see you in the funny papers

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I hear the young no longer watch The Daily show, but I do, and I think this recent John Stewart essay is not only hilarious but also telling. Take a look.

Now, of course, the political conventions are over. The Sarah Palin card has been played, and the Governor of Alaska has been sent home to study her lines. Last night John McCain reiterated his signature claims of superior patriotism, experience, and maverickness, including threats to veto every single bill with earmarks and expose the vicious earmarkers to public ridicule. Perhaps King John intends to reinstate the stocks or the ducking stool for such malefactors, but perhaps it’s not too irreverent to remember a time when he, himself, fell off the stool in mid-riff.

John old buddy, maybe it’s still too early to order that superhero suit, though we’re assured by Tom Ridge you’re as much your own man as, well, John Bush.

snakes, snarks, and that ol’ time religion

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What’s news? When I first read of the arrest and roughing up of Amy Goodman and a news team from Democracy Now as they attempted to cover protests outside the RNC in St. Paul, there had been “a virtual news blackout” about these events. And to this day, the mainstream media outlets seem to be ignoring the story. As protesters and journalists were arrested and brutalized outside the DNC in Denver, not much was made of it outside ABC News. YouTube features several videos about both sets of occurrences here and here. Perhaps one reason why such things aren’t news is that they are becoming routine in this country, as Tim Burke explained in a good piece a couple of days ago.

You make a pitch to have the RNC or DNC come to town, or for the WTO to meet in your city, or anything with a similar possibility to attract protest. Not only do you budget for additional security, you budget the cost of the legal judgments you’re almost certain to lose from permitting law enforcement to illegally confiscate property, harass protesters, bend the terms of warrants or ignore them altogether, and carrying out false arrests.

But that shouldn’t stop anybody from supporting the Free Press effort to have charges dropped against Goodman and the other journalists. You can do that here.

Then there was last night, when the tag team of Romney, Huckaby, Giuliani, and Palin showed us forcefully that we can expect the same mixture of lies, ad hominem atacks, and wedge politics from the Republicans this year that we’ve grown accustomed to since the days of Richard Nixon. Why should they change. It’s been a winning formula for them. And they have another pointy-headed intellectual and an unpopular Democratic congress to run against. Indeed, the only surprise in the first couple of days of Republican Schlock and Awe (for me) was the extent to which Joe Lieberman was willing to lend himself to the lies and ad hominem; though perhaps I was a bit surprised that the TV pundits took it as seriously as they did. Early this morning the folks at MSNBC were falling all over themselves praising Sarah Palin, claiming that she will be the first female president, etc. She was good, but she wasn’t that good. And there’s a deeper issue, as Frank Rich pointed out in last Sunday’s column.

Indeed, the disconnect between the reality of this campaign and how it is perceived and presented by the mainstream media is now a major part of the year’s story. The press dysfunction is itself a window into the unstable dynamics of Election 2008.

Part of the difficulty has got to be that the twnty-four hour news cycle, so new just a few short years ago, is now a thing of the past. So much happens in today’s mediascape, and happens so fast, that significances elude us. The Clinton/Obama duel is now forgotten in the unfolding stardom of Sarah Palin. But Republicans might realize, as they gloat over the skewering of Barack, that Sarah Palin’s star will likely wane pretty fast. Many are now comparing Obama unfavorably with her, but the shots at the Democratic nominee are as cheap and sleazy as Lieberman’s lies about Obama’s record in the senate and Giuliani’s sneering references to community organizing. They’ll have about as much shelf-life as Hillary Clinton’s “No way, no how, no McCain.”

And before anybody gets carried away with the fresh face of Sarah Palin, it might be well to reflect that she carries a good deal of political baggage. Yesterday’s New York Times carried a pretty good summary of what has come to light at the moment about her political past. I doubt seriously that these stories will be the end of it. Palin is competitive, pragmatic, and apparently quite ruthless. Nor is she above using her religion to make political capital. as she did before an Assembly of God audience back in June, saying in a speech quoted by The Huffington Post, “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.” And, in spite of the fact that Palin constantly alludes to this $40 billion pipeline as an accomplishment of her governorship, it isn’t a $40 billion pipeline, it isn’t built, and there’s no plan on anybody’s books to build it. It’s pie in the northern lights.

