Prop 8 protest, behind White House

Virginia

Who's the stale thinker here?

Pointing to a survey that shows college newspapers favoring Obama 63-1, NR's Goldberg sniffed, "I'm sure it's because all these kids are such fierce and fresh thinkers."

This is coming from a guy who just published a book called "Liberal Fascism," a piece of cafeteria-style revisionism that even The American Conservative said "succeeded only in recycling 60 years worth of conservative movement bromides." Not to mention someone who obsesses daily over Obama conspiracy theories and who's part of the Republican rump that's demonized thoughtful NR conservatives (David Frum, Kathleen Parker, and the son of conservatism himself, Christopher Buckley) for calling out the cognitive dissonance of the McCain campaign.

Could it be that young, educated journalists who spent their whole political lives under the Bush GOP might have the kind of insight about big government that Goldberg lost 25 years ago, when diatribes against liberal excess would have meant something? Even the newspapers of Abilene Christian and Southern Methodist (both in TX) endorsed Obama.

New low for feminism

Except for the truly revolutionary moment when Palin was embraced by the traditionalist right, which for centuries required that women stay in the home, her candidacy has been a carnival of identity politics and victimization (historically the left's turf). Palin's defense of her $150K wardrobe hits a new low:

I think Hillary Clinton was held to a different standard in her primary race. Do you remember the conversations that took place about her, say superficial things that they don't talk about with men, her wardrobe and her hairstyles, all of that? That's a bit of that double standard.

Exhibit A: Edwards' $400 haircuts
Exhibit J: McCain's $520 shoes
Exhibit O: Romney's Reagan hair
Exhibit K: Biden's plugs and face-lift
Exhibit E:



Update: Apparently Palin's make-up isn't "superficial," since the McCain campaign paid her artist $22,500 over two weeks -- more than any other staffer. (And it's still sexist to call her Caribou Barbie?)

The candidates play D&D

Life imitating art

(H/T Andrew)

EXCLUSIVE: The October Surprise

If you haven't been following the month-long standoff involving Somali pirates off the coast of Kenya, here's the latest.

And lo and behold, the answer to the burning question of WH'08:
Who's the real Barack Obama?...















Need further proof?
US Pirate Party Endorses Barack Obama

Think of the Children

Sarah Palin:

"When I learned that my son Trig would have special needs, I had to prepare my heart for the challenges to come. ... As for our beautiful baby boy, for Todd and me, he is only more precious because he is vulnerable. ... Obama wouldn't even stand up for the rights of infants born alive during an abortion. These infants – often babies with special needs – are simply left to die."

Cindy McCain:

"My son, like so many others, and today like the Palin's son, have served on the front lines ... [T]he day that Sen. Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body."

Scene from tonight's debate

Lehrer: "It was reported this week that the lobbying firm of your campaign manager, Rick Davis, has received regular monthly payments of $15,000 since 2006 from Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage lender recently bailed out by the federal government. Do you think those payments have been a conflict of interest?"

McCain: "I'd like to suspend my campaign until the next question."

While Sarah Palin was away...

To each his own

Often when I write about politics in "Savage Love," my sex advice column, people write to me and say, "you're a sex columnist, stick to sex." And I'll say -- I usually respond -- "I'll be able to stick to sex when politicians stick to politics and leave our sex lives alone, and stop politicizing our sex lives."

[Dan Savage]

Riffing the culture wars

Of all the dripping condescension and culture-baiting of the night,
this attack by Giuliani struck me the most:

I'm sorry -- I'm sorry that Barack Obama feels that her hometown isn't cosmopolitan enough. (LAUGHTER) I'm sorry, Barack, that it's not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there.

A man born and raised in NEW YORK CITY said this. A man who's performed in drag on several occasions. A man who once, while between one of his three marriages, lived with a gay couple.

Perhaps one could forgive Rudy for being a shameless political hack. But apparently, those remarks weren't even in the prepared speech! Standing before a ravenous Republican audience, he just couldn't help himself.

Palin's Farrakhan?

Andrew has been pounding the drums over revelations that Sarah Palin sat through an anti-Semitic sermon by "Jews For Jesus" founder David Brickner just two weeks ago. Andrew's particularly vexed over the unwillingness of Jewish conservatives -- who relentless railed against Obama's ties to Rev. Wright -- to address the issue. Commentary's Noah Pollack finally took the bait:

Put aside the obvious rebuttal, which is that Obama maintained a decades-long friendship with Wright, whereas Palin sat for perhaps an hour before a crank who was a perfect stranger to her and who she did not know would be in church that day; and put aside the ludicrousness of the comparison between Jews for Jesus, which as John pointed out is at best a laughing stock, with Reverend Wright’s aggressive proselytizing on behalf of paranoia, racism, anti-Semitism, and hatred for America.

It's worth noting that "hatred for America" indeed has nothing to do with Jews for Jesus. Rather, it has everything to do with Palin's close association -- and her husband's membership -- with the Alaskan Independence Party, a secessionist group whose founder openly damns America.

But as far as the Wright vs. Brickner comparison, the two obviously aren't comparable. (I would imagine Andrew agrees; he merely protested the refusal by the right to even mention the mini-controversy.)

Perhaps a more apt comparison is that between Brickner (who's directly tied to Palin's pastor but not her) and Farrakhan (who's directly tied to Obama's pastor but not him). However, despite Obama's non-relationship with Farrakhan, and Obama's repeated rejections of his views, even mainstream journalists such as Tim Russert and Richard Cohen pushed the issue during the primaries (not to mention the bloggers). Will neocons do the same with Palin?

Ad watch

The darkened, cloudy sky. The rapidly disappearing rows of people. The halo of light that suddenly flashes at the end. Is it just me, or does McCain's newest ad convey a nuclear blast?

Biding his time

When you're running against a POW, this doesn't help:

Joe Biden received five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War, the same number of deferments received by Vice President Dick Cheney, and later was disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager. [In his memoir,] Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school.