A diabetic coma whenever Palin spoke. High-pitched voice lends an air of superficiality to her. While you may love her personality and her charm, she is the homecoming queen and not the class president (or vice-president). “Shirley Temple goes to Washington” would be an apt title for the movie about her life so far.
Sheesh.
Look. I agree that she is cute. Cartoon cute as a matter of fact. But the substance is saccharine. First, she did not answer the question asked. Second, she histrionically played to the crowd with winks and nods. Third, she cannot hold a candle to the gravitas displayed by Joe Biden when he shows his Senatorial game face. Fourth, she did not refute any counterpoint that Joe Biden made about John McCain’s record.
Every man wants to dance with her but this is not a disco. If this woman ever opened a door for herself, I would be surprised. She is telegenic and if this were a movie, she would be my choice to play Vice President. Play Vice President, not become one.
Joe Biden wiped the floor with her on every issue. Even when she played the ‘I am the competent Mom and I know what it is like to be the average soccer mom and run a governorship and chauffering the kids around’ drivel. Joe Biden had a thoughtful and emotional response. Maturity in action.
I don’t know what America will say about this debate but I say Palin is weak and has all the elements that lead to ‘Brand Fatigue’. It won’t be long before we have a ‘new and improved’ version of that soap, I am sure.
Things I did not like about the debate:
1. Softball questions
2. Format of ‘reply and respond’ and moderator’s lack of debate discipline
3. The never-ending utterance of ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘John McCain’ by both candidates.
4. The debate was a campaign advertisement in the making for both sides.
“The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
FBI Special Agents Mark Rossini and Douglas Miller have asked for permission to appear in an upcoming public television documentary, scheduled to air in January, on pre-9/11 rivalries between the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.”
But Rossini and Miller, who were assigned to the CIA-run Counterterrorist Center during the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, are prepared to describe on camera how the CIA blocked them from sharing crucial intelligence with FBI headquarters – and then later pressured them not to tell the truth to investigators.
Snip:
Sources with direct knowledge of the FBI’s internal probe say that the agents provided the bureau with unadulterated versions of their CTC experiences, including orders they were given by the center’s then-Deputy Director, Tom Wilshire, to withhold intelligence about the movement of al Qaeda operatives into the country from the FBI.
When the agents asked permission to tell that same story on television, the FBI initially agreed, but then cancelled at the last moment, two sources involved in the deliberations said, with the explanation that it didn’t want to risk inflaming the CIA.
So we have CIA knowledge about Al Qaeda known to be planning an attack but prevented from being given to the FBI although these guys were in the US at the time. Incredible.
What did the CIA know and why did they not tell anybody?
Take a look at this. Bob Barr describes the bailout and towards the end he tells you not to vote for Republicans or Democrats. Now that is to be expected of him as the Libertarian candidate for President. Yet, it is still nice to hear him say what I have been saying during this whole election cycle.
Another man that I respect is Sen. Feingold on the issue of Constitutional Rights. Especially privacy.
“…Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has authored S. 3612, the Travelers’ Privacy Protection Act of 2008, which would ensure that American citizens and legal residents returning to the U.S. from overseas are not subject to invasive searches of their laptops or other electronic devices without any suspicion of wrongdoing.”
Go, Feingold! Go! How can other congressmen and Senators not support the Bill of Rights for every American?
As I have said before, the Constitution is about how our government should act towards its citizens regardless of where they are or what they did. In this case, Americans attempting to re-enter the country should be entitled to the same Bill of Rights protections as if they had already been permitted re-entry.
Here’s the title: S.3612 Title: A bill to protect citizens and legal residents of the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures of electronic equipment at the border, and for other purposes.
Oh, just forget it. I don’t want Pelosi to learn how to be a good Speaker of the House.
I think women in government are welcomed, at least by me. But Speaker Pelosi is a pain. I have said that before. But I have never said it as well as American Thinker did recently when describing the failure to pass the bailout bill.
Here is how she handled the most crucial vote of her term, one that will definitely go into the books and one that may well serve as a benchmark for her speakership:
She delayed the process in the hope of stampeding the GOP into voting her way.
She allowed her cronies to stuff the thing full of every variety of pork imaginable.
She attempted to stick in a provision handing over 2 billion to ACORN, a crypto-revolutionary nut cult.
She announced the bill publicly in the tones of a Caesar proclaiming victory over the Gauls. (Making Steny Hoyer and Barney Frank look like complete idiots in the process — no great accomplishment there, granted.)
She used the vote itself as an opportunity to insult and inflame the opposition. (Which she was depending on to vote it through.)
And then she had it blow up in her face the first thing Monday, voted down by the members of her own party.
The blog article begins by describing an event handled by Thomas Reed, Speaker of the House in the 1890s and how he had all the doors locked to prevent congressmen from fleeing before a vote. Well worth a read if you have a moment. It shows how good Speakers do what is right instead of what is partisan.
Put a dent in partisan politics by voting for Independents and minor party candidates in all elections.
Yikes! All these predictions about the Biden-Palin Debate are enough to choke you.
Biden must be careful and not overpower her or else he will come off as a know-it-all. Palin must not look like she does not know what she is talking about. Yada, Yada, Yada.
What does “winning the debate mean”? Does Joe Biden’s demonstration of more knowledge about government, foreign policy, defense, etc mean that he wins? Does Palin’s skewering of Biden’s propensity to say the wrong thing mean that she wins?
OR is this about the ability of each candidate not to blow it? If so, by whose standards?
Last year , a hue and cry was raised about the lightweight skills of Katie Couric to anchor the network news. Today we see Couric’s questions eliciting vague and incoherent answers from Palin. If ‘lightweight’ Couric is causing problems for Palin, what does that tell you?
For YEARS we have watched gentle Joe Biden stumble his way through congressional hearings. He is a well-meaning person and he does know what he is talking about most of the time. But he struggles with overtalking. In his favor though , he does not macerate an American word like President Bush does.
Like AAA baseball, I am in this for the errors. This is a good match-up. Two great personalities pretending to be in a serious death match. This will not be two politicians attacking the jugular but attacking the funny bone. May the person with the second-to-last mistake win! Or else the person with the fewest gaffes!
I don’t know if anyone has invented a gaffe-meter, but if they have, tonight would be the time to turn it on for all us.
But now, let’s get as serious as ‘Gentle Joe’ Biden and ‘Wailin’ Palin will be in this debate match-up. In your opinion, what do you think “winning a debate” means?
No real surprise that progressive Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) would be appalled by the inspectors general report on warrantless surveillance, but this is news to me: “This report leaves no doubt that the warrantless wiretapping program was blatantly illegal and an unconstitutional assertion of executive power. I once again call on the Obama administra […]
Trapped in a deepening fiscal quagmire, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has proposed a budgetary shift that could jeopardize federal stimulus funding for education, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Although $10 billion in stimulus funds for education has been granted to the state, those funds come with a caveat, as outlined by the U.S. Departme […]
One warrantless surveillance mystery solved. My friend Marcy Wheeler beat me to this: George W. Bush personally ordered White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card to visit an ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 after Ashcroft’s deputy Jim Comey refused to certify the warrantless surveillance progra […]
