A Candidate's Faith

Betsy Newmark talks about how the media has been dissecting Sarah Palin's faith, but has been ignoring for all intents and purposes Barack Obama, Joe Biden and even John McCain's faith.

I realize that the Pentecostal church's practices seem odd to those of other faiths, but as a nonpracticing Jew, I've long felt that all religions seem odd to outsiders. If you start dissecting what people believe and trying to apply logic to a religion's tenets, you'll sooner or later encounter some belief that defies logic. That is why it is called faith.

Of course faith is illogical and inherent defiant of the conditions around us.

What is interesting to me is how people use their faith to work their way through those crises of faith. Sarah Palin has a son with Down's Syndrome. Surely one would question why a God would bestow upon an otherwise model family a child with such needs. Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin and the rest of the Palin clan surely had a crisis of faith relating to a teenage pregnancy.

John McCain must surely have questioned whether a benevolen god would allow him to be tortured as he was. Joe Biden may have questioned the benevolence of his faith when his first wife was killed.

I don't mean to compare the difficulties of these families, each can only be adjudged for their difficulty based upon the individual circumstances.

But they all point to one common notion. One of the inherently illogical factors of faith is that we cling to the notion of a kind Creator, even after suffering such tragedies or travails in our life. The various inconsistencies of religious rituals are not what makes something a faith, but it is the illogical maintenance of that faith in the face of clear tragedy.

Mark Steyn on Media Manipulation

Steyn is on a particularly good rant responding to Howard Kurtz' whining about how the McCain camp is manipulating the media. Kurtz rights:

The media are getting mad.

Whether it's the latest back-and-forth over attack ads, the silly lipstick flap or the continuing debate over Sarah and sexism, you can just feel the tension level rising several notches.

Maybe it's a sense that this is crunch time, that the election is on the line, that the press is being manipulated (not that there's anything new about that).

News outlets are increasingly challenging false or questionable claims by the McCain campaign, whether it's the ad accusing Obama of supporting sex-ed for kindergartners (the Illinois legislation clearly describes "age-appropriate" programs) or Palin's repeated boast that she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere (after she had supported it, and after Congress had effectively killed the specific earmark).

Here is a thought, perhaps if the media weren't so desperate to remain relevant that they would print essentially the spin put out by the campaigns, maybe everyone would be better off. Both campaigns put out questionably framed matters and sometimes outright fabrications with a infinitesimailly small kernel of truth and the media report it as news. It is not, it is campaign material not news.

Steyn then points out:

Howie feels the press is being "manipulated" by the McCain campaign.

Maybe it is. A conventional launch strategy for a little-known vice-presidential nominee might have involved "manipulating" the media into running umpteen front-pagers on Sarah Palin's amazing primary challenge of a sitting governor and getting the sob-sisters to slough off a ton of heartwarming stories about her son shipping out to Iraq.

But, if you were really savvy, you'd "manipulate" the media into a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort. Who knows? It's a long shot, but if you could pull it off, a really cunning media manipulator might succeed in manipulating Howie's buddies into spending the month after Labor Day outbidding each other in some insane Who Wants To Be An Effete Condescending Media Snob? death-match. You'd not only make the press look like bozos, but that in turn might tarnish just a little the fellow these geniuses have chosen to anoint.

Yes, the traditional media manipulation would be to build a warm and fuzzy picture of the first woman to appear on the GOP ticket, not all the crap that came out.

The traditional media thinks it needs to compete with the blogosphere, but the blogosphere, in large part is not beholden to a sense of "ethics" that traditional journalism claims sets them apart from the rabble such as I. Maybe take a little time to think about what a reporter writes before launching into attacks on either side.

And Howard Kurtz, you are a whiny little pansy if you think the media is being manipulated. An industry can only be manipulated if the industry allows it. Tell you "colleagues" to grow a backbone.

You Can Still Contribute to McCain/Palin

Over at RedState Brad Smith notes that you can still contribute to McCain's campaign.

The campaign may still raise money for what is called it's GELAC account - the "General Election Legal and Accounting" Fund. This fund is used to cover accounting and especially legal expenses, and can total as much as $20 million or even more (it's not cheap complying with "McCain-Feingold").

Of course, the legal and accounting would be cheaper if McCain hadn't foisted the McCain/Feingold bill upon the political public.

Works for Me Too

Kathryn Jean Lopez:

An email:

Quickly:

Palin being a heartbeart away from the Presidency if far more reassuring that Nancy Pelosi being two heartbeats from the Presidency.

That works for me...

Right now that is where Pelosi sits and the Cheney heartbeat is not the most consistent around.

Barone on McCain Avoiding the Bush III Label

Thisis why Barone is so good.

Tammy Bruce on Sarah Palin

In teh San Francisco Chronicle:

Make no mistake - the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party's increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That's why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.

They are deciding women's rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.

Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

Quite so.

