September 03, 2008

9/3: Criticizing The Criticism

Conservative bloggers generally approved of Day 2 of the RNC, and they were particularly impressed by Fred Thompson's speech. However, the focus remains squarely on Sarah Palin. Like John McCain's chief strategist, righty bloggers are furious at what they perceive to be the media's unfair treatment of Palin. While some attribute the negative coverage of Palin to liberal bias, others believe that journalists dislike the AK governor because of her outsider status. Conservative bloggers are looking forward to Palin's speech tonight, as they expect her to hit a home run, electrify the base, and "prove the media wrong".

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers continue to investigate Palin's ties to the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). Many bloggers are noting that Palin's husband was a member of this party from 1995 through 2002. The netroots are buzzing over reports that the AIP's founder once disparaged the "damn flag" of the United States and declared that "the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." Greg Sargent writes:

"It's worth pondering how big a deal it would be if [Barack] Obama had ever courted the support of a group whose head had said this kind of thing about America and her flag. Oh, wait..."

PALIN: Does She Put Her Country First Or Alaska First?

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about Palin's ties to the Alaskan Independence Party, an organization whose "primary goal is [to have] a vote on secession":

• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "There is no longer any meaningful difference between parody and reality. [...] How the fuck did John McCain nominate an Alaskan separatist? What? Seriously? Really? Let me ask that again. Really?"
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "What may prove to be the single most damaging angle to Sarah Palin's role on the Republican Party ticket? There are quite a few contenders (ethics scandal, earmarks, inexperience, outside-the-mainstream views), but...Palin's association with the Alaska Independence Party might be the most politically detrimental. It's practically impossible to make a 'Country First' argument when your running mate is affiliated with a political party that puts country second."
• Daily Kos' georgia10: "Now that it has been confirmed that McCain's VP was once a member of the controversial Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), a group that seeks, among other things, a vote on whether Alaska should secede from the Union, many questions remain unanswered...While she is now and has been a member of the Republican Party for over a decade, when she was a member of the AIP, did she agree with their platform? What drew her to a group who's motto is 'Alaska first, Alaska always'? And how does her history with such a group affect her governing philosophy now that she is a national candidate? This isn't about whether Sarah Palin 'loves America' and certainly nobody is raising any questions about her patriotism. Rather, this may raise questions about her priorities. [...] It's bad enough that Palin has said she hasn't paid attention to Iraq because she was focused on state issues, but we need a vice-president who isn't myopically focused on Alaskan issues."
• Mark Kleiman: "How much of the AIP/Constitution Party ideology does Gov. Palin share? Does she think Alaska has the right to secede? When she said that her interest in the Vice-Presidency would depend on whether her holding that office would be 'fruitful, especially for Alaskans,' did she mean it? Does she think that non-Christians live in the U.S. as guests of a Christian nation? Does she think that American jurisprudence has 'Christian foundations' to which it should be restored? That the Congress should strip appeals courts of jurisdiction over abortion? That the institutions of American government are 'damned'?"
• Firedoglake's Teddy Partridge: "Sarah Palin was described as a member of the Alaska Independence Party, a secessionist group that promotes treason: the dissolution of the American government. Before her election as Wasilla's mayor, she was characterized as a member of the group. As Governor, she recorded this message heralding the organization at its recent convention. Recall as you listen to this welcome message that this organization advocates that Alaska vote on whether to leave the United States of America, just as South Carolina did in the nineteenth century immediately prior to The War Between The States."
• The Democratic Strategist's Ed Kilgore: "Whether or not Sarah Palin was ever a member of AKIP, her easy acceptance of this fringe group is significant. In the odd, neo-colonial poltical culture of Alaska, AKIP is not that far out of the mainstream. But make no mistake: in the politics of the South 48, and particularly Republican politics, the AIP is, well, anti-American. Whatever she represented in Alaska, she is now the putative vice presidential candidate of a super-patrotic GOP and the handpicked running-mate of a presidential candidate whose message is 'country first.' 'Alaska First' or 'Canada First' are not acceptable points of view for John McCain's GOP, not matter how happy conservative activists may be about Palin's reactionary views on cultural issues."

PALIN II: Embracing The Fringe?

Liberal bloggers are also buzzing about the news that the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party made the following remarks during a 1991 interview:

"'The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government,' Vogler said in the interview, in which he talked extensively about his desire for Alaskan secession, the key goal of the AIP.

