Palin's Poise Will Be Election Challenge of 2008

William Kristol argues that Sarah Palin is "now the central figure in this fall’s electoral drama."

If the Alaska Governor can maintain the poise and decorum she exhibited on August 29 - upon announcement as the GOP vice-presidential running mate - then John McCain's decision in selecting her may be by far the most important factor in a Republican November victory.

But note Jay Cost's essay as well, where he seconds the importance of Palin's "poise" as she fends off attacks that she's unqualified for the office of the vice presidency:

Here's my take on her qualifications. Historically speaking, she has enough experience to be veep. We can talk about what happens if McCain drops dead on day one, but that sounds tendentious to me - like asking what President Obama would do should Vladimir Putin declare World War III on the day of Obama's inauguration. It sounds smart to people already set upon voting against Obama, but everybody else will probably just roll his or her eyes.

Does this mean her qualifications will be a non-issue? Not necessarily. She has fewer qualifications than most veeps, that's for sure. Her thin resume could hurt her if and only if she performs badly on television. This, and nothing else, is what matters. The people who could vote Republican this year will give her a chance. Jonathan Alter, Andrew Sullivan, and other pro-Obama commentators in the MSM are not going to sway these people, at least not directly. These analysts could frame the persuadables' reactions should they decide they don't like her. So, it's up to Palin.

For those who are skeptical that she can pull this off, remember - Obama did! While Obama might be special, he's certainly not singular. Lots of people can give good performances on television, even if they have had little practice. Furthermore, unlike Obama as of a year ago, Palin has already been through a real statewide election. Two, in fact - first against incumbent governor Frank Murkowski, then against former governor Tony Knowles. Obama managed to look so poised without such practice.

The key word for Palin, as it was (and is) for Obama, is poise. She appeared poised at her announcement, which was her most important day. If she appears poised during her nomination acceptance address, poised on the stump, and poised in the debate - her qualifications should be a non-issue, and she'll help McCain deliver his message.

Read the whole thing, here.

Cost makes some keen additional observations. Most crucial? Palin's the feminine "maverick." The political appeal of both McCain and Palin is that of outsiders. McCain's made a career of challenging the powers that be in Washington, and Palin's swift rise in Alaska was propelled by a reformists zeal that has reshaped the state's politics and policy.

Gender, of course, has been important in bringing shock and awe to an electorate ready for change; but most importantly, Palin's background complements McCain's flair as a rough-riding outsider.

If the Alaska Governor is able to ride out all this first week's controversies with her wits about her, the GOP ticket will provide a double-barrel of straight talk power, principle, and pinache.

Photo Credit: New York Times

The Political Impact of Bristol Palin's Pregnancy

Sarah Palin's nomination as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate has generated even more controversy over gender issues than was true during Hillary Clinton's earlier run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The most important development on the left-wing yesterday was the allegation that Palin faked her most recent pregnancy to cover for her teenage daughter's alleged childbirth. Daily Kos, who first spread the rumors, bungled an attempt this morning to put an end to the smears. But with the latest news this morning that 17 year-old Bristol Palin is now pregnant, some interesting questions are being raised about the trajectory of the Daily Kos smears:

Anyone find it amazingly coincidental that Daily Kos went after Palin’s own pregnancy right out of the chute on Friday, with no apparent evidence whatsoever, and now we find out that her daughter’s actually pregnant? I usually scoff at the idea of party researchers planting memes with bloggers, especially since the nutroots is so paranoid about that happening on the right, but that’s a simply remarkable stoke of good luck on their part, no?

While interesting, Daily Kos in fact offered its "story ender" last night at 8:50pm PST, well before the news broke of Bristol's pregnancy. No, the truth is that Daily Kos and the nihilist left - now that the Barack Obama's gotten no polling bounce from Denver - are simply attacking the GOP ticket out of desperation and spite. The Kos people are at it again with a new entry attacking Bristol:

You can't make this s**t up. "Evangelical Christian" Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter is knocked up. No word on the father yet. That'll help Palin's daughter to break the glass ceiling: start out life dragging a screaming kid around. Should work out fine on those job interviews.

Oh, but she's KEEPING it. Wonderful. What's the name going to be: Bareback?

Palin is quickly being revealed as a White trash Protestant in the vein of Brintney [sic] Spears and the drunk Bush clan. What's next? The father of Palin's daughter is the family Pastor?

The next two months are going to be a riot - I'm betting there's MUCH more on this kook Palin.

Keep in mind that the Daily Kos netroots is considered the "mainstream" of the Democratic Party. This is a significant point, since these slurs reveal that it's not "post-partisanship" animating the crazed political vultures of the leftosphere.

As Tennessee Guerrilla Woman puts it:

A woman enters the presidential race and suddenly the progressive mission is to shame and mortify Sarah Palin, her children, her husband, and every woman who has ever found herself in a similar situation. And then no one will ever vote for Sarah Palin again because she's a slut!?!?

John Aravosis imagines that we are still living in the Victorian Era when women were so devastated by public shaming that they committed suicide. Way to go John Aravosis! And we thought you already held the record for alienating women voters with your vile misogynistic posts about Hillary Rodham Clinton. There's just something about ambitious women that brings out the inner misogynistic creep.

Note this comment too, from "Slim999" at Althouse, on the netroots attacks on McCain-Palin:

When the tallying is completed of the landslide of states that voted for Sarah Palin ... the Democrats need to take a good look at the bloggers who blew the election for them.

A sadder bunch of women haters and closet racists just couldn't be found.

I suggested this morning that the left's earlier attacks on Palin have precluded any credible criticism from the Democrats in light of this morning's announcement:

Bristol Palin's pregnancy and pending marriage to the father look even more likely to endear McCain-Palin to average American household members who share similar everyday challenges in raising functional, healthy families.

I felt a bit tentative in commenting on all of this, but Chris Cillizza's analysis of the political impact of Bristol's pregnancy dovetails with my own:

* Palin has a VERY strong following among social conservatives who are nearly certain to give her the benefit of the doubt in this situation. She is a known commodity in social conservative circles and is regarded as "one of them" - a fact that should lessen any criticism from the right.

* Democrats must be VERY careful not to take a false step here. Some Republicans have already insisted that the Obama campaign is behind the rumor-mongering about Sarah, Bristol and Trig ... Any sense that Democrats are pushing this idea will almost certainly turn both Sarah and Bristol Palin into sympathetic figures - and that spells trouble for her detractors.

