Leftist Depravity Continues with Accusations of Palin Pedophilia

Randi Rhodes has claimed that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is "friends with all the teenage boys" in town, and parents can't let their kids "sleep over" at the Palin home:

Brian Maloney offers some background:

Just how far are lefty pundits willing to go to smear Sarah Palin? On behalf of the "progressive" movement, libtalker Randi Rhodes seems determined to sink to new depths of moral depravity, with the limits of imagination as her only impediment.

Less than a week after her wildly dishonest claim that John McCain was "well-treated" during his wartime imprisonment in Vietnam, Rhodes is at it again, this time making a strong inference that Palin likes to sleep with teenage boys.

It's further evidence of a widespread smear campaign that involves lefty bloggers, libtalkers and the mainstream news media. With this gang, the ends apparently justify the means. That there isn't a shred of evidence to back up any of their claims is irrelevant: this is full-scale character assassination.

I'm having an ongoing debate with Dan Nexon at Duck of Minerva over the relative extremes on the right and the left of the spectrum. Dan argues, essentially, that the continuous examples of left-wing depravity are isolated instances and cannot be generalized to "the left."

But as regular readers know well, I've chronicled example after example of the left's intolerance and evil found throughout the netroots, including top members of the leftosphere who coordinate closely with the Democratic Party and the Barack Obama campaign.

Yesterday, for example, Daily Kos had this image posted in a now-deleted comment thread:

You can still read, however, the Kos-hosted diary, "Eulogy Before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel":

As Israel reach the milestone of the 60th anniversary commemoration, its legacy will be showered not with peace and goodwill but revulsion of conscience and damnation.

I could continue around the horn of the leftosphere all afternoon finding examples of Palin derangement, left-wing nti-Semitism, Bush-Cheney demonization, and so forth. But there's no need. I've written about the issue many times, for example, in my essay, "Surrendering Reason to Hate?":

This quest for enemies consumes far left-wing partisans. It is an endless search seeking to delegitimize and dehumanize those who would threaten the safety of a secular, redistributionist world of exclusive false brotherhood and psychological security.

This is why I think there are variations in the propensity to surrender to hate. The left's psychopolitical agenda is "clothed in darkness." It is this very difficult for them to find that "one good thing" about those with whom they differ.

I wrote that over a month ago, but just this week Camille Paglia made a similar point in discussing the Democratic-left's response to the Palin phenomenon:

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

None of this is statistical confirmation for a generalized hypothesis on the hard-left's secular demonology. But it's demonstrably clear that folks from top bloggers like Markos Moulitsas and Andrew Sullivan to the nihilists at Sadly No! to TBogg's demonic conservative ridicule-machine are on an endless quest to destroy their enemies with a venomous brew of hate and intolerance.

Barack Obama's collapse from the heights of "Oneness" has only added to this zealotry.

*********

UPDATE: TBogg's here to correct me:

Randi Rhodes left Air America back in April after being suspended by the network. So you just set a new land speed record by being wrong four words into your post.

Yet, TBogg's got no problem with Rhodes' Palin derangement, and of course, no word on the demonic conservative ridicule machine.

McCain Has No Need to Apologize

An emerging meme taking hold on the left is that the netroots has been had.

The strong version is that the McCain camp has "taken over" the liberal presence online, and that McCain's "manipulated" the press. An extension of this "we won't be fooled" discourse is that McCain's tactics are all lies, "Rovian" in nature. There's even a self-incriminating whininess to it, for example, in Kyle Moore's response to having the wool pulled over his eyes:

If the concept of the liberal blogosphere is to push back against the Mainstream Media, and much like conservative talk radio, force narratives into the main; we as a whole have embarked upon perhaps the biggest epic fail of the election season.

Instead, we have been little more than spectators with soapboxes, and from these soapboxes we have done little to elect the right candidate to the Oval Office. Compare this to the conservative side of the blogosphere which engaged in a non stop full frontal assault from day one. They didn’t even like McCain (and to a degree still don’t), and that didn’t stop them from doing their part; if they didn’t have anything nice to say about McCain, at least they could heap big old buckets of mud onto Obama.

By contrast, we rise and fall with whatever narrative we are being asked to eat, and we do this with unGodly high standards. For instance, I thought the Democratic Convention was executed to near perfection, but it took much of the blogosphere until Wednesday, and some even Thursday to catch up. Likewise, the past two weeks that have been largely beneficial for McCain seems to have sucked the life out of the netroots.

See, it's McCain who's "sucking the life out of the netroots," of course, like a "Rovian" vampire.

Chris Bowers, taking a timeout from the Rovian blame game, expresses his frustration and ignorance at McCain/Palin's success:

I feel very frustrated right now because I have a difficult time pinning down the cause of McCain's continued polling increase. Obama peaked toward the end of June, and apart from the Democratic convention, has been on a slow, downward trend ever since. I want to know why this is the case, because I want to understand how this trend can be reversed. It is only from that point that I believe I can develop better ideas on what I can do personally to help positively influence the result.

Bowers proposes that McCain's attacks are more effective (is Obama even attacking?), the impact of Sarah Palin, or even racism as explanations for Obama's collapsing polling lead. He then adds:

The truth is, it is probably a combination of several factors. The frustrating aspect is that we don't know which ones are the more important factors, and we don't know what message or strategy will turn the campaign around. This is highly aggravating, and tensions over this are boiling over online.

Talk Left even has an essay titled, "How the Media and the Left Blogs are Allowing McCain to Escape the Bush's Third Term Label."

I'm betting psychologists would call all of this psychological displacement: "One way to avoid the risk associated with feeling unpleasant emotions is to displace them, or put them somewhere other than where they belong."

The real problem, frankly, is the left itself.

