Palin and Africa

Since the presidential campaign has come to a halt it has become apparent that the two most difficult things for Democratic voters to do are to take off their Obama pins and quit talking about Sarah Palin. More fuel was added to the Palin fire last week when rumors emerged that Palin was so ignorant about foreign affairs that she didn't know the countries that comprised NAFTA or that Africa was a continent.

I found this extremely hard to believe, particularly regarding Africa. It just doesn't seem plausible. So last night I saw a friend of mine that works for Palin and asked him about the rumors. I was particularly keen to get his take because he regards her as being pretty smart. He said that the allegations were taken out of context. But how do you take not knowing Africa out of context? He said that these comments occurred during debate prep when they would be talking about various African countries and she would say, for example, Africa instead of Uganda. At no point did she actually something like, "Oh wow, Africa isn't a country? I had no idea."

I filed it away in the back of my mind, but this explanation would now seem to be at least partially confirmed by this.

You know, I can understand not liking Palin, but the teeth gnashing and glee with which her opponents attack her is truly appalling, and says far more about them than it does about her.

Update: Hoax.

Thought exercise

I noticed that the Washington Post is running a story about a poll they conducted detailing the increasingly dim view many voters are taking of Sarah Palin. Now imagine that Palin were the Democrat and Biden the Republican, do you think that perceptions of each would still be the same? While Palin's missteps and shortcomings have been documented ad nauseum, how many people do you think know the following about Biden:

• He has a history of plagiarizing.
• While purporting to represent the middle and working class he is known in Washington circles as the "Senator from MBNA" both for the campaign contributions he receives as well as his pro-industry votes such as against the proposal to limit credit card interest rates.
• His lobbyist son got paid big bucks for helping to advance a bill sponsored by his father that made it more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy.
• He said that "J-O-B-S is a three letter word."
  
• He is a foreign affairs expert that said that the U.S. kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon when no such thing ever occurred.
• He is a foreign affairs expert who said that Iraq should be partitioned into three countries, which Iraqi politicians across virtually all sects and political parties condemned.
• He is a foreign affairs expert that opposed the Persian Gulf War.
  
• He referred to his running mate as the "first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
• He stated in the vice presidential debate that he spends a lot of time at Katie's Restaurant and Home Depot back in Wilmington, except that Katie's has been closed for nearly 20 years.
• A lawyer by training, he goofed on describing the sections of the Constitution that define the Vice President's role.
  

Mind you, I am not saying that these are all topics worthy of discussion, I merely ask whether the media is applying the same standard to both vice presidential candidates. Why are Palin's kids up for discussion but not Biden's adult child who actually has played a role in the legislative process? I would also reiterate that I am not a big Sarah Palin fan, but the apparent double standard is rather stomach turning.

Update: Oh, another Biden gem I forgot about: his statement that “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.” Of course, when FDR was president television didn't exist. Indeed, FDR was well known for his fireside radio chats.

The Case Against Sarah Palin

When John McCain selected Sarah Palin to be his running mate I was fairly ecstatic. I imagine that unlike most people I had actually heard of Sarah Palin, with most of what I knew a result of this Weekly Standard article from summer 2007. The article painted a near glowing picture of the governor as someone that was committed to taking on Alaska's corrupt Republican establishment and paring government spending. I also knew that she didn't seem on board with the gay-bashing, which to me suggested a possible libertarian bent. Sounded good to me.

In addition to what I knew about her I found myself increasingly drawn to the woman as the attacks from the left became more vicious and shrill. With most of the attacks based on her alleged inexperience I found them hypocritical in the extreme given Obama's own thin resume. Indeed, the ire against her grew even more red hot when she tossed this bon mot into her convention speech:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

Ouch.

I wanted to withhold final judgment, however, until I could hear Palin speak for herself. I anxiously awaited a well articulated vision from a relatively young conservative woman of how to approach many of America's problems and her overall philosophy on government. Perhaps the first sign that she was not the finished product, or even a product that belonged on the shelves, was during her interview with Katie Couric:

COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

This is truly embarrassing. The answer is incomprehensible and nothing more than a group of talking points thrown together. It reveals either a high level of ignorance, an inability to think on one's feet, or both. It's simply gibberish that is unbecoming of being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

If this was an isolated case that would be one thing, but her performance in the vice presidential debate gave me little reason to think that this was a one-off. Her rehearsed talking points when confronted with unfamiliar subject material suggests deep gulfs in her knowledge while folksy statements strike me as a pander to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps this is just me, but I don't want to elect someone that makes me think, "Hey, he/she is one of us." I'd prefer someone better than myself that makes me glad it is them in charge and not me. Too often during this race I don't feel that way.

