VP Debate tonight!




The Leader is Good
The Leader is Great
We surrender our wills
As of this date!

Let's call a Spade a Shovel

Watch this:



The bloom is off the rose, and I have to say I have been asking some serious questions myself every time I catch myself cringing, on the edge of my seat, as I watch the trainwreck-ish segments of Palin's first major interviews since the Republican convention. Of course, neither of the interviews (Charlie and Katie) were entirely disastrous, but in the era of the ten-second-soundbite, a VP candidate only needs to slip up badly once during a one-on-one for it to stick. And there have been plenty of sticky soundbites to be cringed at in the last couple of weeks.

In the case of the clip from the Couric interview Cafferty played, it is clear that Palin was trying to steer things away from the bailout and talk about job creation, but the result was nonsensical, to say the least. I see a total failure of strategic communications: This appears to be a case of a woman who has been briefed, overcoached and scripted to death, and is now being subjected to a scrutiny so intense that her natural charm and political skills, so evident at the convention, are beginning to fail her. Does she know the answers? Maybe, maybe not. Does she demonstrate a mastery of a wide range of policy issues and appear capable of delivering substantive responses in a coherent manner at a level befitting a Vice President. Not so much.

But the funny thing is that the overwhelming idiocy of the knee-jerk ractions to her selection from various media doofuses has made it all the more difficult for those same people to raise some substantive and relevant concerns with Palin. In foolishly stooping to ad hominem attacks, or cheapshots against largely irrelevant facets of her persona (so she hunts moose, so her daughter is pregnant... deal with it, jackasses), they have made it all the more difficult for themselves as they now attempt to tear her down for legitimate reasons. What's more, we now see that people have risen to her defense time and time again are continuing to do so, even in the face of mounting evidence that she may in fact be a political lightweight.

David Frum stands apart from so many of his media colleagues because although he was one of the early Palin doubters, he came to his conclusions somewhat more dispassionately. Here is what he wrote shortly after the Palin announcement in August:

The longer I think about it, the less well this selection sits with me. And I increasingly doubt that it will prove good politics. The Palin choice looks cynical. The wires are showing.

John McCain wanted a woman: good.

He wanted to keep conservatives and pro-lifers happy: naturally.

He wanted someone who looked young and dynamic: smart.

And he discovered that he could not reconcile all these imperatives with the stated goal of finding a running mate qualified to assume the duties of the presidency "on day one."

Sarah Palin may well have concealed inner reservoirs of greatness. I hope so! But I'd guess that John McCain does not have a much better sense of who she is, what she believes, and the extent of her abilities than my enthusiastic friends over at the Corner. It's a wild gamble, undertaken by our oldest ever first-time candidate for president in hopes of changing the board of this election campaign. Maybe it will work. But maybe (and at least as likely) it will reinforce a theme that I'd be pounding home if I were the Obama campaign: that it's John McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable governance.

Here's I fear the worst harm that may be done by this selection. The McCain campaign's slogan is "country first." It's a good slogan, and it aptly describes John McCain, one of the most self-sacrificing, gallant, and honorable men ever to seek the presidency.

But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?

See how easy that was? He did not have to stoop to personal attacks or unfounded accusations. Frum, a right winger, simply did not allow himself to be swept up in the hype that envelopped most Republican partisans. He cast a cold analytical eye on the bill of goods being offered in the selection of the Governor of Alaska as McCain's running-mate, and found that the cons outweighed the pros.

Frum has paid attention to the big picture throughout the McCain run, and sees the Palin pick as one of many tactical moves in a campaign that has lacked an overarching message and strategy.

This predilection for increasingly ineffective stunts and hail-marys may now be killing the McCain campaign, one flesh-wound at a time.