A Second Hand Conjecture

To see an interview with Bobby Jindal is to be bombarded with unconventional policy ideas in rapid succession…and most of them would be best punctuated with a ‘WTF’. As in: ‘we dump our dredged silt in the Gulf. WTF. Let’s use it for wetlands restoration.’

It has been said, in reference to Maxwell and electromagnetism, that true genius does not involve comprehending the complex, but in making the complex comprehensible. That could apply on a lesser, political level, to Jindal’s ability to translate often arcane policy agendas into a vernacular pitch. A useful art, for which the New Statesman selected Bobby as one of their ten most likely to change the world last month. A choice that may end up being as well considered as their 2005 selection of Barack Obama.

“Bobby.” Despite being far from Louisiana, I note I find myself increasingly using his given name alone, with everyone immediately knowing who I am talking about. I also note this is similarly done with “Sarah.” It seems we’re on a first name basis with the two primary contestants for the 2012 Republican nomination. That level of familiarity and connection should make for a titanic battle. Quite a welcome experience, after that “whom do you despise the least?” contest in the 2008 primary fight.

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I view this as near proof positive that Sarah Palin has a real, concrete, chance at being President some day.    2012 if Obama messes up too badly, and 2018 otherwise.  I just can’t conceive of any other reason for her to provide such an obvious fascination for so many people.

It seems that Sarah didn’t just energize the Republican base, she energizes Huff-Po as well.

You can just about hear the valley-girl squeal;  Omygawd, Todd is like, destroying the Earth, dude.    And he’s, like, on that snow machine, like, in the snow.    And like, I’m not going to say anything, like,  uncool, but… woah… Sarah must really be a bitch.

The constant criticism of Sarah Palin is so gratuitous that I can only assume that “no publicity is bad” applies.    No one with a brain could take this seriously, and it will get her name out in front of the “other side” and keep it there.    And it will solidify criticism OF her, as being baseless.    A couple of years of this and nothing bad anyone will say about Palin will stick.

Nothing.

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With news that Governor Palin started her own political action committee at SarahPAC, she has entered the punditry discussion again, and yet again provokes strong responses, though as Josh Painter shows, little consensus. Many of the descriptions have to be read together to get the full effect of the dissonance.

So, is Sarah Palin the right wing extremist McCain staffers and leftists believe her to be? Is she the fundie theocrat secular leftists say she is?  Is she the “neocon” portrayed by careless conservatives? Is she a populist, as some liberals claim? If the governor is a populist, is that populism as disingenuous as the looser cannons on the left insist it is? Is she a leftist, as Big Oil’s useful idiots would have us believe? Is she the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan that his own elder son sees? Or is Gov. Palin a centrist, as the Alaskan pundit says she has governed? Did Pat Buchanan hit it closest to the mark of all the pundits quoted here, calling her a traditionalist?

It’s a question unfortunately, that will need to be answered to the public. James Pethokoukis of U.S. News & World Report’s Capital Commerce blog has some homework ideas on how to do this. I would also love to see more writing and commentary like this. I think it will be important to remember that when answering this question to the public, the response needs to come in many parts, only one of which should be in the traditional media. She could take a few pointers from Fred Thompson and Jon Henke with the other parts using the new media and youtube and other social sites.

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The 2009 Sarah Palin calendar has become the top selling office product on Amazon. Don’t bother trying to order, they’re already sold out.

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Joe the Plumber joins the party and throws McCain under the bus, describing him and his campaign as apalling, praising only Sarah Palin. Apparently he asked McCain some questions about his views on the federal bailouts and McCain responded like…well, McCain.

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Whilst most elected Republicans are still preoccupied in pledging to work with (or for) the Obama administration, Sarah Palin isn’t having any of it.

This is significant criticism, because it is vitally important that a Republican leader emerges who can command a media platform, and will articulate regular opposition to the Obama administration on national policy. Naturally, whoever does emerge to shoulder this burden will be perfectly placed to continue that opposition in the next presidential election.

