The Palin Speech, Reviewed
Seriously, this is a joke, right? That’s what I was asking myself during pretty much the entirety of Palin’s speech.
What a joke.
But, let’s give credit where credit is due, Libby Spencer nailed it: “Sarah Palin will give a great speech. She will lie her face off.” Check and check. Though the “greatness” of the speech needs to be considered relative to the expectations, which were disturbingly low. She gave a great speech from the perspective of the base, the party faithful at whom it was directed, as well as of the theocratic ideologues behind her candidacy.
And she gave a great speech according to the media, or at least according to the anchors and analysts who make up the celebrity TV commentariat. “A star is born,” gushed Wolf Blitzer — and similar sentiments were offered up by the likes of Chris Matthews, David Gregory, and David Gergen, and pretty much everyone else, so swept up were they in the moment, so taken with Palin, so eager to praise her “authenticity,” one of the words of the night. Someone else — it might also have been Blitzer — concluded that she’s hit a home run. Presumably the wind was blowing out, the fences had been moved in, toddlers manned the outfield, and Palin was hitting off a tee with an aluminum bat.
Seriously, this person — I’d say “woman,” but the Republicans are so quick to throw around the sexism charge — is on a national ticket and could be the next vice president? Are you kidding me?
I don’t care about her “authenticity”. What does that even mean? That she’s “real”? But shouldn’t we expect more of our democratic leaders? Was George Washington a great president because he was “authentic”? It may be the bias of advanced democracies that we expect our leaders to be just like us, but, again, what does that mean? All I saw tonight was a woman who is clearly not prepared for the national and world stage. She and her surrogates, like Giuliani, whose speech just before hers was appallingly awful, are talking up her executive experience, which already separates her from the rest of us, but she came across not as a leader but as the “hockey mom” she wants us to believe she still is. But, seriously, do Americans want a “hockey mom” anywhere near the Oval Office?
And, yes, she lied, and lied, and lied. About herself, about McCain, about Obama. For example, she claimed she was against the “bridge to nowhere” even though she was for it until public opinion turned against it. And, yes, she attacked Obama, digging and digging, making light of his experiences and accomplishments, and it was disgusting. Who is she to attack Obama and Biden? She is small and petty next to either one of them. As Fred Kaplan puts it today at Slate, “[i]f a Democratic candidate had picked such an off-the-wall running mate, the Republicans… would be howling with derision. And rightly so.”
And yet, as expected, the media loved it, and wanted to make sure we knew they loved it. Maybe because they themselves wanted to seem more “authentic,” more in touch with “real” Americans. Maybe because she criticized them and they wanted to make amends. Maybe because of those low expectations. Maybe because they wanted to seem “fair” and “balanced.” Maybe because many of them are gullible fools. “The war has started,” according to Andrea Mitchell, or something like that, yet more idiocy from the fawning media establishment.
What a joke.
I admit, it was not an awful speech, and Palin did not give an awful performance, but neither the speech nor the performance were anywhere near what the media is claiming they were. All she did was deliver without serious blunders a carefully crafted address to over-enthusiastic party loyalists pre-programmed to leap up and applaud, an address that combined her hokey personal story with lies, smears, and McCain worship.
And it was a speech largely without substance. What did she utter in terms of the issues, and in terms of policy, other than shallow regurgitations of Republican talking points? Her main policy focus was on energy, but, even there, all she said was that drilling for more domestic oil is the way to go. She alleged that Obama is against any such drilling, accusing him therefore of being against ending America’s dependence on foreign oil, but she made no mention of alternative energy, nor of Obama’s substantive energy plan. And what of national security. All we got was the standard lines about 9/11 and al Qaeda, along with the dubious claim that the Iraq War is about to be won. And there was almost nothing on domestic policy — where she is, if anything, an extremist.
Sure, she reached out to “real” Americans, but she did so not with substantive policy proposals but with her own personal story, a story that, of course, has been thoroughly cleaned up for public consumption.
What a joke.
**********
Her speech is getting a warm reception over at The New Republic, but I think Stump contributor Eve Fairbanks had the best assessment there:
– “People have questioned her experience and her background; nobody really questioned whether she could give a good speech, especially after her successful rollout address last Friday. Tonight, diminished expectations combined with Palin’s known-to-be-remarkable charisma made for the speech-making equivalent of putting a champ bowler two feet in front of a set of plastic duckpins.”