Granted, Palin has not been in the race as long as McCain, Obama or Biden and thus hasn't been wrestling with the issues as long, but I am not sure how much an excuse this is. After all, the financial crisis and bailout was a new issue for everyone. What the answer -- as well as her debate performance and other statements -- reveal to me is that Palin, who is 44 years of age, doesn't appear to have spent a great deal of time contemplating some of the more pressing issues facing this country. She simply doesn't appear to be fluent in a number of important public policy areas.

Now, reading over the transcript of the interview, I did get the feeling that Couric had it out for Palin, and was in desperate search of a "gotcha" moment. But so what? It's the media, what do you expect? If you can't handle Katie Couric how can you handle the White House?

I am also sympathetic to the argument that you can learn on the job and you don't have to be an expert on everything. That is true. Ronald Reagan for all of his virtues probably didn't have an intricately nuanced understanding of every issue that ever came before him. But he did have a basic governing philosophy and understanding about the role of government that helped guide his decisions. I can discern no such philosophy when it comes to Palin (McCain appears to roughly subscribe to "national greatness" conservatism and has a stated affinity for Teddy Roosevelt).

Perhaps such questions can be brushed aside somewhat given that she is running for the vice presidency and not the Oval Office, and what really matters is the content of her character. But even here I am increasingly downbeat on the Palin brand with the recent "troopergate" report certainly making her out to be no angel. You also have to question her small government credentials given her wishy-washy opposition to the bridge to nowhere, her seeming support for another bridge to nowhere, and her support for a referendum to raise taxes during her time as mayor of Wasilla.

I'm hardly the first person on the political right to raise questions about Palin, which David Brooks -- who I think a great deal of -- recently labeling her "a fatal cancer" to the Republican Party. Perhaps more disturbingly Christopher Hitchens has gone sour on the Alaskan:

The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: "What does he take me for?" Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed.

Yeesh. And this is from a guy that voted for George W. Bush and has almost literally made a living out of needling the left for cowardice in the face of Islamic totalitarianism.

Perhaps the canary in the coal mine was when shortly after the Palin announcement I saw that Heather McDonald criticized the move as an appeal to identity politics. Identity politics, of course, is when you select a person based on what they outwardly represent rather than the content of their character. Maybe McDonald was on to something.

Update: To be clear, this is not a condemnation of Sarah Palin as a person, rather simply that she is perhaps not the great hope many people may have been seeking. She seems a fine governor, but perhaps that is where she should remain. Also, unlike Hitchens, this is not an endorsement of the Obama/Biden ticket.

Assessing Palin and Biden

A friend of mine went me a text message on Wednesday asking for my take on Sarah Palin. I told him I would defer until after the VP debate Thursday night, and then sent the following text Friday morning:

Palin doesn't lack intelligence, she lacks knowledge. Biden, meanwhile, thinks that he knows everything.

Allow me to expand on that.

Sarah Palin is a smart woman. While this may be a remarkable discovery for some people -- namely Democratic partisans -- it shouldn't be. You simply can't be a dim bulb and luck your way into the governorship of Alaska. Her forté, however, is certainly not a deep knowledge of domestic and international affairs, but rather concentrating on the issues most relevant to her state such as energy. She has advanced her career not as a policy wonk but as a PTA mom without the Ivy League resume but plenty of common sense.

She has no pretensions about being smarter than the average voter, rather she portrays herself as someone that understands them. Indeed, she is one of them. Knowing full well that she couldn't tangle with Biden purely on the merits of arcane policy details, she has instead sought to highlight her empathy for the middle class, openly stating her desire to represent "Joe Sixpack."

Folksy references and terminology, however, for me are a major turn-off that have no place in a vice presidential debate. Being discussed are issues of profound consequence that deserve serious answers, not facile displays of empathy. The candidates should be evaluated on the quality of their ideas to address the problems facing this country, not the sincerity of their sympathy towards those impacted by these problems.

