There They Go Again

Well, I didn't think much of Palin's speech -- I switched over to "Project Runway" after a half hour -- but then I'm hardly her target audience. What I did hear was yet another Republican struggling with the rudiments of pronuciation ("pundints" and "childern") and showing a blase disregard for the facts. The "pundints" mostly agree that she made a great impression, although it does seem as as if they have some responsibility to point out at the howlers in her speech. For example, it is not even remotely the case -- as she implied here -- that the petroleum reserves in Alaska's North Slope offset the combined output of Iran and Venezuela. But that's the MSM for you: Focus on sweeping Lincolnian rhetoric like "Take it from a gal who knows" and ignore the nonsense that comes after...

It's not like McCain campaign manager Rick Davis hasn't spelled it out: "This election is not about issues...This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." In other words, we're going to our level best to make people ignore the last eight years of perfidy and incompetence to focus on what is really important. Which is: Who do you want running the country? An uppity black and an old bull Democrat, or a military hero and the beauty queen next door? Well, Barack Obama is an exceptionally able politician, so won't be like running against Michael Dukakis or John Kerry. But the strains of racism run deep in this country...

The Daily Show has the forgotten story of Hurricane Gustav: