"You Don't Know What You're Getting"

I love Wifey. She's not the political junkie that I am who follows every headline on most days.

But she's pretty good at hitting it on the head now and again.

On the O'Reilly show the other night (see below), Dennis Miller opined that Gov. Palin is "deep, deep inside [Obama's] melon, man". He doesn't know how to react--attack? hold back? ignore? fake a Biden heart attack to get Billary onto the ticket?

Wifey and I were watching and so I asked her to speak for all of Womankind. "You're a woman. What is it about the governor that's catching on so well?"

"She's authentic."

"But she's a politician and all politicians embellish. You can't honestly believe all that stuff about Sarah-cuda," said cynical me.

"At least when you look at Palin, you know that the embellishment is an amplification of her true self. When you look at Hillary up there, you have no idea what's being embellished."

I think that says it all.

WSJ v. NYT

This cracks me up.

Here's The Wall Street Journal today quoting from the New York Times about the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro. (She, by the by, is someone I have grown truly to respect.) The NYT, of course, being one of the ones leading the attack against Sarah-cuda.

Notable & Quotable
September 6, 2008; Page A9

From a New York Times editorial on July 3, 1984, on Geraldine Ferraro's nomination for vice president:

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? . . . Or where is it written that mere representatives aren't qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? . . . Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? . . . Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. . . . What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. . . . Why shouldn't a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?

Keep Thinkin', Dems

Redford delivers one of many great lines in Butch Cassidy and the Sunshine Kid: "You just keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at."

The Dems must be going through a little of that now. It will be the polls and, eventually, the votes that will determine the impact of Gov. Palin's nomination and the effect of her speech last night. Between the time she was picked and last night, tho, she, her family, and McC certainly did get hammered.

The Democratic Spinmeisters whom I stayed up late into the night watching didn't know what to do with her. She's something they've never seen, something from out of The Blue.

You guys "just keep thinkin'," tho. It's what you're good at.

Big Sis

My favorite moment of the night last night.

Press Asininity

Some jackass reporter on ABC News this evening said about the pregnancy of Gov. Palin's daughter that "the press should have been given this." Where does one begin?

"Should have been given this." So the McC people "should" have said, "Here's our running mate, the next Vice President of the United States. She has done X, has fought for Y, has accomplished Z, and, by the way, her 17 year old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. Yes, here's the name of the father and his home address so that you can go park your jackass press van outside his house tonight and catch him on his way to school in the morning. If you miss him in the morn, no worries, you can show up at football practice and interview his coaches and teammates." Classy, very classy.

This is yet further evidence that the big time press reporters are as inside-the-Beltway/out-of-touch-with-America as the jackasses sitting on the floors of Congress. This is not about you, Jackass Reporter. We don't care about your ratings. Or you career. Most of us don't think this even is a story. It certainly has nothing to do with the vice-presidency. The privacy of this family is much more important than whether or not you get the story.

"Should have been given this." Get a freakin clue: your right to know ends at our front door. Whether we're running for office or not.

Obama Shows Class

Barry told the press today to back off. Very classy. This from Christina Bellantoni at the Washington Times:

[Obama] issued a strong statement to "back off" reports of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, telling reporters families — and especially children — are off limits in this presidential campaign.
Mr. Obama, campaigning here, also noted that his own mother was 18 when she gave birth to him.
"People's families are off limits," he said. "People's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. "
"I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories," he added. "That shouldn't be a topic in our politics."
He vehemently pushed back against an unnamed McCain aide suggesting his campaign had any ties to the blogs that were spreading rumors before the news broke, saying he was "offended" by that and if any of his staff was involved in spreading the issue, "they'd be fired."
"We don't go after people's families. Our people are not involved in any way," he said

The hope here is that the country can move on from here without, as they say, further comment. I'd much rather hear debate on the future of Social Security and Medicare.

Corrupt Bastards Club

Gov. Palin spoke Friday about having fought the old boys' network. Later I heard reference to the Corrupt Bastards Club and the name sounded so funny that I had to check it out. Turns out that such a thing actually existed.

The CBC was a group of Alaska politicians under investigation for political corruption. Supposedly some of them were in a pub one night when a citizen called them a bunch of corrupt bastards. They proudly adopted the name for themselves and even made hats and T shirts.

I guess they're not laughing now bc. 11 of 14 of them have been convicted. Of those, four have been sentenced and four are awaiting sentence. All of this according to my good friend Wikipedia.

What's so funny is not the club name so much as as the gall required for membership. The audacity. The impudence. These guys--and guys they all were--evidently were so confident they'd get away with it that they had shirts made up.

Well good for them.

Time for a Field Trip

Now that Gov. Palin's the pick, how about a field trip to ANWR?

The Gov. could be the official docent. Even more impressive would be to have union member husband Todd be the guide since he has actually worked on the north slope.

McC can then learn for himself that drilling up there can be done and can be done right.

The important thing is to make a huge production of it. Take the press. Invite Brokaw, Williams, & Couric. "You went with Barry to Berlin, you should come with me. Let me give you the home town tour of ANWR from one who knows it." Invite O'Reilly, Rush, Matthews, and that guy on CNN. Invite Oprah and the girls from The View. Fill up that huge Straight Talk Express plane with a bunch of pressies and crank up the "North To Alaska".

To make it really good, invite Barry to come along. Invite him to do so from the stage at the GOP national convention. A bipartisan, patriotic, post-partisan thing to do.

The important thing is to take advantage of this issue.

No, the important thing is to start drilling up there.

Damn. . .

. . . she's better than McCain!

This is going to be a blast.

Here's the Obama response:

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same."

If they're going to try to paint this spark plug from Alaska as "more of the same" of anything, Barry's going to be crushed. She is fantastic.

Pick Palin, McC

My pref. is Governor Palin, Mr. McC.

Young, attractive. Oh by the way, did I mention she's a woman. Her integrity is impeccable, her values strong. Talk about outside the beltway--Alaska's as far as it gets. She recently signed into law a bill that will advance the construction of a new natural gas pipeline from Alaska.

She has five kids, the oldest in the Army, the youngest in diapers.

She's tough, honest, and McC's kind of gal. Wouldn't that be somethin'?

Here's the draft Palin blog. "New Energy for America".