Now that the Obama presidency is nearing the 60-day mark, it’s time to thank those fastidious scribes on the left and the right who worked so hard to warn us against Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and the dire things that would surely occur if she ever got close to executive power.
How right they were to insist that she was unfit for high office. Let’s just imagine what she might have done:

As president, she might have caused the stock market to plunge over 2,000 points in the six weeks after she assumed office, left important posts in the Treasury unfilled for two months, been described by insiders as ‘overwhelmed’ by the office, and then gone on to diss the British Prime Minister on his first state visit, giving him, as one head of state to another, a set of DVDs plucked from the aisles of Wal Mart, a tasteful gift, even if they can’t be played on a TV in Britain. (Note, the Prime Minister, who is losing his eyesight, may even be blind in one eye).

As vice president, she might have told Katie Couric that when the stock market crashed in 1929, President Franklin D. Roosevelt went on TV to reassure a terrified nation. Or on her first trip abroad as Secretary of State, she might have, as the AP reported, “raised eyebrows on her first visit to Europe...when she mispronounced her “EU counterparts names and claimed U.S. democracy was older than Europe’s,” then gave the Russian minister a gag “reset” button, on which the word “reset” was translated incorrectly.

What a good thing that Palin, whom Christopher Buckley called “an embarrassment, and a dangerous one,” wasn’t in office to cause such debacles, and that we have Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton instead.

Ace:

Bear in mind, of course, Sarah Palin was a moron for taking on the less-spectacularly corrupt Alaskan political machine. See, if she had been as brilliant as Obama, she wouldn't have needed to respond with crude measures like fighting corruption and defeating corrupt politicians; she could have employed nuance and smarts to finesse around it, and even profit from it.

[sigh]

I love this woman.



Via Hot Air, where Allah takes some issue with Sarah's take on Barry's proposed great over-mountain invasion of Pakistan, but I'll let it slide because on the whole, it's so politically flavorful.

Sarah "Destroyer" Palin

Sarah Palin did very well last night, I think that much is clear. The Wall Street Journal has a fine editorial noting this fact, and also pointing out where McCain and Palin can improve their message when it comes to the financial crisis:

Maybe John McCain should fire the advisers who won't let Sarah Palin do more interviews. The Alaska Governor has faced two major campaign challenges -- her acceptance speech and last night's debate -- and each time she's shown herself worthy of the national stage. Let Mrs. Palin be herself, and then when she makes a mistake, as every candidate does, it won't be treated like some epic judgment on her fitness to be Vice President...

...Mr. Biden had his strongest moments on the economy, trying to link Mr. McCain to the current financial problems and "deregulation." On this point, neither Mrs. Palin nor Mr. McCain have yet offered Americans an adequate response. It isn't enough to denounce "greed and corruption" on Wall Street, as Mrs. Palin did every few minutes. If that's the problem, voters will elect the Democrats as more practiced class warriors.

On the second point: I think this isn't so much a Palin problem as it is one of McCain reacting to the crisis with populism rather than an appeal to the truth of the situation. Hopefully that changes soon.

Well this is pathetic:

In the meantime, by comparison, Gov. Palin was busy pursuing a career as a multi-term city councilman; then a multi-term city mayor and head of the Alaska Conference of Mayors; then an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor; then the chair and ethics officer of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission; then a private-citizen reformer who drove from state office first an ethically challenged fellow commissioner and then an ethically challenged attorney-general; then a successful candidate for governor who defeated, in succession, an ethically challenged incumbent and a popular former governor; and then a successful governor who, in less than two years, has helped enact comprehensive ethics reforms, completely revised her state's most important tax structure, and accomplished more than any single other American public servant of any rank or party to help bring us closer to national energy independence, all the while maintaining stratospheric public approval ratings among her home-state constituents.

Clearly she has no qualifications or accomplishments to her name.

Andrew Brietbart:

Not since Rosie O'Donnell & Co. manhandled Elizabeth Hasselbeck weekdays on "The View" have liberals been so gleeful to watch a bitter lesbian tear down a confident and beautiful conservative Republican woman. Unresolved high school lust and angst at well-adjusted cheerleaders and popular prom queens should be left for medical professionals, not for midmorning television gabfests.

For many, gay marriage is a key issue.

Yet none of these gilded-ghetto living haters point out that their savior, Mr. Obama, stands against gay marriage, too. Is that change Melissa Etheridge can believe in?

Like President Clinton, who supported regressive anti-gay-rights legislation such as "don't ask, don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, Mr. Obama gets a massive pass from the activist gay left and their stenographers in the mainstream media.