Sarah Palin is dangerous to the Democratic Party because she is a Republican woman who is confident in herself, has chosen to have both a family and a career, thinks for herself and it should be noted independently of her husband and can wear an M-5 assault rifle with the same flair as an evening gown.

She is the feminist ideal-- her own woman on her own terms.

ABC News: Is Oprah Biased?

This is the level of chuckleheadedness that network news has fallen to:ABC News ask Is Oprah Biased?

Well duh, she has been panting over Obama like a 15 year old girl panting over the star athlete in high school.

Dumb question.

Next question.

Does Oprah's Refusal to Interview Palin Really Matter?

In a word no it doesn't. But Oprah's statement about the matter reeks with hypocrisy. Here is Oprah's statement as posted by Drudge:

"The item in today's Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this Presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over." (emphasis added)

Or course, running with Oprah's statement is a picture of her, on her set interviewing Obama.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Oprah.

Oprah is of course free to endorse who she wants and she is free to determine who will be on her show. She has both the first amendmendment press and speech rights to do so. But you can't say you won't use your show as a platform for any of the candidates and have a candidate that you support on your show. It is a lie and she knows it.

Frankly, I don't think she would know what to say or do with Sarah Palin. Oprah has never shown any skill at nuanced thinking and the many layers of Sarah Palin simply confuse her. Oprah would no doubt spend the entire interview questioning Palin's choices, Track Palin, Bristol Palin, Trig Palin and all the other stuff the media has spent a week spinning. Oprah looks like a good interview because she acts like she cares and she has perfected that intense look of empathy, but the fact of the matter is that Oprah doesn't really know how to handle a substantive interview.

In short, Palin scares her because Palin can do the shallow and the deep, whereas Oprah only knows the shallow.

So Oprah doesn't want to have Sarah Palin on her show. Fine, it is her choice. But make no mistake about it, the reason Palin won't be on Oprah show has nothing to do with Winfrey not wanting her show to be used as a platform for candidates and everything to do with the fact that Palin would sway the audience that Oprah is trying desperatly to deliver to Obama.

Sarcastic=Unladylike

One of the common refrains I am seeing in the Democratic talking points about Sarah Palin's speech last night is that she was sarcastic. Ann Althouse, no arch-conservative she, notes it as well:

Oh, yes, sarcastic. That reminds me. I saw Paul Begala on some morning show and he was using that word. He said that Palin was excellent when she was telling her life story, but then when she got into the criticisms of Barack Obama, she was sarcastic, and that wasn't good.

Step back, little lady. Be good. Be nice. Tell us about your children and what you like to cook for dinner and how much you love your hubby.

Grrrr... my feminist blood boils.

A VP candidate is supposed to attack the opposing side--it is expected. Palin did her job well.

First MSM Mention of Track Palin

And his impending deployment. Here:

Finally, he greeted Ms. Palin’s son, Track, 19, who is to be deployed to Iraq later this month. Then two of his own sons, Jimmy and Jack, who are currently in the military came over to chat with Mr. McCain and Track Palin.

More Victor Davis Hanson

Why don't we listen to this guy more. Thoughts on to Palinize.... and Sarah Palin.

Why does the left and liberal media, in McCarthyite fashion, now seek to destroy rather than just oppose these public servants?

First, there is the annoited's notion that the noble ends justify the slimy means, that whether the issue is abortion or affirmative action or any other hot-button social gospel, the supposed interests of the many override the common decency that should be afforded the few.

Second, as in the case of a Palin or Thomas, there is the notion that the slandered deserve it as interloppers—unauthentic women or minorities due to their conservative views, who piggyback on the hard work of feminists and those in the race/identity politics movement. They purportedly do not show enough appreciation and deference to the pioneers who suffered so much to give us abortion on demand, quotas in hiring, etc. and as ingrates thus get what they deserve. For talking-head feminists that a Sally Quin, Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton—unlike Sarah Palin—had a well-connected, influential male around to energize her career is of no concern—except perhaps to make the animus against the outsider upstart even greater.

Being a mother of a Down syndrome child, raising five children, rising, without money or family influence, to the governorship on an anti-corruption and commonsense platform, in addition to trying to run the largest-sized state in the union, critical to both the energy and defense security of the nation, all that should have made liberals and feminists, if reluctantly, nevertheless appreciative of her success in a mostly male political world.

Not this week, perhaps—but soon there will be a backlash against all this creepiness. Just watch...

I will be watching and I am hoping Sarah the Barracuda comes to St. Paul tonight and puts a brutal, from-the-other-side-of-the-rink, cross-check on the Left, the Media and the Obama campaign, followed by target practice on the carcass.

A Sarah Palin Funny

From National Review:

It would almost be worth having Ah-nuld attend the convention just so he could step up to the podium in a leather jacket and sunglasses and say, "I'm heah for Sarah Palin," then stretch his hand out towards and add, "Come wit me if you want to win."

A Teachable Moment

A reasonable Op-Ed fromteh Baltimore Sun.

I would quibble with the notion that abstinence only sex ed programs are the "least effective" (a notion the Megan McCardle counters well). But aside from that, this is a time to talk about it.

While I haven't seen any evidence that "teen pregnancy rates have been rising" since 2005 (it is this a function of the fact that there are more teenagers or something else), I will say that of course it should be a matter for concern. However, lets make sure we actually have a problem.

Look, the only guaranteed way not to get pregnant as a teenager is to not have sex as a teenager.

If Bristol Palin's pregnancy is supposed to be a case study for our society, can we also talk about Bristol Palin's decision to have her child (versus an abortion) and Levi Johnston's being a man and stepping up to his responsibility and marrying the mother of his child as opposed to, I don't know, abandoning his responsibility.

But of course, the left and the Baltimore Sun isn't talking about the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Peggy Noonan on Palin

I like this a lot, but I am not sure why, just a gut feeling.

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.

She could become a transformative political presence.

So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.

And it's going to be brutal. It's already getting there.

There are only two questions.

1. Can she take it?

Will she be rattled? Can she sail through high seas? Can she roll with most punches and deliver some jabs herself?

2. And while she's taking it, rolling with it and sailing through, can she put herself forward convincingly as serious enough, grounded enough, weighty enough that the American people can imagine her as vice president of the United States?

I suppose every candidate for vice president faces these questions to some degree, but because Palin is new, unknown, and a woman, it's all much more so.

The Right Question for Sarah Palin

Andrea Peyser:

But women on the left, who fought long and hard for the ability to raise children simultaneously with election cash, are in spasms. (Some have simply kept silent. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton - where are you?)

The same lefty media that studiously ignored the adolescence of Chelsea Clinton can't wait to dig into Bristol Palin.

The Diary section of Daily Kos Web site had a curious way to make Palin's daughter into a campaign issue: "Considering Palin was chosen solely for her religious right family values cred, Bristol's shotgun marriage and pregnancy are very fair game. They are the direct result of this lunatic abstinence-only garbage, and should be highlighted as such."

The stupendously sexist New York Times printed a front-page article noting that some unnamed women argue over "whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try."

Which left the field weirdly clear for Phyllis Schlafly, who helped defeat the Equal Right Amendment - and also ran for Congress while raising six children - to tell the Times, "People who don't have children, or who have only one or two, are kind of overwhelmed at the notion of five children."

The only question we should be asking is: Can Sarah Palin do the job?

Of course it won't even can't be asked.

Even though I should expect it, I can't seem to get my head wrapped around the hypocrisy of "feminists" right now.

Sexism Against Sarah Palin

From Mitchell Blatt:

"CNN’s John Roberts said, “Children with Down’s syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?”

Um, how about using good time management skills and receiving help from her husband?
46% of the workforce is made up of women, according to 2006 US Census info, and many of those women have children. Women can and should be able to pursue careers.

Dana Bash responded to Roberts’ suggestion by saying, “If it were a man being picked who also had a baby, but — you know, four months ago with Down’s Syndrome, would you ask the same question?”"

The answer to that question is without a doubt no.

No one questioned John Kennedy. No one questioned Jimmy Carter. No one questioned Bill Clinton when all three had school age (or in Kennedy's case younger) children in the White House.

For decades feminists campaigned for women to be able to work and raise a family. So the feminist argument against Palin is ......

She's conservative. Odd definition don't you think.

Hilarious McCain/Palin bit

I haven't laughed this hard about something political in months. Go check this out at Althouse Warning: some mild obscenity (couldn't they have used Frak instead).

I half expected Palin to yell at McCain "Say my name, bitch" but didn't.

Hilarious.

Interesing Palin Thought

With everyone in the mainstream media focused on Palin's 17 year-old-daughter and her situation, and gathering her fiance's personal information, it seems that everyone has sort of forgotten about Palin's oldest child

Who is about to ship over to Iraq to defend this nation.

Any mention of Track Palin and his deeds? Nope. He is the only adult child of the Palin clan and nothing on him.

Odd, don't you think?

Sexism: Subjectively Defined

After reading this Politico post, I wondered, Is it me, or does the concept of sexism seem a little too "squishy" and undefined.

First, Hillary won't get elected or nominated because of sexism. OK. I can see the argument. I don't buy it, but it is not an illogical argument to make.

Now we have a woman as the VP candidate and yet sexist attacks (i.e. she should stay home with her Downs Syndrome child and her pregnant teenager) are just fine.

Methinks sexism for Democrats is highly dependent upon which party the woman is in? Pretty dumb.

Natural Disaster Experience

Sarah Palin has natural "disaster" experience, its called the Alaska winter and it happens every year.

There is a lot of snow that falls in Alaska and they don't complain about it or stop working because of it.