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1. Noah, you correctly point out that Palin didn’t throw the culture wars gauntlet, she was responding in kind. Taking that as a given, what would you suggest she do otherwise?

   When Palin was selected (oh so long ago), the kind of thing I read from liberal pundits and commentators was “OMG! McCain just picked a socially conservative neophyte from a state I know nothing about. It’s over! This election will be cake!” Given the way the media latched on to the Bristol Palin imbroglio, the media would seem to agree. So she could have ignored the sliming, or addressed it in some lofty, gaseous manner, but I think she and the McCain campaign have the right approach. Palin’s political foes thought she could be trampled. Now, the more sober minded liberals realize it’s a fight.

   — Blar · Sep 4, 06:03 PM · #

2. I think she should have done what I said: pocketed the support of the crowd and reached beyond it. Her speech won her not only the nomination but the election to Vice President of Red America. But she’s running to be Vice President of the United States of America.

   — Noah Millman · Sep 4, 06:41 PM · #

3. Re copmmenter Blar, on the “who started it,” point, there is a larger context than just the last few days. There have been plenty of lows blows, on both sides, in the culteral wars over the past few years. To suggest, as your commenter does, that the fact that Palin was attacked unfairly (and 70% of the attacks were entirely fair, though I agree that perhaps 30% were below the belt) doesn’t begin to justify her response (especially since most of her targets weren’t the people attacking her, e.g., Obama, and, of course, that her attacks were extremely dishonest). So comments along the lines of people like Blar are absurd.

   To your credit, you apparently recognize this, and kudos to you for your last paragraph. Incidentally, I think many people feel this way (not I necessarily, see my response to Reihan above), which is one of the reasons why, in the long run, the speech, and the Palin nomination generally, will be seem as a massive mistake for the GOP.

   — LarryM · Sep 4, 06:44 PM · #

4. Noah,

   I’m happy to see that, twice in the last week, you have promised to vote for Obama:

   “if McCain wants to run on “we’re real Americans and they aren’t” then count me out.”

   “McCain clearly wants to run on the permanent emergency, with a subtext that only a real American can be trusted to defend America, and real Americans can be identified by their reflex hawkishness in all circumstances. A campaign of that character would have to be defeated, for the good of the country.”

   I’m genuinely curious what sort of campaign you imagine McCain might run that would get you to vote for him, given these views and his past history.

   — DavidS · Sep 4, 06:52 PM · #

5. Larry, I don’t like being absurd, so perhaps you could help me in my quest for self-edification. What attacks on Palin this week would you describe as fair? And what aspects of Palin’s attack on Obama were unfair?

   Noah, do you think that by ignoring the heat she has endured this week, she could somehow transcend it? I don’t imagine the media would let her off that easy, though I have a rather low opinion of the media.

   — Blar · Sep 4, 07:16 PM · #

6. You know, I tried to take the snark out of my comment, but I don’t think I got it all. So let me apologize for what was left and say that I am a big fan of your acceptance speeches, which always manage to make the candidates seem more appealing than their own speeches do.

   — DavidS · Sep 4, 07:17 PM · #

7. “OMG! McCain just picked a socially conservative neophyte from a state I know nothing about. It’s over! This election will be cake!”

   Who, in particular? Can you provide links?

   — Freddie · Sep 4, 07:34 PM · #

8. Blar,

   I only have time to take on the first part of your comment. At a minimum, the trooper story is a legitimate news story; I think it’s much more than that, but it is at least a legitimate story. Stories quoting Alaskans who know hee and have negative things to say about her governance were fair – again, it’s certainly possible the people being quoted have an axe to grind, but reporting the comments was fair (in my view, the nastiness of her speech just confirmed some of the comments regarding her nasty persona that were reported). The AIP stories, even if they amount to nothing as I think they will, were accurate as far as they went (I mean, the party claimed her as a member – blame them if that was inaccurate). The stories about her flip flops on the bridge to nowhere and her colorful history with regard to earmarks were entirely fair. I could go on. There certainly is a lot out there.

