Seriously, Who's Got the 10 1/2? Pawlenty's got the 10 1/2...

The gift and the curse of Sarah Palin is in full effect as Republican governors retreat to Nixon's turf for their winter meetings. The gift is the unprecendented media attention given, by spillover, to dudes like Tim Pawlenty.

The curse is she had to speak. Beginning with "God Bless George W. Bush and I thank you Mr. President," is, I'm guessing, not what Americans want to hear. The GOP seems to recognize this. Politico's blind quote is indicative: She Is Our Britney Spears.

Pawlenty's remarks, on the other hand, are awesome. Listen to the whole thing on Minnesota Public Radio.

To start, he disses Palin before she even gets to town, saying it is not "fair and not complete" to just say "we didn't do that bad." He litanizes the ass-whupping, and I'm paraphrasing here: We cannot compete in the northeast, the great lakes, the west coast, the mid-atlantic [...] those are not factors that make up success going forward. For his money, the GOP can harmonize the Hensarling Quasar and the nameless "modernizing" forces within the Party (evidently those that recognize that non-white people can actually vote). I don't know if he's right, but Pawlenty is funny and thoughtful, and once again, I'm pretty sure that McCain called him up looking for a VP, and Tim said "No thanks, Air Pirate."

Big Government and Big Business coalescing to defend their interests! Tim! You sound like John Edwards! "Drill baby drill, by itself, is not an energy policy." To applause! There aren't enough Republicans around to be throwing people overboard! The party with a big-ass Welcome Mat! Why isn't this man a Democrat?

His closing anecdote about MJ's 56-point night was brilliant. He's buddies with Tim Kaine, which, you know, to my mind is a demerit, but to plenty of Virginians is a good thing. This is all gravy for the GOP. The question is, Can a voice of Reason, Probity and Temperance prevail against its own Hard-Ass Brethren? Can that voice then compete with an already-established Cool Hand?

Thinking a little bit longer on this, the brilliance of that Jordan story is that it makes up for the knocks against Palin scattered throughout Tim's speech. Pawlenty doesn't want to banish Palin to the Senate, he wants her front and center, making sure the voters of the family values fringe line up and vote hard. It's funny, self-deprecating (if we assume that by analogy, Pawlenty is the rookie who scores one point, and Palin Jordan with 56) and practical.

For the moment, I'm putting money on Hensarling leading a redneck-small-gubmint series of night raids. Pawlenty's Big Think is being done already, just by Democrats, and it will take longer than a couple of election cycles. So while Jeb and company focus on one half of Nathan Bedford Forrest's famous dictum, i.e., getting there firstest, Tim graciously takes the second half: getting there with the mostest.
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Always Trust Dark Steer, Readers, Always...

More evidence, Dear Reader, that you profit by the speculations of the Dark Steer: Caribou Barbie wants a piece of the action.

DS called this, including the passage about non-acceptance of Senators' credentials, here. DS also speculated on the analogous relationship between Palin and MacBeth here. Read how closely the AP hits DS talking points:

Even if he is re-elected, Stevens could be ousted by the Senate for his conviction on seven felony counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts, mostly renovations on his home. If Stevens loses his seat, Palin could run for it in a special election. She also could challenge incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010.

Right on. Article 1, section 5 is Palin's best friend. Because she ain't going to beat Lisa Murkowski. End DS gloating.

Also, for the record, the press needs to quit burying the Republican Party. I feel like Cowboy in Full Metal Jacket, urging the platoon to keep moving because 8-Ball is wasted: "I've seen this before, man." The consensus that the GOP is dead is like snipers shooting into a corpse to lure unsuspecting/enraged soldiers in closer. Don't touch the corpse. Let's keep our distance, and see if we can spot where the revanchist fringe will retreat to. Signs point to here: a swath of counties running from the Ozarks to southern Appalachia wherein the population became 10-15% more Republican between 2004 and 2008.

Let's get on that nova thing. Peace
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Caribou Barbie=Silky Pony?

Lack of chemistry? Now, given this is an entirely subjective reading on the part of Chuck Todd, I'm seeing shades of Kerry-Edwards here. Youngish, pretty, charismatic, obscene expenditures on coiffure or couture...