The Palins will most likely find sympathy among disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, who cannot be assumed to be automatically healed from this year's primary wounds following the appeals in Denver a "unity ticket":

It was an awfully complicated week to be a Hillary supporter.

Her voters headed into the Democratic National Convention in Denver with anger, with threats to reprise 1968. Then came the swelling of pride, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton gave what many considered the speech of her life. But, oh, the regret: if only she had campaigned with that kind of oratory!

By the time Mrs. Clinton graciously called for the convention to nominate Senator Barack Obama by acclamation, some of her supporters were working their way toward acceptance, wiping tears but nodding as she declared that the party had to unite behind him. Yet how could they not feel at least envy, watching the Obamas and the Bidens stroll out in triumph, and thinking that their candidate could have been in either role, at the top or bottom of that ticket. Not even vetted for V.P.!!

Then, of course, came Friday: “It turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet!” That was Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, as Senator John McCain introduced her to the country as his vice-presidential nominee. “We can shatter that glass ceiling!” she proclaimed.

What’s a woman to do? Or at least, the woman who so badly wanted to see a woman in the White House?

Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights.

Not. So. Fast.

That underestimated, or at least underappreciated, the raw feelings of many Clinton supporters, and particularly the women among them, despite the almost flawless display of harmony in Denver.

At the very least, Ms. Palin’s selection unleashes gender as a live issue again, just when Democrats thought they had it under control.

The Democrats may have already been doomed, when earlier this year Obama "decided to exploit sexism and misogyny in his quest to defeat Hillary."

The continued hatred and intolerance seen among those in the left-wing base will simply hammer the last nails in the coffin of the Democratic Party election hopes for 2008.

Sarah Palin Confirms 17 Year-Old Daughter Pregnant

Breaking news has it that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's 17 year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant. Here's Katherine Seelye's report:

The 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, is five months pregnant, Senator McCain’s campaign advisers announced today.

The daughter, Bristol, plans to marry the father, the campaign said.

In a statement, Mrs. Palin said: “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows that she has our unconditional love and support.”

The announcement was intended to counter rumors by liberal bloggers that Mrs. Palin had claimed to have given birth to her fifth child in April when, according to the rumors, the child was her daughter’s.

Groups that oppose abortion rights had been thrilled with Mr. McCain’s selection of Mrs. Palin, the governor of Alaska, as his running mate, partly because of her opposition to abortion. It is not clear how social conservatives will respond to the latest news.

The campaign intends to cast this as the kind of situation that ordinary American families face.

The McCain campaign says it was aware of her daughter’s pregnancy before it named her as the running mate on Friday.

It's still early, but some initial reaction on the left is cautious. Here's Steve Benen, for example:

Now, there are different schools of thought on this, but I'm very much inclined to think a politician's kids are entirely off-limits for public scrutiny. Bristol Palin's pregnancy has no political relevance whatsoever.

What's interesting is that had the leftist conspiracy mongers not jumped to attack Governor Palin with the most insane rumors imaginable, the Democrats might have been able to make a case of conservative inconsistency in the promotion of family values.

Now, however, Bristol Palin's pregancy and pending marriage to the father look even more likely to endear McCain-Palin to average American household members who share similar everyday challenges in raising functional, healthy families.

My blessings go out to Governor Palin and her loved ones.

**********

UPDATE: This comment from Denise-Mary at Amy Proctor's is a more powerful response to the news of Bristol Palin's pregancy than anything I could say:

If these candidates, McCain-Palin, previously did not have all of my respect, they do now. Palin's straightforward statement effectively quashes any further discussion on the topic. Further, McCain apparently stated he knew of Bristol's pregnancy, and chose Palin as his running mate anyway. My hat's off to both of them. Choosing to keep her child is the most personal decision a young woman can make, and now that she's in the spotlight, will require phenomenal courage.

Of course there will be those who "trash" her and "family values." To those I would say: is not compassion a "family value?"

By the way, I'm a 56-year-old former Dem, female, who aborted a child decades ago. That child still haunts my heart, and will until the day I die. Kudos to Bristol, Palin, and McCain.

Also, unprincipled left-wing allegations of McCain's dishonesty on prior knowledge of the pregnancy are already flying, although even some of the most ruthless neocon-bashers are hestitant the smear the Palins, so caution may indeed to the norm with this, even on the left.

GOP Rallies to McCain-Palin Banner!

From what I've seen around the conservative blogosphere, John McCain's pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate has energized the Republican base like nothing else in the last couple of years.

In comments here, Debbie at Right Truth and Stogie at Saber Point were particulary excited about Palin's nomination, and Lisa Schiffren at City Journal explains why Palin's pick has electrified the GOP base:

By putting the relatively unknown governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, on his presidential ticket, John McCain has demonstrated that rarest of all political qualities: willingness to take a real risk on a serious new venture with great potential. It’s a sign of confidence, not desperation.

If the response from the conservative base is any indication, McCain has hit a home run with the Palin selection. A sullen GOP, set to vote reluctantly, if at all, for the “maverick” (some say unprincipled) senator from Arizona, has suddenly become electrified. In the first 36 hours after McCain announced his pick, $7 million in new contributions poured in online. This isn’t because Palin is making history as the first woman on a GOP ticket. It’s because of the type of woman and politician that she is. She’s a normal person, a mother and wife, who entered politics in 1992 by running for city council in Wasilla, Alaska to oppose tax hikes. She became mayor and swept a bunch of cronies out of the bureaucracy. She ran for, and lost, a race for lieutenant governor. She served on the state’s Oil and Gas Commission, where she went after the corrupt state GOP chairman, who had taken money from oil companies. In 2006, she ran for governor and won, after first beating the Republican incumbent for the nomination.

Throughout, she hewed to a few clear principles. She championed fiscal responsibility, cutting pork in the form of capital projects as well as larger symbols of waste, such as the infamous “bridge to nowhere” sponsored by Republican senator Ted Stevens. In a state that has been awash in oil money and political corruption, she also demanded real ethical standards and sent people who didn’t meet them to jail, never hesitating to challenge Republicans who were corrupt or ineffective. And she was pro-development, supporting drilling in ANWR; for that matter, she has dealt extensively with the tricky energy issues that have become central to this year’s election, and she understands them better than anyone else on either ticket.