'And I won't be buried under their damn flag,' Vogler continued in the interview, which also touched on his disappointment with the American judicial system. 'I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home.'"

• tristero: "The Sarah Palin story gets more and more sickening the more you find out about her. Turns out the founder of the secessionist group Palin and her husband joined...and which Palin courted after she was governor literally hates the American government and the flag [...Palin] has absolutely no business -- none whatsoever -- being in national politics."
• Sargent: "It's worth pondering how big a deal it would be if Obama had ever courted the support of a group whose head had said this kind of thing about America and her flag. Oh, wait..."

digby: "According to Pat Buchanan, Palin was a member of his Pitchfork Brigades in 1996 so it isn't all that unlikely that she would have ridden the extremist wave that crashed over the country during the early and mid 90s and culminated in the Oklahama City bombing in 1995. Being for Buchanan after that would have been a natural progression for such a person. If she attended the 1994 Alaska Independent Party convention then she was walking perilously close to Tim McVeigh territory. This woman seems to have come from the radical fringe of the conservative movement and if she had run for Governor in a state less tolerant of eccentric extremists, she probably could not have won because of it."

PALIN III: This Doesn't Look Good, Todd

In particular, liberal bloggers are buzzing about the news that Sarah Palin's husband, Todd Palin, was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party from 1995 through 2002:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Todd Palin, husband of Sarah, was a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party from 1995 through 2002. That's the information we just got from the Alaska Division of elections. Probably not coincidentally, 2002 was the first time Sarah Palin ran for statewide office in Alaska."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "The news only gets worse for McCain / Palin [as] it is now confirmed that Palin's husband was a secessionist as recently as 2002."
• georgia10: "Families are off limits, but should their politics be as well? Don't the American people deserve to know whether a possible secessionist -- even an undeclared one -- is in the White House?"
• Atrios: "My friends, that's not patriotism we can believe in."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Keep an eye on Todd. I have a feeling we're going to be hearing a lot more about him."

PALIN IV: Stop Shielding Her From The Press!

Liberal bloggers are accusing the McCain camp of hiding Palin from the press by not having her participate in any interviews or public events before her convention speech:

• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "According to Palin's home state newspaper, The Anchorage Daily News, the presumptive Republican Vice Presidential nominee has been working hard to stay away from reporters, refusing interviews before her speech tomorrow night. How far are Palin's GOP handlers going to keep her out of the public eye? They're not even allowing her to appear in front of the friendliest of crowds she had previously committed to addressing. [...] A campaign in retreat, afraid to face the media or the public, is not a healthy one."
• Sudbay: "Has anyone seen Sarah Palin lately? Is she ever going to talk to the media? Ever going to answer any questions? She'll be a heartbeat away from the presidency (the presidency of a 72 year old man who has had cancer multiple times). How long can they shield her from the American people? A canned, rehearsed speech doesn't count."
• Oliver Willis: "If you're afraid to sit for an interview, how the hell can you back up the president in negotiations, preside over the senate, and for Christ’s sake, be commander-in-chief in a time of emergency?"
• Balloon Juice's Tim F.: "Problem: Like large majorities of the American public, the press has expressed concern that McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin is not ready for prime time. Solution: Shield Sarah Palin from the press until they promise to only pitch softballs. That'll show them!"

PALIN V: Is The Media Out To Get Her?

Conservative bloggers are slamming the media's coverage of Palin:

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "The outrageous and frequently sexist attacks and sneers directed at Sarah Palin by many in the MSM have opened a second front in Campaign 2008. Although the Beltway-Manhattan media elite have long been pulling for Obama, the naked partisanship and transparent attacks on Governor Palin have fueled a pro-Palin surge that will continue for some weeks."
• RedState's Leon H. Wolf: "Ladies and gentlemen, the mass media has come absolutely unhinged over Sarah Palin. I have been watching politics for a relatively long time, and I have never, ever seen them blatantly and personally attack a politician in this manner. These people treated [VA Gov.] Tim Kaine, who has virtually exactly the same experience as Sarah Palin, as a serious candidate for Vice President, but for some reason, they feel it's appropriate to ridicule Sarah Palin and drag her family through the mud. Folks, it is time for us to fight back. With the nomination of Sarah Palin, the media have really let the masks slip. They are not going to give McCain anything even approaching fair coverage of this convention or anything else from here on out, so McCain and the RNC are going to have to expend extra money on ad buys and other measures to combat the media's complicity with Barack Obama's campaign."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "The selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate has apparently deranged the mainstream media. [...] The outrage has little to do with experience, and almost everything to do with being outfoxed by McCain. The media expected a staid, boring, safe white man that they could pigeonhole. Instead, they got a dynamic, successful, smart conservative 'hockey mom' with a record of reform that Barack Obama cannot match and that is the antithesis of Joe Biden. They got knocked out of their lane, and now they have to figure out how to explain how they could possibly have overlooked Palin in their calculations. Presto! They overlooked her because she's so inexperienced!"
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "It's been a cloudy day here in St. Paul, and the mood seems to match the weather -- although it's not gloom so much as it's a stirring, brewing anger. Some of this is because there are no Monday speeches to discuss and dissect. Some of this is because Obama's convention bump became clear today, and it's substantial. But that's not the talk of the delegates, right-leaning media folk, the folks on talk radio row. No, the topic of talk is a mix of supreme incredulousness and fury at the treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Here at the convention, the story is how much the media is out to get Sarah Palin."

Conservative bloggers are particularly incensed by US Weekly's new cover story about Palin, entitled, "Babies, Lies, & Scandal":

• Michelle Malkin: "The next time you're waiting at the grocery stands and tempted to buy Us magazine, stop and think again. Unless you're buying it for oppo research, you may not want to put money in the pockets of rabid partisans who have turned their gossip rag into a propaganda arm for the Democrat Party."
• NRO's Mark Hemingway: "US Weekly has long been a hellbroth of subliterate 'listicles' and shallow celebrity rubbernecking, but I never dreamed we could add 'vicious partisan political rag' to the list of descriptors."
• Erickson: "If you haven't see the Sarah Palin cover of US Weekly, you will. Compare it to this one. Who is flogging this story? [...] Mark Neschis [who] worked for Mike McCurry in the [Bill] Clinton White House. Do you need anything else on this one? Seriously?"

MCCAIN: Reckless, Reckless, Reckless

Liberal bloggers are arguing that the Palin pick perfectly encapsulates McCain's impulsiveness and poor judgment:

• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "As far as I'm concerned, the story about Sarah Palin is what John McCain's decision to make her his running mate says about his judgment. And what this tells us is stunning. It is basic, basic politics that before you ask someone to become your running mate, you vet them thoroughly. You want to know what you're getting into, and you don't want any unfortunate surprises. Apparently, McCain didn't bother to do this. That's astonishing."
• Daily Kos' Devilstower: "Choosing Palin for his VP is...a jarring reminder that having this kind of erratic, unpredictable, inconsistent 'maverick' in a leadership position is a very bad idea."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "At this point, I don't think I'd trust McCain to help me shop for a used car, let alone run the country."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Looking at the Sarah Palin debacle, one is reminded that one of the principal powers of the presidency is the power to appoint people -- federal judges, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, subcabinet officials, FEC members, the Amtrak board, all kinds of things. Presidents don't always put the best people in these positions, but normally they give the matter some thought. [...] Is McCain going to just pick people at random in order to 'shake things up?' Not bother to do any vetting in order to preserve the element of surprise?"
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "I keep hearing and reading the media types tell us that McCain gambled with Palin, but without seeming to internalize what that means. It isn't just that he gambled the election with his choice, it is that he gambled with the future and the economic and military security of this nation. He didn't just gamble an election. He gambled your future. Thanks for playing."
• TAPPED's Robert Kuttner: "'Maverick' can be understood in two very different senses. The first is someone of admirably independent views. The other is someone who makes bizarre, impulsive moves. The past week's events surely reinforced the latter sense of John McCain."
• Quincy Adams: "The only possible logic for the Palin choice is about winning the election, not about governance. How is this putting 'Country First' above party? You must conclude that McCain is in fact the craps-shooter with serious judgment problems. Either he has a teenager's belief in his own immortality or he is just so reluctant to cede any space to another adult that he felt forced to put a lightweight on his ticket."
• digby: "Many have observed that all this is a reflection of McCain's bad judgment, but I think it's more than that. It's a reflection of his reckless temperament, which is not something you want in a president, particularly one who has spent most of his life as a warrior and has a violent temper. (Just think about the Cuban missile crisis for a minute and consider what would have happened if an erratic, impulsive president had been in charge.) This, to me, is the central problem with McCain, and his VP choice reflects that. It's as if he woke up and said 'fuck it -- let's do it!' and didn't think through the consequences. After all, he is far more likely to die in office than most because of his advanced age -- to choose someone with a gargantuan learning curve, along with all the baggage of being an unknown 'first,' is an act of extreme recklessness. It's almost as if he did it to defy his own mortality. (He can't die and leave the country in the hands of this neophyte.) You can't get more arrogant than that. Or less patriotic."