Noemie Emery, in response to Joe Klein's demand for an apology from John McCain, explains the hypocrisy in all the McCain attacks, and why the Arizona Senator has no reason to apologize:

First is the fact that given the built-in media bias, complaints by the press about "mean" campaigning are a reliable sign to Republicans that their tactics are working. Democratic slurs of conservatives as liars, bigots, and warmongers, cruelly indifferent to the needs of the poor, are described as "spirited," "red-blooded," and proof that the speakers are tough enough to be leading the country. Republican attacks on liberals as arrogant, out-of-it, and too weak to be leading the country are--well, you know, mean. Not to mention that most of these "savage" attacks consist of drawing attention to things said and done by the Democrats that the media would rather ignore: Michael Dukakis defending an insane furlough program for prisoners, John Kerry testifying to Congress that his own former shipmates were criminals, Dukakis looking goofy in a tank, that he climbed into of his own free volition, Kerry saying of himself that he had voted for Iraq war funding before voting against it, Obama condescending to Pennsylvania voters who supposedly cling to guns and God out of bitterness, Kerry windsurfing in shorts . . .. Embarrassing a Democrat with his own words and actions is just--sleazy. How low can you go?

Second is the fact that the press loved "the old McCain" of 2000 for only two reasons: He ran against George W. Bush, and he lost. The best Republican of all is one who nobly loses, which is what McCain looked like doing until he picked Sarah Palin, at which point most of the media exploded in fury. How dare he pick someone who might help him win? How dare he excite the public, when he was supposed to be boring? How dare he raise up a rival to The One? Face it: The reason they loved McCain in 2000 was that his zingers were aimed at Republicans and social conservatives who were not then his constituents. But had he made it into the general, and been aiming his fire at Al Gore and at the pro-choice extremists, the press's ardor for him would have died eight years earlier, and they would have denounced him as . . . mean. McCain hasn't changed: He was always a maverick, but a center-right maverick, a Republican maverick, an American exceptionalist, a security hawk, and a social traditionalist. Against George W. Bush and others, his digressions from dogma stood out more in contrast, but against a Democrat such as Barack Obama, he stands out as the center-right hawk that he is. The press wanted him to fight against other Republicans and to lose, or, barring that, to lose to a Democrat. He isn't complying. That's their problem, not his.

Third, McCain owes the press nothing, as its treatment of him has verged on sadistic or worse. In late July in the first flush of Obama's Grand Tour of the Near East and Europe, (when it still looked like a master stroke, instead of a misstep), McCain's old admirers in the media depicted him as a loser, so old, so befuddled, so hapless and helpless, compared to the luck, poise, and grace of The Star. "You could see McCain's frustration building as Barack Obama traipsed elegantly through the Middle East while the pillars of McCain's bellicose regional policy crumbled in his wake," Klein wrote on July 23. McCain "has appeared brittle and inflexible, slow to adapt to changes . . . slow to grasp the full implications not only of the improving situation in Iraq but also of the worsening situation in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan. . . . McCain seems panicked, and in deep trouble now."

Howard Fineman in Newsweek sounded an even more ominous note. "You can't make up how bad things are going for McCain," he intoned on July 22. "As Barack Obama embarks on his global coronation tour, it's hard to imagine things looking bleaker for his Republican rival...

There's more at the link, here.

You can't make up how bad things are going for Obama and netroots, but McCain's has no need to apologize.

The Day After September 11, 2008

Yesterday didn't feel like earlier anniversaries of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

There seemed, simply, less urgency about what the day signifies in American life. The presidential election has soaked up almost all of the media energy. Consequently, less attention has been paid to the losses of seven years ago, and to the recovery process here at home for so many who still grieve at their losses. Online, bloggers are caught up in the moment, either infatuated or enraged with Sarah Palin - and thus we saw less of the 2996-style commemorations we've had in earlier years. Major news stories stressed the fading of terrorism as a political issue this year, and the interminable delays in getting a memoral built at Ground Zero. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not events of national mobilization, on the scale of World War Two (the "Good War), or even Vietnam (the "Not-So-Good War"). And Hurricane Ike in the Gulf of Mexico has rightfully generated concern for the safety of those down Texas-way.

But mostly, I think the political system appears to be moving on, overall.

I don't think this is a good thing, the seeming collective indifference to the memory of our largest mass-scale terrorist event, and the one that punctuated the true end to America's post-Cold War sensibility.

Sure, the cry "Never Forget" is heard here and there, for example, on well-intentioned yet hate-filled reactionary blogs. We also had, fortunately and more genuinely, the urgent exhortation from Debra Burlingame - our most articulate spokeswoman for the historical memory of 9/11 - that "we must always remember." At the same time, we saw left-wing extremists decry the "jingoism" of any type of national commemoration. But mostly, the "life goes on" psychology among some journalists looked to capture the business-as-usual aura of the day.

At home, I woke up thinking of where I was on September 11, 2001. I never forget, seven years ago, the surreal nature to the attacks for many of us on the West Coast, who witnessed the event on television screens 3,000 miles away. At work, on my campus, there was no moment of silence around the school's flagpole yesterday, as there had been in years past - or at least if there was, I don't recall getting a viral announcement in my in-box.

I spent the evening last night with my sons, having dinner and watching the news of Sarah Palin's first interview. But I made it a point to watch the History Channel's "102 Minutes that Changed America" with my boys. I took my oldest son to New York last summer, and he watched the documentary with me in earnest, as we listened to the cries of despair, the cries of help, and most common, the cries of "Oh, my God," as people at the scene took in the horror with disbelief, and occasional anger. My youngest son just turned seven, and he's still not quite fathoming the enormity of the terror America witnessed that day, but I'll take him to New York in a few years, along with the rest of my family, and perhaps we'll all get to say a prayer at the finally-completed September 11 memorial at the World Trade Center.

In remembering the attacks, I'm almost always most fascinated by those who leapt to their deaths rather than succumb to the heat and smoke of the fires. The image of the "falling man" is perhaps most striking, in his placement of meeting fate head on, with wings of control and resolve:

If seeing this image doesn't rekindle some of the outrage of our day of infamy, I don't know what will. For my own part, to be honest, it was more the Iraq war than September 11 that radicalized me against the radicals, but I thank goodness for folks like Dr. Sanity, who captures the true essence of what 9/11 means for American politics today:

I started to write this blog because I could no longer ignore the left's political insanity which seemed bent on destroying my country and appeasing its enemies. I believed (and still do) that the threat of Islamic terror is a grave and imminent danger to the free world and I had to speak up. I do not intend for my daughter to inherit a world of sharia and oppression. Nor do I intend to let the political left and the unrecognizable cowardly modern Democratic Party allow this scenario to happen. Right now, both the left and most of the Democrats remain in full psychological denial and have (consciously in some cases, but mostly unconsciously) formed a convenient partnership with the very people who attacked America and left 3000 dead on 9/11. I simply could not believe it at first; but now, I have no illusions about either the left or Islam any more.

I too write to resist the left's historical indecency and ideological nihilism.

But not today.

When I dropped off my youngest boy at his school this morning, I sat on the lunch benches waiting for his teacher to come and fetch his class. All around I saw young families, of tremendous energy and diversity, and I just thought how great it is to be among a single nation, among an exceptional people drawn together by common values of liberty and inalienable rights. I'll have more moments like that this year, when politics floats away in the background, and I enjoy just sitting and taking in my own little corner of Americana, with my boy, my little all-American boy.

And then I pledged to never let it slip away, the promise of America, and that's why we must never forget September 11, 2001.

Sarah Palin Sparks Fashion Frenzy!

If we should take public opinion polls with a grain of salt, cognizant of sampling variation and error margins, what should we make of the consumer marketplace?

Well, when it comes to Sarah Palin, market trends may be leading political indicators. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Alaska Governor's setting off a fashion craze, from upswept hairdos to Naughty Monkey pumps (shown in photo below):

Fashion companies have discovered a lucrative new marketing vehicle: Sarah Palin.

Since John McCain chose her last month as his running mate, Gov. Palin's personal style has sparked a buying frenzy. Many women are snapping up her choices of shoes and eyeglasses and blogging about which brand of lipstick she wears. Hairstylists and wig sellers report sudden demand for her trademark up-dos. Indeed, the brands behind Gov. Palin's fashion taste have gone into overdrive seeking to cash in on the association.

Palin's choice of footwear appears to be especially significant:

Jay Randhawa, a brand director at House of Brands Inc. in San Diego, says he was surprised to learn that Gov. Palin was introduced as Mr. McCain's vice-presidential choice wearing a red pair of peep-toe pumps with 3½-inch heels. The shoes, marketed by his company's Naughty Monkey line, generally are geared to women in their early to mid-20s who go clubbing, he says.

"The age bracket we target is a little younger. It's a very edgy, very hip, very street brand," adds Mr. Randhawa.

Celebrities like Paris Hilton had been photographed in the brand's shoes, but seldom, if ever, a 40-something politician.

Mr. Randhawa says he realized that Gov. Palin's footwear choice offered the chance to pitch the Naughty Monkey line to a new demographic. The company quickly sent out emails to its retailers with a photo of the Alaska governor wearing the shoes and the slogan "I vote for Naughty Monkey!"

Checking around online turned up a blog post titled, "Sarah Palin Knows How to Work a Sexy Pair of Red Shoes."

I keep shaking my head about all of this.

For many, Palin's fashion sense may be more important than ideology, which in turn may help the GOP capture the youth vote, a demographic analysts thought Barack Obama had all sewn up.

Photo Credit: "For her debut beside Senator McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin chose a slim black skirt suit with surprisingly sexy shiny red heels adorned with some serious hardware. Check out the French manicured toes! Her one accessory? An American flag pin, what else," Los Angeles Times.

Washington Post Smears Palin on Page One

The fight for meme control over Sarah Palin's ABC News interview last night is already at battle pitch.

Andrew McCarthy takes direct aim at the left's attack on Palin's response on the Bush Doctrine, for with various understandings of the doctrine's full nature, "It was utterly reasonable for Gov. Palin to press Charlie Gibson on what Gibson meant by the Bush Doctrine."

Richard Starr concurs, indicating:

Palin was well within bounds to have asked him to be more specific. Because, as it happens, the doctrine has no universally acknowledged single meaning. Gibson himself in the past has defined the Bush Doctrine to mean "a promise that all terrorist organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated" - which is remarkably close to Palin's own answer.

I noted last night that Palin's underlying ideological foundation puts her squarely in line with our nation's tradition of international exeptionalism.

As that's a stance at odds with Palin's enemies, they'll be in full attack mode throughout the weekend distorting her record, and portraying her as a sinister force of ignorant fundamentalism. In fact, Anne Kornblut, at today's Washington Post, is already smearing Governor Palin statements on al Qaeda and pre-2003 Iraq.

Palin, of course, is not claiming Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, as William Kristol clarifies:

Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs from an article posted online that apparently will be on the front page of Friday's Washington Post:

"Palin Links Iraq to 9/11, A View Discarded by Bush"
By Anne E. Kornblut 
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 12, 2008; A01

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 -- Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. On any other day, Palin's statement would almost certainly have drawn a sharp rebuke from Democrats, but both parties had declared a halt to partisan activities to mark Thursday's anniversary."

Kornblut's interpretation of what Palin said is either stupid or malicious. Palin is evidently saying that American soldiers are going to Iraq to defend innocent Iraqis from al Qaeda in Iraq, a group that is related to al Qaeda, which did plan and carry out the Sept. 11 attacks. It makes no sense for Kornblut to claim that Palin is arguing here that Saddam Hussein's regime carried out 9/11--obviously Palin isn't saying that our soldiers are now going over to Iraq to fight Saddam's regime. Palin isn't linking Saddam to 9/11.

Video Hat Tip: Wolf Howling

Sarah Palin, Neoconservative

I just watched the first installment of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's interview with Charles Gibson, on ABC's World News Tonight.

Palin gave a confident, intelligent interview. She appeared cool, calm, and perfectly comfortable responding to Gibson's line of questioning.

