Vice-President Picks

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Jack - There's no doubt that this is going to be one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory. In your defense, I post this piece I found on Newsweek and it goes to heart of your charges against the "liberal" media. I think I have pretty good liberal credentials, and I sincerely hoped that this election would be about the issues that affect most Americans. Voters have a clear, contrasting choice on the issues and it is for them to decide how we solve many of the current problems we face as a nation. Yeah, right.

However, it appears that operatives on both sides would rather not present "information" to viewers and readers in any accurate perspective. Both Obama and Mac have both been badly misrepresented, as is demostrated in this piece on "fact checking" on all the misinformation that both sides have been broadcasting about the other to the American public. Here's a relevant sample:

Again here's more of the same, only from the other side:

It seems that both sides of the media outlets are at fault in what's turning into a horrid example of, "The truth be damned, we must win at all costs." I was hoping that the debate would be clearly about healthcare, the economy, trade policy, energy, global warming, an exit strategy in Iraq, etc. I was wrong to be optimistic, and I'm disappointed in myself for believeing that this would be a different "type" of election. But spin, spin and more spin is the name of the game. I guess we should not be suprised.


http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/09/10/ad-hawk-mccain-s-fact-free-fact-check.aspx

Note: That by the "liberal media" I don't mean the mainstream, corporate media.

 

Which just goes to expose the conservative bias in the media.

 

So what's a brotha to do? It's one thing to argue that the mainstream media is biased in favor of liberals, it's quite another thing to argue that this supposed liberal media is actually speaking for the Obama campaign.

(Note: I still don't get the whole "liberal media" thing. I'm not claiming they don't exist - there are certainly outlets like MSNBC that are unabashedly liberal. On the other hand, there are media outlets like FOX that are unabashedly conservative. CNN is conservative leaning, while CBS is liberal leaning, but but both are reasonably balanced. The same thing goes for the print media. The Washington Post is liberal, the Wall Street Journal is conservative.

Any claim that the media is some homogeneous blob that is horribly slanted in one direction is absurd if you chose to inform yourself by looking for some diverse views. Someone who watches nothing buy MSNBC probably thinks the media is horribly liberally slanted, while someone who watches FOX thinks the media is conservatively biased. If you want to be informed, look for different viewpionts, and consider the source when you are reading it.)

 

I'm not looking to turn this into a media bias thread, but someone who watches just one source probably does so because that source has viewpoints consistent with theirs, and so that person probably doesn't think that source is biased at all.

 

Aldeth, I was careful to not address any political bend of the media -- for all I know it is a conservative element that's actually doing the damage (as Splunge pointed out, although I don't usually think of reporters in general as being that smart). My point is simply that if the media goes after a kid of a candidate, that candidate will gain public sympathy.

Obama and Biden have already spoken against going after Palin's family and they're still being made the bad guys. It may not be fair, but that's politics.

 

Hmmm... now that I think about it, you're absolutley correct. It would be more correct to say an unbiased person would say MSNBC is liberally biased while FOX is conservatively biased. As an aside - I'm very disappointed in you Splunge - you're supposed to be providing snarky comments and comic relief, not astute analysis.

I agree - but I think that's why it's even more essential that the Obama campaign get out there and start addressing these things head-on. The other thing I think they are going to have to do is take the gloves off and start pointing out the politically relelvant pieces of Palin's record. If Obama is insistent on taking the high road here it may cost him the election. You can't let the McCain campaign keep hitting you without hitting back.

 

I generally try for a 50:1 ratio of snarky/comical vs astute comments. Of course, of the 50 snarky/comical, only about 5% of those actually succeed in being humorous, and my attempt at 1 astute generally fails.

Anyway, just to try to be on topic, I'll repeat what others have said:

Minor children of candidates - off limits.
Focus on issues - absolutely essential (although unlikely).

 

By the way, where is Joe Biden? He seems to be going beneath the radar lately, you can hear more about Hillary Clinton than about him.

 

Two things.

1. He is weathering hurricane Palin. Once the attention leaves her a little bit, I expect to see him more.

2. He is also in hiding since telling someone in a wheelchair to "stand up"

 

And here we go.

As for focusing on the issues, that won't happen. It's the same reason a lawyer never wants another lawyer, or even a psychologist, MD, or doctorate of anything, on the jury pannel. When you're trying to convince a group of people of something, you generally want to focus on opinion and emotion as much as possible and legitimate facts as little as possible. After all, facts speak for themselves, and we don't want anyone doing that, right?

 

That is one uncomfortable piece of video to watch. I did a full body cringe listening to the audio. Ouch. I actually felt bad for Biden.

NOG, lighten up a little. Splung posted it as a joke, hence the . Let's be honest, Bush has taken a beating on these boards for 8 years regarding poor or ironic word choice. If he had done what Biden did, it would be held up as further evidence that he is an idiot and half the posters here would be beating on him for it.

Too your point, it should be about the issues. Currently, neither campaign seems interested in making it about the issues.

If you want to discuss the issues, then maybe we could discuss Obamas plans for energy. George Will recently did an interesting piece that focused on this topic (as well as taxes): http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will082408.php3

[Edit: Removed comment that I could not properly cite]

 

Ouch, awkward

Anyway, the recent problems with Lehman Brothers (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7617976.stm) look quite bad, and seem to have an impact beyond the US alone. McCain can get in serious trouble if the economy doesn't shape up - he has been quite optimistic about it so far, so the recent developments aren't very good for him imo.

 

Especially when McCain states that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong", before backtracking a couple of hours later by saying "we are in an economic crisis". I think Obama is just happy to be talking about an actual issue instead of "lipstick on a pig" and Sarah Palin's qualifications to be VP.

It should be pointed out that the only other time we had a woman on the ticket was in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro was the VP for the Deomcratic nominee Walter Mondale. In the three weeks following Gerraro's selection, Mondale led in all of the national polls. What is noteworthy about that fact is it was the ONLY time Mondale was ahead in the polls throughout the entire campaign, and come November, Mondale was crushed by Reagan in the election.

Sarah Palin was announced as VP about two weeks ago. The question is has her arc reached its zennith and this is as good as it gets, or have true conservatives found the person they wish they had at top of the Republican ticket? You can certainly make the argument either way. After all, Palin is still drawing bigger crowds than McCain, and I cannot completely discount the thought that conservatives see a 72-year old cancer survivor and wonder if the person they wish they had at the top of the ticket might just become the president eventually anyway. And yeah, that's cynical, but so is politics in general.

 

Hmmm... Troopergate won't go away. Now Palin says she won't cooperate with the investigation. That makes her look guilty, so I starting thinking about the following possibilities, and it seems like one of these must be true:

1. She has not committed any wrongdoing, and the e-mails would prove that.
2. She has not committed any wrongdoing, but there will be insufficient evidence in the e-mails to show that.
3. She has used her powers as governor inappropriately, but there will be insufficient evidence in the e-mail to show that.
4. She has used her powers as governor inappropiately, and the e-mail would prove that.

Then I started to think about how likely each of these scenarios are. If the first were true, and she would be exonerated by releasing the e-mails, why wouldn't she? Woudn't putting the issue to rest in her favor be a no-lose proposition for her? It wouldn't get many Democrats to switch sides, but it might ease the mind of some independents who may have some doubts.

I'll take the second and third scenario together because I think they will have the same net effect. If there is no proof either way (and that's quite likely), then people who want to think she's guilty will say that while they don't have rock-solid proof the preponderance of evidence shows that she likely is guilty. And the opposite will also be true - people who want her to be exonerated will say that there is nothing in the e-mails that call her integrity into serious question, and thus we should believe that she is innocent. These scenarios result in no net effect either way.

The fourth scenario has some pretty obvious results that go with it. Just as the first scenario is a no-lose situation, the fourth possibility looks like a no-win situation, that would make McCain look really dumb to boot.

So what does her refusal to cooperate with the investigation tells us? It says to me that the first scenario is unlikely, but it doesn't tell me anything about which of the remaining three scenarios is the truth. You see, both presidential campaigns and investigations are very time consuming. The only way Palin is going to agree to take any significant chunk of time away from campaigning is if there is a net political gain at the end of it. The only way she benefits from this is if the first scenario is true, so her refusal to cooperate indicates that the first scenario is not what the investigation would reveal.

That would lead some to speculate that since she wouldn't be fully exonerated by the investigation, what is she hiding? But that may be going a bit too far. Obviously, if it is proven that she is guilty of abuse of authority it would be disasterous to her campaign. But if the second or third scenarios are true - that there is no definitive proof either way, and that the end result is most likely a politically neutral result for her, what motivation would Palin possibly have in cooperating? If she knows there is no proof either way, and she knows that people who think she's guilty are going to keep thinking that, and people who thinks she's innocent are going to keep thinking that, then it makes no sense for her to cooperate with this investigation if it's going to take her off the campaign trail for even a single second.

So while her refusal to cooperate LOOKS bad, you have to jump to conclusions if you think it is tantamount to a tacit admission of guilt. It is not enough for me to assume she's innocent here - in fact, it strongly indicates that there is little evidence in her favor - but if there is going to be no strong evidence either way, it is in her best interest not to cooperate with the investigation whether she is guilty or not.

 

Good analysis, Aldeth. My one question is how, exactly, cooperating with the investigation would pull her off the campaign trail? Like any Chief Executive, the governor of Alaska already has a staff to handle most of the day to day issues that come up in running the state. To release those e-mails, all she needs to do is say the word. She doesn't have to do it herself; she would in all likelihood delegate such trivial tasks to her staff in any case. Further, I have trouble imagining that the investigators really need any more testimony from her, since she was probably the first person to whom they spoke. The only way I can see them needing more of her time would be if they found evidence that went against what she already told them.

Let's face it. When the independent investigator was hired by a unanimous vote of a bipartisan committee of the Alaska Legislature (consisting of 8 republicans and 4 democrats) on July 28, 2008, Palin wasn't even on the vice-presidential map. It wasn't started because she was a VP candidate, and it wasn't started by a democratic majority with an axe to grind. As governor of Alaska, she has a duty to cooperate with the investigation.

 

While I agree with the conclusion that she is duty-bound to comply and be open about this as a VP nominee, if there is no rock-solid proof (which I suspect) then the investigation is almost certainly going to have further questions of Palin.

 

I'm not clear on the legal details of the investigation of Palin, but some general principles come to mind:

I have nothing on my computer that would incriminate me legally. I don't look at kiddie porn, I don't have instructions for making a pipe bomb, and I don't have a manifesto detailing my plans to commit a terrorist assault. I am a decent, law-abiding citizen of my country.

However, if some investigators, for whatever reason, wanted to poke around my computer, or my house, or wherever, I'm not just going to let them do it. It's a matter of principle. They had better have a valid warrant and be following the law. If some dirtbag investigator comes to my house and says "Keldin, I wanna look through your stuff. If you don't let me, everyone will think you have something to hide and they will assume you're guilty." I'd tell him to take a flying something at a rolling doughnut. I have a right to privacy.

Now this presupposes that there is no such legal requirement facing Palin. Am I correct in that assumption or has she been served with a warrant of some sort?

 

incestigation

What a great typo -- especially since the entire episode deals with her brother-in-law.

 

I don't even know if they need a warrant per se, as this is not a search of her personal computer at her house. It's the computer that she uses at work, so there may be different search and seizure rules in place when speaking of private location versus and public location. Assuming the computer is state owned, they may not need to issue a search warrant to her, since the investigation is being conducted by the state, so in a sense the state is searching it's own computer. But the thing is that really doesn't matter, because Palin has already said that if they try to coerce her into releasing the files she will claim - wait for it - Executive Privelege. Didn't we hear the same thing from Karl Rove a couple of months ago?

 

Which irks me more than a little. We already know quite a bit. We know that a committee which was 2/3 republican unanimously agreed that there was sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation. We also know that she likely would be punished - severely - and possibly removed from office if the results of that investigation come out against her. I'm of the opinion that not cooperating is probably going to be far worse than politically neutral for Sarah Palin.

I think an independent is likely to be far more bothered by Palin's refusal to cooperate with an investigation that was unanimously approved by a bi-partisan (and mostly republican) committee well before anyone thought she would be a VP candidate than they would be if she cooperated and option 2 or 3 turned out to be the case. Especially given the visceral reaction most Americans have towards the secrecy of the Bush Administration, I think the similarities between her potential use of executive privilege and that of the Bush administration can only work against her.