Andrew Sullivan, on the madness over the past 24 hours:

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Fri Sep-12-08 09:14 AM
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Andrew Sullivan, on the madness over the past 24 hours:

Rapid, accurate and incisive analysis from Sullivan:

You're Sane, Barack. They're Desperate

By Andrew Sullivan
11 Sep 2008 11:20 am

Just a word about the usual excrescence from Karl Rove this morning. Obama knows this lipstick thing is a cynical, knowingly dishonest attempt to push the news cycle one more day into triviality before Palin has to actually face real scrutiny, and we have our first chance to see whether she is who she says she is. It's a desperate tactic to run out the clock or to find a way to navigate the now-tsunami of evidence that Sarah Palin is unfit for the vice-presidency on account of her total lack of knowledge or expertise in foreign affairs, the thinnness and extremism and recklessness of her public record as mayor and governor, and the obvious and most important fact that she clearly cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

Obama mustn't let these schoolyard tactics unbalance him. He hasn't in the slightest, so far, mind you, a feat of astonishing mental and psychological calm. My advice for what it's worth: Hang in. The facts are on your side and the issues are overwhelmingly in your favor. They're trying to force you to blink. Don't. Hysteria will end at some point.

Patience and steel.

Patience and steel.

George W. Palin

12 Sep 2008 12:07 am

We have gotten used to Bush's decision-making style. Minimal input, instant decision, refusal to ever think again, and disdain for any process of thinking things through or ever having second thoughts. Just gut - and instant leaps. This description of how she made the absurd decision to run for vice-president is particularly chilling:

GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"

PALIN: I didn't hesitate, no.

GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris?

PALIN: I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink.

So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.

Never blink, never think, just go with your gut. Pure ambition. Minimal thought.

If you loved the last eight years, you'll love President Palin. I wonder: did they ever ask her the last, routine, basic vetting question:

Is there anything more you need to tell us that might potentially damage or embarrass the campaign?

Did they even ask her? If they did, did she say no? I have a feeling this question will be critical in the coming weeks as this hologram of neocon fantasy comes into sharper relief.

Obama Leads In Foreign Policy, Bush Follows

12 Sep 2008 09:42 am

In some ways, Obama has been a shadow president for a while.

.....

Radley Balko adds:

Will McCain now condemn the Bush administration's decision to go into Pakistan? Or was this idea only naive ten months ago? Was it only naive because it came from Obama? The Obama campaign should be making a much bigger deal about this.

Yes, they should. On one of the most critical decisions of the war, Obama staked out a position a while back that the Bush camp and neocons assailed as naive, disastrous, and revealing of his unfitness to be president. But like almost everything else Obama has said about the war, he was right and Bush was wrong. Obama was ahead of Bush in proposing to shift troops to Afghanistan, ahead of Bush in suggesting a timetable for Iraq withdrawal (subsequently embraced by Maliki), ahead of Bush in arguing we should talk directly to Iran, and, of course, right about not fighting the war in the first place.

The Bush administration - when guided by the saner forces within it such as Gates and Rice - eventually follows Obama's advice. In that sense, Obama has been president for quite a while already. And proving he could be a shrewd, pragmatic and prescient one.

Kristol Defends Palin

12 Sep 2008 08:29 am

Watching him do this is going to be one of the highlights of this election season. Here's what Palin said in that absurd interview last night:

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."

Really? The people who "planned" the 9/11 attack? They're in Pakistan, governor, where your beloved president allowed them refuge. The people who "carried out" the attacks of 9/11? Most of them are now dead, but the few remaining are in Pakistan, not Iraq. Kristol defends thus:

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. She�s linking al Qaeda in Iraq to al Qaeda.

No, but she is saying that the people who planned and carried out the attacks on 9/11 are in Iraq. They're not. No sane person believes they are. More to the point, Kristol knows that on 9/11 al Qaeda in Iraq didn't exist in any meaningful form. His president helped create them by invading so incompetently a security vacuum sucked them in. AQI is simply a franchise spawned by 9/11 and the Iraq invasion. To say that entity - created entirely after 9/11, was somehow responsible for 9/11 is piffle.

Memo to Kristol: you may think Palin is sophisticated enough to grasp the high-level fantasies and abstractions that you have devised in your own head to defend the indefensible. But she isn't, buddy. She has a degree in sports journalism from the University of Idaho, and went to several colleges in several years. She thinks Leo Strauss is a brand of jeans. She doesn't have a clue what she's talking about. Remember: she doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is and heard about the surge "on the news."

This is your lipsticked pitbull, buddy. Own it. And all the immense incuriosity, minimal education, and fact-resistant ambition that comes with it.

Amen.