In summary, Palin worked her way up the political ladder, rising on talent (she’s likable and a good speaker) and incremental achievement.

Note too, that GOP party officials are also ecstatic about McCain's candidicacy, with nearly 90 percent of delegates to the Republican National Convention saying they're "enthusiastic" about the ticket.

Meanwhile, even some Democratic Party insiders are warning left-wing acitivists about underestimating the brilliance of McCain's nomination of Sarah Palin.

Feminist Movement Attacks Sarah Palin Nomination

Anti-choice extremist? Republican tokenism?

This is the language we get from the radical feminists denouncing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who is John McCain's selection as vice-presidential running mate.

Such attacks strike me as nihilist. Palin's being smeared as making a run at the Oval Office on Hillary Clinton's coattails, and she's even being attacked by NARAL for appealing to - God help us! - surburban Republican women!

Kenneth Davenport, at the Weekly Standard, explains why the Palin pick has driven the feminist left to apoplexy:

Can it be that the National Organization for Women, the oldest, largest women's interest group in the United States is opposing a woman for the vice presidency of the United States?

The simple answer is: Yes, because NOW and other feminist organizations hew to a very strict leftist orthodoxy that places politics over gender. The NOW website, for example, lists prominently its "signature" issues--and they read like a laundry list of social activism: "Abortion and Reproductive Rights", "Racism", "Affirmative Action", "Disability Rights," "Marriage Equality" and many others. These issues provide the litmus test through which women are evaluated, with the most important being abortion rights--which is sort of the "First Amendment" of the women's movement. Not all women, it turns out, are created equal: if you don't believe in a woman's right to choose an abortion, you might as well be a man.

When Kim Gandy, NOW's Political Action chair, made her statement in support of Hillary Clinton during the primaries, for example, she noted how important it was for NOW to help women crack glass ceilings:

"Today, the first woman speaker presides over the U.S. House of Representatives, and Harvard University has its first woman president. Firsts are important, because they open doors for those who follow--but our real goal is to have every first followed by seconds and thirds and fourths, until having women in leadership is so common that it isn't even remarkable any longer."

Not for all women, however: Electing Sarah Palin as the first vice president in the nation's history doesn't count--because she doesn't march in lock-step to the way in which feminists have defined women's rights.

Such a strict definition of what is considered "acceptable" in the women's movement goes beyond NOW and other feminist organizations, and has become the de facto standard by which feminists view the world. The day Palin's selection was announced, for example, Sarah Seltzer, who writes at the liberal HuffingtonPost.com, wrote in an article entitled "A Feminist Appalled By Palin":

A lot of feminists out there are appalled by the cynicism and condescension inherent in this choice. It's as though the McCain camp believes our irrational she-hormones will lead us, like sheep, to pull the lever for any candidate who looks like us--even if she has a strong record, as Palin does, of standing against women's interests.

This seems a pretty typical reaction by feminists to the Palin choice. It's mostly anger mixed with frustration: That the Republicans would have the gall to steal Hillary's thunder by choosing a woman, but in doing so have chosen someone who (though female) is not their kind of woman--because she stands against their razor thin view of what is acceptable for women to believe in.

McCain's selection of Palin is even being described as inherently sexist, because, well, he's "an inveterate sexist, and it's written all over the way he talks about women, and the way he votes on issues that affect them."

So, now that Joe Biden's declared that Sarah Palin's not just qualified on policy grounds, but she's "good looking" too, should we keep our eyes open for left-wing consistency with a round of attacks on Biden's "objectification of women"?

I'm not holding my breath.

See also, Kenneth G. Davenport, "Palin V.P. Choice Turns Race Upside Down."

Sarah Palin's National Security Credentials

John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as vice-presidential running mate is proving more shrewd by the hour. As Blackfive points out, Governor Palin, as Alaska's chief executive, has shared strategic command of the 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard:

One area of Sarah Palin's background that may help her is Alaska's unique role in our national security and homeland defense. Several folks have have mentioned this but Tom W. was specific and his info jibes with the record.

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It’s on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska, Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's.

She's also the commander in chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security's counterterrorism plans.

Palin is privy to military and intelligence secrets that are vital to the entire country's defense. Given Alaska's proximity to Russia, she may have security clearances we don't even know about.

According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets.

She can be entrusted with our national security, because she already is.

This really is too much!

Barack Obama would kill to have had that much access to classified defense information as a member of the U.S. Senate!

Meanwhile, the radical left contingents are mucking themselves up with more sexist allegations and totally unhinged anti-Palin smears.

Of course, both rigorous polling data and home town reactions indicate that the Obama campaign's treading water on the eve of the Republican National convention. Note though, with Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast, the Republicans plan to scale back first-day convention activities. Plus, the Bush adminstration and Senator McCain will focus their attention on protecting people in the storm's path. A successful response to the storm raises the possibility of a boost in public relations, which will help innoculate the GOP from Democratic attacks on Republican incompetence following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The whole episode, handled well, will allow the McCain camp the opportunity to burnish its image of putting people first.

Obama Gets No Polling Bounce from Denver!

I took Zogby's numbers yesterday on John McCain leading Barack Obama 47 to 45 percent in the presidential horse race with a grain of salt. Zogby uses some funky panel sampling methodology, which raises reliability issues with his findings.

But CNN's new survey shows a statistical dead heat, with McCain trailing Obama by just one point in the general election matchup, 49 to 48 percent:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday night shows the Obama-Biden ticket leading the McCain-Palin ticket by one point, 49 percent to 48 percent, a statistical dead heat.

The survey was conducted Friday through Sunday, after both the conclusion of the Democratic convention and McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

A previous CNN poll, taken just one week earlier, suggested the race between Sens. McCain, R-Arizona, and Obama, D-Illinois, was tied at 47 percent each.

“The convention — and particularly Obama's speech — seems to be well-received. And the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP running mate, also seems to be well-received. So why is the race still a virtual tie? Probably because the two events created equal and opposite bounces — assuming that either one created a bounce at all,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

I predicted so much in my earlier entry, "Obama Will Get No Post-Denver Polling Bounce," which was based the expectation of a continuing Obama pre-convention polling collapse, as well as the likely impact of the McCain campaign's aggressive early veep announcement rollout (which has had a more phenomenal impact than anyone could have imagined).

Cheney Vice Presidency Provides Model for McCain-Palin

A joke going around, following Sarah Palin announcement as John McCain's running mate, is that the Alaska Governor's a great pick for vice president - she's a better shot than Dick Cheney.

Thus with all the attention to Palin's experience for the job, today's New York Times piece on Vice President Cheney's last months in office provides some perspective on the question of experience in the No. 2 spot.

Cheney's been at the top levels of Washington politics for nearly 40 years. As one who's pushed the institutional boundaries of the office more than any vice president before him, it's interesting that Cheney sees the job as primarily advisory:

Mr. Cheney has ... fundamentally reshaped ... the vice presidency. Fueled by a belief in a strong presidency and American hegemony, and with the help of a president, George W. Bush, who gave him an extraordinarily free hand, he has stretched the limits of the job in ways his predecessors could not have imagined....

But on Jan. 20, 2009, after a career in Washington that has spanned four decades, the 67-year-old vice president will have a new job description: retired. As Mr. Cheney prepares to make the transition to private citizen, a portrait is emerging of a man who is unapologetic, even defiant, but also thinking about his legacy and perhaps confronting the limits of his own power....

“My job as vice president is as an adviser,” Mr. Cheney said. “I don’t run anything. I’m not — it’s not like being secretary of defense when I had four million people working for me.” This comes as no surprise to those who have heard him say the Pentagon job was his favorite. He spoke of “the understandings” he reached with President Bush, that this would be no ordinary vice presidency.

“And he’s been absolutely true to his commitment to me,” Mr. Cheney said, “which was I’d have an opportunity to be a major participant in the process, to be part of his government, to get involved in whatever issues I wanted to get involved in.

With this in mind, critics of McCain's judgment in selecting Sarah Palin might consider widening their gaze a bit.

The Alaska Governor's being lauded as epitimizing the anti-establishment reform zeal shaking the electorate this year. Palin obviously lacks national security credentials like Cheney's. But with a personal history as a trailblazing small-government reformer who's felled far-more experienced political giants in her path, Palin complements McCain's "maverick" identity with populist reinventing-government moxie (one of her first acts after taking office was to sell the governor's jet on eBay), while simultaneously bringing considerable expertise on questions of energy policy and the environment (she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, resigning the office in protest against Randy Ruedrich, Alaska's state Republican Party chairman who Palin alleged was moonlighting as a fellow oil commissioner at taxpayers' expense).

Palin's assets as a rising star in conservative politics, her frontier family values, and her own energy, fitness, and lust for life have thrown the entire left-wing political establishment off guard.

Elite, mainstream blogs have latched onto the leftosphere's conspiracies over the alleged Palin "baby cover up," and every other conceivable leftist double-standard has been deployed in breathless attacks against her, from incest to infidelity to indifference to the care of her children.

The more this goes on, the more clear it becomes that McCain made absolutely the best vice-presidential selection possible.

Sarah Palin Alters Election Dynamics

The political world remains abuzz this morning over the impact of John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate.

Palin appeared confident and poised in accepting her nomination Friday in Dayton, Ohio (below), and the GOP's conservatives base is absolutely ecstatic with the pick.

CNN reports that Palin's pick is an electoral game-changer:

The McCain campaign calls her a "tough executive who has demonstrated" readiness to be president. The Republican National Committee calls her a "conservative star with the talent, energy and family support necessary to carry out common sense policies."

But the Obama campaign calls her a candidate with "the thinnest foreign policy experience in history" who is "currently under investigation in her own state." And one of the Senate's top Democrats, Charles Schumer, said that although she is "a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling."

What do we know about Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old first-ever female governor of Alaska, wife and mother of five, and now GOP vice presidential nominee?

On Friday, a new part of her identity dominated the political scene: game-changer.

She enters an already historic election, knowing well two of the biggest things McCain needs her to do: shore up votes among social conservatives and win over disaffected Hillary Clinton-supporting Democrats, many of them women.

Social conservatives are already on board, so what's up with the gender vote? Certainly many will find the Palin pick a condescending appeal to women (many of whom may not warm to Palin's frontier family values), but Gallup reports that Palin may help McCain win over white women independents:

White Republicans overwhelmingly support McCain over Obama, and that doesn't differ meaningfully by gender. White Democrats overwhelmingly support Obama, and that too doesn't vary by gender. But there is a big swing in support by gender among independents -- individuals who in response to an initial party identification question say they do not identify with either party. White male independents go strongly for McCain, by a 16-point margin, while white female independents are evenly divided, 41% for Obama and 42% for McCain. This represents a 15-point swing by gender in candidate support.

The Gallup data offer a promising line of appeal for the GOP, and if the extreme reaction to Palin on the left is any indication, it's clear that the Democrats willl have their hands full trying to keep not only their momentum coming out of Denver, but their monopoly on change as well.

The Inverse Power of the Palin Pick

The brilliance of John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate can be measured by the inverse proportion of the reaction her nomination has generated. The "less experienced" she's alleged to be, the more intense the reaction against her.

I'd thought I'd heard most of the potential avenues of attack, but the Politico reports that experts on the presidency are focusing on the presumed thinness of Palin's resume:

John McCain was aiming to make history with his pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and historians say he succeeded.

Presidential scholars say she appears to be the least experienced, least credentialed person to join a major-party ticket in the modern era.

So unconventional was McCain’s choice that it left students of the presidency literally “stunned,” in the words of Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and scholar of the vice presidency. “Being governor of a small state for less than two years is not consistent with the normal criteria for determining who’s of presidential caliber,” said Goldstein.

“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek.

That includes Spiro T. Agnew, Richard Nixon’s first vice president, who was governor of a medium-sized state, Maryland, for two years, and before that, executive of suburban Baltimore County, the expansive jurisdiction that borders and exceeds in population the city of Baltimore.

It also includes George H.W. Bush’s vice president, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle, who had served in the House and Senate for 12 years before taking office. And it also includes New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, who served three terms in the House before Walter Mondale chose her in 1984 as the first female candidate on a major-party ticket.

“It would be one thing if she had only been governor for a year and a half, but prior to that she had not had major experience in public life,” Dallek said of Palin. “The fact that he would have to go to somebody who is clearly unqualified to be president makes Obama look like an elder statesman.”

Obama an "elder statesman"?

Captain Ed ripped such thinking to shreds in responding to attacks that go like this: "Why would he put a small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?"

This is a real laugher. By the same logic, why would the Democrats make a state legislator the actual president? The answer is that Obama is a U.S. Senator of three years experience, and Palin is a governor of 20 months’ experience. Only Barack Obama has spent two of those three years not in the Senate doing his job but running for President. Before starting his bid, he had a grand total of less than 150 days in session in the Senate. Palin, on the other hand, has run her state for more than triple that time.

And let’s remember that Obama is running for the top job, while Palin’s running for VP.

But note something else that's been overlooked so far: Palin was the regulatory commissioner of Alaska's oil industry, a tenure that not only elevated her stature as a rising star in state politics, but gives her unrivaled expertise on arguably the top inter-mestic issue of the campaign: energy politics.

Palin's got another key asset: She's faced harsh criticism of inexperience previously, when she ran for governor in 2006. She not only emerged victorious, but she crushed two veterans of Alaskan politics in the process: in the primary she beat incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski, who had been a member of the U.S. Senate for 22 years, and she defeated former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles in the general election, who had served previously in the Alaska statehouse for eight years.

Today, Palin is the most popular governor in the United States.

In tapping Sarah Palin, John McCain could hardly have done anything more powerful in firing up the GOP conservative base. Indeed, Jonathan Martin, who has covered the Republican nominating contests all year, confesses:

I have never seen a crowd with the energy that I witnessed yesterday at the Erwin Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio.

Palin is going to wow the delegates at next week's GOP national convention in Minneapolis. Once she delivers her acceptance speech, it won't be just conservative activists who are absolutely ecstatic about the phenomenal nomination of Alaska's Governor to be the next Vice President of the United States.

The Left is Scared to Death of Sarah Palin

Since John McCain announced the selection of Sarah Palin as running mate, the masses of the Democratic Party's hard left have been jumping over themselves to smear the Alaska Governor with vicious innuendo and ugly untruths.

Friday's initial water-cooler chatter alleged that "McCain and Palin must be sleeping together." Then some ridiculed and twisted Palin's comments on the responsibilities of the vice president. This morning the wackos at Daily Kos are alleging that Palin's son, Trig, was actually born to her teenage daughter, and thus the Governor's engaged in a "cover up."

I'm sure there are plenty more smears flying around the fever swamps of the leftosphere, but its noteworthy that there's some speculation that even Barack Obama's official campaign may be behind an attack on Palin claiming that she favors gay marriage.

With this in mind, William Kristol explains the left's utter terror at the rise to power of Sarah Palin:

A spectre is haunting the liberal elites of New York and Washington - the spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism, rising out of the American countryside, free of the taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress, able to invigorate a McCain administration and to govern beyond it.

That spectre has a name - Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska chosen by John McCain on Friday to be his running mate. There she is: a working woman who's a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who's broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who's a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who's a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who's a leader.

So what we will see in the next days and weeks--what we have already seen in the hours after her nomination--is an effort by all the powers of the old liberalism, both in the Democratic party and the mainstream media, to exorcise this spectre. They will ridicule her and patronize her. They will distort her words and caricature her biography. They will appeal, sometimes explicitly, to anti-small town and anti-religious prejudice. All of this will be in the cause of trying to prevent the American people from arriving at their own judgment of Sarah Palin.

Kristol continues, suggesting that Palin's opening remarks upon being selected as running mate left even those "not predisposed to support her" in awe of the Alaska Governor's composure and powerful presence.

It's not surprising, then, that Rasmussen finds 53 percent of the public viewing Palin favorably (and note that just 43 percent viewed Joe Biden favorably upon his selection as Barack Obama's running mate).

Interestingly, Palin's favorables were stronger among men, which moved a radical feminsit blog to make allegations of sexism, claiming that "men are feeling positive toward her because they are attracted to her."

So, the Democrats' general election smear campaign is off to a roaring start already, and the GOP's not even begun its convention to formally nominated its own candidates.

Beehive Bombshell is McCain's Secret Weapon!

I awoke close to 8:00am this morning and the news of John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate was already being announced on the cable networks.

I have to admit complete surprise at the news. While I've been thinking over the full implications of the pick all day, the initial totality of my cluelessness - and my sense of McCain's brilliance in making Palin his veep selection - left me marveling at the tight spit-and-polish organization that went into the announcement. I've been consumed, of course, with news of the party conventions and partisan politics all year, and I can't recall a single recent suggestion in the maintream press that Palin was being considered for the post. This is a phenomenally well-choreographed rollout.

The beautiful, beehived Sarah Palin is John McCain's secret weapon!

Naturally, there's lots of analysis of Palin's assets and liabilities for McCain's election prospects, but upon listening to the cable talking-heads this morning, and especially after hearing Palin's speech accepting her spot on the ticket, tapping the Alaska Governor looks to be a near-perfect vice-presidential selection.

Palin's pick, first of all, wipes out Obama's monopoly on the "change" issue. The Alaska Governor will be only the second woman in American history to run on a major-party ticket for the presidency. In a year when enthusiasm runs high on the Democratic side, Palin's pick will dramatically siphon attention away from left of the spectrum. Indeed, with Obama's selection of 35-year congressional veteran Joe Biden, it's the McCain camp that's better positioned to bring "change to" Washington.

A good reason for this is Palin's record as a small-g conservative and a fighter against government waste, corruption, and high taxes. She's achieved individual tax relief in the state, sued the Bush administration to block the federal listing of polar bears as a threatened species, and she's taken a populist line on big oil companies operating in Alaska, while leading the movement for domestic drilling and the construction of a natural gas pipeline in her state.

Palin's also an extraordinary asset on social conservatism and small-town family values. She's a mother of five from a frontier state, a lifetime member of the NRA who enjoys hunting and fishing, and her outdoorsman husband's a champion snow-machine racer. Most powerfully, Governor Palin is pro-life, both ideologicaly and practically. The Palins' baby boy, Trig, just four-months old, was diagnosed with Downs syndrome during pregancy. Unlike the 80 percent of families that terminate such pregnancies, the Palins said they've been blessed with the opportunity to raise an "absolutely perfect son."

In the Alaska statehouse, Governor Palin signed into law the "Haven for Infants Act," which allows the safe surrender of an unwanted baby to caring hands. Barack Obama, by contrast, helped kill Illinois' "Born Alive Infant Protection Act," which sought to prevent babies delivered after failed abortions from being left to die in soiled-linen closets.

