Archive: August, 2008
I'm shocked, my money was on John Cleese.
Seriously, my first reaction about McCain's pick is that...it's a great pick. What little I know about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is that she is a highly principled conservative, a fighter of corruption and government waste, including killing the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. She's the mother of five who's oldest son is shipping off to Iraq -- she has a quite a story to tell. I think the debate between her and Joe Biden will be an elevating moment for American democracy.
I don't know a lot about a reporter for the Associated Press named Charles Babington who also spent a lot of time at the Washington Post -- it seems like he's written things over the years that have annoyed the left and and annoyed the right, which means either he's a "balanced" journalist or maybe a lot of his articles are just bad. I'm suspecting the latter after reading his analysis of Obama's speech tonight, a speech he conceivably may not have even watched as he filed his analysis just about 26 minutes after it ended.
One interesting thing about Babington is he doesn't seem to care about an informed electorate. This is what he said earlier this year on PBS with Gwen Ifill:
Watch this clip with a hat tip to Josh Marshall, who has a pretty good analysis up, noting correctly that "the aim of this speech was not eloquence but strength."
“John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow Osama bin Laden to the Gates of Hell – but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.”
That was classic Karl Rove -- go right after the guy's supposed strength. Obama seemed most animated, in fact, when he challenged McCain on national security. What was the worst moment of the speech? Hard to say -- seemed like he did all the things he needed to do....spelled out his policies better than before, took the fight to the GOP without being nasty about it, didn't shy away from the "celebrity" or "patriotism" issues but tackled them head on.
A couple of days ago I noted that aside from the human impact on the Gulf Coast that we all fear, Hurricane Gustav might have a political impact as well by arriving at the start of the GOP convention in St. Paul. That said, I didn't expect this potential development:
Republican officials said yesterday that they are considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a full-force hurricane early next week.
Midway through the Dems' convention, Obama gets a 5-point bump in Gallup's daily tracking poll. Maybe the surge is working after all -- you wouldn't sense that if you watch a lot of cable TV.
Will Obama's decision to give his acceptance speech before 75,000 at Denver's Invesco Field -- a decision made before Democrats realized that the GOP's main slam on their candidate would be that he has a Messiah complex -- give the Republicans a boatload of new ammunition to blast the Illinois senator as a "worldwide celebrity."
Or will millions of voters capture the excitement of an electrifying moment?
Who would have ever guessed that the best speech of the Democratic convention so far would come from...John Kerry? I guess freedom really is another word for nothing less to lose, but imagine if he'd had the guts to deliver this speech in 2004. Given the way that the Democrats seem to do things, I predict the best speech in 2012 will be delivered by a second-term senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the political water!
Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.
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