Recently in Sarah Palin Category

"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket...and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory."

Sarah says that she wants to know, why she's given half her life to people she hates now... Or, in other words, members of the press, you won't have a certain maverick to kick around anymore...or will you? With a rambling farewell speech that probably won't be remembered as a model of the form, former veep nominee Sarah Palin resigns the governorship of Alaska. Whether this is due to 2012 calculation or impending scandal is yet to be determined, although the hurriedness of the preparations would seem to suggest the latter.

"'In another state, he would be toast,' said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. 'In Alaska, you gotta make him a significant underdog.'" How's this for a sign of the times? Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate (and the only one to famously favor a Hulk tie), is very quickly found guilty on seven felony counts of lying on his non-disclosure forms. As you may remember, the indictments broke in July, and Stevens -- asking for a quick pre-election trial -- got one.

And yet, despite the desperate entreaties of Senator McCain and the governor of his home state, one Sarah Palin, Stevens has vowed to fight on for re-election next week, thus further boosting the chances of a Dem Senate pick-up in the Last Frontier...and beyond. "'It's a horrible year for Republicans, in a horrific fall, and this is yet another horrific event,' Cook said. 'This throws them off message; it puts them back on the defensive again. It makes it harder to separate themselves from the party.'" Well, thanks for that, at least, Senator.

"Another Greenville, another Magic Mart, Jeffer, grab your fiddle... So, pop quiz: What do old-school R.E.M. and Sarah Palin have in common? They've both sung paeans to "Little America," or as Governor Palin rather awkwardly put it recently, the "pro-America areas of this great nation." In case you somehow missed what she was trying to get at, NC GOP candidate Robin Hayes said it even more plainly: "Liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God." Or consider Minnesota freakshow Michele Bachmann, soon after deeming Senator and Michelle Obama enemies of the people: "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America."

Now, I realize the once-powerful conservative movement is now entering the late, terminal stages of its malignancy, that these floundering insults and echoes of McCarthy are all just part of the right-wing death rattle, and that it's probably best just to look away from their interminable gesticulating and shrieking while the right melts away into electoral oblivion. But, really, eff these people. I'm so utterly sick of these conservative assholes wrapping themselves in our flag every time their narrowness and stupidity is exposed before all the world. America is so much more than the pathetic litany of grievances and bigotries these jokers trot out every time their flank is exposed. And if they truly loved America as much as they claim to, they'd know this, and stop embarrassing us all by conflating their ignorant and unprincipled antipathies with what's good and true in our national life.

The consul a horse. Jefferson, I think they're lost.

"So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me." Old news by now, but just to get it on-the-record: Shown the door by the editors of his late father's magazine for his recent prObama apostasy, columnist and satirist Christopher Buckley bids farewell to the conservative "movement". "While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of 'conservative' government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case."

Along the same lines, see also former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan's most recent WSJ column. (Noonan, remember, is also on the outs with the stark-raving fundies because of her recent open-mic remarks regarding Palin on MSNBC.) Buried under the obligatory (if fanciful) McCain-won-the-debate lede is this telling passage: "In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism. I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives...In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position. At any rate, come and get me, copper."

By way of a high-school friend, Palin as President. As a big fan of Sam and Max and Monkey Island-type games, I for one am ecstatic to see pixel-hunting problem-solving now being applied to our lefty agitprop. (It reminds me of this still-great Dubya Infocom adventure.)

"At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option...What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin...By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out 'Terrorist!' The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. " -- Frank Rich, QFT, October 12, 2008.

It'd be funny, if it weren't so frightening, to see this current version of the GOP end as it began. Forty years after the New Right that coalesced behind Goldwater and Reagan saw its first national victory with the election of Richard Nixon on a, ahem, "law and order" ticket (in no small part thanks to the assassination of RFK), the conservative movement that gave us Helms, Falwell, Reagan, Gingrich, and Dubya is collapsing back into its original base state: a seething, festering cauldron of paranoia, race-baiting, inarticulate rage, and eminently justifable, easily exploitable working-class grievance.