   The family stuff? Not so much. That’s part of the 30%. Not any different in my view than we would see with a Democrat in the same situation, but that doesn’t justify it. Obviously some of the cultural sneering was also bad, but I haven’t seem much of that in the MSM. There has been some, and it’s regrettable. More of it on some liberal blogs, certainly, but if we are going there … well, let’s just say that I don’t have to did into blog comments to find worse on the right, I just need to tune in Rush Limbaugh. Again, that doesn’t justify it, I know.

   I have mixed feelings about the pastor/Jews for Jesus stuff. I don’t consider that stuff particularly relevant, but it was no less so than the Rev. Wright stuff.

   On Obama, more later.

   But really you are missing the biggest point – the point made by Noah. It wasn’t merely hitting back at an unfair media attack; it was a full fledged call for cultural warfare (some on the Obama stuff falls in this category). It was as if Obama decided, as part of his acceptance speech, to expand upon his “bitter” comments,, except do so in a much more offensive and divisive manner.

   Look, she would have been fully justified in hitting back at the media (and honestly she probably had to do that). But she went WELL beyond that.

   — LarryM · Sep 4, 08:02 PM · #

9. I wish I had time to list the many, many ways her speech was unfair with regard to Obama; maybe later.

   But two more quick points on the family stuff. First, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the worst stuff (e.g., Sullivan) made it out of the blogosphere. Secondly, let’s look closely at the pregnancy of her daughter. “The media” didn’t decide to run with the story; one publication, not exactly a reputable part of the MSM, decided to, and the Palin family understanably decided to go public first. At that point it was a story; of course the media reported it, as the Palin family expected them to. Most of that reporting was restrained and fair. Some of it was not. I wish that it was all restrained and fair; in a perfectl world it wouldn’t have come up at all. But we don’t live in that perfect world.

   — LarryM · Sep 4, 08:33 PM · #

10. Noah, I think its foolish to compare Obama’s message to Palin’s like this. Palin, like Biden, did the traditional VP attack dog number, albeit in unusual circumstances. McCain will presumably (we’ll know soon), be the one to reach out, being Presidential and unifying. It just doesn’t seem like that much of a missed opportunity to me – Palin’s far better equipped to beat up on Obama than McCain is, and its far less meaningful for her to present a unifying message.

    Maybe you could flesh out a bit more in later post what you think she could have done, and how it would have played out?

    — Alex · Sep 4, 09:33 PM · #

11. Freddie, a fair request, but seeing as I did not bookmark every such instance, it took me a good hunk of the afternoon to retrace my web-steps. Luckily I’m indolent and have the time. Also, thank Jehovah for RealClearPolitics.

    Jonathan Atler: “The problem is that politics, like all professions, isn’t as easy as it looks. Palin’s odds of emerging unscathed are slim. In fact, she’s been all but set up for failure, which is yet another reason McCain’s choice may prove to be irresponsible.”

    Dee Dee Myers: “Worse, when Sarah Palin falls short—and I hope I’m wrong but I think in important ways, such as her debate with Joe Biden, she will—some people will conclude that women can’t cut it. That’s unfair to Sarah Palin—and it’s certainly unfair to the rest of us.”

    Markos: “In the middle of Labor Day weekend, I had the highest traffic day of my existence. This is higher traffic than the 2004 federal election. Higher traffic than the 2006 general election. Usually on long weekends, people disappear. They hang out with family and friends. No one wanted to do anything but [talk about] Sarah Palin…. So she was a news cycle pick. It bought them a day or two. But now that people are really starting to look into who she is, there are a lot of unpalatable things about her and her record, and I think it’s turning into a nightmare pick for them.” (This interview was posted today, which is to say post-speech, but it is telling that Kos thinks a groundswell of anti-Palin sentiment drove increased traffic at his site.)