...but most importantly, the lack of chemistry. Is she aiming for a 2012 run? People seem to think so. But I'm not thinking it'll work. God willing, the Famous Air Pirate and the Beauty Queen will lose in two weeks and, in four years, she'll face some of the same problems as Edwards. That is: she'll still have little more than charm and red meat for the Base to run on.

Oh, sure, some neocon or theocon will take her under his carrion-smelling wing, try to tutor her in the ways of wickedness. She'll probably do some speaking tours on the SuperChurch circuit in between texting with Kissinger and hitting up AIPAC and PNAC gatherings to bone up on her bona fides. She'll likely seek a second term up in Seward's Icebox and win. All the while coyly dodging questions about disagreements within the campaign and whether or not she'll run again:

"Oh, you know, you get two independent minds on a ticket and there's bound to be some disagreements. Would I have done things exactly the same way? I don't really see any point in looking back. What I'm trying to make sure I do is keep my eye on the prize in ensuring I'm doing the best job I can to protect the people of this great state from what I truly believe will be destructive fiscal policies under this president. Am I going to run in two years? Oh, now let's not put the sled before the dogs here. I'm governing Alaska. It's a great job and I can't say what the future holds..." U.S.W.

And then, come 2011, she'll still have her ready made base of support. All revved up and ready to face Mittens. She's free and pretty compared to his stiffness and artifice. And then both of them get surprised all to hell by Bobby Jindal.

Let's talk more on this Republican Nova stage, though...

Obama Ferrets out the Hard Freak...

This is a fabulous consequence of the Obama candidacy, and I wonder if the same effect could have been engendered by a Hillary-Bayh ticket. Check out Minnesota rep Michele Bachman on Hardball, the weenie is at 5:45.

This is an object lesson in how not to realign your party, people.

Pity Michele. She's just been sent out to echo Palin. All she has to do is stick with the topic: BHO's alleged associates. But Matthews knows what's at the end of the argument, that it's about character, that we're talking about BHO himself, not Bill Ayers.

Getting people to talk about Obama is a centrifugal question: the heaviest freaks get separated from the party they hide themselves in. I saw this happening in the Inquirer last year, where white working-class dudes, who spend all day on the docks with their black working-class cohorts and buddies, all of a sudden had to air their real racism before all and sundry. Something like this happened when HRC said "hard-working Americans, white Americans," back in the day. And poor Michele. Just caught in the gears of a media machine she pays no attention to:

Bachmann said Tuesday she probably should have watched "Hardball" to see what it was like before she went on it.

So please, hard-working people of Congress, white people of Congress, please, let us know now what you think of Senator Obama. Please let us know if you do not read newspapers, watch cable TV etc., and if not, why not. Is your response from Paul's Romans? Is this a be-ye-not-conformed thing? I need to know. Because tight-faced white women with crazy smiles are still uttering shibboleths about "liberal leftists," "socialized medicine," "real Americans," etc., and holding forth on what's in Article I. I mean damn, before this election, would you have believed that any elected official could get away with not knowing what Hardball is? Is the governor of Alaska strategically expanding the role of the vice-president, or does she just not know better?

BTW, how does Jeb Hensarling feel about the imminent purge of one more know-nothing freak from the ranks? And is there a Democratic purge coming any time soon? When can we ice John Dingell and Dennis Kucinich? Trust the centrifuge!
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Getting mav'ricky...Todd Palin as Lady MacBeth...

Clearly, McCain is a rotten corpse, and is slowly being wiped off the map. The electoral map. Sarah Palin is slowly disposing of him, going, as Dickerson says, rogue. What I thought was a simple conservative realignment is more complex than that, and weird questions linger about Caribou Barbie. Namely:

Is she intentionally or unintentionally off-message? My guess is the latter. When perplexed, she punts. How else do you square her position on rewarding the DPRK with her abstinence-only diplomacy? She doesn't have a guru, she's flying blind, there's no way she's capable of orchestrating something as diabolical as a stab-McCain-to-run-in-2012 reverse.

Why did she pummel McCain on gay marriage? She has the right on lockdown. (Okay, except for Roanoke, Virginia.) Shucks, somebody out there is so fired up by her candidacy that they're illegally killing bears and dressing them up in Obama gear. Dissing McCain for her own benefit is such a surreptitious kick to the balls.

