pretty mainstream, and it doesn’t serve a purpose to pìšš øff mainstream opponents of McCain such as many of you, just to get into the public an issue that already is very public, other than for the sake of promoting their own organization’s visibility.
General Obama?
It sounds like the name of the top henchman in a fantasy movie or book.
I’m glad to see Snopes confirming the letter as well. I posted a link to it over on the Palin thread earlier, so I’m glad that I didn’t get taken for a ride.
Any comments on the letter itself?
The Kilkenny letter has several things that I find extremely interesting. I very much want the media to follow up on these things to find out if they’re one person’s perspective or serious problems.
1) The pattern of firings. The business with the trooper seems to be the latest abuse of power in a long history of unfair firings. I want to hear more about the librarian, the Police Chief, and the city administrators that she fired.
2) The Alaskan budget. Do governors not write the state budgets? This makes it sound like the legislature wrote the budget with no input from her, then she did a ton of line-items vetos. I’d like to hear more about how the Alaskan budget is supposed to be written, especially about whether she’s supposed to give more guidelines than she did.
3) Some of the things mentioned in the letter seem unprovable. Kilkenny’s story about Palin being the Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission talks a lot about how much Palin disliked the job. The letter says that the dissatisfaction was the real reason she left, taking some people out on corruption charges was just a convenient way to do it. That’s a huge charge, but it seems like it would be hard to verify.
I still don’t quite take this letter as the gospel, after all, it’s just one person’s opinion. However, I think this is a road map for the press. They should look into everything in the letter, verifying or debunking as much as they can.
We have and continue to recognize Vietman POW’s that have gone through such terrible experience. And McCain doesn’t pretend he was the only one who was captured and tortured… if you’d have actually watched the speech you’d have known this. McCain was very humble when he was relating his story… but lets be realistic, he endured imprisonment and torture for 5-1/2 years. Experiencing and surviving such a terrible ordeal goes towards the man’s character and for some reason his detractors want to dismiss this and claim he’s exploiting his own experiences. He’s not. And no one is saying this alone qualifies him for president (well, except the usual suspects in the Left Wing are claiming this)– it’s just one piece of the overall puzzle. That’s it. Shame on you for casting such unfair accusations against McCain.
There was a time when I felt sorry for McCain having been tortured.
Not any more. You would think that after being tortured, McCain would be AGAINST torture, but he isn’t:
http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/archives/006086.html
All he does is talk a good game.
In my opinion, anybody who is tortured and then afterwards casts a vote to allow other people to be tortured–despite the fact that he knows exactly how horrible it is–is entirely devoid of morals.
While I don’t feel sorry for McCain any more, I am sorry that he got tortured. I’m sorry that he got tortured because I believe that the torture made him into the man he is today, and I do not like, nor respect, the man he is today. I wish he had turned into a different sort of man.
When I look at he success of the civil right movement in the 50’s and early 60’s, I think they were successful not only because they were daring and provocative and couragous, but also because the image they prijected was one that could reach the mainstram white public and create the change. Yes, they were provocative. But they also wore nice suits and spoke nicely about non violence and brotherhood. Later when they started going more in the direction of black power and anger (which is understandable), they lost much of their influence even if they were still and even more popular inside their own communities.
That’s a good point, Micha.
Very interesting letter!
So, assuming Anne Kilkenny is telling the truth, what can we make of Palin?
– Extremely ruthless and ambitious
– Brave
– No sense of loyalty (can be a good or a bad thing, can be good because she is no party slave)
– Not as socially conservative/activist as some think she is (even though she tried to ban those books)
– Not a fiscal conservative, big spender
– Not much experience
The Daily Show clip others seem to be referring to:
thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card
I thought the community organizer reference was a come back to Plain being described by the Obama campaign right after she was picked as “a former mayor of a town of 9000”. Which is true enough I guess, in the same way that you could accurately describe the head of NASA as “a former high school student”
Anyway, all of these folks are probably way less concerned about this sort of thing than we seem to be. At least I hope so, this is penny ante stuff. They will be facing people who can do a lot more than hurt your feelings.