When pressed on issues Palin too often retreated into rehearsed talking points or an emphasis of her middle class credentials. That, however, is no substitute for knowledge and a firm idea of how to plan to address the problems that are presented.

Biden, meanwhile, is a character beset by his own set of problems -- mainly that he thinks that his years of service mean that he is an expert on all matters and holds all of the answers. He, of course, does not. Much lauded as a foreign affairs expert, Biden has exercised remarkably poor judgement throughout his career on some signature issues, notably opposing both the defense build-up of the 1980s as well as the Persian Gulf War. He hasn't covered himself in glory in more recent times either, opposing the surge in Iraq and proposing that the country be split into three separate states -- a position that has earned him the enmity of numerous Iraqi politicians and the Iraqi people. The Wall Street Journal also notes that many of his statements in the recent debate were seemingly rooted in fantasy.

Compounding this is his blatant effort to highlight his own humble background and upbringing in Scranton, PA. The only time I actually laughed during the debate was his reference to time spent hanging out at Home Depot. A mental picture immediately emerged of a casually dressed Biden meandering through the aisles of the store in search of the perfect hammer -- it simply doesn't work. Perhaps more significant was his invitation for Americans to join him at "Katie's restaurant in Wilmington. As the WSJ notes, however, Katie's closed in the 1980s.

Palin's middle and working class appeal may be tiresome, but at least it's authentic.

Update: Jonah Goldberg makes some related points in a column today, including one I neglected to bring up:

But here's the difference. Palin is supposed to be everything Biden isn't, according to liberal pundits and mainstream reporters alike. For weeks they've been saying she's ill-prepared, uninformed and lacks the requisite experience. But that criticism is also an excuse of sorts.

Biden has no excuse. He's been in the majors for nearly 40 years, and yet he sounds like a bizarro-world Chauncey Gardner. The famous simpleton from Jerzy Kosinski's "Being There" (played by Peter Sellers in the film) offered terse aphorisms that were utterly devoid of specific content but nonetheless seemed to describe reality accurately. Biden is the reverse: He offers a logorrheic farrago of "specifics" that have no connection to our corner of the space-time continuum.

In short, he just makes stuff up. But he does it with passionate, self-important intensity. He's like a politician in a movie with a perfect grasp of a world that doesn't exist. He's not an expert, he just plays one on TV.

I too noticed this during the debate and commented to someone about it the next day. Biden employs a great technique in which he states things so forcefully that it makes people believe it is true, even though in reality he is simply making things up as he goes. The vast majority of voters lack the knowledge to call him out on it and instead are left impressed by his forcefulness and command of the issues. It's a brilliant ploy.

VP debate: The aftermath

I am writing this without having read or watched any post-debate analysis. After the first presidential debate the conventional wisdom quickly took hold that while McCain may have won on points, that Obama emerged the winner largely by virtue of being able to hold his own on foreign policy -- a realm considered by many to be McCain's expertise. I think that a similar analysis can be applied to last night. While I think Biden probably came off better, Palin probably exceeded expectations (which were ridiculously low, owing both to her own recent interview performances as well as the low esteem in which many people have held her from the beginning) and thus benefited her ticket more.

I will note that I watched the debate with 4 liberals, which is to say Washingtonians since people here are monolithically Democratic, and they stated after the debate that Palin exceeded their expectations (which were likely abysmally low). However, she did not meet mine. Any ideas that Palin is a Western-style libertarian Republican should now be dispelled as a myth. Palin strikes me as a populist/conservative that seems to lack a defined philosophy, who is equally comfortable slamming alleged Wall Street greed and Big Oil as she is government.

Also, for all the pre-debate hubbub about moderator Gwen Ifill I thought she did an acceptable job.

Let's go to the transcript for some highlights:

Bailout Bill

Biden: I think it's neither the best or worst of Washington, but it's evidence of the fact that the economic policies of the last eight years have been the worst economic policies we've ever had. As a consequence, you've seen what's happened on Wall Street.

If you need any more proof positive of how bad the economic theories have been, this excessive deregulation, the failure to oversee what was going on, letting Wall Street run wild, I don't think you needed any more evidence than what you see now.

Complete nonsense. What deregulation is Biden talking about? He is peddling myths here, and it was no wonder he had no desire to get into specifics since he has nothing to back this up. Biden then goes to on rehash Obama's answer on this question from last week.