And, with no other game-changer left in the Atwater playbook, McCain the mythical maverick, his "Sarracuda" running mate, and the sad coterie of (lily white) GOP deadenders about them have now taken to doing the very opposite of "Putting Country First" -- Instead, they're stirring this pot, hoping the vile, unstable, and extremely combustible concoction therein can somehow propel them into the White House. Call it the Joker strategy: With no other way to win at this point, the McCain campaign is banking on the American people getting so scared, confused, and enraged by their lies and name-calling that we'll up and decide to blow each others' ferries out of the water. (In fact, now that I think about it, I guess that might go a long way towards explaining McCain's bizarre recent "my fellow prisoners" slip. But, sorry, Senator, the prisoners' dilemma isn't going to play any better in November than it did in Gotham a few months ago.)

Frank Rich is right: Even as a Hail Mary play in anything-goes politics, this is beyond the pale. John McCain should -- and, given his body language of late, does -- know what so often results -- and has resulted -- from that foul brew he's toying with. In short, this is a new low, and half-heartedly attempting to walk back the hate after fiddling with the lock on this Pandora's Box is too little, too late.

Of course, we all eventually expected this of the Republican party -- Their hold on power is at long last dissipating, and their sick, desperate movement, four-and-a-half decades old, is seemingly now in its ugly death throes, so why not trot out the oldest, saddest one-trick pony in their tiny stable? But McCain, from everything we've heard about the man, was meant to be better than this. A straight-talker, a man of honor, yadda yadda yadda. Well, horsepuckey. John McCain has brought everlasting shame on himself, and if there's any justice left in this country, -- and woe to you, Senator, I'm sure there is -- his repudiation at the polls in a few short weeks will be devastating.

"For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act." Well, golly. Just in case anyone didn't already think she was Cheneyesque enough, the Branchflower Report, i.e. the Alaska state inquiry into Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner, finds that the Governor (and her husband) abused her powers of office to pursue a personal vendetta. "'Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda." In regards to Palin's early defense that said ex-brother-in-law was a physical threat to her family, "'I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family reasons,' Branchflower wrote"

It should be noted, by the way, that the Branchflower inquiry was not only initiated and authorized by a GOP-run state legislature, but released on Friday thanks to a unanimous vote by a committee of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats. This seems to be in keeping with what we've seen in recent days, where any right-leaning talking head with even a modicum of intellectual honesty, from Chris Buckley to David Brooks, is now repudiating and rejecting Palin as "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party." That she is...although, not to assail Brooks' NYT-and-PBS-certified powers of punditry, it really shouldn't have taken him over a month to realize it.

To be honest, I don't have all that much to say about last night's lone vice-presidential debate in St. Louis, as I think the event speaks for itself. The general consensus congealing today is that Joe Biden won the debate, which he obviously did, but that Sarah Palin performed better than expected. Well, I guess she did, given that everyone was pretty much expecting another embarrassing and hard-to-watch Couric-style meltdown. But, remove that exceedingly low bar, and we still find ourselves confronted with a fundamentally unqualified and frighteningly obtuse candidate for the vice-presidency, one who has no business getting anywhere near the Oval Office, let alone only the heartbeat of a 72-year-old cancer survivor away.

Biden was Biden -- a bit wonky and/or self-aggrandizing at times, but clearly knowledgable about the issues and cognizant of the struggles that working people in America face, both as a result of the daily vagaries of the Dubya economy and of awful, unforeseen circumstances that can loom at a moment's notice. (Imho, his emotion-filled nod to the tragedy in his past was a far more authentic moment than any of the "Aw shucks, I'm just a Wasilla hockey mom" patter emanating from Gov. Palin over the course of the evening.) If anything, I think Biden might've erred slightly on the side of gallantry, since Palin seemingly held no qualms about regurgitating easily refutable lies (Obama raised taxes on the poor, Obama voted against funding the troops, Biden supports McCain's Iraq position -- all hooey) throughout the evening. But, all in all, BIden definitely did himself and the ticket credit last night, and I expect he helped to solidify further Obama's lead in the polls among independents.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, had the immediately recognizable air of the student who fills the air with digressions, non-sequiturs, and the occasional remembered idea in order to deflect attention from the fact that he or she didn't really do the reading and doesn't really understand the concepts being discussed. Even with Biden and moderator Gwen Ifill letting Palin slide on all sorts of evasiveness, the Governor often seemed scarily out of her depth whenever anything but energy policy was being discussed. (Her discussion of the Constitution and the vice-presidency was particularly galling.) As Paul Begala noted on CNN during the postgame, we already tried the whole "elevating the average Joe" thing with eight years of Dubya, and it's turned out to be a miserable failure. And, while excellence may sadly be a rare commodity among our elected officials, I don't think we the people are asking for too much when we expect basic competence from our leaders. Take away the memories of the Couric implosion, and Gov. Palin still failed to hurdle even that depressingly low threshold last night. Simply put, she wouldn't be qualified to lead this nation even in the best of times. At it is, she's a risk we can't afford to take.