Palin is already being criticized as inexperienced, and she'll be attacked as a lightweight on national security. This is fair game, but it appears that McCain's gone with change over experience, and Palin's critics will not be able to use the GOP chicken hawk slur against her: Track Palin, Governor Palin's 18-year-old son, enlisted in the Army on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and is now being deployed to Iraq. And as her state's chief executive, Governor Palin has taken great care to be involved with the decisionmaking and maintainence of Alaska's National Guard units.

Not only that, the experience question can quickly be turned into the asset of outsider status, and given Obama's shallow resume, by hammering Palin on inexperience, he'll only end up highlighting his own.

In other words, John McCain made an inspired choice in selecting Sarah Palin as running mate: She's the beehived bombshell who's completely neutralized Barack Obama's theme of change in Washington.

The Stealth Superstar of Mile High

Barack Obama, in his acceptance speech tonight at Invesco Field in Denver, demonstrated more powerfully than ever why he's the country's greatest public orator since Martin Luther King, Jr.

Obama delivered his address to a crowd of roughly 85,000 people, and there's no gainsaying the Illinois Senator's decision to accept the nomination outdoors, turning what should normally be a insider's partisan rally into a town hall meeting for the masses. Barack Obama is America's incomparable political superstar.

Obama's speech was less uplifting than combative, but he did what he had to do: He took aim at the Bush administration, and he tied John McCain to the last eight years of GOP rule with more than one pithy turn of phrase.

Speaking of the Republican National Convention next week in Minneapolis, Obama put McCain in the partisan crosshairs, warning against four more years of the same:

This moment, this moment, this election is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.

Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third.

Aside from all of his testy thrust and parry, tomorrow is another day in a campaign that will likely be neck and neck throughout the remainder of the election.

For all of his tough talk on national security - seen in his reminder that presidents like FDR and Kennedy kept the nation's security during the most dangerous of crises - Obama is in fact unlike earlier Democratic chief executives. He's less a Kennedy-esque Cold War fighter than he is a Carter-esque captive to the anti-Americanism of Iran (hostages) or the expansionism of Moscow (Afghanistan). Obama's toughness on national security amounts to nothing more than some blustery speech-making falsely claiming better judgment in America's ongoing wars, topped off with a few pictures of his grandfather in his army uniform during World War II. Of course, Obama's big-talk hits the pavement next week when McCain - the campaign's only war hero - reminds the country what it's really like to be tough in warfare

Obama, moreover, like Carter, is a malaise-mongerer. The Democratic nominee spent time tonight telling stories of personal hardship and economic pain, of rising unemployment and collapsing home values, and of veterans sleeping on grates - but he did not mention today's new statistics on 2nd quarter GDP growth, which found the American economy expanding 3.3 percent from April through June. The United States is not suffering a recession, much less a 1930s-style depression. The Census Bureau reported statistics on growth in median household income for the third year in a row.

Most importantly, Obama's opening video, and speech vignettes of his family's values, paint a biographical picture deeply at odds with the totality of his upbringing. Frankly, at this point Obama appears more about propaganda than patriotism. The National Review today compared Obama to a Soviet commissar in his efforts to silence researcher Stanley Kurtz by smearing him as a "slimy character assassin." Obama's got a lot to hide, and one Mile High makeover can't bury his past.

Further, in trying to sound substantive tonight (and avoid "changiness"), Barack Obama revealed that the 2008 Democratic Party seeks a return to the kind of big government liberalism not seen since the Great Society. As Kimberley Strassel argues:

Substantively, Barack Obama's agenda would indeed result in the biggest expansion of government and income redistribution since LBJ. Not that voters would have picked that up in his acceptance speech last night. Democrats are instead pitching this program to Americans in terms that would make the Gipper proud.

Mr. Obama proposes one of the steepest tax increases in modern history, raising rates on personal income, capital gains, dividends and even death. The money Mr. Obama takes from taxpaying Americans he would hand to nontaxpaying Americans in the form of "refundable" tax credits. This is called a "tax hike" and "income redistribution" -- even in the Harvard economics department. And given Mr. Obama's concern with "inequality," you'd assume he'd be proud of it.

Instead, Mr. Obama is careful to declare these new government handouts a "tax cut for the middle class." Joe Biden, in his own nomination speech, stole a favorite Republican talking point, claiming Mr. Obama's dizzying array of tax credits would in fact "reform our tax code." And the Obama team likes to reassure voters his higher capital-gains and dividend tax rates would still be less than those under (can you guess?) Ronald Reagan.

The Illinois senator would create a new "universal" health-insurance plan, which in its size and scope would be the largest government entitlement since Johnson's Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The ultimate goal (as Mr. Obama has hinted) is to pull ever more Americans under the government-health umbrella, until such time as Democrats can kill off private insurance altogether. To hurry us toward "Medicare for All," the Obama plan imposes tough new regulations on insurance companies and big new taxes on business.

This is the message from the 2008 Democratic National Convention, concluded with a flourishing finale from Mile High, delivered by Barack Obama, the superstar of stealth liberalism.

Congratulations Senator Obama!

John McCain's running a congratulatory ad buy tonight during Barack Obama's acceptance speech at INVESCO Field in Denver:

Here's the text:

“Senator Obama, this is truly a good day for America. Too often the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed. So I wanted to stop and say, congratulations. How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day. Tomorrow, we’ll be back at it. But tonight Senator, job well done.”

This is a great day in history, and Obama's breakthrough is in some respects a culmination of his own search for identity, and America's as well:

Four years ago, Barack Obama introduced himself to America by painting a picture of a country that was united, somehow, in spite of itself.

The pundits, he said in the keynote address to the Democratic convention, like to "slice and dice" the country: red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats.

"But I've got news for them too: We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states."

His task that night was to ready the crowd for the presidential nominee, John F. Kerry, but in the end his words were most memorable for an argument that challenged the partisan divide and was built on the foundation of his own unique story. Since then, it's become a familiar element of his speeches. His father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.

But it's more complicated than that.

Abandoned by his father, separated for long periods from his mother, Obama searched for many years to find his identity. He was caught between love and loyalty to his white family and respect and an inchoate sense of belonging to the African American community.