OBAMA: Nice Try, Barack

Conservative bloggers are mocking Obama for comparing his management experience favorably to Palin's:

"'My understanding is that Gov. Palin's town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year -- we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the past couple of years..."

• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "Apparently Obama hadn't heard about Palin being Governor of the State of Alaska, which has a budget in excess of $11 billion annually and more than 24,000 employees. Also, on Obama's theory, the act of running for President gives you the experience you need to qualify to be President. That's convenient for a guy who has accomplished so little in his career in public life."
• Hewitt: "First of all, Obama is running for president not vice president. Second, did he think we wouldn't notice that all the time he's been running for president, Governor Palin has been running Alaska? Finally, Obama struts his management of 2,500 employees and a budget of $30 million-plus in July. Alaksa's budget is more than 11 billion, and the state employs 15,000 people. [...] Palin wins the side-by-side easily, and of course Obama is running against McCain."
• Morrissey: "Governor Palin is, well, governor, and not currently the mayor of Wasila. As Governor, Palin operates a $9 billion budget, and manages $13 billion in revenue. Furthermore, she runs a government that employs 25,000 people. Obama blithely pretends that she's still the mayor of 'Wasilly' in order to boost himself. However, running for office isn't executive experience, for one good reason: Obama isn't the campaign manager. He has a CEO actually running the campaign, handling the budget, and managing the people while Obama makes the speeches. If this is Obama's best response on the experience question, the attacks on Palin's experience will have to stop, unless the campaign wants Obama to keep embarrassing himself while making it."
• Malkin: "Even he doesn't sound like he believes himself anymore."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Are The Attacks On Palin Sexist?

Howard Wolfson:

"As criticism around the Sarah Palin pick grows, Republicans and their allies have launched a concerted counter-offensive designed to delegitimize attacks against her. What's fair?

Carly Fiorina's attack on the Obama campaign for raising questions about Governor Palin's experience was off-base. The McCain campaign has been criticizing Senator Obama's experience for months; shouldn't the Obama campaign be able to raise similiar questions about Gov. Palin? Experience was a major issue in this race long before Gov. Palin was selected. Surely it's legitimate for the Obama campaign -- or anyone else -- to raise questions about her lack of foreign policy credentials. Similarly, questions about Gov. Palin's policy positions or about the official government investigation into her actions as Governor are totally appropriate.

On the other hand, questions about how or whether Sarah Palin could raise her five children while serving as Vice-President are outrageous. Senator Obama, to his credit, has made clear that such enquiries are out of bounds. Unfortunately some in the media have raised this issue and injected it into the public discussion. Let's be clear -- there is no chance that a man in Sarah Palin's position would be asked how he could possibly raise his children while running for high office. Democrats would be wise to continue to reject this line of attack."

LEST WE FORGET: McCain Speechwriter Trying To Write Lines That Don't Lead To Creepy Smile

From The Onion:

"PHOENIX, AZ -- According to campaign sources, Joseph Chappel, a 38-year-old speechwriter for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), has spent the last two weeks attempting to combine words and phrases in such a way as to not provoke a tight-jawed, dead-eyed smile from the presidential hopeful. Dreading a repeat of last month's speech to a group of businesswomen in Ohio, during which McCain followed a mention of his wife with an awkward and eerie smirk, Chappel has avoided personal anecdotes for the new speech, omitted any mention of 'God' or 'this great nation,' and cut several phrases that had the potential to draw the 72-year-old candidate's mouth open in a horrifying display of teeth and gums.

'I've managed to make two out of every three sentences a question, but I'm not sure that will help,' Chappel said shortly after deleting an introductory paragraph in which McCain welcomes the crowd. 'Jesus, that [smile] makes me feel cold inside.'

Chappel told reporters that if he is not able to write an appropriate, smile-free speech in time for the Republican National Convention, he will resign his position and return to his previous job, taking photographs of abused children for police reports."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at September 3, 2008 01:33 PM