Nixonland Nitpick 9

September 7, 2008 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under Nixonland Nitpicks | Leave a Comment 

This one is less about a factual error than an unwarranted inference. On page 602, Nixonland discusses RN’s speech to the nation on economic policy: “He then named the desperado they would slay together, with a hint of anti-Semitic code: ‘We must protect the dollar from the attacks of international money speculators.’”

Though Nixon mounted the airlift that helped save Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War — an episode that the book overlooks — it is true that he did make anti-Semitic comments in private. But should we automatically regard the word speculator as anti-Semitic code? If so, Senator Obama is in trouble:

• “But we must not allow government intervention to protect investors and speculators who relied on the government to reap massive profits.” (September 6, 2008)
• “We do need to bring down gas prices, and as President, I will. It’s time to crack down on speculators who manipulate the market.” (July 31, 2008).
• “For the past years, our energy policy in this country has been simply to let the special interests have their way—opening up loopholes for the oil companies and speculators so that they could reap record profits while the rest of us pay $4.00 a gallon.” (June 22, 2008).

Featured Articles — September 7, 2008

September 7, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | 1 Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage By Frank Rich
SARAH PALIN makes John McCain look even older than he is. And he seemed more than willing to play that part on Thursday night. By the time he slogged through his nearly 50-minute acceptance speech — longer even than Barack Obama’s — you half-expected some brazen younger Republican (Mitt Romney, perhaps?) to dash onstage to give him a gold watch and the bum’s rush.

Rallying The Right, Confounding The Left By Kevin Rennie
It took Ronald Reagan 14 years to create a confident, optimistic Republican Party. Gov. Sarah Palin did it in six fraught days. Her introductory odyssey concluded with the great exhale of Wednesday night when the vice presidential nominee joined the thin ranks of performers who possess the power to astound.

The American Debate By Dick Polman
Let us swing the door ajar and invite the elephant into the room. One big reason Barack Obama is locked in a tight race, rather than easily outdistancing his opponent, is because he is black.

Palin Rises Above “Shrill” Media By Ruben Navarrette
SAN DIEGO — Anyone who heard Sarah Palin’s rousing speech at the GOP National Convention should now understand why Democrats have been trying to destroy her. And why, luckily for the country, they’ve failed.

Playing politics with family values By Barney Frank
WITH ONE important exception, what we have learned about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family does not reflect badly on any of them. What the Palin family story does do is underscore the flaws in the political philosophy that was critical to her being selected by John McCain.

The presidential soap opera is degrading our political process By Fred Siegel
Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama. The John Edwards soap opera of first his wife’s illness and then his infidelity. The wildly hyped faceoff between the Obamas and the Clintons which never came to pass. The Sarah Palin saga. All have become grist for the infotainment gossip mills, and it’s endangering our politics.

An Adviser Molds a Tighter, More Aggressive McCain Campaign
By Jim Rutenberg and Adam Nagourney
ST. PAUL — It was what aides to Senator John McCain describe as probably the worst night of his campaign.

Doubt, Distrust, Delay By Bob Woodward
During the summer of 2006, from her office adjacent to the White House, deputy national security adviser Meghan O’Sullivan sent President Bush a daily top secret report cataloging the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq.

Right at the Edge By Dexter Filkins
Late in the afternoon of June 10, during a firefight with Taliban militants along the Afghan-Pakistani border, American soldiers called in airstrikes to beat back the attack.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

September 7, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Soundtrack Of Our Lives | Leave a Comment 

I regret that a perfect storm of technical difficulties is currently making it unlikely that I will be able to upload and post this week’s installment of the Soundtrack.  

That’s the bad news.  

The good news is that it looks like I now have next week’s installment already banked.

UPDATE 9/7/08 1:50 PM: The technical problems remain unresolved so I am about to slather on the sunscreen and head towards the Chesapeake Bay. Soundtrack will return next week.
 

A Conservative’s Heartfelt Thanks

September 6, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008 | 1 Comment 

I’d think left, right, and center would all have difficulty arguing with the substance (as opposed to the tone) of Bill Kristol’s polemic in “The Weekly Standard,” which deserves to be quoted at length:

The editors of THE WEEKLY STANDARD believe in giving credit where credit is due. The presidential race looks a whole lot better today than it did two weeks ago. For this, thanks are owed to two men–Barack Obama and John McCain–and to that herd of independent minds, the liberal media.

First: Thank you, Barack Obama. He lacked the confidence or the strength to ask Hillary Clinton, recipient of some 18 million votes, to join him on the ticket. Such a ticket, uniting and exciting the Democratic party, would have been hard to beat in this Democratic year. Having ruled out Clinton, Obama then lacked the nerve to double down on the theme of change, by selecting, say, Virginia governor Tim Kaine or Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius. A change versus experience election wouldn’t have been a bad bet for Obama. Instead, he settled on an unimpressive vice presidential pick, a long-time, long-winded overrated senator from a safe state, who gave him no lift at all in the polls, and offers no prospect of doing so.