Well, i'll have to reserve final judgment for several months or years down the line -- It's hard to think of any Coen film that hasn't improved considerably with age and/or repeat viewings (although I have yet to give The Ladykillers, another spin.) But, for now, the brothers' larky spy spoof Burn After Reading, which I caught last week, feels right now like medium-grade Coen. (Mind you, saying Burn is middling by Coen standards isn't a criticism per se -- Even medium-grade Coen delivers at several degrees above standard film fare, if you've acquired the taste for it.) Burn is nowhere near as funny as, say, The Big Lebowski or Raising Arizona, and I actually prefer the much-maligned and underappreciated Intolerable Cruelty. But it does hit at about the level of The Man Who Wasn't There or The Hudsucker Proxy, and I think it could even grow into O Brother territory one day.

Like Lebowski after Fargo and Barton Fink after their magnum opus, Miller's Crossing, Burn has that jaunty, drawing-outside-the-lines, devil-may-care ambience to it, which suggests the project was mainly just a mental sorbet of sorts for the brothers after their dour venture into (Cormac) McCarthyism, No Country for Old Men. In any case, I could see the film falling flat to those moviegoers ambivalent to or aggravated by Coenisms. But if, like me, you enjoy panning for hidden gold in their slow-fuse sight gags (among them this time are purple sex cushions, Jamba Juices, and Dermot Mulroney) and relish their penchant for eminently quotable buffoonery ("You too can be a spy, madam"), I suspect you'll have a decently good time with Burn. There are worse fates in this world than having drunk the Coen Kool-aid.

Just to make sure we've all moved on from the dark contours of west Texas nihilism, Burn after Reading is basically goofy from Jump Street: It begins with a ludicrous eye-in-the-sky shot of Planet Earth, eventually zooming down into Langley, VA, that (give or take a few more flashy whip-pans and slo-mos) would seem more at home in a Tony Scott film. Our Great Eye soon settles upon the sacking from the Balkans desk of one Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a veteran CIA analyst with a hair-trigger temper, a cold, cuckolding wife (Tilda Swinton), and -- at least by the standards of Mormons -- a problem with the sauce. (To his credit, he tends to wait until exactly 5pm, and not a minute later, to commence the day's boozing -- On Mad Men, he'd be a teetotaller.) Determined to exact his revenge on the Bureau for this slight (and perhaps save face before both his wife and aging father, the very definition of silent reproach), Cox commences to penning his "memoirs," most of which -- in the venerable memoir tradition -- is a ponderous, self-serving litany of blatant name-dropping. (He fancies himself as one of "Murrow's Boys" to containment architect George Kennan. I would guess this self-assessment is somewhat inflated.)

But, due to some twists and turns involving divorce proceedings, Cox's manuscript (in CD form) ends up in the hands of Linda Litzke and Chad Feldheimer (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt), two enterprising, if somewhat clueless, employees at the local athletic center, Hardbodies. Alas, both Linda (blinded by her desire to procure cosmetic surgery and get off the Internet dating train) and Chad, not the brightest bulb on the tree in any event, make the critical mistake of thinking this "raw intelligence" is something somebody might actually be interested in, and thus said gym rats decide to blackmail Cox into paying for return of the CD. And, if that fails, well, they'll still get theirs by going to the Russians with the data...but, of course, things don't go exactly according to plan. Throw some X-factors into the equation -- say, George Clooney as the paramour of both Mrs. Cox and Linda, a paranoid, lactose-intolerant US marshall who loves three things in this world: kinky sex, a good post-coital run, and quality flooring; or Richard Jenkins as the kindly Orthodox priest turned Hardbodies manager who nurtures a crush for Ms. Litzke from afar -- and this proposed blackmail starts to get really, really complicated. It's no wonder the CIA suits (J.K. Simmons and David Rasche) can't wrap their heads around it. What are they, rocket scientists?