There’s certainly no point in looking to the decimated and newly submissive ranks of congress for this leadership. As in 1976, political reality mandates that it must come from outside Washington. Interestingly, Palin possesses an advantage over Reagan when he sought to become this kind of external leader of the opposition: she holds political office and can reinforce her criticism with independent action, as the new pipeline with Canada demonstrates.

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Andrew Sullivan, who’s never met a Sarah Palin rumor or slander he didn’t like, continues his transformation into an irrelevant and deranged Palin truther. It’s sad to see a once respectable voice in the blogosphere come unraveled, but Sullivan has decided to become the Palin deranged equivalent of Obama Birth Certificate Deniers and 9/11 truthers.

Maybe Michelle Malkin is right that this is truther, tin-foil hat territory.

Well at least he self aware, maybe there’s hope for a recovery.

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Rasmussen reports today that Sarah Palin is the choice of 64% of Republicans for the 2012 Republican nomination, and that a staggering 91% of Republicans have a favorable impression of her (equally remarkable, 65% rate their view as ‘highly favorable’).

It’s perhaps unnecessary to mention that there is no figure of comparable popular prestige left standing in the Republican party. Assuming she puts to rest lingering concerns among the Republican commentariat about her knowledge of foreign affairs, she’s in a remarkably similar political position to Ronald Reagan in 1976…standing as she is, alone among the wreckage of the GOP. And in 2012, the conservative grassroots sentiment will likely be quite similar to 1980, when no one in the GOP was eager to give the establishment favored candidates of George H.W. Bush or Howard Baker another chance, after the painful defeat of their previous hero, Gerald Ford.

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RedState launches Operation Leper to expose recently unemployed McCain aides who are trying to pin their failures on Sarah Palin. Hardly unexpected. As Grover Norquist noted yesterday, the only time the McCain campaign led the polls was during the two weeks when Sarah dominated the cycle. When it switched back to McCain, sayonara.

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interrogating Christopher Hitchens over his rather weakly supported endorsement of Barack Obama for president.

Hitch’s primary position in this chat is that Obama should be supported because he is “evolving” toward support of a more aggressive policy against international terrorism. Hardly the most persuasive pitch to say the least. Perhaps all those years of arguing for evolution through natural selection may have given him too much of a preference for the word itself.

His auxillery case is that McCain has become senile and temperamentally unfit for leadership. That’s something which is supposedly entirely and exclusively demonstrated by his “irresponsible” selection of Sarah Palin for vice president. Hardly more persuasive.

But in reading Hitchens’ recent writing on this matter, one tends to think that last point is what is actually driving the others (something Laura instantly zeroes in on). There is a certain reflexive personal hostility to Mrs. Palin in Hitchens’ writing, which is far closer to a definition of political irresponsiblity than McCain’s selection of her allegedly is.

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What a day for indignity. Just when I’d stopped shaking my head at the image of Paul Krugman accepting the Nobel Prize, I read two of my most cherished heroes offering rather embarrassing endorsements for bad things.

Christopher Hitchens, always aloof from the elderly McCain, has been pushed into a categorical and insulting rejection in Slate, animated mostly by a festering hatred of Sarah Palin that seems to grow more infected by the day. It’s not quite an Andrew Sullivan endoresement in that it lacks the enchanted fascination with Obama, but it’s still advocacy that makes you wince at the superficiality.

But worse is yet to come. Francis Fukuyama, in his most aggressive Obama endorsement yet, reboots history in The Times (adapted from the Newsweek piece) by denouncing the entire edifice of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution for capitalism and democracy as destructive and driven by uneducated American swing voters, who are stupid enough to endorse the philosophy he once championed as the endgame of civilzation itself.

Sad affairs. I suspect I shall have to become an antiquarian for these men’s opinions in order to remain a fan. Their current thinking seems only demonstrative of the strangely stupefying effect partisanship for Obama can have on otherwise able minds.

