CBS Considers Alaska 'Tiny'

Did you know Alaska was tiny? No? I didn't either! CBS thinks so, though. Notice what they said on the caption of photograph 7 of their Palin photo essay at http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2008/08/29/in_depth_politics/photoessay4395795.shtml:


 

Hmm, let me see if I can research this...

Ahh, found it. Here is a really good site to investigate this for yourself: http://www.uaf.edu/asgp/k12/birds_eye_view/ch2/story2-3.htm

I snapped an image from the site to save CBS some trouble:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you go to this site, you can compare Alaska to Texas (Alaska is 2.4 times larger), California (4.0 times larger), Illionois (11.3 times larger), and Delaware (263.7 times larger!) Wow, if Alaska is so tiny, then these other states must be microscopic! Alaska is tiny? Hmm, I think I will call this the "CBS Doctrine".

Defending Sarah Palin, Round One

We knew the time was coming, and it is here. The first real attack on Sarah Palin has arrived.

Being the conservatarian that I am, I am voting for McCain/Palin, but I must say that stumbling on the definition of the Bush Doctrine is definitely a fair issue to bring up. I thought her response definitely left a bad impression because she did not know what this doctrine was. I knew that slip up would be hammered by the Obama side (and quite honestly, she should be examined on her readiness).

However, being willing to defend in principle the fact that "doing whatever it takes" is always on the table shows that she is a proponent of the doctrine, because it is common sense. 'Strike them first before they kill us', which is the essence of the Bush Doctrine, is completely proper and common sense. Even if she did not know what the term itself meant, she still possesses the right perpsective when it comes to protecting our country. Any intellectual can spout definitions, but it takes having well defined principles within yourself to know what to do 'without blinking'.

Obama is willing to sit down with terrorists without preconditions. I am sure Obama knows what the Bush Doctrine is, but because of the way he responds in principle to defending our country, he is all wrong for the safety and security of this country. He knows what the Bush Doctrine is. Sarah Palin did not. But she had it in her heart, in principle. Therefore, I still feel better about Sarah Palin than I do about Barak Obama and Joe Biden any day.

addendum: The UPI has a very good article regarding the double standard between Palin and Obama/Biden at http://www.upi.com/news/issueoftheday/2008/09/12/ABCs_Gibson_grilled_Palin_hard_but_it_may_backfire/UPI-81241221234472/

Palin, Politics, and Punditry

After my family and I got home from church Wednesday night, we flipped on the TV and watched the Republican National Convention (RNC). I missed Huckabee’s speech, and part of Giuliani’s speech, but that was ok. I wanted to hear Governor Sarah Palin, the VP nominee and Republican governor of Alaska. Like most Americans outside our most northerly state, I had not heard of Sarah Palin (and I consider myself to be fairly well informed). Before I heard her speak, I thought McCain was resorting to extreme pandering to the female/feminist/Hillary vote, and just picking Palin for the veep position simply because she was a woman. I was wrong. And boy, am I glad I was wrong.
 

First of all, let us make no mistake about it: this was politics, pure and simple. But it was a brilliant piece of political maneuvering. Sun Tzu, writer of the definitive book on war strategy and management, The Art of War, says this: “In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack–the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.” (Art of War, 5:10) This maneuver was shrewd, and was both direct toward Obama, and indirect, toward the rest of the beltway status quo.
 

You see, McCain struggles a bit with perception in the eyes of America. He is perceived as old, which he is; he is perceived as mean and hotheaded, but who isn’t at times? He was perceived as “McSame”, as the one who will continue the incorrectly assumed “failed” war strategies of the Bush administration. He is perceived as soft on some conservative hot-button issues, such as abortion. We now know that Palin is anything but soft on abortion. Then here comes Palin on Wednesday night of the RNC, whose relative obscurity stoked much of America’s curiosity, and then her charisma, charm, and poise knocked everyone, liberals included, for a proverbial loop. She is a woman, a mother of five, the wife of a professional snowmobiler and oil rigger. Oh, she is a governor, too. She was a mayor. She is a corruption buster, a cross-party unifier, and she is the manager, politically speaking, of 20% of America’s domestic oil production. She hunts. She even smoked marijuana once, but she didn’t like it.
 

But why do these things make her so great a choice? It is simply a result of McCain’s expert use of political maneuvers. Does Obama dare speak to Palin’s “inexperience”? He only opens up the door for his own inexperience to be probed. Does he then call her experience as a low population state governor or small town mayor “petty”? What, and then alienate the millions of small town Americans? Does he dare criticize her marijuana experimentation, only to expose himself to his own words about drug use? Oh yes, Obama, you wrote of your own drug use in your 1996 book, “Dreams From My Father”, and I quote: “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though.” Nope, can’t talk about Palin’s one-time drug use. He might say, “She is a Republican, and as such she is against the American worker.” Are you kidding me? Her husband is a union worker, so that won’t wash. Criticize her lack of interest in the Iraq war? Nope, can’t go there, her son is shipping out this week. That’s a pretty vested interest, in my opinion. “I know”, said the liberals, “since we can’t attack her record, let’s attack her family. Bristol is Trig’s mother, not Sarah!” Well, we see how that turned out. Sadly for Bristol, she is the most famous 17 year old, unwed, expectant mother in the world right now. No, Sarah did not drag Bristol into this-the liberal e-rags like DailyKos did that. But Obama took the high road on that issue. Why wouldn’t he? If he didn’t, wouldn’t he be disparaging his own mother’s pre-marital motherhood? Will Obama or Biden knock her stance on abortion? Ok, do that Obama/Biden, and even other conservatives, and look at that woman in the eye and say Trig, who has Down Syndrome, didn’t deserve to live in utero.

