Pulling the Curtain on Palin

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801907.html

John McCain's campaign acknowledged this weekend that Sarah Palin is unprepared to be vice president or president of the United States.

Of course, McCain's people said no such thing. But their actions told you all you needed to know.

McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all subjected themselves to tough questioning on the regular Sunday news programs. Palin was the only no-show. And it's not just the Sunday interviews. She has not opened herself to any serious questioning since McCain picked her to be next in line for the presidency.

McCain's advisers clearly don't trust Palin to answer questions about policy and don't want her to answer many of the questions that have been raised about her tenure as governor of Alaska.

Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, gave the game away when he said on "Fox News Sunday" that she would not meet with reporters until they showed a willingness to treat her "with some level of respect and deference."

Deference? That's a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don't give "deference" to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton asked for deference?

[pinto]

1. I like his last line -

Nonetheless, what matters is not Palin's personal life but whether she is prepared to assume the presidency if called upon. The actions of McCain's lieutenants suggest that they know the answer. And they are doing everything they can to keep the media from finding it.

Thanks for the post.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Thank you very much

I was just thinking this morning I never here anything postive from y'all

:hi:

[jeff30997]

2. Why did they picked her in the first place?

It sounds really fishy to me.What are they up to ?

[KharmaTrain]

10. Doing Whatever It Takes To Win...

They knew Gramps didn't have a lot of support in his own party...especially among the fundies. Selecting her got them on board, even if they can stand Gramps and they immediately starting writing checks. They also used her to pick a fight with the media that would energize the GOOP base who still see the NY Times and almost every network except Faux as being "librul". Then there are the "low information voters" who they thought they could manipulate with her gender and newness. And it all worked. It was a game to get them a buzz and bump in and past the convention...and it worked.

They also saw in her another Monical Goodling...already programmed with most the talking points who was an empty skirt that could be handled.

Their cynical game is that they believe they can pull this ruse off over the final 60 days...stonewall the corporate media, make her into both an "icon" of the profressional woman (thus any remarks about family is "sexist") and also "victim"....playing a cynical game of deception that would dominate the media chitter-chatter...get the focus away from issues and turn the election into a popularity contest.

[jeff30997]

11. But what I don't get is..

That she's a catastrophe !

Why did they picked her with her cataclysmic background?

I really don't get it.

They have a brain-dead for pResidential candidate and they

pick Palin without checking her shitty background ?

[chill_wind]

12. She's the bad result of a pissing contest between Rove (who wanted Romney)

and McCain himself, who wanted Joe Lieberman.

Dionne brings it up in the background in the above WAPO article (hasty pick)

and Sydney Blumenthal talks about it here:


Why Palin? McCain v. Rove
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust mixx.com

Posted August 31, 2008 | 06:18 PM (EST)

Why did John McCain select Sarah Palin as his running mate? The real reason is that he made an impulsive decision to prove his independence in reaction to pressure from Karl Rove, who was lobbying for Mitt Romney, as I explain in a forum on Firedoglake.com on my new book, The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party.

I explain the inside story, according to sources close to the McCain campaign:

On Palin: My information is that Karl Rove wanted Romney and pushed him. McCain pushed back. He really wanted Lieberman. That was completely out of the question. Palin is the result. One element of the Palin nomination is McCain establishing himself apart from the Bush/Rove political operation, even as his campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, is one of their creatures. From the outside, it's often hard to figure out how vicious and divided the Republicans can be with each other.

I further explain that McCain rationalized his hasty choice as an appeal to the Republican base:

On McCain and the GOP base: Conventions are real tests of party unity, as we've just seen with the Democrats. McCain still has to pass the test through his own convention. Palin, among other things, enables him to bring along the social conservatives, or it ought to do so. Once McCain receives the nomination he is freer to move to the center. He is already campaigning more as a "maverick" and behind the scenes he is in some conflict with both Bush and Rove on policy and politics. If we had a sensate political press corps they might report on these abrasions.

McCain's emergence as the GOP nominee represents the fracturing of the conservative Republican dominance of the party, shattered as a consequence of George W. Bush's radicalism. I explain the story of how the Republicans came apart in "The Strange Death of Republican America." On the ruins, McCain must attempt to piece together the broken shards. In McCain's case, the political motive has combined with the temperamental. Thus, Sarah Palin.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sidney-blumenthal/why-palin-mccain-v-rove_b_122841.html

Guy who graduated at the near bottom of his class and voted with Bush 90% of the time knows more than everyone around him, including one of the most masterful, most connected and most effective political operatives in modern political history. His temperament problems are not a myth, would certainly seem.

Rove is not going to trash Palin, of course. He's going to praise her and keep mopping up wherever he can. There's a GOP election at stake.

[chill_wind]

13. And here's the WAPO snippit:

From the moment Palin was picked, reporters immediately began to ask questions, a lot of them. Because she was so little known outside Alaska, her views on many issues, particularly foreign policy, are a mystery. Voters also need to know how McCain went about reaching what will probably be the most important decision he makes during this campaign.

A week ago, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times cited McCain sources questioning "how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket." She reported that Palin had been selected "with more haste than McCain advisers initially described." (She also mistakenly reported that Palin belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party. It was her husband, Todd, who had been a member.)

McCain's people trashed Bumiller, saying she had opted to "make up her own version of events." Steve Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, said the Times had written "an absolute work of fiction" about the vetting process while Karl Rove told his Fox News viewers that the Times "got it wrong."

They're trying to maintain a facade that this was not a big internal mess, but a grand old party design.

[chill_wind]

15. And this what Bumiller (NYT) had written on September 1

Palin Disclosures Raise Questions on Vetting
By ELISABETH BUMILLER Published: September 1, 2008

(....)


Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.

With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.

“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/us/politics/02vetting.html?ref=politics

What it tells me is that Rove has at lost a tiny bit of his total mojo, because he didn't prevail in this bizarre process, and that McCain has screwed himself with his mistake. It couldn't happen to two nicer guys.

[chill_wind]

4. No kid gloves there! K & R

"Of course, Palin's handlers are being hypocritical: They want to focus on her family life and her identity as a hockey mom when doing so helps them and to push aside any story that mars this perfect picture. Conservatives are always against identity politics until they are for it."

[ClayZ]

5. K and R

[2008]

6. k&r

[intheflow]

7. That's a great piece!

Dionne actually wrote what needs to be said--almost as if he'd been reading DU since Palin came on. Really first rate! :applause:

[chill_wind]

17. "Conservatives are always against identity politics until they are for it."

Ain't that right! AFAIK Dionne has NEVER been a cheerleader for the conservatives. During Obama's primary race when he was occasionally on MSNBC, I very found him to be a welcome breath of fresh air.

[Miss Chybil]

8. AMEN!!!! nt

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[chill_wind]

14. ...

[sattahipdeep]

16. Certainly not interested in the truth

It turned out that the McCain side misled journalists. Bumiller was right about the vetting. The lesson is that McCain's counselors are not interested in fair treatment, and they are certainly not interested in the truth.

If the media cave to McCain's pressure, it will be the third time this decade that conservative attacks led reporters to tilt to the right.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801907.html


Sarah Palin An American Illusion

5:00/5:33


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OatmLVStFCw