(ht: Ghost of a Flea)

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Sarah Palin’s personal email account gets hacked by an anonymous operative and Farhad Manjoo blames Palin for “Rovian tactics.” Indifference to irony isn’t a new thing in Palin reporting, but there’s a certain amusement about the event in liberal circles which is amusing in itself. That is, if you have the imagination to picture the apoplectic indignation at ‘Republican dirty tricks’ that would have ensued had Joe Biden’s email account been compromised.

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Like so many others, Elizabeth Johnson is out for that Palin look.
Sarah always has such choice footwear…and eyewear retailers are getting explicit in their advertising.
In case you were curious, this is where you end up when your anti-Palin hysteria finally hits rock bottom.
Finally, the sad sight of an ideologically indoctrinated childhood, at an anti-Palin protest in Alaska.

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Who would win in a head-to-head contest of the Veeps for the presidency? Palin, according to Rasmussen, by 47%-44%.

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Tim Reid travels to Mount Clemens, Macomb County Michigan, to talk to white working class female voters. Macomb County should be core Democratic blue country, but it was here that Stanley Greenberg first identified the “Reagan Democrats” of the 1980s, and Reid thinks we just might be seeing the ground shift once again:

The Times spoke to dozens of women here – perhaps the key demographic in this election – in an area that is 88 per cent white, has one of the highest unemployment and home repossession rates in the country, and will play a big role in determining who wins Michigan in November. It is a crucial swing state that no Republican has won since 1988 but where Mr Obama is particularly vulnerable. Nearly all said that they were still undecided. Yet the disturbing fact for Mr Obama was how many said that they had been leaning towards him – until Mrs Palin entered the race.
(The Times)

Read on>>

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Boy, this was an awfully interesting exchange. Democratic strategist Mark Penn, absurdly invited by Brian Goldsmith to argue the press has been soft on Sarah Palin, instead slams the media for counterproductively biased and vindictive coverage:

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According to a new Associated Press poll 46% of the public thinks Barack Obama is too inexperienced for the presidency, and only 36% say the same of Governor Palin. So much for that line of attack.

In contrast with both, a staggering 80% feel Senator McCain has the right experience for the job. An almost unbelievable contrast of opinion in a presidential election.

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Toby Harnden weighs in with his thoughts on the Palin effect. All interesting, all very astute IMO.

Of particular interest is Toby’s argument that McCain commands enough public respect for his experience and expertise, that he has no concerns about being eclipsed by Sarah. Because of that, he’s perfectly comfortable to ride in her publicity tailwind, legitimately without a fear that voters could fall into doubt about who is in command.

This is of course correct and it’s enormously important as a contrast between the candidates. That’s because this intrinsic stature gap is precisely what Barack Obama didn’t have (or suspected he didn’t have), when he declined consideration of Hillary Clinton for his own vice presidential slot. Something that’s regarded today even by Joe Biden as a considerable mistake.

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Playing a demo for Aviation Day, at the STARBASE Alaska Military Youth Academy in Fort Richardson. Nice rig.

Photo: Capt. Guy Hayes

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Well, I thought it was a clever button. But it’s pretty preposterous on the House floor. Context counts.

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Ron Hilton caught some great shots at the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax, Virginia. He was gracious enough to let us post them here for you:

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Here’s a lovely message.

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According to the Associated Press, a sequence of interviews with Democratic leaders has revealed this to be the political plan being recommended to the Obama campaign:

1. Tie the Republican to an unpopular President Bush.
2. Let no charge go unanswered.
3. Stress plans to fix the economy.

Well, I’m not sure any of these items is good advice, with a possible qualitative exception on #3.
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Credit given where due, this is a clever leftist button.

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(photo: Brian Long)

Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Canadian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is concerned that Sarah Palin’s decision to have Trig, may lead to a reduction of abortions in Canada through positive example.