Now, a caveat: If you find Coen movies to be generally irritating, you're probably going to loathe this film, and those critics who think the brothers are nothing more than elitist misanthropes (See, for example, Dave Kehr on No Country: "a series of condescending portraits of assorted hicks, who are then brutally murdered for our entertainment") will have a field day in panning this film. To this line of criticism, I would say two things: First, Burn is assuredly the work of equal-opportunity misanthropes -- It's clearly as ruthless toward Malkovich's self-centered, Princeton-educated ninny as it is to the good-natured boobs at Hardbodies. (Besides, speaking as someone who burnt out years ago on the Internet dating rigamarole, and who now runs mostly at night, partly to facilitate the Chet-and-his-iPod-type grooving, it's not like the foibles of Coen's characters here aren't at least somewhat universal.)

Second, particularly every time I read the news these days and find not only that I'm honestly expected to take a silly, patently unqualified, score-settling and habitually dishonest fundie like Sarah Palin -- a.k.a. an evil Marge Gunderson with the leadership skills of Johnny Caspar (minus his ethical instincts) and the stuck-in-Vietnam worldview of Walter Sobchak -- seriously as a potential leader of the Free World, but that close to half of our country is actually enthused by this notion because, well, shucks, she's "just like us"...well, I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that intelligence is relative, and that elitist misanthropy (or misanthropic elitism, if you'd prefer) might just end up being the new black. It's a Coen world, y'all. They didn't make the rules, and they -- and we -- are just living in it.

"Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of 'good old boy' politics and a champion of ethics reform...But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents 'haters' — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image."

As if Sarah Palin's recent spate of lies weren't enough to cast doubt on her fitness for the Oval Office, the NYT delves into the Alaska Governor's backstory...and finds ugly shadows therein. "Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials."

Throw in Palin's attempts to evade disclosure of gubernatorial e-mails, and her refusal to cooperate with the investigation into her illegal firings, and it all starts to sound so very familiar...

Y'know, after watching Wednesday's RNC festivities, I'm rather annoyed with myself that I titled the post about Tuesday night "Chimps on Parade." I mean, the dismayingly chimpy Dubya notwithstanding, at least Fred Thompson can sometimes muster up the ornery menace of an aging silverback. But it was last night's warm-up act, with also-rans Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani sneering and snarling with abandon at Obama, "liberals," the "elite media," the home television audience, and just about everything else that crossed their path, that felt like the real flying monkey attack.

Now, I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the nation or anything, but, in terms of the sheer quantity of vitriol, last night's flurry of bad mojo felt quite a bit to me like Pat Buchanan's disastrous 1992 "Culture War" speech all over again. (The fur flew so thick last night that even the AP felt compelled to mention the blatant untruths today.) We'll see how it plays over the next few days and weeks, of course, but I get a strong sense that the Republicans didn't help their cause much at all last night. (And, if you were to happen to infer that, by calling that ridiculous trio of GOP Pep Boys "flying monkeys," I was implicitly comparing Gov. Palin, who later dripped with similar derision and contempt from her unfortunate sea of black, to Margaret Hamilton, well, that's all on you...sexist.)

At any rate, to, take 'em in their miniboss order...

Mitt Romney: "Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with Constitutional rights?" This one's easy...Douchebag. [Transcript.] Is there anything else one needs to say about the man? It wasn't so long ago even the GOP was united in their dislike of the guy's patent insincerity. But last night, of course, Republicans hooted and hollered through his manifestly idiotic remarks about a "liberal Washington" like he was Don Rickles killing at the Palms. "Is government spending -- excluding inflation -- liberal or conservative if it doubles since 1980? — It's liberal!" Of course, self-proclaimed conservatives, and darlings of everybody in that room last night, have run the White House for twenty of those twenty-eight years...but you already knew that. "It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!" Uh...I guess Mitt hasn't been following the news all that much of late, nor did he seem to pre-read his own speech. (See the first quoted sentence above.) I could go on, but you get the point: Douchebag. Let's move on.

