The VP Debate

I cringed, more than once. Right out of the gate Senator Biden lobbed a softball to the Governor about Gwen Ifill's initial question on the current economic crisis.

Greedy, predatory lenders!? Really...?

Dispirited, I left the room for a time and started to surf. The Corner's servers had crashed, no live-blogging available there. Stephen Green's drunkblogging just isn't my cup of tea.

The only place I found that I could follow and whose pages were actually up was over at Ann Althouse. As I kept reading and kept returning to the room, the mood changed.

Biden was being Biden...not gaffe-tastic but Biden the blowhard. Biden the "I've been here forever, seen everything and know everything about everything" loudmouth. The first few answers in this mode I thought were effective but as the evening wore on, it wore thin.

My take? Through the entire middle-third of the debate Senator Biden was giving angry lectures, not answers. Ann and I were on the same page when she declared he looked like he was "heating up."

Such behavior can often be seen as off-putting. Combine that with the charm and wit displayed by the Governor, I think it's fair to say that at the very least she may have staunched the bleeding with regards to people's opinion of her.

What does that mean? Hard to know but here's hoping...

Go to Jail...

Do not collect $200. Go directly to Jail.

The hacking of Sarah Palin's private email and posting of all kinds of private information made quite the stir yesterday. Regardless what you might think of the wisdom of a public figure using such an account, there is no getting around the fact that the hacker is in deep you-know-what:

The simplicity of the attack, of course, makes it no less illegal.

Come to learn that the prime suspect is the son of a Tennessee State Representative:

State Rep. Mike Kernell confirmed Thursday that his son, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student, is at the center of heated Internet discussion into the hacking of the personal e-mail of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, confirmed that it is his 20-year-old son, David, who is being widely named on Internet blogs and chatrooms in connection with an unfolding story about Palin's hacked e-mail accounts.

If in fact it is Kernell, he can only blame himself. As the Wired blog post notes, the hacker couldn't help but talk about it:

A person claiming to be the hacker who obtained access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail on Tuesday has posted a supposed first-person account of the hack, revealing the relatively simple steps he says he took to crack the private e-mail of the Republican vice-presidential candidate.

The story was briefly posted Wednesday to the 4chan forum where the hack first surfaced. Bloggers have connected the handle of the poster, "Rubico," to an e-mail address, and tentatively identified the owner as a college student in Tennessee.

Could be a short-trip from college student to felon. All because he couldn't help himself.

Sadly, I've noticed that most of the angry left that you find in all kinds of holes throughout the internet share that same characteristic. For more proof just read this bit of insanity.

They hate her and we love her

Because she's real. The more I watch, read, listen and think about it that's what it boils down to for me.

She connects because she's real and in inimitable Democrat fashion, the Obama campaign and many of it's supporters are completely blind to the 'L' factor and it's role in presidential campaigns. Likability is a huge part of how and why Reagan won two blowout electoral contests; it's why we didn't elect the technocrat Michael Dukakis and most recently it's why President Kerry is not running for re-election as an American majority refused to be lectured incessantly by such an unlikable boor, despite what they thought of his policy views and positions.

She has it and in spades.

Memo to Andrew Sullivan

Open memo to the once-respected and still-talented Andrew Sullivan, latest of the Atlantic.

Dear Andrew,

In the immortal words of Bat Thumb: "You're Insane!"

A Beautiful Trap

Juan Williams' response this morning to Chris Wallace's question about Sarah Palin's experience on this week's Fox News Sunday underscores the absolute brilliance of Senator McCain's VP choice.

Every time they attack her experience it can't help but blow back straight to Obama's. The exchange: WALLACE: Juan, you know, as you saw, I had a go-round with Rick Davis on the question of when is she going to answer questions. Is that something that we care about? Or at some point, if she doesn't begin to answer questions, does that become an issue for voters?

WILLIAMS: I think it's a big issue right now, because the real issue with Sarah Palin is experience. And I think it's something like more than 50 percent of American voters say, you know, she doesn't have the experience to be vice president of the United States.