This is perhaps demonstrative of how different perspectives on abortion can be in the United States on both sides. It is frankly uncommon to see a senior figure among even the staunchest American defenders of abortion rights, argue that a decrease in their exercise would be undesirable. Indeed, such an opinion is more commonly confined to the most extremist fringes of radical feminism, or within the vile eugenics and zero population growth movements.

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StubbornFacts picks up on the political immunization effect of throwing every farcical slander you can find or invent at Sarah Palin: “I suspect that eventually, they may find something that really does hit Palin square amidships. By the time they find it…it falls on deaf ears.” Yup.

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Some thoughts on why Barack Obama’s effort to portray Sarah Palin as “Pat Robertson with ovaries” (as Andrew Romano inelegantly puts it), isn’t working out so well.

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Last week I noticed that Sarah Palin had exceeded Joe Biden slightly in Google returns. Understandably, that has now become an avalanche (Biden: 5.6 million | Palin: 22.4 million). Although it plainly doesn’t exceed John McCain or Barack Obama’s returns as Robert Legge strangely argues.

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Jason Linkins takes exception to my reading his Huffington Post editorial about the silly ‘lipstick’ controversy as a suicide fantasy. He protests in his defense that he didn’t want to shoot himself, he wanted to shoot other people. Wonderful. How about nobody gets shot and you lighten up Jason.

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I would agree that the ‘lipstick on a pig’ controversy is a manufactured bit of political silliness, expressly designed to fill a news cycle. But that’s pretty much all it is in my view. Jason Linkins on the other hand is taking it way too seriously. How seriously? He writes that if he owned a gun he would have shot himself over it. Yeah.

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Taking his cue from Us Magazine’s five free issue incentive to dissuade subscribers from canceling over their anti-Palin cover story, TennesseeFree proposes Obama should offer five free personalized social programs to every fleeing voter. I’d caution the electorate against any such offer. Even with a beneficiary of only one, don’t underestimate the government’s ability to still find a way of making you stand in an endless line to fill out triplicate forms.

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Longtime Clinton ally Leon Panetta pronounces Barack Obama “intimidated” by Sarah Palin, and lost in a deepening cycle of reactive defense. With McCain now winning a majority of independents and erasing the gender gap, the blood is most definitely in the water. It’s now a legitimate question to ask whether McCain can finish him off. My sense is that the Obama campaign isn’t too many more mistakes removed from a serious structural collapse in a significant segment of its support outside the Democratic ranks. Panetta is quite right, Obama needs to regain the initiative and fast.

On that matter Jonathan Freedland is pessimistic. So much so, that he is evidently consumed with stomach pains of grief. He warns us that the entire planet will seek revenge against the United States if we fail to appoint Obama president.
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Mark Penn says the election comes down to Hockey Moms. Ruh-roh.

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It seems Us Magazine’s anti-Palin cover-story has backfired badly. They’re suffering a flood of mass cancellations from subscribers and have been forced to issue an apology along with free issue incentives. Yikes.

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Debbie Schlussel isn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of Sarah Palin as veep. She can’t seem to make up her mind however, on whether Palin is the “sleazy t-shirt” wearing representative of a “low class” family, or a upper-middle-class high income fraud, with a lifestyle of fashionable luxury.

I don’t know why it is, but almost all negative commentary on Sarah Palin seems to take on exactly this sort of concatenating dissonance. There’s always just a handful of dirt thrown too far.

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(photo: Tom LeGro)

Christopher Hitchens notices a pattern with anti-Palin rumors: their troubling tendency to turn out highly exaggerated or entirely fabricated, in a very short turn.

[A]s often as I have forwarded some alarming e-mail about her from a beavering comrade, I have afterward found myself having the sensation of putting my foot where the last stair ought to have been and wasn’t.
(Slate)

Hitch gets close to what’s happening there by recalling Walter Dean Burnham’s prescient 1960s prediction that Ronald Reagan would one day be president, based on Ron’s inability to exude hostility and thus not attract it. This is slightly misdirected. Reagan attracted as much hostility as any politician in the modern era from the political left, save perhaps Nixon. The trouble consisted in that the product of that hostility, criticism, didn’t seem to stick. Or even worse, seemed to possess a counterproductive property.