Did someone tell Palin that McCain wanted to give her the ax, sending her into a flurry of preemptive strikes and gross, confusing incompetence, leading to her ultimate downfall? Is this like Throne of Blood?

What all this boils down to is the original and abiding question of Palin's candidacy: why her? I've had the feeling that she was simply the only person McCain called who said yes. I never bought the arguments for doing something mav'ricky, for rallying the base, for attempting to appeal to the Femmes d'Hillary. Thin gruel. There are plenty of intelligent, qualified Republican women (I will never call Olympia Snowe Lobster Barbie); McCain's been pandering to the right for two years at least; he knows as well as anyone that the change-meme is Obama's property. Rationalizations. Palin answered the phone. Since, you know, she doesn't read the Jewish media outlets, she was the only person in America who thought being Walnuts' VP was a smart career move.

And now the question resurfaces, only she asks it of herself: Why me? Why isn't Tim Pawlenty stuck on this Ferris wheel?

There is, however, a light at the end of the shitstorm for Sarah Palin. Ted Stevens is done. Whether he gets elected or not, or is elected and resigns mid-term, the days of his funnelling contracts to friends and countrymen are over. Someone is going to run for his seat before 2014. Now, were you Sarah Palin, wouldn't you rather be junior Senator from Alaska than be John McCain's vice-president?
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Save yourselves...

I don't get this. The NYT finds itself duty-bound to vet the McCain campaign's allegations of a nefarious Obama-ACORN connection. This neither-nor criticism effectively grants some right-wing-rant about Those Ones stealing the election equal time with mere facts from Barry's CV. The NYT covers the story about BHO's connections without questioning the legitimacy of the allegation that those connections are themselves dubious. Slate covers the "Q: What's wrong with ACORN?" angle, but sticks to interviewing the people who put a bounty on ACORN's head in the first place.

Okay, so big deal. Small ripple. Never mind that it's this kind of acrobatic accomodation of the far-right that got Judith Miller's Iraq stories printed. Never mind that Ed Murrow figured in the '50s that all opinions are not equal: when covering a lynching, do you make sure to give the local Grand Wizard equal time? Never mind that if so-called bastions of the liberal media have to kowtow to the right fringe now, what lengths will they go to to protest their innocence once Republicans are out of power and spoiling for a fight? Seriously, look at how they savaged Jimmy Carter, for no other reason than to prove they didn't just hate Nixon.

I hate to think that I've become a one-issue bloggist, but the discovery of the Hensarling Quasar (alternately, the incipient Fourth Red Shift in American politics) has become a unifying theory for the McCain Campaign. Why pick Palin? Why harp on Ayers? Why holler about ACORN? In a time of national crisis, the campaign decided to run sludge ads? (The last Ayers ad I saw, btw, was far more savage than the flip-flopping Kerry ad from 2004. See? Isn't that cute?)

The people who are working on his campaign clearly expect to work for someone else: what's their best-case scenario? One term, followed by a Palin 2012 run? The man has lost a 14-point lead in North Dakota; he's clinging to West Virginia by 2 points; there is no future for you, staffers.

Again, at the risk of being prolix, if McCain wanted to win the election, he would have never run the Ayers-meme. Clearly, he has no interest in winning the presidency, as at this point who would? Presumably, he has a crock pot full of Wright-meme ads, ready to rock, so that by 2012, there will be a core of wounded free-marketers with exaggerated senses of entitlement for the Palin-Romney ticket, all shouting about black separatism, reverse discrimination; weeping about how McCain was martyred and how they was robbed.

Running on McCain's corpse is more profitable than running beside it.
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The Backwards Way looks forward...discovering the Hensarling Quasar...

Not to refry the VP debate or anything, which in this 49th hour of coverage has finally gelatinized into a tight bolus of conventional wisdom (Palin did not trip over her shoelaces; Biden did not push her face into the mud), but I can't shake my ideological middle-ear back into alignment. There were steeplechase moments on both sides (Biden triangulating on gay marriage, Palin's "darn right it was those predatory lenders,"), but the strategic-level outburst of cognitive dissonance, the peal of feedback in my polisci-lizard brain was in the tandem pronouncements:

"We do need the private sector to be able to keep more of what we earn and produce [sic]. Government is going to have to learn to be more efficient and live with less if that's what it takes to reign in the government growth that we've seen today."

and,

"And the rescue plan has got to include that massive oversight that Americans are expecting and deserving."

