Half Past Noon

Great piece from Peter Hitchens’ blog on Obama, Palin, and the US media.

Excerpt:

How many of my critics have actually read David Freddoso’s measured, forensic ‘The Case Against Barack Obama’? Or, come to that, how many of them have opened David Mendell’s earlier but still telling critical study ‘Obama – from Promise to Power’? Or how many have read the Chicago Tribune’s interesting and revealing pursuit of the vague and partial stories in Mr Obama’s own interesting and engaging but not wholly candid memoir, ‘Dreams from my Father’? Anyone can do this. I do, admittedly, have the slight advantage of having spent some fascinating days in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois, speaking to individuals (some of whom wished to remain anonymous) who had encountered Mr Obama early in his political career. But I didn’t keep it to myself. The results of this were published in the Mail on Sunday in February and can still be found on the web.

So, for instance, my views have nothing to do with Sarah Palin, and her (deserved) evisceration by Katie Couric. It’s good to see that an inadequate and ill-prepared candidate can still get herself disembowelled by the US media, but shouldn’t people ask themselves if they’ve ever seen Mr Obama subjected to this sort of treatment? Most Americans don’t even known that Barack Obama smokes cigarettes, so how can they be expected to know what his grasp of foreign policy is like? How would he cope with foreign potentates in the hurly burly of real life? See Freddoso again, for some hints.

NOOOOOOOO! Obama is a Sox fan. Shoot. And he’s a “principled” fan, at that. Darn it all.

Compare that admittedly admirable stance to the behavior of Sarah Palin. Both Obama and Palin pander to local sports fans. But there’s something repugnant to this baseball fanatic about the way that Palin does it. Geck. Check it out for yourself (skip to 0:45):

Thank goodness political loyalties are not determined by sports.

Rod Dreher posts the most insanely cool article I’ve read in awhile. He talks about Mad Men, Great Gatsby, Auden, Palin, the financial crises, and it’s all good.

D’s post got me thinking about the Sarah Palin backlash. The only explanation that accounts for all of it is that she is a living rebuke to the abortion-is-necessary crowd. It’s impossible to underestimate the power of all the guilt crawling under the skin of all the career women who got rid of unwanted babies, or indeed among all the men who were complicit in their crimes. She is a living rebuke, and her shortcomings just make it even harder to take.

This also accounts for the silence on anything that might make Obama, the most pro-abortion candidate in history, look bad. Or the fact that Biden’s gaffes don’t have any effect on him, when Palin’s gaffes destroy her credibility instantly. I believe that abortion is the issue this election.

Even though abortion is viewed as a defining issues for the Republican party, it’s amazing how marginalized the anti-abortion crowd is. We’re getting to the point where the only acceptable position is Obama’s “reasonable, middle-ground” one.

In the end the McCain camp’s biggest mistake was choosing someone who is too pro-life. Obama is fooling plenty of conservatives on this issue, but there’s no mistaking where Palin stands.

Dana Milbank of the Drive-By MSM needs a hug.

Sarah Palin poetry. I hope no one has posted this yet, because it is brilliant.

Someone likes to limit her verb-iage. My fav noun-clotting quotes:

“One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again.”

“If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us.”

HT: George Packer

While chatting with Chris, I think I figured out one of the reasons my visceral reaction to last night’s debate tilted in favor of Biden over Palin: I prefer the East Coast. I completely disagreed with 90% of what Biden said (excepting parts of his predictable anti-Bush diatribes), but found Palin very hard to stomach. This isn’t merely a pronunciation bias (although I’m sure it’s that, too). And I suppose that some might say that I was just annoyed at Palin’s utter lack of substance (which is also true). But that’s the point: our two coasts have respective cultural virtues and sins. The East is charming, but snobby; the West is relaxed, but lazy. The East claims the snooty Ivy League; the West’s best universities (U of C at Berk, UW, etc) are overrun by hippies. It’s the difference between Brooks Brothers and Birkenstock, Merlot and microbrews, education and entrepreneurialism. And it’s the difference between Mr. I-Think-I-Have-A-Higher-IQ-Than-You and Ms. I’ll-try-to-find-you-some-and-bring-them-to-you.

Not suggesting a right or wrong here, but it’s always refreshing to clarify reasons for personal preference.

Excuse me while I drink my Vernors.

Another close debate. No gaffes, no incredible zingers.

1. Most of the one-liners that stuck with me belong to Biden, but that doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me. I was paying very close attention to him. I’ve spent so much time the last few weeks fussing over Palin – I and the media both, actually – that I hadn’t developed any substantial opinions of him.

My favorite line? “So you’re going to have to place — replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the ‘Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere.’” Not that it was particularly apt, or fair, but I appreciate insubstantial rhetorical flair like this. I think I actually screamed out loud when he said it.

Most memorable moment? When Biden choked up talking about the accident that killed half his family and critically injured the other half. It was so utterly surprising, coming like that mid-sentence, that I almost couldn’t handle it. FOOM: 97% complete.

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The number one argument for Sarah Palin (in response to this): A month ago our choice was Obama/Biden or McCain/___, and McCain looked like he didn’t have a chance anyway. Now it’s Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin, and either one could win.

Of course Palin isn’t going to disagree with McCain, or have a comprehensive understanding of our foreign policy – she was the governor of Alaska. She still makes voting for McCain much, much easier.

PS: Chris, you are the gold standard of rhetorical arch-nemesis.