(more…)

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Tom in Paine has a blistering take on the MSNBC commentariat’s demands for the intervention of Hillary Clinton against Palin, as a kind of childhood psychodrama: “The more you listen to them the more you realize that instead of supporting Obama, a package of Pampers will do.”

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(Italee)

Apparently Sarah Palin has become the latest women’s fashion trendsetter. Ladies across the country are flocking to find her rectangular rimless spectacles, created by Japanese designer Kazuo Kawasaki, to achieve that “Sarah Palin look.” Some are comparing the glasses to Jackie Kennedy’s pillbox hats.

Well, this is certainly one dimension of Sarah’s success I didn’t anticipate.

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Warner Todd Huston compiles some of the more egregious untruths being promoted in mass media about Sarah Palin.

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Michael Carian scores the shirt from a kid selling them out of the back of his car:

(carianoff)

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The Etch-A-Sketchist does Sarah Palin. Previously, Joe Biden.

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Turns out the allegation of the Leftblogs that Palin associate Scott Richter was concealing an extramarital affair with Sarah, was just another desperate conspiratorial invention. TSG uncovers the exceedingly boring and ordinary divorce documents Richter filed a sealing motion for. Unsurprisingly, therein Palin is unconnected with any farcical adultery/business scandal conspiracy.

Apparently Richter filed the motion because he was eager to conceal his phone number and address, in the expectation that people would be shamelessly prying into his private affairs and harassing his family in a vain search for dirt on the vice presidential nominee. Gee, can’t imagine why he’d think that.

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Jihad Watch
I have seen a few articles that say something like - if the left dislikes McCan-Palin so much they must be doing something right. Here is a similar argument about views from the Muslim world. “whenever your taqiyya-practicing enemy tries to give you “advice” — such as who or who not to vote for — do
the opposite”.

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How many children does John McCain have? It’s seven including adoptions, but very few seem to know that. Easier question: how many children does Sarah Palin have? Five and I bet you knew that instantly. Welcome to sexism says liberal feminist Linda Keenan, in a profound and important confessional apology to Sarah.

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The American Left is about to blow a collective gasket at having Barack Obama’s celeb novelty instantly antiquated and cast aside in favor of Sarah Palin. Lots of posts are appearing all over the web damning not her record, views, or experience, but merely the fact of having to be subjected to obsessive reporting on her. They deserve every excruciating minute of it after subjecting the nation to mindless Obamania for two years. Sit in it and burn, says me.

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Sarah on babysitting, energy independence and CS Lewis in the Charlie Rose Green Room:

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Todd Zywicki, of the Volokh Conspiracy, takes a look at libertarianism in the McCain/Palin ticket and notes a distinct western vibe to the first all-western ticket in our history. He had an interesting observation that I think captures a lot of our hesitation about McCain.

The only caveat to this is that McCain’s westernism is tempered by his military background. And frankly, this is what concerns me most about him–his mind seems like a command-and-control, top-down worldview. To put the matter more elliptically to many but more accurately to my thinking, I think he simply does not understand or trust the idea of spontaneous order. In his worldview, things happen (good or bad) because somebody makes them happen. This is not a worldview that is conducive to understanding spontaneous order. That’s a statist streak in him that offsets some of his westernism.

An interesting point to think about. Does Palin temper that? Does she enhance it?

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The New York Times is reporting that Obama is developing a plan for all-female rapid-response teams to be sent around the country in an effort to counter Palin as she travels. A wise move.

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Sound recommendation I’d say:

“I should’ve asked a few more questions when Sarah joined the PTA. When my wife starts talking about reform, corruption and making government work for the American people, it’s best to just move out of the way.”
(Political Radar)

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Sarah Palin traveled a long way from Wasilla in a short time. Here she graces the cover of an Indonesian magazine.

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