Decision 2008
Sarah Palin, extremist
It can’t go unremarked at Lerterland that vice presidential candidate — that is, potential President of the United States — Sarah Palin has her own preacher problem in Ed Kalnins, who has claimed that criticism of the president can get you sent to hell. (Let’s check in with him after Obama wins.) Palin herself believes that the war effort in
Enough!
Hit it out of the park. I like John Dickerson’s take: After one of several passages in which he described the troubles of everyday people, he said, “Tonight I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land—enough!” It was the single most emphatic word of his address. Change is all well and good,
What a week
At an earlier, benighted time in our nation’s history, as historian Michael Beschloss pointed out the other night, Southern Democrats walked out of the party convention in protest of an African-American preacher taking the podium. Last night the party nominated an African-American as its standard bearer, a man who will be, must be, the next President of the United States.
McCain’s service
As is clear from Michael Goldfarb’s response, the right will seek to portray any questioning of McCain’s cross story as an attempt “to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement….” But that’s just the point: If McCain falsified this account, then it is he who disparaged his own memory of war. “[B]ut most Americans,”
Campaign dirt
“Swiftboating” has become an all-purpose term, a synonym for smearing, but its accurate meaning is to accuse a candidate of embroidering his (or her) military record for political gain. In 2004 a group of hacks tried this against John Kerry. It may not have caused his defeat but it certainly didn’t help. Now we have a very damning circumstantial case
Race card?
Sullivan points to this Jed Lewison post on the Obama “dollar bill” remark and McCain’s “race card” accusation. Guess who raised the specter of Obama’s mug replacing Ben Franklin’s on the C-note? McCain, in late June.
Blasted from all sides
As you probably know already, protesters disrupted an Obama speech in Florida and held up a banner saying, “What about the black community, Obama?” Marc Ambinder reports the meat of the exchange here. The thing to note about these protesters is that they do not represent the black community — they represent the Uhuru Movement. Their banner sporting this URL