It's been a cold world, we just getting flurries now?

The recent demise of the Democratic ticket is exaggerated, no? The need-to-attack meme, the loss-of-momentum meme(with us since the primaries!), the failure-to-connect meme are more confused media responses to a good McCain week than they are arguments for course correction or predictions of the future.

I counsel patience. Palin's incoherence on foreign policy isn't really a strike against her; what is a strike is she hasn't read a newspaper. Her willingness to accept federal pork isn't the problem; lying about her past in order to run as a reformer is the problem. Phrasing the issues as matters of competence is a losing strategy, practically and ethically. (Practically, because so few Americans think of themselves as "worthy" of higher office. Ethically, because the point of democracy is that it is, in Jacques Ranciere's formulation, rule by those unequipped to rule.)

Phrase the issues on their terms, and it's a win. Claiming insight into Russia because you can see Kamchatka on a clear day from Alaska is egotistical and disingenuous; risking the nation for your party's benefit is not patriotism. Lying about your past, then repeating the lie; advocating abstinence only education, then concealing your teen daughter's pregnancy; trying to get your sister's ex fired, asking about the "process" for banning books (I love how asking about process is anodyne in this case. If I asked someone about the "process" for blowing up a mall, I would be arrested for conspiracy to commit mass murder, making terroristic threats etc.. Process matters.) these are the actions that speak to character. Character counts, as the man said...

But even if Barry and Joe decide not to waste any moreenergy on this thing, my guess is the Palin will fall of her own weight. Her husband has been subpoenaed, her neighbor Vic is doing time, the tabloids are on dirt patrol, the Debbie Richter-Scott Richter-John Bitney-Sarah Palin love quadrangle has yet to fully flower...the harbingers of the shitstorm are already visible. Bloomberg, for instance, shows a woman who sees herself beneath the law, impunity by insularity:

Palin's office approved a state job for a friend and campaign aide with whom she shared a land investment, financial records and interviews over the past two weeks show. She hired a former lobbyist for a pipeline company to help oversee a multibillion-dollar deal with that same company.

She named a police chief accused of harassment to head the state police. And she sent campaign e-mails on her city hall account while serving as mayor of Wasilla -- conduct for which she later turned in an oil commissioner on ethics charges.

Ted Stevens is going to blow up, somebody's going to find Palin at a Department of Interior cocaine party...in terms of gossip, this candidacy is a never-ending fountain. All Alaska seems some evil version of Mayberry, small-town venality unseen since Babbitt. There won't be anything of Palin left before the debates.

That, or, Americans will realize that she opposes abortion even in cases of rape, fought big oil to get more oil drilled, und so weiter...wait for it...we're going to find it's a cold world for city-council types
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In What Respect Charlie?

Ah, there's the video...

Those should be the last four words of Palin's career...the transcript isn't up yet...

Gibson asks: "What do you think of the Bush Doctrine?" And there's a terrible pause as she realizes she has no idea what specifically Gibson is talking about, not because she was busy running Wasilla, or her own complicated family, or her complicated love-life, but because she evidently hasn't read a newspaper in 10 years. And finally she says, with ironic resignation:

"In what respect, Charlie?" Like, what do you want from me? And then she goes on a tirade about the terrorists who are "hellbent on destroying America and our allies"

Does Palin know what mutual defense means? Franz Ferdinand? Anyone?

Asked by interviewer Charles Gibson whether under the NATO treaty, wouldn't the United States be obligated to defend Georgia if Russia invaded, Palin replied: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help."

Perhaps? That's not what NATO means?

So so far what we have from the newbie is a limitless commitment to Iraq, carte blanche for Israel if it wants to nuke Natanz, the right of incursion into Pakistan at all times and outside of hot pursuit, and a boneheaded commitment to putting Georgia and the Ukraine in NATO -- a provocation that the leaders of those countries don't necessarily want...

Kevin, it's time to run for mayor...
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Where the cash at, where the stash at...MMS, pimps, hos, cocaine, bubble baths...Last Days of Disco at the Department of the Interior...