I thought the community organizer reference was a come back to Plain being described by the Obama campaign right after she was picked as “a former mayor of a town of 9000”. Which is true enough I guess, in the same way that you could accurately describe the head of NASA as “a former high school student”
—————–
Really? So a reference to just the last job she had before her current one is the equal to doing so about things decades in the past in that way? And also, the way they tried to smear what being a community leader actually means?
Sorry… I don’t see it.
Oh, it’s not a *logical* argument, Max. It’s just the argument that they’re making. As long as it sounds good, there are people who won’t think it through.
Didn’t say it was fair or equal. Obviously her jab has hurt feelings more than describing her as a former mayor (Or lieutenant Governor, as Biden did, probably accidentally) did.
I don’t think going after Palin has been much of a success. The Democratic base doesn’t like her but I don’t think they are what Obama needs to focus on in the next 60 days.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe without the negative stuff she would be polling 10 20 points higher than McCain and Obama instead of just 1 point. I kind of don’t think so though.
Obama certainly doesn’t need to focus on Palin, but mainly because she’s not McCain. He’s the main guy, he and his people need to act like it by focusing on the main opponent.
However, I’m not sure that what’s happening with Palin won’t be useful. I think the media is going to take care of looking into her record. There’s enough interesting stuff in there they that won’t need prompting to focus on it. What else do they have to do, talk about McCain and Obama, the two guys they’ve already spent months on? She’s new and exciting, so she’ll get media attention. I think the public will form a mostly negative opinion once they find out more about her record.
A Soviet emigre was pointing out on Balloon Juice that “Country First” was a big Soviet slogan in the 1980s.
Sorry. That amuses me (and the Soviet emigre….)
“No sense of loyalty (can be a good or a bad thing, can be good because she is no party slave)”
What I found most disturbing, Palin has no sense of loyalty to political party or family – but demands unswerving loyalty from her subordinates toward herself. At best that makes her an egomaniac. At worst…
That torture thing? It’s been 35 years. Get over it, McSame.
The RNC in sixty seconds:
http://www.236.com/video/2008/watch_the_rnc_in_a_minute_8773.php
Also from another noted Soviet….Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country……..
It was better in the original Russian
sarcasm off
Jason M. Bryant wrote:
“Dennis, McCain is *definitely* exploiting his time as a P.O.W.”
–Jason, sorry, but I have to disagree with you. I don’t see what he’s said of his own experiences as exploiting. It’s up to him and him alone if he wants to talk about it (and how many times). Who are we to tell him not to? The man lived it. Of course, his political ‘enemies’ have to attack him with something I guess (as well as the kitchen sink it seems sometimes!).
“I don’t think the speech last night was inappropriate, there’s a time for biography and that was it. But John McCain has answered questions about the economy by talking about his time as a P.O.W. That’s a complete dodge.”
— So, John McCain has never addressed questions about the economy? And when questioned about it, he’s always answered back with bringing up he was a POW? Err… I could swear I’ve heard him talk about the economy previously (you may not agree with what he says, but lets not pretend he hasn’t ever talked about it).
“You’re right that the experience is a testament to his character. That’s true enough. But he’s trying to use it as more than that, which belittles the experience.”
— Again, I’ll have to disagree with your perspective on this. If you ask me, people who have this notion that he’s exploiting his POW/torture experience and thus belittling the experience hold this view due to simple partisan politics. I get it, you’re not voting for McCain (correct?) and it’s necessary to demonize him on anything and everything. Heck, I can imagine if McCain never brought up his POW experience and his detractors would then be accusing him of hiding something “sinister.”
You know something? The more I read the attacks from the Democrats on the Republicans and the Republicans on the Democrats, the more I find myself fearing this country is just going to continue to destroy itself from within.
Then I am reminded that the majority of voters do keep swinging back and forth between the two. Who knows, maybe we’ll continue to ride a middle course over the long run, and maybe, just maybe, the country will continue to hold together.
But as things just continue to get more and more polarized, I can’t help but feel the country is just plain doomed, no matter who wins.
The majority of voters swing back and forth between the two??? Where is this documented?
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