One partial explanation for the media feeding frenzy is the bowel-stewing fear among an Obamaphilic press corps that Palin might actually help McCain win. “Palin Bashing Press Keeps Swinging and Missing”

My friends over at the National Center for Public Policy Research have put together a generally superb summary of the shortcomings of the Pickens Plan. The report says that the plan raises several questions:

Has oil production finally and irrevocably peaked, as Pickens claims?  Why use wind power instead of nuclear power?  Are natural gas-powered vehicles a viable alternative to gasoline-powered cars, and would switching to them improve America’s security?  What does Pickens believe the federal government should do to make his plan a reality?  Might he or the firms he owns benefit financially from such federal aid?

Free-market conservatives may not be impressed with the answers Pickens seems to favor.

Possibly scrambling to get right with the Bitter Clingers in Scranton after Hurricane Sarah reminding them that he speaks differently to their face than when they’re not around, Obama dangerously went off-prompter again today to talk about global warming. Fear and channeling the End of Days is one way to . . . Go

Supporters of a strong national defense will be pleased to know that the 2008 Republican platform expresses solid support for sound priorities in the making of military personnel policy.  The brief but significant platform plank, which is similar to official statements adopted in 2000 and 2004, reads as follows: The all-volunteer force . . . Go

Two things need saying about Friday's jobs data showing marked deterioration in the U.S. economy. One, it's not as bad as it looks. And two, it might get worse if policymakers do nothing.

Read Full Article

Start with the first point. Yes, the unemployment rate surged to 6.1% in August from 5.7% in July and 5% at the end of 2007. And, yes, the U.S. shed 84,000 jobs for the month, bringing the year-to-date toll to 605,000. Hardly a stellar performance, and one that certainly points to worsening conditions.

But it's also worth noting that 6.1% unemployment is pretty normal. That's right: Since 1970, the jobless rate has averaged 6.1%.

Again, that doesn't mean it's a good report. Far from it. Just that it's not a cataclysm, or as some foolishly suggest, a "depression." And other data in the report suggest things aren't so bad, at least not yet.

Start with Congress. It must keep Bush's stimulative cuts in place. If not, it risks a recession for which Congress alone — a Democratic Congress — will be blamed.

Finally, there's oil. Drilling for oil would enhance our national security by denying petrotyrants from Moscow to Tehran to Caracas the funds they need to harass America and its allies.

But it would do even more. Drilling off our coasts, in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge, below the Arctic seas and in the Far West's massive oil-shale deposits would add hundreds of billions of barrels to our reserves and push oil prices down. This would set off an economic boom and help pull the world out of the recession that falling global markets now seem to be signaling.

Rudy Giuliani had me in stitches during his red-meat keynote address at the GOP convention. I laughed out loud when Giuliani laughed out loud...

Read Full Article

Top Obama supporter to Ingraham: Shouldn’t Palin be home taking care of her kids? Update: Media annoyed at GOP criticism

In this case it means replacing the argument that mom should be home with the family with the more highly nuanced argument that any politician of either sex should be home when their family’s in crisis. Bristol’s pregnant and baby Trig has Down’s syndrome and, gosh, don’t you think a responsible mother gender-neutral parent would consider that before doing something as rash as running for high office? To which I reply: Am I hallucinating or isn’t there a guy on the other ticket who had a much worse family crisis than this, who in fact has been praised to the heavens for not quitting his job and instead making a heroic effort to manage both kids and career through hard times? Did I dream that? I could have sworn I heard something about it recently.

Update: Don’t you mind what those conservatives are saying about the press, now. The coverage is fair because, well, we say it is:

After several primetime speakers at this week’s Republican National Convention unleashed a barrage of attacks on the news media for their coverage of vice-presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, network news executives defended their coverage and dismissed the charges as a stale political strategy meant to distract viewers from legitimate election issues.