    Nate Silver, at the respectable fivethirtyeight.com: “I’ve concluded that this is a pick that looks better on paper than in practice. She’s charming and likable, but she’s about the furthest thing from what we conventionally understand to be “Presidential” as can be imagined.”

    Finally, Alternet gleefully speculating whether Palin is such a liability that McCain will drop her from the ticket.

    This does not include the countless, giddy comment threads I have seen at various Palin-related news posts.

    PS: The actual tenor of most of these items does not convey the schadenfreud my snark suggested, but they are all from Obama supporters, so I don’t imagine they are very upset that they think Palin will sink the Republican ticket. The point isn’t the tone anyway, but the perception that Palin is Dan Quayle redux, a “disaster” in the making. My hope is that Palin’s speech helps to surpass these dismal expectations.

    — Blar · Sep 4, 10:26 PM · #

12. Larry: You allude to “bittergate” and the like. In terms of the culture wars, isn’t that a provocation? Obama never meant for those thoughts to be aired in the general square, but that hardly gives him the moral high ground. I certainly think that attitude warrants address.

    Also, I don’t think it is just to give the media a pass on their weeklong obsession over Bristol Palin because a blogger broke the story first. One representative anecdote I heard was that the NY Times had three front-page items on the affair on the same day on its website. That’s unexcusable.

    I’m more ambivilant about the other mini-scandals involving Palin. Many, as you rightly point out, are either of sketchy provenance or are demonstrably untrue, but certainly deserve investigation (Troopergate especially). What is a little more icky is the credulous excitement these pseudo-scandals generate in some quarters. Of course, in the fever swamps of the right you found plenty of similar sentiment about the rumors that Barack is an Islamist Manchurean candidate, or that Michelle was a Black Panther.

    — Blar · Sep 4, 10:53 PM · #

13. I hate to keep making this excuse, but I don’t have the time to fully respond. But I do want to draw out an underlying issue which I think your quotes in response to Eddie illustrate.

    There is certainly a sense that the media treated the Palin pick as deeply unserious. I think a lot of what you call “credulous excitement” may have been related to that.

    But, by conventional standards, she WAS a deeply unserious pick. Not because of her background, or even because of her lack of “experience” (though the latter was certainly a factor), but because she isn’t a national level figure, and she hasn’t, in her career, demonstrated much of an interest in National level politics. I suspect that a similar pick by the Dems would have been treated just as harshly.

    Now here’s the kicker – at some level, I question the underlying assumptions behind that judgement. For reasons quite different from yours, I’d like to think that it’s possible that someone outside the establishment consensus would have a chance at national office.

    But maybe it isn’t unreasonable to expect that such a person, before being thrust on the ticket as a VP candidate, at least demonstrate some interest and knowledge of national level issues.

    And that fact that McCain picked such a person, whatever her personal appeal (an issue regarding which we obviously differ), was regarded by the media, correctly, as a deeply cynical gesture. And that has colored the coverage to a large extent.

    — LarryM · Sep 5, 12:58 AM · #

14. Larry, I understand. I envy those who don’t have the free time to post in forums and comments threads all day.

    But if you may, indulge me a little bit more. I agree that the responses I highlighted reveal a deeper emerging media narrative, which, if I follow is something like: “McCain just put a political unknown on the national stage 9 weeks before the election. What is he trying to pull?”*

    To those who have not been following the conservative end of the race, this might smack of unseriousness. You have a harder time getting to cynical, I think. You have to get from “we, the media, don’t know anything about Sarah Palin,” to “McCain doesn’t know anything about Sarah Palin, knows he doesn’t know, and doesn’t care.”

    You may be surprised to know I don’t ascribe to the cynical theory, or the unserious theory, for that matter. For starters, among conservative pundits and their sycophants (me), actually knew who Sarah Palin was before the announcement. Reihan just linked to a podcast from last July in which he and Ross discuss Palin as a veep possibility, and I recall reading about her well before that. The reason the Hosannas on the right were so reverberant after the announcement was because she was sort of fantastic dreamworld pick that conservatives hoped for but never thought would actually materialize. “Too politically risky,” they said, forlorn.