Or this pair:

"Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem so, government, lessen the tax burden and on our families and get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper."

and,

"We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings [...]"

If you believe, with John Dickerson, that this debate was about rebranding Sarah Palin for future use, you have to square these statements. This is the Republican VP candidate calling for massive regulation of financial markets alongside massive deregulation. My brain, together with my hair, stood on end! WWMilton Friedman D?

Never mind that Palin is participating in the same overt hypocrisy of Reagan's "Government, you are the problem," pretending that government is something you can be in and not of, something you seek but won't accept, (also, necessarily, presuming that government is something other than the things we choose to do together), etc., the way that diehard evangelicals read the Letter to the Romans' "Be ye not conformed to this world, but be transformed," and find free license to run a child-rape cult...Again, never mind all that. Never mind the soggy logical turf her handlers are inhabiting there. What kind of party brand can you build on this?

What I would have given for Biden to have started autistically screeching "Fuzzy Math!" or "Voodoo Economics!" Clearly, we need a shock into awareness. The party brand -- listen up, Mitt! -- that is built when you promise to shrink government while maintaining an open-ended war in Iraq, while increasing non-emergency approprations for defense, USW, is the Bush-Cheney brand. It is deficits don't matter. It's this kind of pigeon shit.

Maybe it's an Eastern thing, like "Spending and tax cuts are the father and mother of the ten-thousand things," but my guess is it's far from it...

IF, on the other hand, you struggle to comprehend why anyone thought this a successful appearance for SP (at 01:19 here, she called Al Qaeda Shiites:

she said the trouble on Main Street was trickling up to Wall Street (which she didn't mean to say, clearly, but is true nonetheless), and this is recalled off the top of my head, God knows what other horrors lie in that transcript), then the above are just parts of a cynical "Sure, you can have your cake and eat it, why not?" gesture.

No Republican president has ever shrunk government and none ever will. We all know this. But the only thing worse than a will-wank-for-coins tactic is a will-wank-for-coins tactic that doesn't work. The tax-cut-spending-increase bait-and-switch will crash the Republican party (and looking very far ahead, the thing I really fear is a hard nut of a latter-day GOP emerging when this party goes -nova, the remaining True Believer fiscal conservatives sloughing off the excess gas of the past 14 years to become a mighty quasar, a radio beacon audible throughout the universe; those guys are more comfortable on AM anyway; the Hensarling Quasar is a metaphor pret a porter).

Either the tune is going to change, or Jeb Hensarling will be the only one standing When the Revolution Come...
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Should the Worst Happen...

Sarah Palin is not a blithering idiot. She is only woefully underprepared to speak on the issues facing our nation. She can speak in broad terms. She can speak in terms of "Protect America" and "Stand With Our Allies" and "Defend Freedom," but, when asked for specifics... for "tactics," if you will, she falls flat. Therefore, Biden shouldn't have to win this debate, for Palin will lose it for him in a manner like unto my beloved Lakers this past summer. Woefully unprepared, green, with potential, but undeveloped.

But, should the worst happen, and she prove herself likeable and not fumbling. Should she come out and shine and not answer questions but still look goll-darned likeable while she's not answering questions... well, the "Liberal Media" will jump all over it. 

• Could she be the comeback kid for McCain?
  
• New Life for the McCain campaign? 
  
• Palin resuscitates the race?
  

Und So Weiter. And the polls may shift a bit, and McCain may gain some in the battleground states, and the talk will shift back to What Can Obama Do to Counter Palin, the Thorn in His Side? etc etc etc. 

Before any of that has the chance of happening, I just want to predict--should Palin do moderately okay--a surge for McCain which will be quashed following the next presidential debate. This is an easy prediction, but I just want it on the record. 

Hitting is timing, Joe...no need to pull the ball...