Yet, the emerging meme on the left is that Palin was "stumped" on the Bush Doctrine. Granted, Palin seemed to search for a response, but if that's what Palin's critics want to focus on, so be it.

The greater significance of Palin's talk is the way the Alaska Governor offered a ringing confirmation of the basic, underlying ideals that have guided not just the Bush administration's forward policy of preemptive defense and democracy promotion, but that of America's foreign policy tradition historically. This came at Palin's response on the question of God's will:

I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That, in my world view, is a grand - the grand plan.

This is, in essence, Reaganite neoconservatism. It is an affirmation of the "shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere."

It is, moreover, why the left wants to destroy Governor Palin.

Neoconservatives initially had their biggest successes in American domestic culture and social policy. Neoconservatives, starting with Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, attacked the debilitating effects of the welfare state on the traditional nuclear family. Neocon big-shots like Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, and Norman Podhoretz, among others, took aim at New Left orthodoxies, from affirmative action to radical feminism. More than any other strand on the right, neocons built on the moral firmament of the ideology's social model, and then consolidated the concepts of American's international exceptionalism to shape a consistent vision of U.S. leadership and power in the world. In that tradition, Sarah Palin radically repudiates the domestic postmodernist culture, and adds the flourish of moral clarity in foreign policy to boot.

Palin's got what it takes, with or without an academic familiarity with concepts like "anticipatory self-defense." The Alaska Governor, with her frontier conservatism and a doctrine of inalienable rights worldwide, embodies the tradition of robust assertion of might and values that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration's post-9/11 foreign policy, and now John McCain's.

**********

P.S. There's some broader debate afoot among conservatives indicating how Charles Gibson distorted some of Palin's comments on God and American troops in Iraq. Betsy Newmark's on the case, and she notes, "I think she did just fine, especially considering that this was her first such interview on foreign relations."

McCain/Palin Competitive in Swing States

It's time to really pay attention to what's happening at the state level. National polling data are fun to watch, but presidential horse-race snapshots only tell us so much: We will have, in essence, fifty state elections on November 4, and the Electoral College outcome naturally decides the winner.

To win, Barack Obama needs to hold onto every state John Kerry won in 2004, as well as Iowa and New Mexico, two states currently leaning Democratic.

But Obama's having trouble in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two Democratic states in 2004 that combine for 38 Electoral votes.

I noted previously that Michigan's in play for John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Nate Silver argues that Obama's having trouble in this traditional Democratic stronghold:

Democrats have grown accustomed to winning Michigan by relatively comfortable margins. Bill Clinton flipped the state in 1992, bringing home the Reagan Democrats and giving the party its first win in the state since 1968. Clinton's margin grew to 13 points in 1996--five points better than his national popular vote margin against Bob Dole--and he successfully passed the torch to both Al Gore and John Kerry, each of whom also finished 5-6 points ahead of their national margins in the state.

But Barack Obama has had trouble getting traction in the Wolverine State. Although nearly all polling since the Democrats resolved the state's messy delegate situation in June has had him ahead, it has often been by uncomfortably small margins--just one point, for instance, in a Public Policy Polling survey released on Monday. For most of the election cycle, Michigan has polled no more than 1-3 points ahead of Obama's national poll standing, placing it well within the range of a potential Republican takeover.

All of this comes in spite of a seemingly favorable environment for the Democrats. Michigan, its fortunes still tied to the struggling domestic auto industry, has the nation's highest unemployment rate at 8.5 percent. Its population is 14 percent African-American, among the highest figures outside of the South. And it has two huge university towns in East Lansing and Ann Arbor, potential ground zeroes for youth voter enthusiasm.

Check the link for more, but Silver suggests that Obama's languishing in Michigan due to Democratic Party liabilites (the troubles of both Jennifer Granholm and Kwame Kilpatrick, which I mentioned previously), as well Obama's disadvantage from not campaigning in Michigan during the primaries, and the GOP's considerable advantages with Michigan voters (a large Republican congressional delegation, and the state's affinity for Mitt Romney).

Obama's also losing ground in the Keystone State as well:

Republican Sen. John McCain has closed within three points of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race among likely voters in Pennsylvania, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll released this morning.

Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain 48-45 percent in the state, but Mr. McCain has received significant support among white women and independents, the poll shows.

While Joseph Biden, Obama's vice-presidential running mate, is holding down some Pennsylvania Catholics and Scranton voters for the Democratic column, Obama lost the state to Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and he dissed the state's voters at his campaign rally in San Francisco in April (Obama's "bitter" controversy), which many residents aren't likely to forget.

Meanwhile, GOP running mate Sarah Palin has helped close the gap a bit in some of the key swing states:

Sen. John McCain's vice-presidential pick, Sarah Palin, is helping the Republican candidate nationally but hasn't yet changed his fortunes in some of the largest swing states.

Sen. McCain is still trailing in Ohio - seen as a Republican must-win - according to new surveys of big battleground states by Quinnipiac University. There, Democratic nominee Barack Obama is leading by five percentage points, 49% to 44%. Last month the Obama lead was just one point.

Sen. McCain continues to trail in Pennsylvania, though Gov. Palin may be proving more helpful to him there, partially thanks to gains among women. Sen. Obama's lead has shrunk: He is preferred by 48% of likely voters to Sen. McCain's 45%, a slight improvement for Sen. McCain, who trailed by seven percentage points a month ago.

In Florida, Sen. McCain continues to lead, now by seven percentage points, up from four last month, according to a Quinnipiac survey there. The new reading has Sen. McCain up 50% to 43%.

To be sure, Alaska Gov. Palin wins positive reviews in all three states, with voters saying by significant margins that she was a good choice for the Republican ticket.

"Palin's having an impact, there's no doubt about that," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Whether it's a lasting impact or not...we'll find out down the road."

In future essays I'll examine electoral trends in other key states. Meanwhile, check Rasumussen and RealClearPolitics for more on polling trends at the state-level.

Image Credit: Wall Street Journal

102 Minutes That Changed a Nation

Tonight the History Channel will show "102 Minutes that Changed America":

Discover rarely seen and heard archives that document the 102 minutes between the first attack on the World Trade Center to the collapse of the second tower. This commercial-free special uses unique material from sources ranging from amateur photography and video to FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority and emergency dispatch radio recordings, photography and video. Also seen is footage broadcast outside the US, electronic messages and voicemails and "outtakes" culled from raw network footage. Then, watch interviews with individuals who provided videos of the events of that day. The interviews with the filmmakers will provide context for the circumstances they were in, why they shot video, what the footage means to them, and where they were on that day.

Allapundit recommends watching early PBS "American Experience" footage of the construction of the World Trade Center as well.

There's lots of news and commentary on today's 9/11 anniversary, but check especially, Eamon Stewart's, "9/11 is a Story of People."

"Unfit" is the New "McSame," or "Bush's Third Term," or...

Here's John McCain's new ad buy, "Fact Check":

The attacks on Governor Palin have been called “completely false” … ”misleading”. And, they’ve just begun.

The Journal reports Obama “air-dropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers” into Alaska to dig dirt on Governor Palin. As Obama drops in the polls, he’ll try to destroy her.

Obama’s “politics of hope”? Empty words.

The ad comes amid increasing signs of desperation among left wing partisans. McCain, for example, is coming under fire this afternoon as "unfit for office," a meme captured in Steve Benen's post, "Unfit":

... John McCain was presented with a choice: lose the election or lose his honor. As has become painfully clear, McCain chose the latter.

Benen cites Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan for support, both of whom have been taken down themselves as unfit for blogging (by Ann Althouse and Ace of Spades, respectively).

What the "unfit" line signifies is faux-moral frustration masking the left's outrage at the McCain campaign's rejuvenation, and the flailing will only get worse before it gets better. Not only are McCain/Palin's polling numbers surging, the Obama campaign can't recapture the lead in the media spin cycle. As Soren Dayton shows, McCain/Palin's dominance of the headlines will continue at least another couple of weeks:

Tomorrow is September 11. Sarah Palin will wish her son off to war in Iraq tomorrow. Between that and Joe Biden's blunder about Hillary Clinton being more qualified, John McCain and the GOP own the rest of this week.

Time is running out on Barack Obama. The last day that they have had substantial positive control over the content of the news cycle was the day of Barack Obama's acceptance speech, two weeks ago. You can't hear him talk about CHANGE! because John McCain, Sarah Palin, or Obama's own surrogates are stepping on Obama's story every single day.

Let's look at the schedule for the rest of the election.

Tomorrow is September 11. Sarah Palin will wish her son off to war in Iraq tomorrow. Between that and Joe Biden's blunder about Hillary Clinton being more qualified, John McCain and the GOP own the rest of this week.

So they will have between Monday the 16th and Thursday the 25th to have significant impact over the news cycle. On the 26th, the first Presidential debate will happen. But between the the 16th and the 25th, there will be:

• [Charles] Gibson interview of Sarah Palin on ABC.
• Probably a significant profile or two of Sarah Palin.
• Some sort of serious debate in Congress on energy.

One can imagine that this will suck up 3 of those 8 news cycles.

It's clear now that the McCain/Palin ticket is the left's worst nightmare (Palin's turning out to be better than any possible running mate imaginable).

So, while today McCain's "unfit for office," over the next few weeks he'll be turned something even worse, some sort of abomination of GOP evil, a swastika-boasting McChimpy hulked up on some demononological, steroidal-mimicking DNA-changing gamma blasts, poised to sink the country even further into the abyss of Iraq, Katrina, and 47 million without health insurance...

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

Obama's Veepstakes Catastrophe

I often heard, over the couple of months leading up to the national party conventions, that the vice-presidential selection by the major-party nominees amounted to the first defining test of the candidates' qualifications for the office.

If that's true, Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden as running mate should disqualify him as President of the United States.

As the shape of the presidential horse gains clarity, it's looking like the Illinois Senator failed his first major test, the "veepstakes." As James at The Real World indicates, the selection of Biden "remains one of the great mysteries in the history of presidential campaign politics."

It really is striking, for example, that while Obama thought it wise to throw his change advantage under the bus (Biden's a 66 year-old, 35-year veteran of the Senate), the GOP nominee made a bold decision-making masterstroke in the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his veep pick.

Election pundits like to point out that voters don't vote for the vice-presidential nominees, and thus the veep pick tends to have a marginal impact on the final voting outcomes. That may be true, but 2008 has already turned out to be an election year like no other, and the decision-making going into the choice for No. 2 spot may indeed prove a more significant factor this year than has been true since Lyndon Johnson consolidated Democratic electability in 1960. The difference this year, however, is that it's the Republicans who are getting a boost from the running mate.

Bud White offers a very concise analysis as to why Obama's selection of Biden is turning out to be a disaster:

Obama’s choice of Joe Biden, I suspect, will go down as one of [the] worst political decisions in recent memory. John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin will be remembered as one of the best.

Biden reinforces Obama’s worst traits: egoism, verbosity, elitism, and D.C.-insider status.

Palin, of course, reminds us of the best of McCain: fresh, unconventional, funny, and willing to battle the D.C. insiders.

Like John F. Kennedy, Obama was suppose to represent a new generation of leadership. But Biden is a dead weight on Obama; he entered the senate before much of Obama’s base was born.

Some argue that Biden, like Lyndon Johnson, brings gravitas to the ticket. Douglas Schoen is of this opinion. He writes:

Witness the single biggest decision that Obama has made thus far: choosing Joe Biden as his running mate. The pick helped squelch concerns about Obama’s perceived lack of experience and foreign policy savvy. More importantly, it signaled to moderates that when it matters, Obama makes sensible, pragmatic choices.

What Schoen fails to note is that this is a change election. Americans aren’t looking for the presidential candidate to supplement his credentials with a Washington insider, they are looking for attainable solutions for our economic woes and a smart exit strategy from Iraq.

Biden only emphasizes Obama’s weakness on foreign affairs, and he fails to bring Obama any electoral votes. Although it’s often stated that the Daley machine won the election for Kennedy in Illinois, it was actually Lyndon Johnson who guaranteed Texas for Kennedy and thus the election. Even if Kennedy lost Illinois, he would still have become president. Biden, unlike Johnson, doesn’t heal the Party’s divisions nor does he bring votes.

White goes on to elaborate further how Johnson worked in 1960 to unite the Democratic Party's ideological and regional factions. Now, of course, it is Sarah Palin who's working in similiar fashion to consolidate the GOP coalition under John McCain.

When Obama first announced his selection of Biden my first thought was, "Oh no, Biden's a plagiarizer..." And while Biden's botched run for the presidency in 1988 hasn't been of much interest in the press, his endless bloviating and gaffe-making are proving to be the kind of liabilities that drag down a ticket.

Not only that, the controversies surrounding Sarah Palin - and the left's bitter campaign of political demonization against her - have worked to keep the media focused on the GOP campaign 24/7, essentially muzzling any attempt at positive message-making from the Obama camp.

The signs are now emerging in the Democratic Party that Biden's pick did nothing to help Obama's chances (the Politico asks, "Could Clinton Have Palin-Proofed Dems?"), and that Barack Obama - having lost the momentum - will play defense and catch-up for some time.

Meanwhile, another poll, Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, has McCain/Palin leading Obama/Biden by a statistically-signifcant margin (and the GOP lead in Gallup's daily tracking polls is holding up)..

While it's way too early to declare a meltdown for the Democrats, the despondency on the left is heavy, and for partisans who'd been coasting all year against "Old Man McSame," and ridiculing the GOP for offering "Bush's third term," it must be very painful to see Democratic fortunes looking so tentative and vulnerable.

Predictions of American Decline are Overrated

The Washington Post reports on the new U.S. intelligence assessment of America's international standing in the decades ahead.

It turns out that Thomas Fingar, who is said to be the "U.S. intelligence community's top analyst," argues that the United States is looking to a near-term erosion in its international standing, with the most significant decline taking place outside the military realm:

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

The report, previewed in a speech by Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst, also concludes that the one key area of continued U.S. superiority -- military power -- will "be the least significant" asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because "nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force."

Fingar's remarks last week were based on a partially completed "Global Trends 2025" report that assesses how international events could affect the United States in the next 15 to 17 years. Speaking at a conference of intelligence professionals in Orlando, Fingar gave an overview of key findings that he said will be presented to the next occupant of the White House early in the new year.

"The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished," Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas."

Fingar's thesis is the official governmental version of the academic theory of American international decline in world politics, dubbed "declinism."

This debate's been around a long time, for example, during the 1980s and the Reagan aministration, and the predictions have proved wrong time and time again.

Fingar, as noted in the Post's essay, sees a bright spot in how demographic trends will favor the United States (national strength will be propped up by high rates of immigration), as he should. Indeed, America's openness to people and ideas will continue to buoy American dynamism throughout the 21st century. Not only that, there's really no indication in Fingar's preliminary comments as to why we should see the collapse of American power relative to the other nation-states in the international system (other than the fissiparous effects of "globalization").

Robert Lieber, at World Affairs, has a penetrating analysis of why no great power will rise to topple American preponderance in the period predicted by Fingar's analysis. Lieber, after reviewing the prospects for balance-of-power equlibrium, concludes:

In the end, then, this country’s structural advantages matter much more than economic cycles, trade imbalances, or surging and receding tides of anti-Americanism. These advantages include America’s size, wealth, human and material resources, military strength, competitiveness, and liberal political and economic traditions, but also a remarkable flexibility, dynamism, and capacity for reinvention. Neither the rise of important regional powers, nor a globalized world economy, nor “imperial overstretch,” nor domestic weaknesses seem likely to negate these advantages in ways the declinists anticipate, often with a fervor that makes their diagnoses and prescriptions resemble a species of wish fulfillment.

Over the years, America’s staying power has been regularly and chronically underestimated—by condescending French and British statesmen in the nineteenth century, by German, Japanese, and Soviet militarists in the twentieth, and by homegrown prophets of doom today. The critiques come and go. The object of their contempt never does.

Predictions of America's relative economic and military decline have long been overrated. I'm sure Fingar's got good company in that respect

Palin Can Do It!

I get the morning papers delivered, I'm looking at the front cover of the hard-copy edition of the Los Angeles Times right now, which features this photograph at the top:

The photo is paired with the paper's lead story, "Palin Bounce Has Democrats Off Balance."

I've been reporting regularly on the polling trends in the presidential horse race, and the Times' suggestion that the Democrats have been caught "off balance" is putting it mildly. Frankly, as my dad used to say, the Democrats have been "hit by a Mack truck."

John McCain, in his selection of Palin as vice-presidential running mate, apparently hoped to attract disaffected former Hillary Clinton supporters. Although the data on gender voting dynamics are still coming in, we're seeing some payoff for McCain's hunch already, as seen in this repor from the Irish Times, "White Women Flock to McCain Over Palin choice, Poll Reveals."

The Washington Post looks at the question of McCain/Palin's support among women in its piece, "Palin Energizing Women From All Walks of Life":

Susie Baron is a Republican, a mother of two and a home-schooler. She voted for Mike Huckabee in the Ohio primary, but now -- because of Sarah Palin -- she thinks she is part of something much bigger.

I wouldn't even call it a Palin movement, I'd call it a sleeping giant that has been awakened," Baron, 56, said at a rally here Tuesday. She described its members as a silent majority of women in Middle America who "are raising our families, who work if we have to, but love our country and our families first."

"And until now, we haven't had anyone to identify with," Baron said, adding that traditional feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women do "not represent me."

Since her rapid transition from obscure Alaska governor to GOP vice presidential nominee, Palin has reenergized the presidential race and also further polarized it, setting her instant fan base, which sees her as a pit bull with lipstick, against those who dismiss her as just another Republican who happens to be a woman and seems intent on rekindling a culture war.

Actually, it really is a "movement" we're seeing.

As a result, the Democrats seem like they're moving through the "Five Stages of Grief." Right now, the party's faithful are either "bargaining" over whether they can stretch out their "Hillary moment" by changing horses midstream to stave off the death of leftist feminist aspirations, or they've already moved on to the "depression" stage, and some perhaps even to "acceptance" (although I'm sure most radical feminists are still in the "anger" stage, and will be for some time).

The Politico capture this sense in its story, "Could Clinton Have Palin-Proofed Dems?"

Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller says Barack Obama had only one shot at Palin-proofing the Democratic ticket — and he missed it when he passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate.

“Every woman in America knows what Barack Obama did to Hillary Clinton: He looked at her and thought, ‘There’s no way I’m doing that,’” said Miller. “If Hillary was on the ticket, he’d be in a much better position to win women voters.”

Sarah Palin’s presence — coupled with Clinton’s absence — may be altering one of the great verities of American politics: that women voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats.

The article goes on the discuss some of the same data I've cited above.

When John McCain decided to focus on change over experience in his vice-presidential pick, I don't think even he realized how much the selection of Sarah Palin would upend all political calculations this year. Of course, what matters for the election now is how well Palin validates McCain's judgment and strategic decisionmaking, and so far the transference of political energy from the left to the right of the political system is nothing short of history-making.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

Sarah Palin and the Frontier of American Feminism

This afternoon I confessed, "The main reason I'm so excited about Sarah Palin is in the way she's positively energized the Republican base."

While true, I should add that I'm absolutley blown away, frankly, at the radical feminist response to Palin's nomination as the GOP vice-presidential running mate.

If you haven't yet, be sure to read Michelle Cottle's case study in the depressing feminist lament, "A Bad Year For Feminism: Can Someone Please Tell Me What Happened?"

I think women of the contemporary left are feeling simply violated that a conservative mother from a non-contiguous outback state could credibly claim the mantle as America's top female politician. It has to be a shock, which explains the vehemence that accompanies attacks on any and all facets of Palin's version of the feminine mystique.

But don't take my word for it. Check out Camille Paglia's perspective, which endorses Barack Obama, but celebrates the audacity of Sarah Palin's gendered power (via Allahpundit):

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.

Kay Hymowitz, who we might expect to be more favorable to a GOP-style feminism, in any case, confirms Palin's feminine muscularity:

Whatever Palin’s political impact, her cultural significance is profound. For better and for worse, she introduces a new and likely long-running cultural type to the national stage—the red-state feminist.

Of course, the feminist commentariat, primarily coastal and upper-middle-class, has been quick to deny that Palin is any sort of feminist at all. Yes, Palin can boast political success, activism, authority, and self-confidence in front of an audience of 37 million, and, though less widely discussed (perhaps because so profoundly envied), an egalitarian marriage of the sort that has become the foundational principle of feminist utopia. But in most other respects, especially her position on abortion, she has struck female media types as something more like the Anti-Feminist. She is a “humiliation for America’s women” (Judith Warner for the New York Times) and a tool of the “patriarchs” (Gloria Steinem for the Los Angeles Times).

But the crucial point here is that Palin never wanted to be part of Steinem’s club, and in that respect she speaks for many of her sex. The large majority of women—surveys have put the number at somewhere around 75 percent—shy away from calling themselves feminists, even while supporting some movement goals like equal pay. The primary reason for their coyness: feminism’s ambivalence at best, and hostility at worst, toward motherhood and marriage. The refuseniks may or may not remember that Betty Friedan described full-time motherhood as a “waste of human self” and home as a “comfortable concentration camp.” They may or may not be able to quote Steinem on fish and bicycles. But on some level they understand that the framework of establishment feminism has motherhood, and often marriage, as the menacing 300-pound security guard whom men have hired to stand in the way of women’s achievement.

Palin represents a red-state version of feminism that completely deconstructs this framework. Sure, part of the red staters’ identification with Palin is a matter of lifestyle. Blue-state feminists live in big cities and suburbs; Palin lives in South Podunk. Blue staters’ kids play soccer; Palin’s play hockey. They have WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER bumper stickers; she’s a member of the NRA. They dine on sushi; she eats salmon that she caught and gutted. If you’re an Iowa toll collector married to a refrigerator repairman, Palin may well be your gal by reason of her origin and leisure activities alone.

But let's conclude this review with Paglia once again, who nails the secular demonology theme regularly showcased here:

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

You go, girl!

Palin Attracts Women, Rural Voters, and Southerners

The impact of Sarah Palin's nomination as GOP vice-presidential running mate continues to lift the Republican Party's appeal in the electorate. A new Wall Street Journal poll indicates that in addition to consolidating the conservative base of the party, Palin is also attracting women, small-town voters to the Republican column:

Sen. John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has shaken up the presidential race, lifting enthusiasm among his once-subdued supporters and boosting the ticket's appeal with women, rural voters and Southerners.

The new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll also shows that a majority of voters say they are comfortable with the idea of the first-term Alaska governor as vice president, despite a national debate over whether she is experienced enough for the job.

The Palin effect helps explain why Sen. McCain is now even with Sen. Barack Obama in the head-to-head race. With eight weeks until Election Day, the Journal survey found a dead heat: 46% of registered voters favor Sens. Obama and Joe Biden, and 45% favor the McCain-Palin ticket. The lift, if it grows, could also help other Republicans, particularly in close Senate races in the South.

The survey notes a number of bright spots for the Democrats (voters still know little about the Alaska Governor, in particular), but then stresses the increasing enthusiasm for the McCain/Palin ticket:

One in three voters say that Gov. Palin makes them more likely to support Sen. McCain for president, while 25% say the pick makes them less likely to vote for him. Enthusiasm among the McCain voters is way up: 34% now say they are excited about the ticket compared with 12% last month.