Second: Thank you, John McCain. He showed guts with his pick of Sarah Palin. He also demonstrated a shrewd strategic sense. He knew that running on experience would carry him only so far–most likely to a respectable defeat. He understood the implications of Obama’s passing over Hillary–not that Clinton voters would vote for McCain-Palin (though if even a few do so, it could make a difference), but that his pick of Palin when compared with Obama’s shying away from Hillary would show McCain as a bolder and more confident leader. And he had the sense that Palin’s anti-establishment conservatism, pro-family feminism, and tough-minded reformism would add something important to his campaign.

Third: A special thank you to our friends in the liberal media establishment. Who knew they would come through so spectacularly? The ludicrous media feeding frenzy about the Palin family hyped interest in her speech, enabling her to win a huge audience for her smashing success Wednesday night at the convention. Indeed, it even renewed interest in McCain, who seems to have gotten still more viewers for his less smashing–but well-received–presentation the following evening.

DSPQ

September 6, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under DSPQ, Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

(Fill in the blank depending on whom you believe) thousand subscribers to  Us Weekly have canceled their subscriptions in protest of the magazine’s lurid “Babies, Lies, and Scandals” cover story about Sarah Palin.

Page Six today has the details.

Featured Articles — September 6, 2008

September 6, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Thanks, Guys by William Kristol
The media’s attacks on Sarah Palin backfire.

Text size:  McCain’s choice won’t fool women By Jessica Reaves
Perhaps the most delightfully candid assessment of Palin’s dismal lack of experience came from Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan. During an off-camera moment on MSNBC, Noonan, a former Reagan.

Greetings from the energized GOP base Meghan Daum
Sarah Palin looks good from this family’s living room.

Running From Reality By Bob Herbert
If there was one pre-eminent characteristic of the Republican convention this week, it was the quality of deception. Words completely lost their meaning. Reality was turned upside down.

The referendum on Sarah Palin By George Jonas
The U.S. election of 2008 is shaping up as a contest about a vice-president — possibly a first in America. In most American elections, few things matter less than the second-in-command. In this one, judging by the media attention, few things matter more.

Capital By Michael Cooper
Ignore Palin, Dis McCain

Ahmadinejad’s New Enemy: Women By Amir Taheri
IN one of his last sermons before his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini warned of “three threats” to his vision of Islam: the US, the Jews and women.  

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

September 5, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

If pedigree counts for anything in the music business, Liam Finn is starting far out in front of the head of the line.

For almost three decades, his father —Neil Finn— and his uncle —Tim Finn— have been responsible for a great deal of superb and influential music —far beyond the confines of their native New Zealand and their antipodean environs— from the groups Split Enz, Crowded House, the brotherly duo Finns, and their own solo careers. 

Indeed, if, with a gun to my head, I was told I could only take one pop album with me to an undisclosed location (admittedly a highly unlikely scenario in every regard) Crowded House’s Woodface would be high among those on the short list.

Young Liam was born in 1983 in Melbourne but moved back to the true Finn land —New Zealand— as a child. After fronting a band, he released his first solo album last year: I’ll Be Lightning.

He operates as a one man band.  He played every instrument on the album as he does at his live shows.  (Although lately he has been traveling with another multi-instrumentalist singer , Eliza-Jane Barnes, the daughter of Aussie pop star Jimmy Barnes.)    He lays down music loops —which he controls with  a pedal— and then plays guitar or drums and sings on top of them.  “The aesthetic is DIY,” he says, “leaving the woolly edges.”

His music captures the essence and excitement of Crowded House — the intricate, swooning melodies, the oblique elliptical lyrics, and the underpinning of melancholy. 

Rolling Stone, describing Liam Finn as an “Artist to Watch”  suggested that the formula for his music was Elliot Smith minus Despair plus a leprechaun.  

It described his song “Second Chance” —the first single off the album— as  “a tightly coiled low-fi tune that explodes into a psychedelic swirl of purring loops and frenzied drumming.”   He presented a stripped-down version of the song when he made his American TV debut (along with Ms. Barnes) on The Late Show with David Letterman last February.

The “Second Chance” video was directed by actor Angus Sutherland — son of Donald and half brother of Kiefer.  Alas, after a promising start, he abruptly runs out of ideas after exactly one minute and forty-two seconds; thereafter his direction is to have Mr. Finn jump around in ways that starts out as embarrassing and end up as annoying.

Sow the seeds
Sow the seeds to life by packing up to make it right
And all I need
All I need to know
Are you too proud to let it go?

Remember me
Honestly I don’t remember who you are

So it seems
And so it seems tonight, you’ve got that wild look in your eye
What do you need
What do you need to prove?
The woman that you turn into

Remember me
Honestly I don’t remember who you are
The memory has never been the best, you want a second chance

You stand around your haunted home
Those demons won’t leave you alone
Don’t forget me when you grow old

Remember me
Well honestly I don’t remember who you are

Remember me
Honestly i don’t remember who you are
The memory has never been the best, you want a second chance

You stand around your haunted home
Those demons won’t leave you alone
Don’t forget me when you grow old

Remember remember

Another View of Edwards

September 5, 2008 by David Emig | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

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Condemning John Edwards shows many things. Not about John Edwards, but this society as a whole. Honestly, the national discourse has too many other important things to discuss. Health Care. Iraq. Economy. Let’s note the fact, register the apology, and move on.