Dude, I loved that Chris Webber clip so much, here's an analogue:

Man set a breaking ball down and in, where ostensibly no righthanded hitter can do anything with it, and Manolo somehow gets the bat head out in front of that thang and we out. Peace. Folks said he wasn't a team player, that he'd lost the heart to compete, that he was a showboat, that he couldn't play left field, that Youkilis should have messed up his face back in June or whenever...I say he's a consummate veteran who understands the task at hand, that nothing matters until the end of the month when the champion is crowned.

Does any of this sound like Joe Biden? Blowhard, slacking off in the Senate, picking silly fights with people (A noun and verb and 9/11? Isn't 9/11 a noun?), prone to fits of pique. The only lesson of Manny Ramirez' career that Joe needs to learn, really, is to smile...your job is the greatest game in the world, you will go down in history either as a bum or a titan. Choose.

And the baseball metaphor I'm thinking of, I suppose is actually from the West Wing.

Bartlet: You think the strike against me is people don't like the smartest kid in the class.

Ziegler: It's not a strike unless you watch it as it sails by.

Seriously, Joe, you can get the head out in front of a bad-looking slider. Crush 'em...
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Laugh to keep from crying (havoc and letting slip the dogs of war)

This is past absurdity. It's like one of those jokes on Family Guy. You know: Peter hits his knee and then sits on the ground and winces and moans for like two minutes. It goes from being WTF? to being chuckleworthy to being hilarious at how long they're drawing it out to being OK when are they done with this to being Okay, it's funny again.

Yeah, it's like that. Except there's no commercial break. Except it's real. A number of commentators have pointed out that Palin's appeal is that she's "one of us." (oneofus. oneofus. oneofus.) Don't read much beyond the local paper--mostly the funnies. love that Sally Forth--but gosh darnit, if we just got some reg'lar folks in the Oval Office and cut through the horsehocky, by gosh, we could get this country back on the right track-- and get rid of them Messicans while we're at it.

(Me? I'm in the John Stewart camp: I want a president who's Embarrassingly Superior to me. But what do I know? I'm typing this on a Macbook, smoking American Spirits and tabbing between Blogger and The Atlantic.)

Yeah, Palin's for real. Her stunning ignorance as to any matter outside of Alaska and the rearing head of Vladimir is real and very much in line with oneofus status in a nation in which something like half the populace hasn't finished a book in the last year. No laugh track for her, though. The laughs--to keep from crying--should be saved for when she tries to appoint Judge Joe Brown to the Supreme Court in a year and a half after McCain's face falls off.

Form of: Hegemony!

Really, what kind of world do we live in when we've ceded the leadership role on international terrorism to the Russians?

Russia has called for a revival of the global anti-terrorism coalition that formed after Sept. 11, 2001, but that started to unravel with what it called the subsequent domination by a single power - a veiled reference to the United States.

"The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow 'privatized,"' Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia said Saturday at the UN General Assembly annual ministerial meeting.

Oh, I know what kind of world: a multipolar one. Oh, joy!

"It has become crystal clear that the solidarity expressed by all of us after 9/11 should be revived, without double standards, when we fight against any infringements upon the international law," he said.

Lavrov also called for "solidarity" within the international community and a strengthened United Nations, saying that only in the post-Cold War world could the organization "fully realize its potential" as a source of "open and frank debate and coordination of the world policies on a just and equitable basis, free from double standards."

"This is an essential requirement, if the world is to regain its equilibrium," he said.

Beautiful. How much of a clusterfuck has the Bush administration proved to be? Seven and a half years in, we're getting lectured on multilateralism and international law by the Russians. And, strangely enough, world opinion is in agreement:

Some 29% of people said the "war on terror" launched by President George W Bush in 2001 had had no effect on the Islamist militant network.

According to 30% of those surveyed, US policies have strengthened al-Qaeda.

Asked who is winning "the conflict between al-Qaeda and the US", 49% said neither side while 22% believed the US had gained the upper hand. Just 10% said al-Qaeda was winning.

So the Russians--of course, taking their airs of magnanimity with a grain of salt and a ton of vodka--are calling for a strengthened UN and international cooperation regarding terrorism, rightly calling out the US for flouting international opinion in invading Iraq and calling us on "double standards" with regard to Georgia and Kosovo's independence movement. Meanwhile, the Famous Air Pirate is still tipping his Cold Warrior hand, still wanting to keelhaul Russia and make 'em walk the plank out of the G8. And the Beauty Queen continues to ramble on--to the embarrassment of those who should be supporting her--spouting something about the disembodied head of Czar Putin hovering over the Aleutian Islands.