The bottom line is that the McCain/Palin ticket has narrowed the advantages Barack Obama once enjoyed. The GOP is looking especially good in the south, and Sarah Palin out-polls Joseph Biden among blue-collar voters.

Of course, the response of the mainstream press to the GOP's increasing gains has been to intensify scrutiny of Sarah Palin's record in Alaska, as Brent Baker indicates:

With fresh media polls showing Sarah Palin causing a sizable percent of women to shift to support John McCain from Barack Obama, CBS and NBC on Tuesday night devoted full stories to fact check examinations to discredit her, specifically on the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” even though all the newscasts have already run stories on how she was for the bridge earmark during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

While it's true that the press is playing accomplice to the radical left-wing's smear campaign against the GOP, a majority of voters perceive media bias against the GOP, and this may end up damaging the Democrats more that the ongoing anti-Palin smears.

Dreaming of Sarah Palin?

The main reason I'm so excited about Sarah Palin is in the way she's positively energized the Republican base. I still can't get over the campaign's absolute rejuvenation this last few weeks, and that's after McCain was already catching Barack Obama coming out of the Saddleback Civil Form. And while McCain's shown decisive strategic wisdom in selecting Palin, the Alaska Governor is turning out to be McCain's savior, particularly among the GOP's conservative base.

It's endlessly fascinating. Still, I do not dream of Governor Palin.

It turns out that's more than can be said for many on the left:

I rarely remember my dreams, but for the past week, GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been haunting me. Night after night, she appears in my dreams, always as a scolding, ominous figure.....

Palin has gripped the American imagination in a way that seems designed to burrow into our dream lives. Palin's supermom abilities provoke envy and anxiety in women, especially other working mothers. Her instant celebrity and dazzling speech have panicked Obama supporters who thought they had the election in the bag. And then there's her sex appeal. A couple of conservative men I know have mentioned that they've been having sexual fantasies about the Alaska governor. I'm sure they're not alone.

Even the radical Matthew Yglesias dreams of Sarah Palin!

Thankfully, Jonah Goldberg's on the case:

Guys, push away from the keyboard and take a walk around the block.

Good advice.

Meanwhile, the McCain/Palin ticket continues to climb in public opinion, and Palin's even pulling in white women voters.

Maybe it's not just the guys who're dreaming of that moose-hunting mom of the last American frontier!

Biden Attacks Palin as "Backward Step for Women"

I imagine we shouldn't be surprised, but it turns out that Senator Joseph Biden is again slamming Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with sexist remarks, saying "I assume she thinks and agrees with the same policies that George Bush and John McCain think ... And that's obviously a backward step for women."

Recall that Biden slipped-up earlier when he said Palin was a choice running mate, "not just on policy. She’s good-looking."

Meanwhile, the lefties are trying to make at least one of their attacks on Governor Palin stick. Think Progress has started keeping track of Palin's "lies to nowhere," but Palin's statements on Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" reveal nothing out of place:

Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after she had appeared to support the bridge during her campaign for governor.

That's not all, of course.

Now the Democratic-left is attacking Palin for her travel expenses while on state business:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin's enemies on the left are outraged at the news, and gleefully hammering the Governor in their ejacultory haste to detroy the GOP ticket.

But as Allahpundit notes:

After 10 days of digging through her and her kids’ trash, here are the media’s big scoops: (a) she supported the bridge to nowhere before killing it, unlike the two tools on the other ticket who supported it consistently; (b) she sought earmarks as mayor of Wasilla, the grand total of which was a fraction of what the “Change” duo has requested in its combined 40 years in Washington; and (c) she billed Alaska for per diem expenses to which she was perfectly entitled, including travel expenses that were roughly 75% less than the previous governor racked up, and actually declined to be reimbursed for some expenses she could have claimed. If you’re wondering why the left is so heavily invested in smears, it’s because the actual “dirt” on her is an inch thin. Better to photoshop her into a picture of a woman with a rifle in a bikini and send that around than take your chances with trying to explain why the state can’t afford to cover occasional airfare for the small children of a governor who doesn’t have a team of nannies to watch them while she’s on business trips.

Neptunus Lex adds this:

The Washington press corps has spent so much time shooting itself in the foot over l’affaire Palin that they appear to need more ammunition. Not a day goes by that Some New Outrage is reported on the front page, only to be quietly deconstructed the next day ....

Had they not been in such an unseemly frenzy to slime the Alaska governor in the first days after her nomination was announced, some of this newer matter might actually stick. But anyone paying attention quickly came to the realization that the press and their enablers were acting more out of indignation at being surprised and fear of the new possibilities: The script in hand read that an honorable old war horse would fight the good fight against The New Socialist Man, lose by a respectable margin and yield the field to the forces of a resurgent Camelot. Palin’s selection tore that script up and made for an exciting, unpredictable race whose outcome is very much in doubt.

Nope, none of these smears is gaining traction.

Meanwhile, Biden's sexism gets a free pass from the press, and Obama's long history of being one of the biggest earmarkers in Congress is convenently forgotten.

At least Alaska's State Democratic Party took down their pork-barrel "Bridge to Nowhere" credits at the homepage. Isn't it amazing that when the left digs dirt, they slime their own side.

Obama Supporters Vandalize Palin Wikipedia Entry

Members of the Barack Obama’s social network community at Obama's official campaign homepage have been involved in vandalizing Sarah Palin's Wikipedia entry. William Beutler has the report, in " Who is Encouraging Obama Supporters to Vandalize Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia Article?

Beutler has traced the origins of the Palin tampering to Stephen Ewen, an Obama social networker with ties to various other social networking and online information websites:

Stephen Ewen is a sometime critic of both Wikipedia and Sarah Palin, as of recently an active opponent of the governor on Wikipedia and, as of today at least, an activist using tools provided by the Obama campaign to suggest that fellow supporters make life difficult for the dozens of editors doing real work to improve the article.

Read the whole thing, here.

Beutler has made a note of this malicious activity at Wikipedia's talk page.

So far, it looks like there's absolutely nothing morally out of bounds to left-wing backers of "The One."