 

By his own admission, John Edwards cheated on his wife. Frankly, that is no one’s business but the parties’ involved. No one except them knows the circumstances involved. What does this have to do with his political philosophy and where he stands on the issues?

 

As a “Christian” society, isn’t it proper to forgive, and move on? After all, in his interview with ABC News, didn’t Edwards ask for forgiveness from his supporters who Edwards felt that he let down. Again, the dynamics of the Edwards’ marriage is none of the public’s concern.

 

Does this personal matter forfeit the former senator’s right or privilege to a public life? Because if you used this standard historically, that would eliminate many from public life. People like Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy. Others like Nelson Rockefeller. People who did good things for America, who inspired and achieved. Take them out of the equation of American politics, and it’s a different country.

 

Mr. Edwards’ views are valuable to the discourse of the country. A personal matter shouldn’t disqualify him from speaking about them. As Jesus says in John 8:7: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” How many that condemn Edwards are without sin?

 

Isn’t a double standard at work here?? As Nixon students, scholars and others interested in RN we are told to look at the whole record and life, and not at one mistake, or a related sequence of mistakes. The way the some current pundits want to see it, Edwards should occupy the same spider hole that Saddam came from.

 

Mr. Nedelkoff seems almost gleeful in his “(perhaps too charitable) guess” (See “Gov. Palin Is Chosen, and The Edwards Zone Cometh.”) about Elizabeth Edwards’ wanting a divorce and kicking her husband out. How does he know these things? Does the only evidence that Mr. Nedelkoff’s possesses is in his imagination? The whole thing is crass, and a bit insensitive. Again, this is a personal matter. Be certain that Mrs. Edwards is strong enough to deal with it, and doesn’t need the cheers from the peanut gallery.

 

Mr. Nedelkoff’s mocking of trial lawyers is striking as well. I realize that trial lawyers are a favorite whipping boy of the right, those who scream ‘tort reform’ without understand truly what they scream for. Since I have been a paralegal for a plaintiff’s law firm, I take exception to that.

 

Sure, it is understood that there are trial lawyers who are in it solely for their own personal gain. There are bad apples in every walk of life. However, the stereotyping of all trial lawyers in those terms is offensive to me. Trial lawyers force defective products to be fixed or taken off the market. They are a guard against corporate and government abuse.

 

You can see this with Edwards’ own career as a trial lawyer. In his book “Four Trials”, Edwards outlines legal actions on behalf of individuals. One action was against the manufacturer of a defective pool drain cover. Another suit was representing a woman whose child had serious injuries because her obstetrician didn’t perform a Cesarean section. After reading this book, and others like it, you come away with a better sense of trial lawyers and what they mean to society.

 

A brief disclaimer. I supported John Edwards for President. Because of my background as a paralegal in a plaintiff’s law firm; I feel a kinship of shared experiences and quests. He knew, before anyone else the realities of this country. The real “Two Americas” not the satire that Mr. Nedelkoff portrays. During his campaign, he outlined the ways that his administration would have made this country a better place.

 

And yes, I still support John Edwards. His views on the important issues of the time, Health Care. Iraq. Economy, and the American Dream available for those who want it — are much more important than his personal relationships to me.

 

What’s A Little Tasering Between Stepfather And Son?

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Andrew Sullivan (quoting the YouTube headline) says this breathless ABC News “investigative report” — whose linchpin is the predictable criticism from a Democratic opponent of Gov. Palin, who probably wasn’t all that hard to hunt down – is “devastating.” Sullivan says it proves that she “clearly lied.”

It does no such thing. The report shows that aides pressed to have her ex-brother-in-law fired; that she denied personally pressuring an official to fire him; and that she later acknowledged that in retrospect her aides’ calls could have been construed as pressure from her. So she didn’t cover up. She owned up.

As for ABC’s own little cover-up, while its report says that trooper Mike Wooten made threats against Palin’s family, it fails to mention that he was accused of physical abuse against the governor’s 10-year-old nephew — specifically, the use of a taser on him. Wouldn’t want viewers to dwell too much on the governor’s desire to protect her family, would we? Don’t miss the anchorwoman smiling and shaking her head at the end, by the way.

 

They’re Tied

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

CBS:

The presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain is now even at 42 percent, according to a new CBS News poll conducted Monday-Wednesday of this week. Twelve percent are undecided according to the poll, and one percent said they wouldn’t vote.

Sarah Came Pre-Vetted For Your Convenience

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Domestic issues, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

“USA Today” sets itself straight:

First impressions are often lasting impressions, even if they’re incomplete. Take, for example, Sarah Palin’s view on teaching evolution and creationism in public schools.

