The nation saw Wednesday night what Republican presidential nominee John McCain saw in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — a fearless, plainspoken populist who can legitimately claim to be a party reformer while electrifying the party’s conservative base. In one short week, the McCain-Palin ticket has co-opted a campaign that had been all Barack Obama, all the time. Even Palin’s imperfect family story has riveted public attention. Most remarkably, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee seemed as comfortable Wednesday night talking up her every-woman PTA credentials as she did tearing into Obama’s resume and policy prescriptions. The next few days will be telling, as Palin answers reporters’ questions and more details emerge about her record, positions and background. But as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said, McCain “may have pulled off the impossible by finding someone who fires up independents and Reagan Democrats while not turning off social conservatives.”
Peggy Noonan, celebrated speechwriter for President Reagan and a columnist and contributing editor for the Wall Street Journal, had a “Jesse Jackson moment” this week. She was caught on a live microphone criticizing the selection of GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, whom Noonan has publicly praised.
After the end of an interview on MSNBC, former top GOP strategist Mike Murphy noted some of the successful GOP governors from swing states, to which Noonan replied, “It’s over.” Noonan later responded to a question about whether Palin is the most qualified woman to whom the McCain campaign could have turned. “The most qualified? No,” Noonan said, and then complained that the campaign went for a pick to reinforce a narrative message. “Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it,” Noonan said. Murphy then complained: “You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.”
Noonan responded to the earlier comments with an explanation at the beginning of an online column. She said that the “it’s over” comment was about how the GOP can no longer assume that its base is utterly in line with the thinking of the American people, not that the election is over and that McCain is going to lose.
The McCain campaign is trotting out an oldie-but-goodie response to concerns and revelations about vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin: Blame the media. A recurring theme so far at the Republican National Convention has been that the media are out to get Palin and Republicans. Fred Thompson claimed during his speech Tuesday that “media big shots” are attacking Palin because she doesn’t “talk a good game” on Sunday talk shows and “hit the Washington cocktail party circuit.” Steve Schmidt, a McCain senior strategist, charged that media outlets were “on a mission to destroy” Palin. Here’s a less conspiratorial explanation for the media attention and the questions about Palin’s qualification: McCain picked a little-known, inexperienced politician as his running mate.
Good for John McCain for reaffirming his opposition to torture and calling a spade a spade. In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” McCain said that one way in which he is different from President Bush is that he doesn’t want to torture any prisoners. Host Chris Wallace then interrupted to clarify whether McCain really was suggesting that Bush wanted to torture prisoners. “Well, waterboarding, to me, is torture, OK?” McCain said. “And waterboarding was advocated by the administration and, according to a published report, was used.” Unfortunately, McCain wasn’t as up front in telling Wallace that he hasn’t run negative campaign ads against Barack Obama and in claiming that running mate Sarah Palin is prepared to be commander in chief.
If there were any doubts that Alberto Gonzales was a poor choice for attorney general, they should be gone now: According to a Justice Department inquiry, then-Attorney General Gonzales was lax in handling highly classified documents about a terrorist surveillance program and terror detainee interrogations, even taking classified notes home and failing to store them in a specially installed safe because he “did not know the combination.” What part of “classified information” did he not understand? Of course, this is the same man who cited faulty memory or ignorance in not answering 71 questions put to him by the Senate Judiciary Committee during one 2007 hearing.
Speaking of classified documents: The New York Times’ Paul Krugman noted that “the White House Web site featured photos of the president talking to Gulf state governors about Hurricane Gustav while ostentatiously clutching a red folder labeled ‘Classified.’” Krugman went on: “Assuming that the folder contained something other than scrap paper, is the planned response to a hurricane a state secret? Are we worried that tropical storm systems will discover our weak points? Are we fighting a Global War on Weather?”