 Ah, and then we have the pundits. Pundits are the social commentators who through education or connections are somehow qualified to make observations of the political sort, and disseminate these observations to a thirsty public. The right wing pundits are going nuts over her, and the left-wing-nut pundits are running scared. So even pundits cannot do anything other than drool foolishly or babble incessantly on useless points (such as her family issues and even her hairstyle).

 So, what did John McCain’s choice really do? It empowered the American conservative voter to listen with excitement to a politician and the real issues for the first time in a long while (probably for the first time since Reagan). It forced many liberal voters to listen and actually recognize the soundness of conservativism. In other words, it re-invigorated the American voter, which in my opinion, truly was John McCain’s greatest maneuver of all.

Why Palin’s Speech Worked

My friends at City-Journal.org have permitted me to re-post this here. It is an excellent piece by Lisa Schiffren. The original article can be found at http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0904ls.html.

Lisa Schiffren
Why Palin’s Speech Worked
A former vice-presidential speechwriter breaks it down.
4 September 2008
Last night, Sarah Palin, the previously obscure governor of Alaska, demonstrated before a national audience that she has an extraordinary ability to communicate with Americans. As someone who used to make her living writing political speeches, I can say that Palin certainly knows how to deliver one. She is talented at properly inflecting words to maximize dramatic punch, and she doesn’t stumble over timing. These skills, and not the writing, are what make it possible for an audience to really hear a speech.

Consider that the man who wrote Palin’s speech, Matthew Scully, also wrote speeches for Vice President Dan Quayle (as did I), Vice President Dick Cheney, and President George W. Bush. Scully has produced many excellent speeches over the years. Yet despite their various virtues, none of those men ever electrified a room the way Palin did last night. They had the words, but not the music—and absent compelling delivery, words are easily ignored in our media age. Dramatic delivery is a critical political skill that few Republican leaders have had since Ronald Reagan.

In a nutshell, Palin did the four things that she had to do. She offered repeated endorsements of John McCain and a comprehensive rationale for supporting him. She provided sharp criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate. As a newcomer, she demonstrated intelligence, ease with substantive matters, humor, and natural talent sufficient to explain why McCain chose her as his running mate. And she introduced herself and her family on her terms.

Introducing oneself should be a no-brainer for a candidate. But Palin had been through the wringer in the five days since her introduction as McCain’s surprise V.P. pick. Given the media attacks on her as a nobody, a distraction, an obviously bad mother running for office with a newborn at home, and a failed mother of a pregnant teenage daughter—as well as crass attacks on that daughter—taking back her story was an important, if delicate, task. (At the Democratic Convention, the Obamas had to reclaim their own story for the opposite reason: the press had treated them so gingerly that they seemed alien.)

Palin introduced her family in a straightforward, proud-mother way, with no hint of defensiveness. She referred to her daughters as “strong and good-hearted,” a rebuke to her pregnant daughter’s detractors. She touched hearts by noting the unique challenges that accompany having a special-needs baby—her newborn son has Down syndrome. Pronouncing herself an advocate in the White House for all parents in similar situations turned her maternal protectiveness into a political asset. Similarly, in presenting herself as the mother of an Iraq-bound soldier, she personalized her endorsement of McCain as commander in chief. Her counterpart in the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, has an Iraq-bound son, too, but he did no such thing for his running mate. She called herself a hockey mom, and her deft joke—“They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick!”—conveyed willingness to fight hard in a feminine context. Any female would-be leader must present herself as simultaneously tough and feminine; since those qualities often undercut one another, the line was brilliant.

Palin also turned the Obama campaign’s derision of her experience as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska into a plus. She rooted herself in a hometown (where is Barack Obama rooted?). Her drawling explanation that “a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that that you have actual responsibilities,” had the crowd laughing with her, and set up a direct contrast between the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate and the Democrats’ presidential candidate on the key matter of experience. (She wins, and McCain rises above both.) And her small-town riff—“We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco”—allowed her to swipe at Obama’s remark about rural dwellers who cling to religion and guns. It made the job of Scranton native Biden, assigned to win back the working class, harder.

Palin discussed her career as a reformer, her commitment to ethics, and, centrally, her efforts to restore government to “the people.” One of these—giving Alaskans back their money by selling the state jet (on eBay, no less), was funny, memorable, and spoke to one of the central planks of the McCain platform: fiscal responsibility. Palin also described putting ethics reform into law and reminded the audience that Senator Obama had no laws to his credit. Further, she attacked Obama’s “tax and grow the government” ethos, inviting working-class citizens to question how higher taxes would help them. Those working-class voters, not feminists, are the constituency she is targeting.

Most impressively, Palin, the foreign-policy novice, used her genuine expertise on energy issues, and her history of pushing back against oil companies, to deliver a brief but sophisticated discussion of how America’s energy vulnerability affects its dealings with various adversaries, connecting it to Vladimir Putin’s efforts to control the Georgia pipeline. That was sharp writing, enabling Palin to share foreign-policy substance without making it look forced. On energy policy, she offered concrete solutions: “Starting in January . . . we’re going to lay pipelines.”

Palin articulated her points so that average citizens could insert themselves into the pictures she painted. She concluded by making the case for John McCain’s character, experience, leadership, and readiness to be commander in chief in a dangerous world. Her performance helped validate McCain’s own political judgment in selecting her. And she spoke straight to the American people throughout. That is an astonishing amount for one speech to accomplish.

Lisa Schiffren was a speechwriter for Vice President Dan Quayle and contributes to The Corner at National Review Online.