...this shit is ridiculous...the news last night said as many as a third of the employees of MMS royalty-in-kind office were implicated in some element of Oil-for-Coke. WaPo has Gregory W. Smith in

an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate whom he paid to buy cocaine, allegedly promising her a $250 bonus in return.

They also have:

a Shell Pipeline representative asking a woman in the royalty office to attend "tailgating festivities" at a Houston Texans football game: "You're invited . . . have you and the girls meet at my place at 6am for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding."

The two honchos, Smith and Denett, have already resigned. Smith is still in the industry. Denett's husband, who had worked at OMB, actually retired before she did. What did he know about this and when? Also, why did Justice decide not to prosecute the higher-ups?
IG's reports here and here.
To recap: a handful of people pilfered 4 million out of a 4 billion-dollar-a-year program, allowed companies bidding for extraction permits to revise their winning bids downward, received Abramoffian perks in order to gain preferential treatment, and had nothing better to do on the taxpayer's dime than fuck and snort blow...and now is the time to vote on offshore drilling! The evil genius of Harry Reid! Viz. this deadpan tidbit just before the IG report came out:

We are offering Republicans multiple opportunities to vote for increased drilling.

We are giving those who see government as a field for entreprenuerial exploitation enough rope, in other words...
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Just moved to Columbus OH...promise to get pictures of Schmidt's Fudge Haus und Political Tombstone...right now i'm just trying to get the trash picked up...you know, some retail politics...
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Will He Hide Behind Her Skirt?

Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall gets it right in a simple question:

Will John McCain bring Sarah Palin to the debates with Obama?

Hits on a major belief of mine about this campaign: the polls will stay close until the debates, and then I believe you'll start to see BHO pull away. More later on that.

Palin II: Clean Coal-Powered Boogaloo

Nothing is fucked here, Dude. They show us a beauty queen giving a competent red meat speech and we're supposed to shit ourselves in fear? Amateurs.

Wunderkind Matthew Yglesias--who really is the man--knows the score:

It was competent, but no more than that. And it wasn’t a speech that even tried to do either of things that John McCain’s campaign needs to do — separate McCain from George W. Bush or convince people that McCain can improve the economy. It didn’t even try to address those subjects.

Exactly. It was red meat thrown to starving jackals. And that's fine. What's not fine is for the Democrats and the left to piss themselves in fear and overreact. Nothing is fucked here, Dude. There's no reason to go after her family. They need to find the big holes, the big lies, and then spend the rest of the time lashing her to Bush.

People need to stop acting so un-Dude.

Palin...

Initial reactions:

She's okay with a speech when she knows what she's talking about. The folksy bits are key for her. But look at where she's talking about foreign policy: she stumbles, she falters. Biden will eat her alive, for sure, but the key is making sure he's not mean about it.

She's good with the snippy comment. She's good with the sly joke. Good delivery on turns of phrase. Not quite as good at moving into her applause lines, but she'll get better as she goes along.

More thoughts soonish.

A Palinode is a Retraction of an Earlier Ode...Palin Investigates Self!

Accident, or foretelling?

What is Sarah Palin's relationship to VECO? Ever since Ted Stevens' office got raided she's bruited about her "bad relationship" with the Big Alaskan...surely there's something more...Her neighbor Vic Kohring is doing three and a half for bribery...Here are possible phone numbers for Vic: 907-373-1842

907-269-0153

907-465-2186

...where's his lawyer? Where's her lawyer?
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**update**
Okay, she's hired a lawyer for the AK legislature's Troopergate inquiry. (Unfamiliar? Palin fired her public safety commissioner for his refusal to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. It's like Attorneygate, just smaller; personal loyalty as the shibboleth of holding non-partisan office...) Now what's weird, according to Sen. Hollis French (D-Anchorage) is

Usually, the attorney general would represent the governor's office, "at least for anything that happens I think in her capacity as a governor, which is clearly this,"

So perhaps getting private counsel is just one-stop shopping, preparing for the Ted Stevens phone calls to make it to trial, or preparing for revelation of her connections to VECO when she was mayor of Wasilla AK...
Or, she's just trying to keep all legal action in-house. Filing an ethics complaint against yourself is just another way to investigate parallel to the legislature's investigation. Which, again, Bushites know all about.