He eventually learned to navigate between black and white worlds, a skill that would play well in the political arena. He earned a reputation as a pragmatist and a consensus builder, and along the way raised the bridges that would sustain his ambition.

On the campaign trail this year, he is both a political and cultural phenomenon. For some, he represents a new beginning for the nation. For others, he is inexperienced, merely lucky, even a fairy tale. Underlining it all is a historic prospect: He would be the first black president of the United States.

Race has been the steady undertow of his candidacy -- and of his life.

As he paraphrased William Faulker this March in a landmark speech on race: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past."

For all of my criticism of Barack Obama, readers should never forget that I deeply respect him, and in him I see some of the challenges of my own experiences.

I've been teaching all day today, four classes of American government. I've extolled the magic significance of Obama's address coming 45 years after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

I have suggested to my students, however, that Obama cannot dwell on racial recrimination. He can't refuse to acknowledge the phenomenal progress in civil rights that permits him to take the stage tonight in accceptance of his epochal achievement. He cannot sound aggreived. He needs to assure people not only that he shares their values, but that he respects their judgment. Obama, most of all, needs to make the case that he's up to the grave leadership responsibility that comes with occupancy of the White House.

If he can't do all of that, if he instead continues with the ethereal speechmaking and uplift that has been both a hallmark and source of criticism of his campaign, he may fail to rejuvenate the momentum that brought him and our nation to this moment in history. He needs, simply, to recover the magic that Americans witnessed July 27, 2004, during Obama's keynote address the Democratic Convention in Boston.

Rekindling that feeling of confidence and refreshment must be the product of this year's Democratic gathering in Denver.

Obama Remains Weak on Leadership, Poll Finds

While the new Gallup tracking numbers find Barack Obama benefitting from media coverage of the Democratic National Convention, Obama still lags behind presumptive GOP nominee John McCain on leadership credibility:

McCain has an edge over Barack Obama in the public's eyes as a strong and decisive leader, and McCain is also significantly more likely to be viewed as able to handle the job of commander in chief. These facts underscore an area of weakness for Obama that McCain has attempted to exploit in recent campaign ads, and that Obama could in theory fruitfully address in his high-visibility acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night.

The latest USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Aug. 21-23, asked Americans to indicate whether a list of characteristics and qualities best fit Obama or McCain....

McCain is significantly ahead on a single, but important, dimension: "is a strong and decisive leader." Not coincidentally, this has been a key focus in recent McCain attack ads against Obama. (Despite the ads, there has been almost no change since mid-June in perceptions of who is the better leader.)

A separate set of questions included in the recent poll asked respondents to indicate whether they believe Obama and McCain could "handle the responsibilities of commander in chief of the military."

Obama clearly operates at a decided perceptual deficit compared to McCain on this dimension. Eighty percent of Americans say McCain can handle the responsibilities of being commander in chief, compared to 53% for Obama. These views have not changed throughout the summer.

McCain's edge almost certainly reflects in part that he was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and an officer in the U.S. Navy for decades, while Obama did not serve in the military. It may also reflect the fact that McCain is older, has more experience in the U.S. Senate and federal government, and has taken a leading role in the Senate in many foreign policy issues, most notably the Iraq war. If these are the major underlying facts informing Americans' opinions about the candidates, then it is unclear to what extent Obama's rhetoric or McCain's campaign ads could change the existing perceptions.

Gallup suggests that if Obama does not attempt or succeed at changing Americans' views of his leadership qualities, he'll continue to suffer liabilities on a key dimension of voter preferences on November 4.

Note, too, an additional complication: Pew Research indicates that the public knows little about Obama's substantive policy positions, so if in tonight's address Obama focuses on values and leadership at the expense of policy, his campaign will remain the netherland of uplifting "hope and change"( instead of the harder certainty of solutions to the country's problem). Conversely, belting out a policy-driven speech runs the risk of technocratic overload and of diluting the message of GOP incompetence that's driving the need for political transformation.

In other words, Obama's got a tall order in front of him at Mile High Stadium.

Avoiding an Invesco Fiasco for Barack Obama

Barack Obama's acceptance speech tonight at Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium represents the challenge of a lifetime.

The nominee's acceptance speech is the year's most anticipated campaign event before the post-Labor Day general election battle begins. For Obama, the stakes are the highest: He's not simply "the candidate of change" because of his biracial background. He's genuinely different in ideology and outlook than any presidential candidate before him. Doubts about his affinity to nation haven't gone away, because the more we learn of him, the more it seems he has something to hide..

Just last night, the Obama camp attacked National Review's Stanley Kurtz as a "slimy character assassin," putting pressure on Chicago's WGN radio station to cancel a planned appearance by Kurtz. Ben Smith has the report:

The campaign e-mailed Chicago supporters who had signed up for the Obama Action Wire with detailed instructions including the station's telephone number and the show's extension, as well as a research file on Kurtz, which seems to prove that he's a conservative, which isn't in dispute. The file cites a couple of his more controversial pieces, notably his much-maligned claim that same-sex unions have undermined marriage in Scandinavia.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," says the email, which picks up a form of pressure on the press pioneered by conservative talk radio hosts and activists in the 1990s, and since adopted by Media Matters and other liberal groups.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies," it continues.

Sean Wilentz, at Newsweek, criticizes Obama from the left, saying that the Illinois Sentor's not made the case for an acceptable liberalism, in the mold of the great Democratic presidents of the 20th century:

Much of Obama's appeal to the left stems from what might be called the romance of the community organizer. Although his organizing career on Chicago's South Side was brief and, by his own admission, unremarkable, it distinguishes him as another first of his kind in presidential politics, a candidate who looks at politics from the bottom up. For the left, community organizing trumps party politics and experience in government. Some even imagine that Obama is a secret radical, and they see his emergence as an unparalleled opportunity for advancing their frustrated agendas about issues ranging from the redistribution of wealth to curtailing U.S. power abroad.

Obama still has a long way to go to describe the kind of liberalism he stands for, how it meets the enormous challenges of the present—and how it will meet as-yet-unanticipated challenges after the election. Nowhere is this more crucial than in the harsh and volatile realm of foreign policy. Last winter, when his candidacy gained traction, Obama's foreign-policy credentials consisted almost entirely of a speech he gave before a left-wing rally in Chicago in 2002, denouncing the impending invasion of Iraq as "a dumb war." That speech, made by a state senator representing a liberal district that included the University of Chicago, and that went unreported in the Chicago Tribune's lengthy article on the rally, was enough to convince many of his supporters that he is blessed with superior acumen and good instincts about foreign affairs. Later comments, such as his promise, later softened, to meet directly and "without preconditions" with the leaders of Iran and other supporters of terrorism, pleased left-wing Democrats and young antiwar voters as a sign of boldness—even as they left experienced diplomats in wonder at such half-baked formulations.