– “That’s the problem with the positive case Palin made for herself, with its emphasis on all that small-town stuff: It convinced me that she makes a good PTA mom, that she may make a fine mayor, that she hasn’t totally bombed as the essentially brand-new governor of the third-least-populous state in the Union, even that I might like to have a beer with her, or a glass of fermented whale milk or whatever one drinks with mooseburgers. But just because we’re a nation of a hundred thousand Wasillas doesn’t mean all those hundred thousand mayors ought to be in the White House. Tonight, she sounded for all the world like an unusually sharp version of those ‘regular people’ they drag onstage at conventions to tell their stories in the off-primetime hours.”
– “She was likeable enough, to borrow a line of Obama’s. Maybe even lovable. But I don’t think she neutered the argument that she’s not ready, that her reformist record isn’t what she claims it is, that she was a cynical pick, or that she — as a poll released today found that a big majority of likely women voters believe — undermines McCain’s claim to ‘experience.’ I don’t think she did much more than anybody thought she would do.”
(Noam Scheiber’s assessment was pretty good, too: “[S]he came off as sort of perky, which is refreshing on some level, but not necessarily vice-presidential. And maybe you don’t want to be so lacerating your first time out. Still, she far exceeded expectations, at least if by expectations you mean the cartoonish image conservatives accused the media of creating.”)
I didn’t find her either likable or lovable. Instead, I found her clueless yet presumptuous, bitter and snarky.
And, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I think she’s a complete and utter joke.
(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)
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37 Responses to “The Palin Speech, Reviewed”
• You didn’t find her likeable?
• You found her “clueless”?
• You think she came off as “bitter”?
You do have the democrat’s gift of reading the voters.
(heh)
Thank goodness! I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw through the Palin Preformance!
Yep — the degeneracy continues…
Palin's appeal is nation-wide. At least, among decent, normal people in the USA.
Thank Christ somebody is talking sense this morning.
She read a prewritten speech on a teleprompter competently. That's IT. None of the concerns about her experience and ability to be leader of the free world were answered by reading off a speech while looking into a camera.
LOL, apparently some people haven't gotten the memo. You're still stuck on yesterday's talking points about Palin being a lightweight laughingstock. Today we've moved on to how sarcastic and mean she was, and how she really only succeeded in throwing red meat to the base.
Nothing to worry about here, Dems, move right along…
I don't know how many people were like me, but my reaction to her speech was that when she was talking about her family and her early experiences, she was warm, endearing, and authentic. Then she took out a rhetorical AK-47 and put just about everyone that wasn't on board with the party message in her sights. Being a pit-bull in lipstick is a good thing as long as you have some control over it. If you just start spraying the room (or indiscriminately chewing on everyone's leg) it's not so great. I guess you could say we already have a VP like that. And that's pretty much why he didn't show up.
DLS opines that “Palin's appeal is nation-wide. At least, among decent, normal people in the USA.” Perhaps so, but I wonder how broad her definition of said people is.
CStanley,
Let me know which story is more true:
A) She's not a liar and a strict partisan, that was just a speech she read last night
B) She's a liar and a strict partisan, she meant every word of that speech last night
I couldn't get past the lies. Consider the word “honorable”. How many people could honestly apply that word to Sarah? Our disgust at the politics of the last 8 years is rooted in the stream of lies that have come out of the white house. Sarah paints herself as a reformer. Oh really? Had she spoken the truth, her speech would have been formidible indeed. Instead she demonstrated quite conclusively that she represents more of the same.
yeah when MCCAin croaks and this bimbo is in charge it'll be the FEMININE BUSH CLONE She had the charm of a snake -want to know why most Nam vets are against McCain? He turned his back on 303 MIA families -google Vietnam veterans against McCain and you can see MCCAIN on video end the investigation on their fate-you will be amazed at how little you know about him- you can see Mccain turn his back and get angry at MIA families and go against Congress to end the POW/MIA investigation, The Manchurian candidate
While the appeal is indeed nation-wide, it isn't necessarily universal… even among decent, normal people in the USA like myself. I'm a conservative and I voted for GWB twice. I've had enough and what the GOP showed last night is precisely why.
She made a speech directed to the base, and the base liked it.
What about everybody else?
I guess we'll see.
Maybe that wasn't even Sarah Palin-it may have been RUDY playing Hollywood dress-up again
With all the aduterers giving speeches, it seemed more like a swingers convention! And they made that poor little baby stay the entire evening so they could use him as a prop and pass him around ,you know Sarah Palin delivered her 1st child 7 months after marriage to Todd-in case you're wondering why she would allow her child to be raped in her own home(Yep Phyliss Schafley said it herself)
I think it was a blown opportunity by the Repugs. here was her first exposure to the world and first impressions diehard. What impression was left? Not of a middle of the road person of governmental skill ready to help cure the ills of the country, but that of a snarky, mean, cultural wars trench fighting foot soldier. She played to the base which already loves her, and not the independents who want to know if she brings anything good to Washington. She was divisive. She deplored the examination of her family while shamelessly using er family. And once you got away from her obvious charisma, the speech itself was vapid, filled with bald faced lies and revealed no policy chops whatsoever including on the area she is supposedly expert: energy.
All in all, I was happy to note, a blown opportunity.
As I mentioned in another entry, the speech itself might have worked with the non-base if the video bio came first. Without the video, she looked mean and sarcastic.
Why are people suddenly shocked SHOCKED that a candidate is lying (like all the other candidates?
What's with the selective outcries about lies and 'red meat' speeches? Seems to me that there were a lot of people who applauded some of the strident anti-GOP attacks during the DNC speeches.
Don't get me wrong, I wish all political speeches were more honest, but if we're going to hold people accountable it has to be bilateral, not on one side only. If you don't think it's right for Palin to claim that she opposed pork, then you should also ask Obama to lay off the lies about McCain representing four more years of Bush, or endorsing a plan for a 100 year conflict in Iraq- not to mention the misdirection he engaged in with rhetoric on his own positions on issues like NAFTA.
Speaking of charm, lasiler, find a mirror to view the antonym.
The Rudy joke was pretty funny though.
Good piece Michael. The republicans are right to be angry with the media, not because they are liberal tools (a worn out excuse if there ever was one) but because the media, and by this I mean the MSM, seem not to be willing to do their jobs. They treat speeches like movie reviews, there is no effort to place any kind of value judgement based on facts or even sensibilities. If lies and attacks are what the new GOP stands for, they no longer have any business invoking great Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. When I say lies and attacks I am not venting; the charges are well documented (for years now) and ongoing. Abe and Teddy would likely not recognize this new breed of republicans, but I doubt the base would care. I think they would be as willing to trash them as they would any democrat.
We're not talking about normal policy or ideological attacks. Republicans attack the character of Democrats. According to Rudy, Mitters and Sarah P, Obama is a gay, left-coast elitist, that wants to surrender to Al Qaeda because he's too weak and pompous to lead us through these tough times. Democrats praised John McCain for his heroism and attacked him for his political stances these last 8 years. The contrast couldn't be more stark.
Chris, the contrast is only stark to those who choose to ignore every smear that comes from the left and hone in (and exaggerate) everything that comes from the right. For instance, none of the three people you mentioned said anything remotely like what you wrote (gay? Really? You heard that last night? HUH?)
And I could just as easily summarize what I heard about John McCain at the DNC like this: He's a war hero but his time has come and gone, and his heroism doesn't make him fit to lead; he'll give us four more years of Bush, he eschews diplomacy for belligerence, will fight an endless war and bankrupt the country while cutting taxes for the EVIL oil companies and granting favors to lobbyists.
Isn't that exactly what Bush did these last 8 years?
Not really, but even if it is, where's the evidence that that's how McCain will govern?
I'm being totally serious here.
The crux of McCain's energy plan is drilling for more oil, which won't make any dent in the global price of oil. But it will help oil company profits at the expense of the environment.
McCain has continually touted his POW experience as a great sign of character. Sure that's great, but it doesn't qualify him for being president. Hell, McCain has been a politician for a long time, we should be able to judge a possible presidency on his record as a Senator. I wonder why he doesn't want us to?
When Russia invaded Georgia he immediately took the most bellicose line he could. He's joked about bombing Iran. He's on the record as saying he'd like to see our troops in Iraq well beyond his expected lifetime, and mine for that matter.
McCain wants to cut taxes, again, for every American while we run huge deficits. He won't outline what parts of the federal budget he will cut to balance the budget.
If McCain weren't friendly to lobbyists, he wouldn't have jettisoned so many senior staff members for their ties to K Street. His main foreign policy adviser is a lobbyist for Georgia.
These aren't distortions or lies.
So….all I can say is that Mrs. Palin is a potential Republican Tom Eagleton. She threw
rhetorical red meat at the far-right nuts and made a lot of nasty remarks about Obama
as well as the expected fawning remarks about McCain.
And I think the way she used her daughter who got “in trouble” and her Down's syndrome infant is disgusting – she was using them as props, pure and simple.
I just got a chance to look at a couple of the links here. Boy, did Libby ever get it right! Her predictions were accurate to the T. And Roland Martin is exactly on target about Palin, Giuliani and the GOP mocking community organizers. These people don't care about other people nearly as much as they care about power. They have demonstrated over and over again they are willing to function under the philosophy of the means being justified by the ends – the ends being nothing more than the keys to power. That my friends, whether you are a righty OR a lefty, is the living, breathing and very sad truth.