Mike Huckabee: "John McCain will follow the fanatics to their caves in Pakistan or to the gates of hell. What Obama wants to do is give them a place setting at the table." Alright, I feel a bit bad for lumping in Huckaboom with the rest of the night's speakers. [Transcript.] He's clearly a smarter, abler politician than 95% of the Republicans out there (even if his weird anecdote about veterans and desks barely made a lick of sense), and his remarks wisely eschewed most of the angry invective that marked all of the other speeches. (His early nod to Obama's candidacy -- "Party or politics aside, we celebrate this milestone because it elevates our country" -- went over like a lead balloon in the auditorium last night.) Still, even with his friendly, aw-shucks demeanor, Huckabee laid on the finger-pointing pretty thick at times, particularly once he set his sights upon the "elite media, whose "reporting of the past few days has proven tackier than a costume change at a Madonna concert."

Governor Huck probably trod onto the thinnest ice last night when he tried to portray the GOP as the "real" party of poor folk and ordinary working joes. This is wildly implausible for many reasons, not the least because Huckabee himself deemed the Republicans "a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the corporations" only a few short months ago. Plus, it's really hard to buy into this sort of "broke-like-us" tripe when Cindy McCain is wearing $300,000 of bling to the big show.

Rudy Giuliani: "For four days in Denver and for the past 18 months, Democrats have been afraid to use the words 'Islamic terrorism.' During their convention, the Democrats rarely mentioned the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." 9/11, 9/11, 9/11? Mayor Rudy 9iu11iani, it seems, is not above living down to his caricature. Of the three Pep Boy speeches, this is the one that will probably be remembered as the biggest misfire for the GOP. [Transcript.] Even if Romney's was more intellectually dishonest as written, Giuliani's shrill anti-Obama screed was emphatically the most poorly delivered. (Not that Giuliani scrimped on the intellectual dishonesty. See, for example, his resurrection of the hoary "present vote" meme.) For whatever reason -- some say pique at his speech being moved -- Giuliani came across as even more weaselly and intemperate than usual last night, and -- I say this as someone who, despite everything since, gave him much credit for his original handling of 9/11 -- Rudy seems weaselly and intemperate on the best of days. In any case, however much it may have fired up the faithful, Hizzoner's rant didn't play at all on TV. (While I'm linking TPM, Josh Marshall got off a great zinger last night: "I think I preferred this speech in the original German.")

And then the main event, Governor Palin. [Transcript.]

Over the past few days, I've refrained from posting every single revelation about the seemingly un-vetted Palin here, partly because I think little is gained by poring over the details of the awkward baby-momma story (even if the hypocrisy of the family values crowd has been stunning), and partly because keeping up with every facet of her creepy-craziness would've consumed the entire week. (If the Enquirer affair story gets locked down next week, that might well get a post here, tho' -- as did Edwards' indiscretions. Also, a PSA for any kids who happen to stop by -- watch what you write on your MySpace page, y'all. That's one to grow on.)

So, how did Palin attempt to distract us, however briefly, from the fact that she's an unqualified, uninformed, scandal-ridden, pro-life, creationist, secessionist, wolf-massacring, book-banning Buchananite fundie? Well, mainly by channeling Rush Limbaugh for forty minutes: "When the cloud of rhetoric has passed, when the roar of the crowd fades away, when the stadium lights go out and those styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot. When that happens, what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer -- the answer is to make government bigger and take more of your money and give you more orders from Washington and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world." Uh, yeah. 1988 called...they want their talking points back.

I wish there was more to Palin's coming-out address to recommend it, but 99.44% of her speech was just this sort of smarmy, deeply-negative, over-the-top ridicule for Obama-Biden, delivered for the sole purpose of firing up the tired remnants of the fringe right. (Another case in point: "My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery.") Even elements of her biography that I somewhat respect were grossly mismanaged. True, being the cleanest Republican politician in Alaska is kinda like being the world's tallest pygmy -- and, as noted above, Palin's hands aren't all that clean anyway. But, still, I'd have respected the Governor more this morning if she hadn't openly lied to us last night about her reform credentials. ("I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere." -- I believe Peggy Noonan has an apt phrase for this kind of blatant falsifcation. For shame.)