Many news stories and editorials, including one on this [editorial] page, summarized her position based on a comment she made in a 2006 debate, when she was running for governor of Alaska: “I am a proponent of teaching both.”

End of story? Not exactly.

That same week, she clarified her stance, saying that creationism shouldn’t be mandated as part of the Alaska curriculum, but that there shouldn’t be any prohibition on discussing it if it comes up in class.

Palin, whose father was once a public school science teacher, got it right the second time, neatly finding the sensible middle ground in a polarizing national debate.

“Sensible middle ground”? Music to TNN’s ears.

The New Two Americas And The Edwards Zone

September 5, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Election 2008, Nixon Administration, Nixon in the News, Nixonland Nitpicks, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Yesterday brought some news that was surely welcome in Democratic circles.  When last heard from, former senator and 2004 vice-presidential candidate John Edwards was ready to visit the campuses of America, starting next Monday at Hofstra University, and continuing to Salem State in Massachusetts and the University of Illinois, to lecture students and whoever else might be interested about his tried-and-true theme of “two Americas;” what he had learned on the campaign trail; and other odds and ends that might strike his fancy.  He was even to debate Karl Rove on September 26 in Buffalo.

But, following an announcement that the Salem State events (which was to be with his wife Elizabeth) had been cancelled, Edwards has now stated through his agent, to the disappointment of CSPAN junkies and bloggers everywhere, that he will not make the above appearances and, indeed, that his schedule will remain empty until after Election Day, explaining:

Nothing is more important than electing Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I don’t want my appearance at these events to be a distraction from the important issues of the election, or from the important purpose of these meetings.

The last phrase is a bit unclear, but Edwards seems to be suggesting that he expects that he can simply appear in front of any audience in the country, eight weeks from now, and deliver his populist message of old as if the Rielle Hunter scandal had never happened.  He may be disappointed, and not just because there have been some hints that one or another of the major general-interest magazines is contemplating an article on the scandal.

When Edwards last was appearing in public, the term “two Americas” was being treated by the mainstream media in the way he defined it - one rich and privileged (read: Republican Party), the other poor and downtrodden (read: Democrats and trial lawyers), in the most fire-breathing tradition of Tom Watson or Melvin Belli.  

But now Edwards’ rhetoric, and the variations upon it played by Sen. Hillary Clinton after he withdrew from the race, seem almost as dated as a copy of Coin’s Financial School.  The last seven days have seen the emergence of a new version of “two Americas.”

One America consists, more or less, of Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Hamptons, Georgetown, some larger college communities like Ann Arbor and Madison, and portions of Beverly Hills and Malibu.  In this America, Gov. Sarah Palin and her family are figures of ridicule and their very emergence on the national scene is a source of bewilderment. (See www.huffingtonpost.com, passim.)

The other America is bordered by the communities of Lubec, Maine to the east; Naalehu, Hawaii to the south; and, rather fittingly, Adak in the Aleutian Islands to the west and Barrow, Alaska to the north. (Can I be that sure about Naalehu, in one of Sen. Barack Obama’s several native states? I think so.  This week, not long after Gov. Palin’s speech, I talked with a counterculture type, of the sort found in abundance on the Big Island, who wasn’t hesitant about declaring herself a citizen of this America.)  It is a place where Gov. Palin and her family are admired, respected, and even loved.  Obama and, especially, Sen. Joe Biden, a man who has campaigned by the side of a lot of officeholders around the country over the years, are both well aware that it exists, though it may take some time for everyone in their organizations to catch on.

In the course of a week, as poll data is starting to show, Gov. Palin, simply by being herself, has come quite a way toward reassembling the “New American Majority” that Kevin Phillips wrote about so many years ago, long before his career settled down into churning out one anti-Bush book per year and making the rounds of left-wing internet talkshows.  Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson has started to realize which way the wind is blowing, and Paul Krugman at the New York Times, discussing the shift in the electoral temper, invokes Rick Perlstein’s Franklins/Orthogonians dichotomy from Nixonland.  (Perlstein, meanwhile, discusses this week’s events here.)

Speaking of Nixonland, Sam Tanenhaus, author of the acclaimed biography Whittaker Chambers and editor of both the New York Times’ “Week In Review” and book-review sections, reviews it (and Thomas Frank’s The Wrecking Crew) at The New Republic this week.  His discussion of Frank’s book is a little on the perfunctory side - understandably so, since The Wrecking Crew is, for all its fury and fire-breathing, a pretty one-sided and slightly cartoonish treatment of the lobbying culture, predicated on the idea that every K Streeter is 100% committed to eternal GOP rule. 

However, Tanenhaus not only provides a very acute and insightful assessment of Nixonland  but uses the book as a jumping-off point for a long, carefully considered examination of President Nixon’s relationship with the conservative movement of his time; how his policies related to the New Deal/Great Society tradition, the development of neoconservative and neoliberal thought in the Nixon years (with special attention to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s role in urban policy); and what the events of those years can tell us now, where the future of the Republican party and conservatism is concerned.  It’s one of the rare book reviews that repay repeated readings.