Palin: Now, John McCain thankfully has been one representing reform. Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform measures. He sounded that warning bell.

People in the Senate with him, his colleagues, didn't want to listen to him and wouldn't go towards that reform that was needed then. I think that the alarm has been heard, though, and there will be that greater oversight, again thanks to John McCain's bipartisan efforts that he was so instrumental in bringing folks together over this past week, even suspending his own campaign to make sure he was putting excessive politics aside and putting the country first.

This is true, McCain did push for reform at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but I think that Palin whiffed here a bit by failing to explain how those two entities contributed to the current crisis. However, Palin also threw in this bit:

The barometer there, I think, is going to be resounding that our economy is hurting and the federal government has not provided the sound oversight that we need and that we deserve, and we need reform to that end.

What does that mean? If she is talking about Freddie and Fannie, fair enough, but otherwise this strikes me as just more talk about the need for unspecified regulation.

Who was at fault for the subprime lending meltdown?

Palin: Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that.

...One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this.

Pathetic. Who needs this kind of drivel when you already have Democrats? You know, yesterday I received a call from my cell phone provider urging me to renew my contract and talking about all o the great stuff they are going to give me. I got the feeling they wanted to take advantage of me and told them I would prefer to do some research first and make my decision about whether to renew in December when my contract expires.

The point is, homebuyers aren't children. No one put a gun to their head and forced them into these ridiculous loans. Adjustable rate mortgages reset after a set period to a new interest rate -- hence the freakin' name, adjustable rate! There is an old saying that you can't cheat an honest man, and I certainly think it applies here. But rather than the American people taking responsiblity for their own foolishness (and really we are just talking about a small minority here that have defaulted) Palin and others want to provide assurances that it wasn't their fault, but rather the big mean companies that forced them into it. While Palin gives a nod towards personal responsibility at the end it comes off as half-hearted given the excoriation of the financial firms she led off with. It struck me as trying to have it both ways.

If this is the kind of stuff that wins elections then we really are an infantile nation.

Biden: Well Gwen, two years ago Barack Obama warned about the sub prime mortgage crisis. John McCain said shortly after that in December he was surprised there was a sub prime mortgage problem. John McCain while Barack Obama was warning about what we had to do was literally giving an interview to The Wall Street Journal saying that I'm always for cutting regulations. We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain and he's a good man, but John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response, deregulate, deregulate.

So what you had is you had overwhelming "deregulation." You had actually the belief that Wall Street could self-regulate itself. And while Barack Obama was talking about reinstating those regulations, John on 20 different occasions in the previous year and a half called for more deregulation. As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry deregulate it and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry.

I really don't know what the particulars are of Obama's alleged warning about the subprime crisis so I can't speak to that. What is clear, however, is that Biden has a deep disdain for deregulation and is naturally inclined towards greater government intervention. Perhaps he should crack open some history books and note how his fellow Democrats, Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, led the fight for the deregulation of the railroad, oil and airline industries -- which we have all benefited enormously from in the form of expanded choice and lower prices. What deregulation has taken place under the watch of the Bush Administration I am not sure, and I suspect neither is Biden and hence his unwillingness to indulge this line of attack with any specifics.

I am encouraged, however, by McCain's talk of health care deregulation according to Biden, which I previously was not aware of.

Taxes

Biden: Well Gwen, where I come from, it's called fairness, just simple fairness. The middle class is struggling. The middle class under John McCain's tax proposal, 100 million families, middle class families, households to be precise, they got not a single change, they got not a single break in taxes. No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax. And 95 percent of the people in the United States of America making less than $150,000 will get a tax break.

While the temptation of all conservatives should be an endorsement of tax cuts, I think that this proposal sets us down a dangerous road. By cutting taxes further on lower incomes and expanding them at the top we are moving ever closer to a society in which a small minority shoulders the burden of government while the rest of the country pays little and votes themselves ever bigger government-provided benefits. Indeed, let's keep in mind that currently around fully one-third of Americans have no income tax liability.

Palin: Now you said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that's not patriotic. Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem so, government, lessen the tax burden and on our families and get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper. An increased tax formula that Barack Obama is proposing in addition to nearly a trillion dollars in new spending that he's proposing is the backwards way of trying to grow our economy.

Amen.