That's not a small matter when you have a 72-year-old in John McCain as president if you decide to make him your president. And so would you really trust America -- would you trust American foreign policy at a time when we're at war with terrorists -- would you trust American energy policy to Sarah Palin? And I just think most Americans are very doubtful about that, dubious.

You know, when you asked Brit about whether or not she makes a difference, I think she's made a difference in terms of T.V. ratings. Gosh, the Republican convention actually did better than the Barack Obama spectacular in Denver.

I think she's made a difference in terms of exciting the base, which is exactly what Bill Kristol was so pressing about. But you know what? This wasn't the intent of Rick Davis and the McCain campaign.

They were going after white women voters. And I don't think that they have been successful with that demographic. In fact, the fact that she is so opposed to abortion rights in the country, the fact that she's so for gun ownership, I think has turned off those people who might have been Hillary supporters.

KRISTOL: Well, you may think that, but the Rasmussen poll in which Obama was ahead by six points on Tuesday is now even. The Gallup poll in which Obama was ahead by eight points on Tuesday is now a two-point lead. So the pick of Palin seems to be doing just fine.

And some of those voters are coming over. It's not just the base. Those are not just the base. And in fact, the Rasmussen's poll -- women have moved -- Obama's edge among women has been cut in half, from about 14 points to about seven points.

We'll see what happens. It's early. But here's the key point. Here's the key point. When Palin was announced, the Obama campaign put out a snotty statement, a dismissive statement. "John McCain today has taken a former mayor of a town of 9,000 with no foreign policy experience and made her -- put her a heartbeat from the presidency."

What did David Axelrod, who's not a -- who's a very smart man, say to you today when you asked about Governor Palin? "We're not running against Governor Palin." What does that -- that tells you everything. They're scared to run against Governor Palin.

He would not take her on, and they realize they made a horrible mistake going after her and letting Obama get in a fight with Palin, which, of course, makes them -- who has more experience, the Democratic presidential candidate or the Republican vice presidential candidate?

They can't help but respond to the criticism but they have no clear way to do so without it appearing more accurate about Obama than the sitting Governor of Alaska. They just can't help themselves and that is the true beauty of this.

From a smart mid-western legal mind: it doesn't matter who brings it up...he loses either way...every time mccain hits obama on experience, obama can only hit back at palin, not mccain...and that is the bait...

Make that 52

According to Lucille at an anonymous Alaska eatery, Sarah Palin described Senator Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination with this little pretty:

"So Sambo beat the bitch!"

Somebody email Charles Martin about this...

An interesting comment I found floating around on what can only be described as an adolescent message board points out the unlikely nature of such a thing being true:

she has racist attitudes towards eskimos......so she married someone who is part eskimo. makes total sense doesn't it?

Yes indeed. And as to who exactly Lucille is and how credible she may or may not be, I think we're moving into Bill Burkett territory.

And it only took a week...

Sarah Palin was announced as Senator McCain's VP pick a week ago. In that short time the Left has launched a thousand rumors...or so it seems.

According to this it's more like 51. Even so, that works out to about 7 a day. Kudos to Charles Martin for taking the time and effort to push back against the nonsense.

Helpful Suggestions

This one from No Left Turns:

For Governor Palin’s Next Speech?

I’m from Alaska, or as Senator Obama calls it the 57th State.

Well, since somebody was apparently reading Jim Gerahty's mind earlier in the week I suppose it could happen...

Don't let facts get in the way of a good Meme...

Jim Lindgren did a little bit of analysis and reviewed Governor Palin's speech for...what?...the Sarcasm Quotient I guess we can call it. Interesting what he found vs. what we've been told:

If one compares Palin’s speech to Obama’s, it appears to me that they used similar amounts of sarcasm (not much), but Obama made considerably more extensive negative comments about McCain and Republican administrations than Palin did about Obama and Democrats. Palin’s negative comments, however, were on balance funnier, better written, and more pointed than Obama’s. Neither candidate’s comments were entirely fair in every characterization of their opponents’ positions.

By continuing to spread false memes about the nature of Sarah Palin's speech as if they were true, the press marches forward in the most biased season of political reporting I've seen since at least 1998.

Compare that to what you've heard about Palin's speech elsewhere.