Dale Amon explains why (at least pre-Palin) it was hard to be very enthusiastic about John McCain. But he leaves out a couple key areas: taxes and spending. And of course, the war.

Dale Amon explains why (at least pre-Palin) it was hard to be very enthusiastic about John McCain. But he leaves out a couple key areas: taxes and spending. And of course, the war.

It’s been a few years since I last heard from Heather Mallick, but not enough. I could have waited several more with no regrets, but it was not to be.

Fortunately, Lileks has the antidote:

I don’t think that Obama meant to call Sarah Palin a pig. Many in the audience may have been heartened by the stray implication, since they already regard her as a hootenanny mama who drinks corn likker from a jug with 3 Xs and smokes a corn-cob pipe after the media leaves, but Obama was just being Folksy and Colloquial in that um-you-know style he reverts to when he’s in Authentic Mode. In short, I don’t believe a line that stupid was delivered with full knowledge of its implications. I’m in a generous mood.

Or was, until I read this piece by a Canadian writer; it sums up with such delightful perfection what so many believe. So. Let’s have a look.

…At least she’s honest about the idea of female solidarity – it matters only if the ideological stars have aligned – no, if the ideological cycles have synced, to use terms she’d probably employ. Or has already. It’s not about whether Sarah Palin is a woman, it’s whether she’s the right kind. She’s supposed to restrict snow machines, not ride them or for God’s sake get knocked up by some slopey-brow dullard who rides them. (Competitively! Gawd) Nationalize oil companies, don’t make deals. Have one or two children, not five – Good Gaia, woman, are you trying to make overstuffed congested Alaska top the one-million-citizen mark all by yourself?

As for guys being irresponsible with their precious bodily essences, who cares? Aren’t you using protection? Or are they using vagina-confusing Man-Beams to cloud your mind? As for putting off home repairs, here’s a hint: either learn how to do it yourself, or admit there might be yet in this enlightened age a strange vague hangover that divides labor based on innate gender-influenced personality traits. If you expect him to fix things, and you roll your eyes when he tries, and you accuse him of using spit and matches, his motivation will be diminished – and even then he’ll probably wait until you’re out of earshot before he mutters “what a fishwife.” If your man can’t fix anything it but whines that he can make a really good white sauce, don’t blame him when you have an affair with the electrician.

I know this: Mr. Palin probably doesn’t postpone household repairs, or use glue, or old matches. He can probably change the oil in the car, too. There are guys like that. Not every wife has to sit in a cold Jiffy Lube waiting room leafing through Field and Stream, wishing the weirdo in the other chair would stop looking at her legs.

As usual, read all. I really should add a “Sarcasm” post category to complement my “Humor” and “Satire” ones.

Further fisking over at Tizona.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, can’t resist. I have to provide one more snippet:

It’s a joy to see someone who flung around “white trash” noting that she finds racism “so appalling.” All is forgiven; BFF? I don’t know what “violently rich” means, except that it certain sounds bad – like you walked up to Tony Rezco and punched him until a nice house deal fell out of his pockets – but yes, most Americans want to be rich, at least as rich as Obama, and there is nothing wrong with this. Most don’t have the book-deal / Chicago machine option, so they either play the lottery and plug away at their jobs, or they try to improve their station by the usual means. It is a dearly held American notion that you can do better than you’re doing. Even in broken Kansas.

As I said, hie thyself over there. It’s all delicious.

Will this be the the gaffe of the campaign?

Given the gaffe potential for both sides of the Donkey ticket, it seem unlikely, but maybe…

Is this really someone you want in charge of the federal budget?

Jim Bennett writes that Sarah Palin is a much more savvy political operator than people are giving her credit for:

Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.

The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska’s energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes – the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having “no international experience” particularly absurd.

In short, far from being a small-town mayor concerned with little more than traffic signs, she has been a major player in state politics for a decade, one who formulated an ambitious agenda and deftly implemented it against great odds.

Her sudden elevation to the vice-presidential slot on the Republican ticket shocked no one more than her enemies in Alaska, who have broken out into a cold sweat at the thought of Palin in Washington, guiding the Justice Department’s anti-corruption teams through the labyrinths of Alaska’s old-boy network.

It is no surprise that many of the charges laid against her have come from Alaska, as her enemies become more and more desperate to bring her down. John McCain was familiar with this track record and it is no doubt the principal reason that he chose her.

“In office for such a short time, but succeeded in each of her objectives.” Sound like Barack Obama? Not really, unless you consider “attaining the next office” his “objective.” Here’s hoping that he fails in the current one.

That’s Jennifer Rubin’s advice to Obama if he wants to know how he’s losing the election. I disagree with this bit of (what is now) conventional wisdom, though:

The obvious blunder was in bypassing Hillary Clinton as VP. With Clinton, the frenzy of excitement would have been for the Democrats and Sarah Palin would be back in Alaska.

Admittedly, having Hillary! on the ticket would have made the Palin pick more difficult–it would have looked too much like “me too.” But Obama had good (as well as no doubt bad) reasons to not want to share the ticket with her. The Dems might have thought it was a “dream ticket,” but not everyone would agree. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have high negatives, and they’re not necessarily with the same group of voters. That ticket would lose votes to both the voters who won’t vote for Barack Obama and those would would never vote for Hillary!, and that conjoined set would very likely been more than half the electorate. Her choice would also have fired up the Republican base against her.

And that’s ignoring having to share the stage and power with her, and the Bill problem (not to mention having to hire a food taster and have someone else start his car for him every morning). No, I don’t think that failing to put her on the ticket was a mistake.

What was a mistake, though was dissing her and her supporters by making it clear that he had never even considered doing so. If he’d been smarter, he’d have at least gone through the motions of vetting her and making it looks as though she was on the list. As it was, it was just one more finger in their collective face.

Pointed out by VDH:

…don’t count on a Palin implosion: if one examines Obama’s failed House race, and the weird pull-outs of both his primary and general election Illinois Senatorial opponents, then we sense that he has never really waged a knock-out campaign fight until this past year–and that may not be true of Palin’s past scrappy and contested rise to the top.

Barack Obama is a hot house plant. He only beat Hillary! because of his early success in caucuses, and because of the Clinton campaign’s early complacency and overconfidence. He lost the last half of the primary seasons.

He wasn’t supposed to win the nomination this year–it was just a practice run. But now he’s like a dog who chases cars, and has finally caught one. He doesn’t know what to do with it.