Out Of A Job?

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Economic issues, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

“The Economist“:

Not long ago economists and policymakers in America clung to hopes that the economy, after lurching through the depths of a financial crisis earlier this year, would rebound in the second six months. Such hopes look all the more forlorn now. On Friday September 5th a depressingly downbeat August employment report was released. The unemployment rate leapt to 6.1% from 5.7% in July. It now stands only just below the 6.3% peak that it reached in the last slump, in mid-2003.

Imagine you’re out of work (or maybe you are). Who’s going to get you a job, Sens. McCain or Obama? If it were I, and I didn’t spent more than the average amount of time following politics, I wouldn’t be too sure, either.

It’s time for the candidates to get to work.

Andrea’s Balloons

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, Democratic Party, Election 2008, News media, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

I experienced a variety of emotions, watching Republicans pummel Andrea Mitchell with balloons while she tried to do a floor piece at the end of their convention Thursday evening. Benign as a balloon-battering may seem, as happy-go-lucky as her tormenters may have appeared, it was physical intimidation against a small woman who was doing her job. If she or a member of her crew had fallen or thrown an elbow that connected with somebody’s jaw, it might not have looked as cute.

Mitchell was the victim of anti-NBC (especially MSNBC) sentiment among Republicans, the result of the cable network being in the tank for Sen. Obama. Fox News, of course, is doing its laps in Sen. McCain’s pool. While I didn’t see any anti-Fox balloon action on the floor in Denver, it’s obvious that the left hates O’Reilly with the same blinding rage the right bears toward Olbermann. You’d think Republicans would be content to enjoy their channel and let the Democrats have theirs. Republicans would respond that since the whole media establishment tilts left, they’re entitled to have their little sliver of heaven, whereas MSNBC represents a blatant expression of the MSM’s pervasive bias. And around and around we’d go, each seeking justification for our own excesses.

The Fox v. MSNBC rumble notwithstanding, during the primaries — as the right attacked Obama in ways that were sometimes as despicable as the left’s attacks on Gov. Palin — Alan Colmes, Andrew Sullivan, and others said that liberal/conservative, blue/red, culture-war politics were passe, that sixties-bred pundits, especially on the right, were missing the freesh breeze blowing in America.

But after the last two weeks, in the air as well as on the electoral college map, culture wars and rumors thereof persist. For this, the left must bear its share of the responsibility. After Palin’s pick last Friday, it engaged in an extraordinary effort apparently aimed at weakening or destroying her candidacy. The big, angry lie that Trig Palin was actually Bristol Palin’s daughter was unmistakably a culture war salvo. In turn, it triggered a week of revelation, charge, and countercharge that stuffed the powderkeg of resentment and zeal which (along with her own guts and character) launched Palin into the political stratosphere on Wednesday night.

Last Friday, before the the left’s below-the-belt attacks on Palin began, would the McCain campaign have envisioned the kind of acceptance speech she ultimately gave? We’ll probably never know. What seems clear is that surviving the initial onslaught is now a vital chapter in her narrative. One imagines she will remember this week the way Richard Nixon remembered the Hiss case. As her armies regroup around her, the balloons and barbs are flying fast and furious. Perhaps Democrats think they have her right where they want her — pro-life, Assemblies of God, “Christianist,” all that. But just a few weeks ago, their brightest media advocates appeared to think a culture war campaign would be bad for Obama. Have they changed their minds? Because it looks like they’ve got one.

The Warrior Ascendant

September 5, 2008 by Joshua Trevino | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

“You know,” I’ve heard so often, “I’d vote for John McCain if he were still the John McCain of 2000.” What luck, then, that the John McCain of 2000 gave a speech on this, the final night of the Republican National Convention.

This is the big news out of St Paul, Minnesota, this evening. The John McCain of long ago — the storied media darling, the maverick, and the man who never minded defying the powers of his own party — is back. Beyond any policy specifics, we see this evening that the Republican nominee, having spent the past eight years slowly working his way into the good graces of the forces that defeated him in 2000, now feels free to be himself. As a rule of thumb, touting your record of fighting campaign contributions, tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies, lobbyists and “corporate welfare … for oil companies” is not a way to endear yourself to the Republican Party. In the past hour, John McCain stood before the party as its leader, and did exactly that.

McCain’s speech was more than a mere declaration of independence. It was, ever so subtly, a rebuke to the party that rejected him eight years past. “We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption,” he said, “We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger … We lost their trust when we valued our power over our principles.” Those who listened understood. A McCain Administration in the past eight years would not have led the party to the disasters of the present. A McCain Administration in the past eight years would not have had Republicans apologizing for their (absent) standard-bearer. Now is the chance to make amends. Now is the second chance to get it right.