Update: "Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners...They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed --job training, help with housing and so forth --from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work -- the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a 'task from God.') This is what Palin and Giuliani were mocking. They were making fun of a young man's decision 'to serve a cause greater than himself,' in the words of John McCain. They were, therefore, mocking one of their candidate's favorite messages." By way of DYFL, TIME's Joe Klein angrily rallies to the defense of community organizers.

"You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical." Oops. When they're on the air, of course, most right-leaning pundits have very little criticism -- indeed, judicious praise -- of the Palin pick. Meanwhile, the media talking heads just nod along and pretend there might possibly some merit to such a ludicrous choice by the mythical maverick. Off the air, however, it's a different story. Just listen to Chuck Todd, Peggy Noonan, and Mike Murphy discuss their real feelings about Palin in-between segments on MSNBC. (They got busted by an open mic.) Says Noonan of the election (when she's not shilling for the right): "It's over." Update: In print this morning, Noonan scrambles.

By way of Megg, BSG fans marvel at the visual and thematic comparisons between the McCain-Palin and Roslin-Tigh tickets. To be fair, Sen. McCain -- while clearly a patently unstable fellow and a fake maverick who flips into sleeper agent mode whenever he hears His Master's Voice -- didn't actually kill his first wife (Ellen) and bed down with a younger, well-connected Cylon woman (Six). Not quite, anyway. And Gov. Palin, while as pro-life and fundie-delusional as Roslin can be on her bad days, hasn't actually tried to steal the election...yet.

"As one McCain aide put it: "We either get Hillary's voters and we win, or we don't. It's not a mystery." In a move that reeks of desperate Hail Mary strategizing (and, to my mind, grossly overestimates the potential PUMA vote in this country), John McCain chooses Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a woman he'd barely spoken to before yesterday, as his running mate. (I was flying back from Denver when the news hit, and it's safe to say the selection of "Geraldine Quayle" was met with general jubilation throughout the plane.)

Basically, I think Sarah Palin is a wonderful pick...for the Democrats. Palin may have been an excellent governor over the past year -- who knows? -- but she's an astoundingly poor choice for vice-president, worse even than Dan Quayle in the sheer tactical transparency of it. And I have every suspicion this gambit will backfire massively. To my mind, picking a running mate whose only obvious asset to the ticket is her second X-chromosome, and thinking that her sheer presence alone will somehow bring women to vote for McCain in droves, is not only a deeply sexist notion, it's patently idiotic. (Just ask Walter Mondale how well the any-female-we-can-find strategy works.)

Her femininity aside -- and, let's be clear, that's obviously why McCain picked her, unless (I say this as a short man myself) he just wanted a veep smaller than him -- here's a candidate who [a] mayored a town of 7000 people -- college campus presidents have done more heavy lifting, [b] has been the GOP governor, for less than two years, of a state widely known to be a sinkhole of Republican corruption, [c] has her own ready-made scandal attached vis a vis this illegal firing of her ex-brother-in-law, [d] is a pro-life, creationist supporter of Pat Buchanan, and [e] has admitted earlier this month she didn't even know what McCain's stance on Iraq is. Now, that type of blatant ignorance may be what the GOP wants from their voters, but it's damn sure not what voters want from their presidential tickets.

One has to wonder: If the McCain campaign was going to stake everything on such a pathetically obvious gambit for the PUMA vote, why didn't they just pick Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who also has the advantage of actually being qualified for the job? Well, apparently Sen. Hutchison wasn't sufficiently pro-life enough to fend off the fundies. So Team McCain had to venture all the way north of the border to find a pro-lifer up to snuff for the evangelical crazies...but don't worry, he's still a maverick independent and everything.

At any rate, because it's so dead on, here's the quality reaction of a MeFi'er, August Pollak, QFT. [Birddogged by WebGoddess.]

Zing.

Update: Rasmussen has the first post-Palin poll, and it seems a gender gap has already emerged -- Women aren't really buying it. "These numbers pretty much speak for themselves, but men have a favorable impression of Palin by a 35-point margin, whereas women have a favorable impression of her by an 18-point margin. Conversely, by a 23-point margin, women do not think Palin is ready to be President, whereas Palin lost this question among men by a considerably smaller 6-point margin." [Via Firedoglake.]