Rick Davis has said that this election isn’t going to be about issues. In the last couple of days we’ve seen pretty much what the Republicans want the election to be about. Obama may lose the presidency to these charlatans. I used to think John McCain was better than his party. It’s hard to think that any more. He clearly intends to wage a relentlessly negative campaign. But Obama is tough, and a little ruthless, himself. Nobody should forget the campaign he’s run for better than a year now. He’s not the nominee of half the Democratic Party. That’s pie in the sky over Fred Thompson’s Tennesee. And I’m thinking, even though I can imagine a different scenario, that Hillary Clinton believes her own words and will work hard to help her party and her policies win in November.

Yeah, it’s a snarky choice,

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worthy of Karl Rove, himself, who recently observed of candidate Obama that he would “choose a running mate based on political calculations, not the person’s readiness for the job,” and added:

I think he’s going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice. He’s going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he’s going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He’s not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president.

I’m grateful to Susan Russell for sending me to Giovanna Negretti’s commentary in today’s Boston Globe. Says Negretti, in part:

I find it incredibly startling that McCain would choose a person he hardly knows for a job as important as the Vice Presidency of the United States. It is so obvious that he is doing this as a political tactic that it makes me question his judgment. Is that the way he will make decisions about our economy, our security, our well-being as a nation? If, God forbid, Senator McCain dies during his presidency then he will entrust this nation with a person with zero foreign affairs experience, whom he hardly knows to be the Commander in Chief? How irresponsible is that?

I can appreciate that this is a historic moment for women but what is insulting and shameful is that it comes as a result of political tactics and not merits. As a woman, I am insulted. I can’t help but asking how does he dare insult the intelligence of millions of women who voted for Clinton with this tactic of trying to appeal to them by choosing a woman with no qualifications as a vice presidential candidate. What does he think, that women are stupid? Or is he implying that people supported Hillary just because she was a woman? People supported Hillary because they thought she was the best qualified person for the job. It just so happened that she was a woman, which made the decision to support her even more exciting.

And Sharon Shaw, in a post with the wonderful head,”McCain’s got himself a goil,” opines that McCain may have been “more myopic than usual” and says further:

In a doddering effort to snag the Dem’s Hillary PUMAs, he insults a good many women with his assumption that one pair of high heels is as good as the next when it comes to luring the female voter. So to win liberal Hillary supporters, he offers a pro-life, anti-gay, anti-environment, big business Republican whose major claim to fame is having spawned numerous times.

Another interesting take on Palin

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comes from Post Dispatch columnist, Deb Peterson, in this morning’s paper.

ALASKA PIPELINE: Amy Gwin, 43, of University City, grew up in Alaska and competed in the Miss Wasilla, Alaska, competition in 1984 against GOP vice presidential choice Sarah Palin. Gwin said Friday that she won the Miss Congeniality award in the competition, although Palin’s Wikipedia entry says she won the contest — and the Miss Congeniality award. Gwin was a year behind Palin, now 44, at Wasilla High School, which had about 800 students. Gwin said Palin was “a high school star in a good way,” a beauty who got good grades and excelled at athletics. Gwin, who was president of her class, does not recall Palin holding school office. The Wikipedia entry on Palin said she was head of the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes and captain of the basketball team. Gwin said she was not surprised when Palin became the governor of Alaska, but is astonished that she got the GOP nod for vice president. Asked whether she would support Palin because she knows her, Gwin said: “I wouldn’t support her if she was my very best friend. I support Obama and don’t share any of her (Palin’s) politics. She’s very shallow.” Gwin is the director of agency relations for the Rodgers Townsend advertising firm. Her husband, Brad Nuccio, is executive VP of the St. Louis Science Center. The couple have two children, Mia, 9, and Max, 7.