The never-reported political reality is that both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama understand that key components of the Democratic Party - the black and Hispanic blocs - hold views that Brad Pitt would deem "homophobic."

For these minority groups, and for many other religious Democrats, gay marriage is a nonstarter.

Yet liberal celebrities and activist journalists never hurl epithets at these coddled groups no matter how retrograde their ideas. President Bush correctly pegged this phenomenon as "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations." Political correctness, the rigging of politics using different rules for different groups, and buttressed by the media, ensures that Democrats always have the upper hand.

SNL was good earlier this year on Obamamania in the Democrat Primary, and now they have this gem on Palin Derangement Syndrome in the big media:

Well, nightmares, actually:

When I mentioned my Palin dreams to Slate colleagues, they volunteered their own. One Obama-supporting colleague dreamed she had urged her young son to kill Palin with a string bean. Another dreamed she was at a fashion show and Palin served her crème fraîche on little scooped corn chips. A third says, "In the Sarah Palin dream I keep having, she has superhuman powers but is not really a person at all. In fact, she is more like the weather with glasses and an up-do, pushing clouds around and pitching lightning bolts."

You know, that last one isn't a dream. Palin is a force of nature.

Via Hot Air

Sarah Palin was accused of making her first big gaffe on the campaign trail yesterday when she said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had gotten "too big and too expensive." The Huffington Post jumped all over this, arguing that no taxpayer money has been spent to bail out the businesses to date. But isn't a $200 billion blank check... big and expensive?

The Palin comment is well within the margin of error on the campaign trail. There is no "gaffe" here. Congress earlier this summer -- in the housing bill that both John McCain and Barack Obama supported but didn't bother to vote on -- gave Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. a blank check* to invest in Fannie or Freddie. It OKd a big bailout. Perhaps in your book a blank check freshly signed by Congress is not "too expensive." Perhaps you trust the government not to spend a blank check. Perhaps pigs have wings. Palin was right: The very existence of a blank check means that Fannie and Freddie are too expensive to taxpayers.

*In a comforting bedtime story that several members of Congress actually believed, Paulson said the blank check was so big and powerful (a bazooka of cash!) he would never have to use it. By the time Palin spoke, it was clear that Paulson's attempt at "verbal intervention" had failed and that real taxpayer money will be spent to prop up Fannie and Freddie. No one knows how much, but the Treasury has signed contracts to invest up to $100 billion in each company. Oh, and loan them money too. Oh, and buy their mortgage-backed securities. Do you really want to argue that she made a mistake by saying the two companies are "too big and too expensive to the taxpayers"?

Point: Palin.

Sarah Palin kicked oil company tail (in addition to corrupt, lazy Republican tail) in Alaska:

Once again, we have an example of Palin’s willingness to take on her own party to do what’s right for Alaska — and in this case, the entire US. Rather than being some clone of Dick Cheney, as Democrats have begun to deride her, she opposed Cheney on this plan and beat the man who supported it. She opted for a free-market approach and became a tough negotiator, getting a much better commitment to build the pipeline and generate massive new revenues for Alaskans.

Jim Treacher:

Did you guys see Hancock? Remember when Will Smith just stood there while the train hit him, and it derailed all over the place? Sarah Palin's kind of like that, except happier.

"It's been quite a week." Understatement of the year:

Palin, who is new to the national spotlight, explained in a soft spoken tone that the experience is "unbelievable" and said with a smile, "Is it just me or do things move quick around here? Just a few nights ago I was on the north slope working the night shift and here I am today."

"I don't have to tell you that the Palin family has had quite a week," Palin added. "You never know what the future has in store for you."

"I should've asked a few more questions when Sarah joined the PTA," Palin joked. "When my wife starts talking about reform, corruption and making government work for the American people, it's best to just move out of the way."

All the best to you, Todd. You're in for a hell of a ride, methinks.

Idiot Kos Diarist: Write your own damn speech!

Joe Biden: Are you trying to make us lose?

Oh, and there's this little gem of a tidbit too: Her TelePrompTer was on the fritz.

Arrogant, inexperienced, thin-skinned.

THERE. WILL. BE. BLOOD.

Sara Palin just beat Barack Obama's ass raw with a lead pipe.

Now let's see if anyone in the media was paying attention.

KICKED ASS. TOOK NAMES. NOW LET'S GET HER INTO OFFICE.

Looks like she may have caught their attention: Hey, perhaps she's not just a stupid hick breeder beauty queen bimbo!

Several moderate-Democrat friends of mine have been emailing--few if any would ever vote for McCain--but all agree that Palin was very strong. The more liberal among them are a little panicked.

Palin OWNED your asses. Get ready to reap the whirlwind.