I love the smell of Liberal fear in the morning.
“While the appeal is indeed nation-wide, it isn't necessarily universal… even among decent, normal people in the USA like myself.”
You, at least, are halfway calm, and realize you can still vote for Obama-Biden, who are still leading this race, while leaving the children and worse who also populate your side and your preferred political party (and pollute it with their poor behavior, and are one of the reasons so many liberals avoid using the word “liberal,” including in the name of this liberal Web site) to continue to engage in their idiocy.
Palin is a winner; her selection yanked McCain out of the doldrums; the convention has featured surprisingly good speeches (despite the lies and slander on this site and elsewhere, to the contrary), and it's not a pre-ordained contest with the Messiah destined to be given the White House necessarily — maybe fright about that is the latest source of the agitation and much worse behavior we are seeing after Palin's great speech.
Fear and more customary loathing and pathology than normal, Leonidas. Even the less low-road lefties on this site have succumbed today.
A voter panel's reaction to the speech last night: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=…
DLS, the suggestion that you (of all people) would have any useful objective clues regarding political fear and loathing continues to be amusing.
Chris…..Chris……..poor deluded Chris…….
Didn’t you read the source of this article? It’s the Detroit Free Press.
The Free Press is a daily paper on par with the NY Times and Washington Post – which means you can’t trust anything they say.
This is supposed to be a focus group of “independents”. Now, I don’t know how you define independent, but let’s pick one of these people and do a true investigative journalist background check (about 30 seconds on Google).
• Ilene Beninson, 52, Berkley independent
It turns out that this Berkley, Michigan independent is not only a Code Pink member, she actually went to Crawford, Texas and participated in a hunger strike with Cindy Sheehan.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/cindy_sheeha…
Sounds pretty much like the independents in my neighborhood. How about yours, Chris?
Oh, looking at the list I see another undecided independent:
• George Lentz, 66, Southfield independent
Ya, this guy is one of those middle of the road type of independents. George is an activist in the Unitarian Church and a big proponent of gay pastors in the church. I’m not saying anything on the subject other than he hasn’t had trouble in the past declaring his partisanship.
I’ll take another 2 minutes and research some of the other “independents” that the Free Press managed to gather (completely at random) for this focus group.
Two minutes of research was plenty of time.
Here is the next “independent” on the list:
• Joellen Gilchrist, Beverly Hills (Michigan)
She’s independent enough to petition MoveOn.org to impeach President Bush.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/moveontoimpe…
And she’s not too independent to be a Code Pink leader:
http://www.codepink4peace.org/groups.php
Just you average, everyday independent.
Now, I couldn’t expect the Detroit Free Press to do the extensive investigation I performed, but perhaps they could have a clue when they used the same people to be a focus group for a Hillary Clinton speech.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=…
Yes, the media sure plays it right down the middle.
“amusing”
To those who misunderstand or misuse that word, at least.
The biggest con job in politics is the one the greedy ,elitist element of the GOP plays on the ignorant, poor ,rascist element of its constituency.Anyways they all suck and i'll be glad when these bootlickers get their paws off our fragile,once-strong country–Veterans For A Better America
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I find it very ironic that much of the criticism of Palin pertains to her inexperience. The comparisons of her record (or lack of it) with that of Obama's are very interesting. While I don't like calling Obama a glorified community organizer, he has no more of a record to be president than, supposedly, Palin has to be VP. I'd take a VP with a limited track record over a President with a limited record. Yikes! The possible leader of the free world who doesn't have the experience. Obama was literally “handed” the leader title of numerous bills already near passage in Illinois. He won elections by knowing people and getting other candidates thrown off the ballot. Powerful people, part of the Chicago machine (and it does exist!) wanted to make him a political star. And they have! Obama voted “present” to more bills than anyone else in the Illinois state house and continues to do the same in the U.S. Senate. He's not making decisions — he's wanting to keep his record unbesmirched so he'll get elected again and again. Even when his own party overwhelmingly supports a bill, he will vote “present.” He has never authored a bill either. “Never, Nada!” He has no major initiative to put on his resume. Palin's a nobody, you say? Think a little longer — Obama has nothing to show for his political career either — unless you say pretty speeches are all that it's about. No record! And he's certainly not a reformer either. Palin has no right to be vice president? That's a legitimate opinion. But If that's so, Obama CERTAINLY has no right to be president. … This election is not about Palin, by the way. It's about Obama. He's just not qualified. … and arguments against Palin's experience simply PROVE THE POINT.