Aurora Putinalis aside, the real issue here is just how right BHO is when he says "McCain just doesn't get it." The Russians get it. The Chinese are counting on it. The Europeans--if we may judge by their reaction to Georgian episode--get it. The Germans definitely get it. But Bush, the Air Pirate, the Beauty Queen, and most of America don't get it: the Post-American Moment is here in full force.

So, while the Air Pirate, et al, wax fanciful about some new Superfriends League of Righteous Democracies--Wonder Twin Powers, Activate! Form of: Eternal Hegemony!--the Rest of the World is very much moving on. One only hopes that BHO, with his talk of being a citizen of the world and the need to fill the position of Leader of the Free World, gets it. Otherwise, it's a harder drop to the level playing field than it needs to be.

Various adventures of McCan, Famous Air Pirate...once more crashing his own plane...

Whoa. About that debate that Walnuts promised not to go to...also re: which see Letterman on getting stiffed...did McCain actually say that he would veto every spending bill that came across his desk? I was at a party at Skylab, watching it on a 9-inch b/w TV, so I had to check the transcript...

As president of the United States, I want to assure you, I've got a pen. This one's kind of old. I've got a pen, and I'm going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk. I will make them famous. You will know their names.

Ohhh you have to love this week: McCan the Air Pirate (last week I read DFW's essay collection CtL, which has a long-form 2000 campaign piece called "Up, Simba"), hero to the Vietnamese, lies to David Letterman about when he's leaving New York (which is forgivable, because a man has to sleep sometime), flees to Washington in a pale attempt to off the debate (to which BHO said, This is not Nam; here there are rules), plainly realizing that Palin ain't gonna hack it (and what if she doesn't, what if she's a Harriet-Miers-esque smokescreen built to make an unpalatable choice seem palatable just because said choice will actually know you know some things, and if so who is this masked man, and if campaigning in the internet age has sped up the news cycle such that a VP resignation would be destructive for about 48 hours, why not just nominate the obnoxious dude first and let the controversy fade, which brings us to the conclusion that McCan, Air Pirate's real VP is not noxious to the electorate, he's just cranky and boring: he is/will be Joseph Isadore Lieberman), and while negotiators are wringing concessions from Bush (inlcuding caps on executive pay for companies in the New Fund, an equity stake for the American people, extended bankruptcy protection and payouts to homeowners, all of which at week's beginning were poison pills for the WH, all swallowed without complaint by Thursday night), McCan the Air Pirate sweeps in and conjures some far-right Sedona caucus, growing up Rep.s from the ground like Cadmus, whose terroristic threats include the scuttling of all consensus in favor of some far-fetched insurance scheme (Q: If a bank doesn't have the liquidity to lend to another bank because so much of its shit is in credit default swaps, why do you think it has the liquidity to buy insurance from the USG to cover its assets? And a follow-up Q: In the event that the assets covered by this new insurance are unsaleable, isn't the USG more broadly on the hook for covering their full, i.e. original cost? And if not -- assuming we write the coverage to pay companies say 9 cents on the dollar when their swaps hit 0 -- isn't that paltry amount of protection just going to shock the system further? In other words, whose ass-brained idea was this? A: Eric Cantor (R-VA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), et alia. Q: Cantor?! No f'n wonder!), which within hours was scaled back to demanding insurance be only a part of the overall bailout (which is kind of like AQIM capturing a French diplomat, demanding a total retreat of all Algerian gov't forces from the countryside, then settling for a plate of babaghannouj. Send any thoughts on spelling of babbaganoush c/o the Editors, Dark Steer, 1 Terminal Plaza, Cleveland OH); if that didn't constitute an awesome week, then the burgeoning media interest in SP would make it so: Palin got zoning aid, gifts.