Then, suddenly this summer, Russia attacked Georgia—and Obama's immediate reaction was to call for reasonableness and good intentions and urge both sides to show restraint and enter into direct talks. Unfortunately his appeal sounded almost like a caricature of liberal wishful thinking. It was left to his opponent, John McCain—whose own past judgments on foreign policy demand scrutiny—to declare right away the sort of thing that might have come naturally to previous generations of liberal Democrats (let alone to a conservative Republican): that "Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory." Beyond the matter of experience, beyond how thoroughly the two candidates had thought through the situation, the difference highlighted how Obama still lacks a comprehensive vision of international politics.

That Obama's record and statements have created any other impression cannot be ascribed only to his campaign's political skills and the news media's favor. Liberal intellectuals have largely abdicated their responsibility to provide unblinking and rigorous analysis instead of paeans to Obama's image. Hardly any prominent liberal thinkers stepped forward to question Obama's rationalizations about his relationship with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Instead, they hailed his ever-changing self-justifications and sometimes tawdry logic—equating his own white grandmother's discomfort in the presence of a menacing stranger with Wright's hateful sermons—as worthy of the monumental addresses of Lincoln. Liberal intellectuals actually could have aided their candidate, while also doing their professional duty, by pressing him on his patently evasive accounts about various matters, such as his connections with the convicted wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko, or his more-than-informal ties to the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, including their years of association overseeing an expensive, high-profile, but fruitless public-school reform effort in Chicago. Instead, the intellectuals have failed Obama as well as their readers by branding such questioning as irrelevant, malicious or heretical.

Can Obama, who lost the large industrial states in the primaries, deal with a troubled economy and become the standard bearer for the working and middle classes—the historic core of the Democratic Party that the last two Democratic candidates lost? Can the inexperienced candidate persuasively outline a new foreign policy that addresses the quagmires left by the Bush administration and faces the challenges of terrorism and a resurgent Russia? Can the less-than-one-term senator become the master of the Congress and enact goals such as universal health care that have eluded Democratic presidents since Truman? On these fundamental questions may hang the fate of Obama's candidacy. In the absence of a compelling record, set speeches, even with the most stirring words, will not resolve these matters. And until he resolves them, Obama will remain the most unformed candidate in the modern history of presidential politics.

I usually take Wilentz's analyses with a tablespoon of salt (he's a leading academic Bush-basher), but I'm pleasantly surprised with his take here.

I can say, though, that there's no gainsaying Obama's historic achievements, which are magnified tonight by the timing of his speech on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech of 1963.

Yet, if Obama fails to recognize that we have achieved much of Dr. King's dream of a Promised Land he risks turning the evening into a shaming festival rather than a call to recognize our nation's accomplishments while simultaneously defining an even higher purpose.

I'm confident Barack Obama is skilled enough to know this, and if he can make the sale for a real politics of unity, if he can return to his powerful message of post-partisan, post-racial transformation, he may well avoid the kind of weak performance that only leaves listeners hungering for more.

Barack Obama and the Right to Life

This video shows a protest against the Democratic Party abortion policies with a massive sign showing the message: "Destroys uNborn Children":

Also, at the Chicago Tribune, Dennis Byrne exposes the culture of death that characerizes the party's position on abortion, best represented by the revelations of Barack Obama's extremist views on the right to life:

Can we just listen to ourselves? We're debating whether some babies born alive have a right to medical attention....

Jill Stanek, a former nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, described in 2001 during congressional testimony how it happens: In a "live-birth abortion," doctors "do not attempt to kill the baby in the uterus. The goal is simply to prematurely deliver a baby who dies during the birth process or soon afterward." Medication stimulates the cervix to open, allowing the baby to emerge, sometimes alive. "It is not uncommon for a live aborted baby to linger for an hour or two or even longer. At Christ Hospital, one . . . lived for almost an entire eight-hour shift." Some actually are born healthy because they are aborted to preserve the "health" of the mother, or because the pregnancy was due to rape or incest. At best, they are left in a "comfort room," complete with a camera (for pictures of the aborted baby) "baptismal supplies, gowns, and certificates, footprinting equipment and baby bracelets for mementos and a rocking chair," where they are rocked to death. "Before the comfort room was established," Stanek said, "babies were taken to the soiled utility room to die."

Yes, there ought to be a law against this, and Congress passed one unanimously. It declares that a person is defined as "every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development." Born alive means any human being that after "expulsion or extraction" from the mother "breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, Caesarean section, or induced abortion."

Pretty simple, right?

Well, not really. Some people fear that this fundamental protection, ensuring to all the first of the rights of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness," is in reality a sneak attack on a woman's right to choose an abortion. To prevent this "Trojan horse," they insisted, and got, in the federal law a guarantee against construing the law to "affirm, deny or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being 'born alive'. . ." This mumbo jumbo is supposed to mean that abortions can't be restricted.

To mollify pro-choice concerns, including Obama's, this was inserted in several versions of the Illinois legislation. But it didn't matter, because the legislation died anyway, with Obama's help. Whether or not he refused to vote for a version that contained the right-to-an-abortion provision isn't what's important here. What is important is that Obama put the supposed and vague threat to an abortion right ahead of a real and concrete threat to the most innocent of human lives.

Obama's response to all this is to sidestep any discussion about when human personhood begins, the key question in the abortion debate. Some say it begins at the moment of conception; others say it begins at birth. (Still others look for a middle ground, suggesting it begins when brain activity starts.) But by arguing against the born-alive legislation because it might in some distant and ambiguous way obstruct abortion, Obama implies that the right to an abortion trumps an infant's right to life, even after he is born.

Such logic is breathtaking. It says that even after birth, a mother's right to rid herself of the baby supersedes any right that a child, now independent of the mother's body and domain, has a right to live. Where America stands on this issue truly is a measure of its sense of justice and compassion. On this score, Obama fails.

See also, "The Secret Life of Senator Infanticide."