2/8: Sarah In The Spotlight

On a relatively slow news weekend, the biggest topic in the blogosphere was ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin's speech at the National Tea Party Convention, which was carried live by C-SPAN and the three major cable news networks. Not surprisingly, the rightroots loved Palin's speech. That said, they seem to perceive her more as a movement leader than as a WH '12 candidate. Erick Erickson calls Palin "the best thing to happen to the tea party movement" while Hugh Hewitt writes: "Palin is now to the right what Al Gore has become to the left, and she is going to get better and better at the role of messenger from the base." Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are ridiculing Palin for writing talking points on her palm, which she glanced at during the Q&A session following her speech. John Aravosis writes: "[S]he couldn't remember 3 talking points without writing it on her palm like some kid? What a blithering idiot."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Kleiman, desmoinesdem, Benen) continue to criticize Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for placing a "blanket hold" on 70+ nominations that Pres. Obama sent to the Senate. Josh Marshall urges Dems to use Shelby's actions against the GOP: "The headline writes itself: Republicans shut down senate so Shelby can get his earmarks."
• Ezra Klein is pleased that Obama invited cong. GOPers to a health care reform summit, but Aravosis complains that Obama is "raising liberal hopes one day, then smashing them the next, over and over again." Meanwhile, conservative blogger Daniel Foster calls the proposed summit "just another whistle-stop on the permanent campaign."
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Jessup, Lane) are mocking IL Dems after IL LG candidate Scott Lee Cohen (D) dropped out of the race following revelations that he had been accused of domestic violence.

PALIN: This Should Put An End To The Teleprompter Jokes

Liberal bloggers are ridiculing Palin for writing talking points on her palm to use during her Q&A session:

• AMERICAblog's Aravosis: "[S]he couldn't remember 3 talking points without writing it on her palm like some kid? What a blithering idiot. Hey Sarah, when Osama comes to blow up a few planes, you don't have time to check your palm."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "The most obvious question is: why would anyone need to write this stuff down? It's not like she's trying to remember the quadratic equation or anything. For someone who swims in the seas that Palin swims in, this is about the equivalent of writing down a note to remember your birthday."
• Oliver Willis: "Yeah, the teleprompter stuff was already dumb (I'd like to see some conservative pols handle an unscripted session like Obama did with the House GOP), but after seeing dear Sarah read off her hand at the teabag convention, that talking point should die. It should be noted that in this speech Palin referred to President Obama as a 'guy with a teleprompter'. Irony."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "[F]or Sarah Palin anything beyond reciting talking points is an near impossibility. It's obvious that she can't think on her feet. Who among us couldn't name three, five or even ten legislative priorities without batting an eyelash? [...] I hate to be so blunt and publicly disparage an individual but she is little more than a talking chimpanzee incapable of critical thinking who wouldn't make it out of the Republican primary which is frankly a pity because if she were to win the Republican nomination it would doom the GOP to the worst electoral landslide in history."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "First, if Palin is going mock the president for using a teleprompter while giving speeches, it's probably not a good idea to act like an unprepared 14-year-old, scribbling answers to easy questions on her hand. It doesn't exactly scream 'presidential material.' Second, that she wrote notes at all suggests Palin was aware of the questions in advance. She obviously couldn't prepare answers unless she knew what she'd be asked. If so, think about what that tells us about her readiness -- Sarah Palin was afraid questions from Tea Party activists might be too difficult. I realize her fans tend to be pretty far gone, but reasonable people should agree that this is at least a little scary."

Balloon Juice's DougJ doesn't see what all the fuss is about: "I guess I don't see this as all that bad, not compared to 'I read all of them' or O'Biden or thinking Africa was a country, let alone resigning mid-term, misusing the office of the governor to pursue a vendetta against Todd Palin's sister's estranged husband, etc."

Conservative blogger Stephen Spruiell pushes back: "[T]he prompter jokes took off because they reinforce the substantive argument that Obama is in over his head, because they indicate that he can't perform the the presidency's basic public-speaking duties without a major safety net. I'm not sure what substantive argument Palin's hand-notes are supposed to underline, and I suspect it's not an argument so much as an attitude. The attitude would be that writing on your hand is dumb and low-class. On the left, where this opinion of Palin already prevails, anything which reinforces it will be picked up and cheerfully passed around. And, to the extent that anyone not on the left notices this giddy snobbery, it will play to Palin's strengths."

Meanwhile, other righty bloggers (Erickson, Hinderaker, Bandes) are discussing the Tea Party convention in its entirety.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Rahm Emmanuel and the Iron Law of Euphemism

The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman:

"What the right wing loves to mock as 'politically correct speech' is simply the application of the principle that groups of people, especially those whose social status is marginal, should not be referred to by demeaning names. Sarah Palin, for example, the mother of a developmentally disabled child, objects to the use of 'retarded' as an insult. (At least, she objects to it when [WH CoS] Rahm Emmanuel does it.) And she's right to do so. [...] The entirely praiseworthy effort to be polite is not without its ironies, all relating to what J.K. Galbraith called the Iron Law of Euphemism. Even a neutral-sounding label will soon become pejorative if attached to an unpleasant reality or a despised group. Recall that the [Herbert] Hoover Administration introduced 'temporary depression of economic activity' as a less-scary substitute for 'crash' or 'panic.'

In the case of developmental disability, the clinical terms 'idiot,' 'moron,' and 'cretin' were introduced in the 19th Century to replace the demeaning ordinary-language 'natural fool' or 'dummy' (which latter served also to label those whose hearing impairment made it hard for them to learn to speak). Later, physicians who didn't want to tell parents that their children were 'idiots' started to tell them that those children were 'slow learners,' or, more formally, 'educationally retarded.' It took some years for 'RE-tard' to gather its insulting potency. If Rahmbo had called an idea 'idiotic' or 'moronic,' (or, for that matter, 'lame' or 'crazy') no one would have thought twice about it.

As my teacher Mark Moore likes to say, a good democratic citizen should be reluctant to give offense and slow to take offense."

LEST WE FORGET: Overachieving Beers

McSweeney's contributor Jimmy Chen:

• Stellar Artois
• Rad Stripe
• Guinness Extra Credit
• Samuel A+dams
• Dos Degrees MDPhD
• India Pale Yale
• Budwiser