If that weren't enough, there are some serious acts of cognitive dissonance in McCan's bran that need to be addressed. For my money the most serious is the one going on between the personal-responsibility-fiscal-probity wing and his maverick-bozo wing. (This is fundamentally a subset of the Big McCain Question: What is it to be a Maverick? Does being a maverick mean making deals with your opponents when your party demands absolute fealty, i.e., is the maverick a pragmatist? Or does it mean bucking the demands of everyone and snarling the works until you get your own way [a la E. Cantor], i.e., is the maverick a fanatic? Seriously, I don't know what you mean by The Original Mavericks. Are we selling jeans?) Witness twice in the debates, McCain's assertion that the system corrupted the people, not (as it is in fact) the other way round:

We Republicans came to power to change government, and government changed us. And the -- the worst symptom on this disease is what my friend, Tom Coburn, calls earmarking as a gateway drug, because it's a gateway. It's a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption.

And we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending.

Okay, first of all, has Tom Coburn ever smoked weed? That's interesting. But what I really like is that "government" and "spending" are entities that exist outside of individual agency. Government changed Republicans. Spending put people in jail! If only Bob Ney had known about that line of defense at his trial! Nevermind the obvious hypocrisy: when Republicans game the system, it's the system's corrupting influence; when Democrats do it, it's "Chicago-style politics." Which I didn't know was a thing; deep dish, sauce on top politics? Second:

Maybe to Senator Obama it's not a lot of money. But the point is that -- you see, I hear this all the time. "It's only $18 billion." Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it's gone completely out of control to the point where it corrupts people? It corrupts people.

That's why we have, as I said, people under federal indictment and charges. It's a system that's got to be cleaned up.

I have fought against it my career. I have fought against it. I was called the sheriff, by the -- one of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee. I didn't win Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate.

Seriously, who was the last conservative to run on a platform of taking a mulligan on personal responsibility? William Jennings Bryan? Didn't Americans screw themselves to that Cross of Gold? Walnuts sounded like he was reviving the Temperance movement, blaming the ills of Washington not on the people in it, who are of course his friends and neighbors, but on some extra-human miasma, and he might as well be blaming Demon Rum for the evils of our age...dead in the water...
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Palin begins to pall...

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

That's Kathleen Parker writing in the National Review. 

The bounce is over, the glory has departed. 

The Palin phenomenon is Ichabod... dead and done. And now all that's left is for Biden to put her away. 

This will go down as Walnuts' biggest gamble, the one that cost him the election.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney bets on the economy tanking and bides his time until 2012.

Professor Henry's Crash Course in International Politics..."Don't give an inch" meets "I can see Russia from my house"...

Kissinger with Bush in Austin, Texas, July 2000 (Birchum Jana / Corbis Sygma) via New York magazine...we've seen this before...a politically skilled reprobate governor from the provinces gets a quickie schooling from HK? Here's Bush with Henry, July 12, 2000:

After meeting with state leaders, Bush turned to international matters in a private meeting with Kissinger, who has been advising Bush on foreign affairs.

Thursday's meeting was the first time the two have met one-on-one, though Kissinger and other Republican experts on international affairs appeared with Bush in May when he proposed cutting U.S. nuclear stockpiles and building a missile defense system.

"We had a very interesting and positive discussion, and I appreciate the opportunity to meet with several of the key staff members of the governor's staff," Kissinger said. "A few weeks ago I stood with the governor when I spoke about present events and nuclear strategy, and my impression is we share very compatible views."

So the pressing issue to my mind isn't "Where's the Eagleton treatment?" nor is it "What advice will a war criminal, a drug dealer, and an oil executive give Palin?"

My question is this: "Will another dim-bulb far-right know-nothing governor with a pretty smile hem and haw her way to the presidency?" And a follow-up: "How can liberal democrats get us some of that electoral crack?"
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Well, so long as she's meeting with Kissinger...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has begun filling up her dance card for Tuesday's visit to the United Nations General Assembly.

She'll be meeting with Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner; President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia; and Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, according to a campaign official.

Tuesday's trip gives Palin a quick taste of foreign policy before her one-and-only debate Oct. 2nd with Sen. Joseph Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

The fact that this woman wasn't Eagletoned inside of two weeks is a stain on the nation's political history. Alas and alack...

But, you know, she's meeting with Kissinger, so it's all gravy and napalm.

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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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.

If she says...

"Who am I? Why am I here?" then I'll just...

...really, I don't know what I'll do. I've been dumbfounded by the pick the whole day. Presume I'll continue to be dumbfounded.