In making this speech this evening, John McCain accomplished so much more than Barack Obama did in Denver last week. McCain, tonight, mentioned Obama six times. Obama, last week, mentioned McCain twenty-five times. Obama lamented America’s failures. McCain called upon America’s greatness. Obama declared, “If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.” John McCain won that debate, not by replying directly, but with the stirring example of his own life. Barack Obama is focused upon John McCain, and John McCain is focused upon — well, America.

Perhaps most important, John McCain set forth the choice between the parties in stark either/or terms, with only the common ground of our American allegiance between them. That the Republican option in the comparisons was not the George W. Bush option was, as they say, a feature, not a bug.

I write this as a partisan, of course. The speech’s content was solid, but the delivery was hardly the best of John McCain. He falters in this environment, in which he relies upon teleprompters and has no meaningful interaction with the crowd. His measured pace in the hall doubtless came across as plodding on television. His penchant for speaking through the cheers betrayed an uneasiness with the mass enthusiasms of the audience, and a regrettable willingness to be led by the machine’s text than the demands of the moment. His faltering at the second disruption by a protestor — having used up the canned quip for the first — surely played as unexplained hesitation at home. Finally, the serial incompetence of the RNC’s production crew provided him with a wholly inadequate backdrop of green and blue: doubtless to be exploited by intrepid bloggers within hours.

Here, though, is the rub: this is the worst that John McCain will do. The convention is what it is — a staged, managed, turgid mass rally. Now, the campaign gets to choose the venues that suit him best. We had a preview of this at the Saddleback Church two weeks back, when McCain deftly defeated Obama in their first joint appearance. There’s more of this to come, and there’s more of the upbeat, optimistic John McCain, free to be John McCain, in the next sixty days.

“The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan is going to get back to basics,” said the nominee, and it is impossible to imagine what could be needed more. “I’d vote for John McCain if he were still the John McCain of 2000,” they say. After tonight, we get to find out if they mean it.

A Word From The Wise About Words And The Wise

September 5, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | 1 Comment 

Only two among John O’Sullivan’s many charms and talents are his time spent as a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher and, as erstwhile editor of National Review, his launching of the careers of many speechwriters — including Matt Scully who worked on Governor Palin’s Wednesday night convention address.

In his column in today’s New York Post, Mr. O’Sullivan reveals the truth —the bipartisan truth— about political speechwriting.

There are some political principals who will carelessly take and deliver whatever is handed to them. These are the empty suits and pantsuits. (He cites the famous —at least among the speechwriting clan—example of the Senator who even read out the press release accompanying the speech including the line “the Senator was repeatedly interrupted by applause”.)

But the serious ones, the ones with political and philosophical and personal heft, are involved at every step of the process.  ”Mrs. Thatcher went over every line, comma and paragraph break in her speeches,” he writes.  ”They sometimes went through five drafts. Speechwriting sessions could last days.”  This was exactly the way RN worked.  And, according to Mr. O’Sullivan’s source, this was Gov. Palin’s way with Wednesday’s words.  

I devised a small test while watching.

Matt has a slightly aggressive sense of mischief. How would Mrs. Palin deliver his more mischievous thrusts, like that line about hauling Obama’s “Styrofoam Greek columns back to some studio lot”?

I decided to check out the governor’s expression.

Sure enough, whenever there was a hint of mischief in Matt’s words, there was a glint of mischief in Sarah Palin’s eyes. Invariably.

Matt, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

SNN

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

Go to YouTube, “New & Politics,” most viewed, today. You’ll see 21 choices on the first screen, 17 of which concern Gov. Palin — 14 videos of her accpetance speech, two of pundits talking about her, and the McCain campaign ad comparing her favorably to Sen. Obama.

Featured Articles — September 5, 2008

September 5, 2008 by Jonathan C. Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Comments Off 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Can Palin’s Star Power Overcome Resume? By Charles Krauthammer
This was the most effective line of the entire Republican convention: a ringing affirmation of John McCain’s authenticity and a not-so-subtle indictment of Barack Obama’s insubstantiality. What’s left of this line of argument, however, after John McCain picks Sarah Palin for vice president?

A Glimpse of the New By David Brooks
The central drama of the convention was the struggle by reform Republicans to break through the pull of old habits and create something new.

Elegy for a Maverick By E. J. Dionne
Once upon a time, John McCain promised to be a different kind of politician and a different kind of Republican. He was about straight talk, reform and nonpartisanship, a resolute foe of the slashing politics of the slaughterhouse.

‘A Servant’s Heart’ By Peggy Noonan
Sarah Palin and the Spirit of 1980.

What Palin Really Did to the Oil Industry By James P. Lucier Jr.
She gave every Alaskan a stake in the state’s mineral wealth.

Why Obama’s “Community Organizer” Days Are a Joke By Michelle Malkin
Rudy Giuliani had me in stitches during his red-meat keynote address at the GOP convention. I laughed out loud when Giuliani laughed out loud while noting Barack Obama’s deep experience as a “community organizer.” I laughed again when VP nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin cracked: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Wal-Mart Thrives When Democrats Are in Charge By Rahm Emanuel
In advocating for the GOP, company executives are misinforming employees.

