The Morning After
THE CORNER
By Shannen Coffin
My sense is that what most Americans will remember about Sarah Palin last night was her poise. She's been put through the spin cycle for a week, her family has been dragged through the mud, and she came out last night with spunk, if not fire. This was just a speech, but oh, what a speech. It was important that she present herself well last night, and there is little question she did. The leftie talking points about the unremarkable fact that she had speechwriter (and a good one -- well done, Scully) is evidence that they are concerned about that poise. Can't attack the presentation? Then belittle the presenter. But given that the entirety of Obama's persona, apart from the uplifted chin, is his speechifying, I have a hard time seeing how this line of attack helps them. Does anyone really think that Obama writes all of his speeches? If they spend ten minutes watching him speak off the cuff, they would be disabused of that notion. He may have met his match in the speaking department, but Palin's style is so much more everyday American and thus likely to connect with people who don't want to be inspired but simply reassured that their government will be in good hands. My favorite thing about her was the voice, though. She has the whole Edie McClurg vibe going. I'd link to my favorite Edie McClurg scene ever, the Steve Martin rental car counter scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but this is a family show.
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Prediction
By John J. Miller
Sarah Palin will be the GOP presidential nominee in 2012 or 2016. From the start, I've been cautiously optimistic about Palin -- I'm hopeful that she'll be able to prove herself worthy of the role she's been handed. Last night, of course, suggested that she's indeed ready for prime time. We've still got two months to go, and she has yet to get popped with a foreign policy question that asks her to name Tanzania's deputy assistant prime minister. Gerald Ford arguably lost his re-election in 1976 because he mistakenly said that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Palin could get mixed up over something like whether al Qaeda is Sunni or Shia. (The Democratic chairman of the House committee on intelligence doesn't know.) A little hiccup can cost a lot. It's entirely possible that most Americans will conclude that they like Palin but don't see her as commander in chief. But if conservatives remain enthused about her two months from now, no matter what the result on November 4, she'll be the heir apparent in a party that likes to pick the person who is perceived as being next in line. Right now, she's in that position and it's hers to lose.
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McCain and the Particulars
By Yuval Levin
John McCain has a way of rising to occasions like tonight's speech. He's no great orator, and there's no way he will be able to match Palin's skills, but he can move a crowd with quiet force. He can strike at the weakness of Obama's claim to the mantle of reformer and change agent with the example of his own career, though he probably can't (and shouldn't) employ biting humor in quite the way Giuliani and Palin did last night. It would be very nice, though, if he also mentioned the fact that he is running on some particular policy proposals and ideas--that reform actually means something specific, that he has a very good and developed health care proposal, for instance, which you certainly wouldn't guess from this convention so far, or that he wants to offer tax relief to middle class parents (it wouldn't hurt to expand that proposal a bit here too, it's not too late). The convention has given McCain an extremely good launching pad to make some particular substantive appeals in his speech. They shouldn't dominate the speech, of course, but they really ought to be part of it.
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Palin-Jindal 2012
By Peter Kirsanow
Possibly the most depressed liberal in the country today (other than Obama) is Hillary Clinton. She has been dogged, patient. She has spent years preparing to win the presidency. She's weathered public humiliation. She was planning to be the frontrunner for 2012. But last night she saw the future and she's not in it.
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Bush Derangement Syndrome in Action
By Shannen Coffin
While Sarah Palin was making her big stage debut yesterday, Joe Biden was reminding us that an Obama-Biden ticket means 'four more years' of Bush Derangement Syndrome. From the Guardian: Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.But his statements represent the Democrats' strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years. 'If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued,' Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.'[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution,' he added, 'out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president -- no one is above the law.'Obama sounded a similar note in April, vowing that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to initiate a prompt review of Bush-era actions to distinguish between possible 'genuine crimes' and 'really bad policies'.'[I]f crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,' Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. 'You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.'Congressional Democrats have issued a flurry of subpoenas this year to senior Bush administration aides as part of a broad inquiry into the authorisation of torturous interrogation tactics used at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Three veterans of the Bush White House have been held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to respond to subpoenas: former counsel Harriet Miers, former political adviser Karl Rove, and current chief of staff Josh Bolten. The contempt battle is currently before a federal court. |