“It’s a time-honored marketing ploy and, every time they bash the media, it means they’re not talking about a vision or a plan,” CNN president Jon Klein said. “But the best antidote to cynical marketing is solid reporting.”…

“America has been presented with a total unknown who might be a heartbeat away from the presidency,” Klein said of Palin, “and Americans have every right to expect as much information as possible about this person so that they can make an informed choice. Certainly our critics are in favor of Americans making an informed choice, aren’t they?”

What Klein means by “informed choice,” of course, is having his reporters recycle Daily Kos rumors about whether Trig is really Palin’s child and wonder aloud whether the mother of a Down’s baby should really be doing something as selfish as running for vice president.

These morons understand that the public agrees with McCain’s campaign about this, yes?

Another Palin smear bites the dust

Video: Palin hammers Obama over the surge in Wisconsin

Video: Michael Barone’s analysis of Palin speech

Barone’s analysis at US News — a star is born:

Sarah Palin’s speech to the Republican National Convention last night was a home run. A star was born. While the Obama campaign has attempted to disparage it by saying that it was written by a former George W. Bush speechwriter, Matthew Scully—and thus link it to the McCain=Bush meme that was one of the chief ideas thrust forward in their convention in Denver last week—it cannot be dismissed as such. Scully reportedly had written a generic draft that could have been used by whichever vice presidential candidate McCain had chosen. But once Palin was the choice, she and Scully reportedly worked together and produced a draft that was brilliantly designed to promote the McCain-Palin ticket, and not to look backwards and justify the Bush administration. This will surprise no one who knows the independent-minded Scully (who left the Bush team to write a book on the responsibility human beings have to animals) and a woman who was described, by Fred Thompson on Tuesday night, as the only major-party nominee, with the possible exception of Theodore Roosevelt, who knew how to field-dress a moose. According to accounts I heard, they worked together quite satisfactorily and produced a text that reflected the VP nominee’s convictions and the ticket’s political imperatives.

Be sure to read all of Barone’s analysis

The vapidity of the “speech writer” meme

Do the Democrats really want to keep attacking Sarah Palin’s wildly successful speech on the basis that she has speechwriters?  That was the latest desperation meme surfacing in the media today, but there’s one problem with it; every major politician has speechwriters.  That includes Barack Obama himself, who had a problem with his speechwriter and chief political strategist, David Axelrod, when he began recycling passages from his other clients

And let’s not forget the passages Obama also borrowed from Mario Cuomo’s 1984 Democratic convention

And of course, we have the speech — and the personal anecdotes — stolen by Joe Biden from Neil Kinnock in 1987

Do the Democrats really want this debate?

A point on the VP debate [whenever it is].  It's figured by the MSM pundits and the like that Senator Biden is so great that he will blow Gov Palin out of the water.  If Gov Palin can hold her own with Sen Joe Biden and not make any blunders it should come off as a victory for her.  Sen Biden has to be great to meet expectations, but Gov. Palin just has to be good, and not mess up, to look really great. 

Man who ignored Palin’s status as Governor aggrieved at lack of recognition as Senator

My, How Things Change! Newsweek Lavished Praise on Sarah Palin Just Last Year

By choosing Sarah Palin, John McCain has united this party, and given the conservative moment life beyond November. Biden, Harry Reid, Paul Begala, and other liberals lost their minds over Sarah's speech. Women rallied to her defense over attacks that she was "shrill."

Team Obama struggles to explain "community organizer" as an actual job after Sarah Palin turned it into a national joke. Ordinary people run for city council and become mayors. They don't become "community organizers."

Biden flip-flops on drilling

Biden went even further down the fringie road, too.  He told his audience that oil companies have leases on which they don’t drill now, asking “Why do you think [that is]?”  Maybe because they can’t find oil on those particular leases, which is why they want to look for more promising locations.  If they don’t drill long enough, under current law the leases will return to the federal government anyway.  They don’t make money by sitting on expensive leases, no matter how many conspiracy theories Biden can spin in his imagination.