Energy

Biden: We're not going to support the $300 billion tax cut that they have for corporate America and the very wealthy. We're not going to support another $4 billion tax cut for ExxonMobil.

And what we're not going to also hold up on, Gwen, is we cannot afford to hold up on providing for incentives for new jobs by an energy policy, creating new jobs.

...And, look, I agree with the governor. She imposed a windfall profits tax up there in Alaska. That's what Barack Obama and I want to do.

We want to be able to do for all of you Americans, give you back $1,000 bucks, like she's been able to give back money to her folks back there.

I counted on 4 separate occassions that Biden mentioned a $4 billion tax cut for ExxonMobil. There is, of course, no special tax cut for ExxonMobil being called for by John McCain. Rather, McCain is seeking to reduce the corporate tax rate, currently the second highest in the world, which would benefit all corporations, ExxonMobil among them. Why ExxonMobil has become the liberal bogeyman I am not sure. Indeed, the company already pays $4,000 in tax every second -- I guess that isn't enough for some people.

Then Biden says that he supports taking money from oil companies and transferring it to Americans in the form of $1,000 checks -- from those according to their ability to those according to their need. Absolutely disgusting. He also adds this:

We believe -- Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the United States, we can export it.

Biden must have a huge ego if he thinks that him and Obama together can pick the winners in the alternative energy sector better than the marketplace. Why should government be "investing" (read: spending) money here at all? If it makes sense then profit-seeking investors (i.e. greedy people) will support such technology without government help and make some money off of it.

Palin: You know what I had to do in the state of Alaska? I had to take on those oil companies and tell them, "No," you know, any of the greed there that has been kind of instrumental, I guess, in their mode of operation, that wasn't going to happen in my state.

...We're circulating about $700 billion a year into foreign countries, some who do not like America -- they certainly don't have our best interests at heart -- instead of those dollars circulating here, creating tens of thousands of jobs and allowing domestic supplies of energy to be tapped into and start flowing into these very, very hungry markets.

Energy independence is the key to this nation's future, to our economic future, and to our national security. So when we talk about energy plans, it's not just about who got a tax break and who didn't. And we're not giving oil companies tax breaks, but it's about a heck of a lot more than that.

The gratuitious oil company bashing does little to differentiate Palin from Biden, while the talk of energy independence is pure fantasy. We should simply, like all products, buy them where its cheapest. To engage in any other policy is to make ourselves poorer.

Update: Reason: Poor Gordon Gekko.

Palin

Everything you wanted to know about Palin. (via instapundit)

Update: Washington Post editorial on Palin worth a read.

Also, this is a nice summary of the anti-Palin reaction I have detected among many of my liberal friends:

If Democrats believed what they say -- that Gov. Palin is such a poor choice that John McCain might as well fold his tent and go home -- they should be condescendingly patting the little lady on the head right now, saying, "Oh, how cute."

So how are we to explain the way the Democratic Party is now going after Sarah Palin and her perfectly lovely pregnant daughter, for all the world like the frenzied final holdouts on some Japanese-occupied Pacific atoll, shrieking "Banzai!" as they level their bayonets and charge the machine guns in their loincloths?

I've already lost count of the ways the ululating harridans have attacked this anti-corruption reformer. She can't be president because she lives too far from Washington. Because she bore a child with Down syndrome instead of aborting him. Because a woman with young children shouldn't put them through the strain of a campaign for high office. (Is the Democratic position now that only sterile old men should be president, or does that one apply only to women?)

Her husband wants Alaska's federal land turned over to the state (oh, the horror!) and had a DUI some decades back, before they were even married. (I don't believe the Democrats actually used the phrase "drunken Indian," any more than they specifically said a woman still of child-bearing age can't be president because she might be irritable during "that time of the month," though they sure went right up to the line. My, how thin is their veneer of political correctness?)

Why the desperation?

Because Vice President Sarah Palin would mean Americans could actually end up electing a woman president without tapping a manipulative, soulless, stay-married-just-to-stay-in-power socialist.

You know, the first day she was announced as VP I saw Paul Begala on TV swearing up and down that he was happy as a Democrat that she was selected because she was such an abysmal candidate but concerned as a patriotic American because she is so unqualified. As I have told others, it requires some rather partisan thinking to believe that Obama is qualified to be at the top of a ticket and Palin is somehow unqualified to be at the bottom of one.