The Widening Gyre: In Which the War Hero Makes His Case and PBS Loves It
RNC Day 4:
In the aftermath of Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech last night in St. Paul, as the balloons and confetti rained down from the rafters -- with several hundred more people now arrested outside -- Judy Woodruff lauded McCain's speech and the effect it had on the Republican delegates swarming around her on the convention floor. Her PBS colleagues, for the most part considered part of the "liberal media" that the GOP has spent the last week (and, really, many years) bashing, agreed. Only Mark Shields said he'd seen better speeches from McCain and fixed on the gap between his claim of change and the traditional Republican positions that he espoused in the speech. Even David Brooks, generally towards the right, agreed.
We'll bring you more soon, but what do you think?
I spoke to one Brooklynite last night who thinks the Dems are totally sunk already, that McCain and, particularly, Palin have energized the GOP and that the Republicans are just to much better at politicking than Democrats that they'll maintain control of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She has a point. These self-proclaimed straight-talking, non-politicians are damn good at politics. It reminds me of the old saying that the greatest trick the Devilhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
But a politics writer I talked to today, also in Brooklyn, thinks that there's no real reason for Dems to worry. He thinks the fallacies of this "new" Grand Old Party will not fool enough of the American populace -- and hinted that he knows someone hot on the trail for proof of at least some of the seemingly wild rumors about Sarah Palin.
I don't think the Dems need the wild rumors substantiated. There look to be enough inconsistencies with the issues firmly in the real of politics that should call her seriously into question.
________
Around 200 people -- including some 19 journalists were arrested during protest actions yesterday in St. Paul, according to this article in The Washington Post, bringing the week's total to around 600.
Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, convention, protests.
In the aftermath of Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech last night in St. Paul, as the balloons and confetti rained down from the rafters -- with several hundred more people now arrested outside -- Judy Woodruff lauded McCain's speech and the effect it had on the Republican delegates swarming around her on the convention floor. Her PBS colleagues, for the most part considered part of the "liberal media" that the GOP has spent the last week (and, really, many years) bashing, agreed. Only Mark Shields said he'd seen better speeches from McCain and fixed on the gap between his claim of change and the traditional Republican positions that he espoused in the speech. Even David Brooks, generally towards the right, agreed.
We'll bring you more soon, but what do you think?
I spoke to one Brooklynite last night who thinks the Dems are totally sunk already, that McCain and, particularly, Palin have energized the GOP and that the Republicans are just to much better at politicking than Democrats that they'll maintain control of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She has a point. These self-proclaimed straight-talking, non-politicians are damn good at politics. It reminds me of the old saying that the greatest trick the Devilhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
But a politics writer I talked to today, also in Brooklyn, thinks that there's no real reason for Dems to worry. He thinks the fallacies of this "new" Grand Old Party will not fool enough of the American populace -- and hinted that he knows someone hot on the trail for proof of at least some of the seemingly wild rumors about Sarah Palin.
I don't think the Dems need the wild rumors substantiated. There look to be enough inconsistencies with the issues firmly in the real of politics that should call her seriously into question.
________
Around 200 people -- including some 19 journalists were arrested during protest actions yesterday in St. Paul, according to this article in The Washington Post, bringing the week's total to around 600.
Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, convention, protests.
posted by Jeremy Goren at 10:52 AM
1 Comments:
What? Did the folks at PBS listen to the same speech that I did? On CNN, Jeffrey Toobin said McCain's was the worst speech he'd heard since the Carter administration. His self-written hagiography was downright boring, and a complete monotone - save for the part where he said the problems in education are due to poor teachers, at which point I threw my shoes at the TV. OK, GI Joe...let's stick to issues you know something about. Though McCain innarguably suffered for the American cause in Vietman, I fail to see how that translates into the expertise on foreign policy that he claims to espouse; his speech-writers seem to hope we'll overlook that particular inconsistency.
Palin was at least marginally more charismatic, though most of what she said was bald-faced lies. In particular, I like her consistent (and latently racist) undermining of the work of community organizers. Nice! We all know Cesar Chavez never did anything useful with his time! If the Dem strategists are smart, they'll not even dignify her mud-slinging with a response; rather, they'll let the media bring all her dirty laundry to light - and as there's plenty of it, that shouldn't be too hard - while they focus on actual issues.
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