Palin Convention Speech
Written by Mike on September 3rd, 2008I will be liveblogging Palin’s convention speech.
10:31 PM: Okay she is definitely the best looking of the four.
10:32 PM: Crowd still going nuts, I think I just saw someone sacrifice a dove to her.
10:34 PM: She can do no wrong, crowd goes bananas at her every word. For someone from Alaska she speaks effortlessly in front of a large crowd.
10:35 PM: You get the impression the GOP faithful see light at the end of the ‘08 election tunnel.
10:38 PM: She just bleeds “genuine”, can’t be faked.
10:41 PM: One thing that I don’t enjoy is the fact that her accent might as well be Canadian. Sounds like the principal on South Park. Palin just finished lauding her small town background and the crowd is eating it up.
10:43 PM: Palin is taking it to Obama for criticizing her time as mayor of Wasilla. “Being mayor is sort of like being a community organizer, except with responsibility.” She is really nailing Obama hard.
10:45 PM: Says she is not a member of the “permanent political establishment”. “I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion [DC media], I’m going to serve the people of this country.” She is a natural. Talking about challenging the status quo.
10:50 PM: Talks about the power of the veto to curtail spending. $500 million in vetos, not bad.
10:51 PM: Approval for $40 billion natural gas pipeline was streamlined by Palin, again not bad.
10:55 PM: This is a man [Obama] that has authored two memoirs and but no legislation.
10:58 PM: She is just gutting Obama as she talks about his numerous proposed tax increases.
11:01 PM: If I am Obama I am worried about how to blunt these attacks from someone who is everything he has claimed to be. She is a better public speaker than McCain IMO.
11:05 PM: Palin is so good, she is making me wish I was going to vote for McCain. That is persuasive Sarah!
11:08 PM: Obama’s soaring rhetoric pales in comparison to Palin’s speech which comes off as so much more genuine.
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She ripped the entrails out of Obama like she would a dead bear. Kind of amazing how Obama lost his entrails twice tonight considering Giuliani was uncaged.
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Obama was made to look like a child, how fitting.
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That was freaking awesome.
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You know you want to vote for her Mike…
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She is very impressive, it’s too bad that she isn’t on the front end of the ticket . . .
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Who doesnt love a Debbie Downer?!
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Damn… somewhere in Chicago The Obamessiah is sitting in corner, crying and rocking himself to sleep.
She shot him like a moose, then field-dressed him, took him home, and turned him into soup. Later, she’s gonna hang his head on her wall.
Oh, and I think we’re gonna see a HUGE blowback against the disgusting media coverage. Liberal journalism just accidentally blew itself up.
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I’m trying not to get TOO overconfident before the campaigning begins after the convention, when we should see the direct effect of Palin on the numbers…
…but holy hell, Obama did get shanked last night. Yes, shanked…
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Even now you won’t consider voting for McCain?? How about if he coughs a lot and appears sickly, if it seems like he won’t make it much past Jan. 20th? Then will you at least consider it so we can get Sarah in there?
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The convention is pure pomp and pageantry and nothing of substance has changed about McCain. He will be running the administration not Palin and he is not someone I am willing to vote for to be president of the United States of America.
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The speech was overrated. Palin scored some good rhetorical points against Obama, but in my dissenting opinion she didn’t show that she’s qualified for the job she’s running for, especially with regard to foreign policy and national security, areas where she’s greener than a certain giant. And she still sounds more cute than tough–in my mind’s eye, I can still see the Ahmadinejads of the world laughing at the thought of having Sarah Palin in office.
What’s more, I noticed that a lot of what Palin said sounded great but made less sense the more I thought about it.
Example: Palin had a great line about how Obama wants to read the terrorists their rights. But when it comes to the rights of the detainees, McCain is just as much of a civil libertarian as Obama is. McCain favors shutting down Guantanamo and bringing the captured terrorists here; he’s the main reason we have an anti-torture law shackling our military interrogators; he’s all for terrorists’ rights. So Palin’s criticism of Obama was hypocritical.
Example: Palin had a great line about how Obama has written two memoirs but no significant legislation. But McCain has been in Congress for more than twenty-five years and in all that time he’s crafted very little important legislation of his own. So the criticism of Obama was, again, hypocritical.
Example: Palin said that McCain would bring to the presidency “the wisdom that comes even to the captives….” What wisdom? Who has ever thought of McCain as wise? Where is the evidence of McCain’s wisdom? Not only is he wrong on countless major issues; worse still, this is a man who’s so empty-headed that he has to use his POW experience as a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card for his flaws, to conceal how little he knows about anything. He keeps going back to his POW experience even when asked questions about things like the economy. A man who is possessed of wisdom wouldn’t need to do that; a wise man would have RELEVANT answers to give.
Example: Palin said that government is too big and that Obama wants to make it even bigger. But so does McCain. Remember cap and trade? And what about campaign finance? I remember that infamous 2006 interview with Imus, where McCain said “obviously” “we didn’t finish the job.” Is McCain really the candidate for people who want smaller government? Is up really down?
This isn’t stuff I made up, folks. Palin’s speech is a tottering house of cards. It sounds good–she scores some nice rhetorical points–but when you think about what she says, the substance is very weak. Not because she’s wrong about Obama (she’s not), but because so many of her criticisms of Obama can’t be taken seriously when spoken by someone who’s running with John McCain. Which is why I can no longer take Palin to be the straight shooter I keep hearing she is.
I just don’t see what all my brethren on the Right have fallen in love with. But I guess I’ll have to wait for history to vindicate me–seeing Palin twist GOP arms to support McCain’s liberal policies will probably make me look prescient to her current supporters who’ll learn too late what’s already plain to see: that a McCain administration, whoever the VP is, is bad news for the long-term health of the conservative movement.
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Alan - Did you support Bush in ‘04?
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Almost. When it was revealed that Chief Justice Rehnquist had cancer, I seriously considered voting for Bush, but ultimately I couldn’t because he was promising amnesty for illegal aliens. Also because of the numerous other crimes against conservatism that Bush committed, but in the end, the last straw was amnesty.
By the way, what does this have to do with whether or not I’m making any sense vis-a-vis Palin’s speech?