Oops

September 5, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

You’re Only Jealous ‘Cause Sarah’s So Cool*

September 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

Preaching during a back-to-school chapel Thursday morning to 700 first through eighth graders at an Episcopal school in south Orange County, California, I tested the kids’ political chops by asking them for the last names of the four major-party candidates as our headmaster (striking a bipartisan note, with both donkeys and elephants on his signature bow tie) looked on.

Obama, they answered with admirable confidence.

Biden, they said with somewhat less certainty.

McCain, they said, rallying again.

And when I asked for the last name of Sen. McCain’s running mate, they shouted — louder than for the first three put together — “SARAH!!”

Yep. She’s already cool.

*Pace the great Carlene Carter

McCain 1?

September 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

You wouldn’t know it from the post mortems, but Sen. McCain’s job tonight wasn’t to speak better than Sen. Obama or Gov. Palin. He didn’t need to practice using the TelePrompTer more effectively. He had to mount an argument against Sen. Obama’s ritualistically repeated contention that a McCain administration would be Bush 3. This he did, and he did it exceptionally well, by reminding people of his bona fides as a reformer and maverick, by underscoring his indispensable and lonely role in turning around the Iraq war, and by giving voters the rarest, most precious gift a politician can — the admission that he’s learned from his prideful mistakes and discovered the world-moving alternative to selfishness:

On an October morning, in the Gulf of Tonkin, I prepared for my 23rd mission over North Vietnam. I hadn’t any worry I wouldn’t come back safe and sound. I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent then, too. I liked to bend a few rules and pick a few fights for the fun of it. But I did it for my own pleasure, my own pride. I didn’t think there was a cause that was more important than me.

Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and an angry crowd waiting to greet me.

I was dumped in a dark cell and left to die. I didn’t feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn’t set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. And when I didn’t get better and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life….

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s.

The usual suspects are saying that McCain offered nothing new in the way of a Republican vision — nothing except lower taxes, fiscal prudence, a secure country, a stable peace, energy independence, a renewed commitment to great public education, and this moving call to individual as opposed to collective responsibility as the source of joy:

My friends, if you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier, because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

Republicans are bucking history by trying to get a third consecutive White House term in a time of war and economic distress. McCain’s still the underdog. But Obama shouldn’t be able to base a whole campaign on the assertion that his opponent will be Bush 3 just because he’s a Republican. Thanks to Palin’s energy, McCain’s refreshing authencity and temperamental youthfulness (with his aw-shucks grin, he looks like Palin’s prom date), and the glaringly obvious fact that they don’t look, sound, or act remotely like Bush-Cheney, the upshot of this weird, upside down convention week is that Obama will need to find a new talking point.

“A Stable And Enduring Peace”

September 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, International Affairs | 1 Comment 

From Sen. McCain’s speech, the main reason we elect Presidents, or so RN would tell us:

My friends, when I was 5 years old, a car pulled up in front of our house. A Navy officer rolled down the window and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I rarely saw my father again for four years.

My grandfather came home from that same war exhausted from the burdens he had borne and died the next day.

In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home with me.

I hate war. It’s terrible beyond imagination. I’m running for president to keep the country I love safe and prevent other families from risking their loved ones in war as my family has. I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military, and the power of our ideals — to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.

Palin Is The New Agnew

September 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Republican Party | 1 Comment 

Jack Shafer:

Instead of letting Palin talk directly and frequently to the press, the McCain campaign will dress her in bunting and rush her from one controlled setting the next—small towns, firebases in Iraq and Afghanistan, “town halls,” important funerals, church conventions, and American Legion halls (essentially George W. Bush’s current itinerary). There she’ll play the role of Spiro Agnew to McCain’s Nixon, dismissing reporters’ tough questions as effete, impudent, sacrilegious, snobby, intrusive, unpatriotic, hostile, disrespectful, chauvinistic, “East Coast,” unfair, unbalanced, liberal, biased, trivial, hypothetical, elitist, and as partisan attempts to lasso her with a “gotcha.”

Feelin’ Good With John And Sarah

September 4, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Music, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

I could only catch the last 15 minutes of Sen. McCain’s speech on the car radio, followed by NPR’s sad sack post mortem. His Vietnam reflections and his peroration, in which he shouted “Fight!…Stand up!” over the crowd’s tremendous ovation, were thrilling, the best McCain speechifying I thought I’d ever heard.

The crack NPR team corrected my misapprehension. If the “Weekly Standard”’s Matthew Continetti was there to provide conservative, neo-con window dressing, somebody forgot to open the curtains.

While waiting for the rerun, I’ll note that there were two apt musical selections for the tableaux after McCain’s speech. First, for Gov. Palin, Heart’s “Baracuda.” Fifteen minutes later, darned if I didn’t hear Robert Earl Keen’s voice over the Excel Center’s PA. The quintessential Texas songwriter, Keen summons up a College Station front porch, an Austin BBQ and suds, a San Antonio roadhouse with peanut shells and sawdust on the floor. He sounds so…dare I speak his name?…Bush.