    The reason they were so excited by the pick essentially is that conservatives do not equal Republicans, in the same way liberals do not equal Democrats. I believe the typical conservative viewed the Republican congress of 2006 as corrupt, pudgy, comfortable, and, even as they voted for them out of principle, deserving to lose. That malaise continued to the near present, where the race seemed to be a mission to stop Obama without any actual enthusiasm for McCain. So a fresh, social conservative with an emphasis on energy policy and taking on the crapulant Alaskan Republican machine was a breath of fresh air to a stale brand.** Palin was particularly appealing to McCain, who seemed to have found a kindred political spirit,

    So I don’t think the pick was either unserious or cynical, but a combination of political consideration and a sense of genuine affinity. If you think “political consideration” equals “cynicism,” I would ask you to consider how putting a 35-year, hawkish, establishment liberal on an anti-war change ticket could be seen as any less cynical.

    *Related to “the Palin gambit is ridiculous and won’t work” meme is the attitude that “the Palin gambit could work, in which case we are doomed.” I think the convention speech showed that she is not ridiculous. It will be up to her performance in interviews and the debate especially to show the hyperventilators that she will not doom us all.

    **I’ve been edifying myself on the earmarks thing. I think the black eyes she has inflicted on the comedy duo Stevens and Young speak for themselves, but I agree that it is not pretty. The most even-handed report I can find makes blaming earmarks under Palin’s governorship (which have steadily decreased) on Palin sound a bit like blaming the deficit on Reagan. You have to grant that she can only do so much fighting the S&Y team, and it does sound like she has done a lot. How this squares with her behavior as mayor is an open question. Convert, opportunist, or a bit of both?

    — Blar · Sep 5, 03:16 PM · #

15. Blar,

    I wish I did have time to respond properly. As it is, I am neglecting other work to respond this much. And in any event our different responses are colored by our different reactions to Ms. Palin’s persona, even apart from her politics. I certainly don’t see a courageous reformer. I see a typical nasty pol, who got on the “reform” bandwagon simply because that was her only route to political power, not out of any sincere reform instincts. In any event, briefly.

    I do understand why you and other conservatives see Palin this way. I think you are wrong to do so, for a variety of reasons, but perhaps more to the point, are still misreading the media situation a bit (or maybe I’m misreading you).

    On the first point, I think you and other conservatives are, to a large extent, and for understandable reasons (the lack of true conservative reformers/outsiders who have even Ms. Palin’s level of experience), projecting your hopes and dreams into a pretty unworthy vessel. I listen to her speech, and I see someone who is happy to get behind every bit of the current corrupt GOP program.

    But, more to the point, you are failing to appreciate the extent to which a person with as little prior preparation (not experience, but preparation) for the presidency is an inappropriate candidate for national office. If, say, she had precisely the same amount of experience, but had spent the last few years studying/thinking about, possibly writing about national level issues, then she might be prepared for the position. It’s evident, though, that she has not. Her focus has (understandably) been on issues specific to Alaska. I’ve asked this of many people, and gotten few responses: do you honestly think that if she was thrust into the presidency in the first year of a McCain administration it would be anything other than a disaster? Really? Among other things, her lack of knowledge with regard to national level issues would make her Dependant upon advisors who are part of the corrupt current GOP that you deplore.

    As for cynicism, I think the mistake that you make here is to ascribe your own motives for supporting Palin to McCain. I think there is ample reason to believe that that is not the case, at all.

    The press? What you see is much more an establishment bias, as opposed to a liberal bias. Maybe we don’t even disagree with this. And I can even sympathize with you a little. But on top of this, I think there is a sincere and legitimate concern that, whatever her good qualities, she really, really isn’t prepared to assume the presidency if McCain dies in office early in his presidency.

    But sadly that just sketches out my arguments, no time to develop them fully.

    — LarryM · Sep 5, 04:15 PM · #

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