Maybe someone on the McCain staff thought the song title itself was a fitting end for a corner-turning, spirit-raising convention: “Feelin’ Good Again.” Whatever the reason, it’s an almost perfect song, with a lyric about healing, recovery, redemption, reconciliation — maybe even a glimpse of heaven. Here’s the best-available version on YouTube, followed by the words:

Standin’ down on Main Street across from Mr. Blues
In my faded leather jacket and my weathered Brogan shoes
A chill north wind was blowin’, but the spring was comin’ on
As I wondered to myself just how long I had been gone

So I strolled across ol’ Main Street, walked down a flight of stairs
Stepped into the hall and saw all my friends were there
A neon sign was flashing “welcome come on in”
It feels so good, feelin’ good again

My favorite band was playin’ an Otis Redding song
When they sang the chorus everybody sang along
Dan and Margarita were swayin’ side by side
I heard they were divorcing, but I guess they let it slide

I wished I had some money with which to buy a round
I wished I cashed my paycheck before I came to town
But I reached into my pocket and found three twenties and a ten
It feels so good, feelin’ good again

There was old man Perkins sittin’ on his stool
Watchin’ Butch and Jimmy John talkin’ loud and playin’ pool
The boys from Silver City were standin’ by the fire
Singin’ like they thought they were the Tabernacle choir

And I wanted you to see them all, I wished that you were there
I looked across the room and saw you standing on the stairs
And when I caught your eye, I saw you break into a grin
It feels so good, feelin’ good again

I wanted you to see them all, I wished that you were there
I looked across the room and saw you standing on the stairs
And when I caught your eye I saw you break into a grin
It feels so good, feelin’ good again
It feels so good, feelin’ good again

Notes from the Other Side

September 4, 2008 by David Emig | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

If McCain runs against the last eight years, this race is over…

Senator Obama needs to be scared.  Very scared.

The Republican Rockstar

September 4, 2008 by David Emig | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

I too, watched Governor Palin’s speech last night. I was impressed. She is indeed formidable, and it might be best for the Democrats to overestimate her rather than underestimate her. As I mentioned last night in a comment, the Republicans now have their rockstar. It would behoove the Democrats to defeat her in November — or have the prospect of facing her for the next three election cycles.

Governor Palin’s speech was mostly eloquent rhetoric designed to entertain the base of the current Republican party. There was no mention of specifics issues that face this country, and the solutions to solve them.

This is understandable. Issues and solutions aren’t what the Republicans want to discuss. After all, specifics won’t win this election for them. They will depend on their version of symbol and character — much like they did in 2000, and 2004. As in those times, the GOP would rather avoid the obvious, and pretend that the problems don’t exist.

Of course she did try to talk about specifics….about her version of her opponent’s record. Governor Palin cited that Senator Obama “has authored two memoirs but not a single major law…”

How bout the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, which regulates and limits lobbyists contributions to members of Congress. Or “Lugar-Obama”, a bill designed to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states.” And finally the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. This bill, also called the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act, required full disclosure of all entities receiving US taxpayer money. All of this bills were signed into law by a Republican president. Senator Obama reached across the aisle for each piece of legislation. He even worked with John McCain on the Transparency Act. Though, Governor Palin didn’t tell you any of that

Governor Palin insisted that the Democrats want to raise taxes. This over simplicity charge is as old as taxes itself. The whole truth is that the Democrats want to cut taxes for the middle class, reverse the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest 5%, and close tax loopholes for Corporate America.

Governor Palin might just have a “John Kerry” type problem, as it appears that she was for the ‘bridge to nowhere’, before she was against it…

We can all agree that energy is a primary issue in this election. You know, the Republicans remind me of a visit to the dentist. Both like to drill. However, like a good dentist, everyone should understand that drilling is part of the solution, and not the only one. It is not an opportunity for further bonanza for the oil companies.

So, as I stated in the opening — the Republicans have their rockstar. However, the most important question to be answered is: will her record and views be attractive to independents and moderates of both parties — and just not the current Republican base.

Are You Gonna Believe Your Lying Eyes?

September 4, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Internet, News media, Technology | Leave a Comment 

 

 

 

 

The three photographs above all achieved widespread distribution in print and, especially, on the internet. They also have something else in common.  Is it:

(a) they are all in color,

(b) they all involve politics,

(c) they are all stone phonies?

The answer, of course, is (b).

Just kidding.  If you guessed (c) you’re a winner — and you can see seventeen other examples of creative photoshopping in a Telegraph (London) feature on ”Doctored photos: 20 memorable picture fakes”.

President Bush’s book was rightside up before the photoshoppers went to work.

John Kerry and Jane Fonda have been pictured sharing the same platform separated by several feet, but they never achieved this kind of propinquity with any cameras present.

And any doubts about the shark attack under the Golden Gate Bridge, should be dispelled by the following: