Frank Rich: McCain's Hasty Vetting Of Palin All Too Reminiscent Of His Grave Dereliction Of Due Diligence On The War

New York Times:

SARAH PALIN makes John McCain look even older than he is. And he seemed more than willing to play that part on Thursday night. By the time he slogged through his nearly 50-minute acceptance speech -- longer even than Barack Obama's -- you half-expected some brazen younger Republican (Mitt Romney, perhaps?) to dash onstage to give him a gold watch and the bum's rush.

Still, attention must be paid. McCain's address, though largely a repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn't smug or nasty.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[PurplePhase]

01:56 PM on 09/08/2008

Those who think recent polls are reliable should remind themselves of the polls just before the Democratic primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The novelty of the conventions hasn't worn off yet. We have two months to go and history shows the debates also impact votes.

[PurplePhase]

12:08 PM on 09/08/2008

Sarah Palin appears less like a pitbull and more like a Trojan Horse packed with Dubya's failed policies and Republican bigotry.

[BobsNotWorking]

11:22 AM on 09/08/2008

I don't think John McCain has any idea what he has gotten himself involved in (in order to win):

This is spooky stuff:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/sarah-palins-churches-and_b_124611.html
http://www.alternet.org/story/96945/theocratic_sect_prays_for_real_armageddon/?page=entire

[donkat]

07:58 PM on 09/07/2008

"Underlying the Jekyll-Hyde reversals is McCain’s hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character - like the major in my father’s POW camp, but without the come-uppance.

McCain is not some principled leader, not a maverick cowboy fighting the powerful. He’s a sycophant. He believes in nothing but power and will do anything to attain it. He explodes in anger when challenged because, when a criticism hits to close to home, it goes to straight his deep-seeded shame."

Douglas Valentine

This sums up JMC, the man for me. the article is worth reading:

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine06132008.html

[AzRealProgressive]

12:58 AM on 09/08/2008

After you read it, read the USA Today poll that has McCain up by tenpoints over Obama, and well over 50%. And that is before the full convention bounce. This stuff is doing more harm than good. Same with the Palin attacks. They appear to be backfiring, badly. The race needs to be about issues, not daughters and pregnancy, etc.

http;//www.usatoday.com/politics/election2008/2008-09-07-poll_N.htm

[AzRealProgressive]

01:00 AM on 09/08/2008

Try

http://www.usatoday.com/politics/election2008/2008-08-07-poll_N.htm

[ObamAtomic]

07:26 PM on 09/07/2008

Palin is proud her son is going to Irak,,,
Sign or vandalism record ,damaged school bus brake,,,Track Palin.
Why is not one is reporting the reality or is only a rumor?BusGate?.

[Porkbellies37]

05:33 PM on 09/07/2008

This is a change election, and the Republicans just hijacked the change/reform brand for themselves. Here's how to take it back.
1. Dust off two words: "Neocon" and "Lobbyists".
2. Introduce America to Randy Scheunemann. You know... one of the founding fathers of neo-conservatism. President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Lobbyist for foreign countries. And the man drafting McCain's foreign policy. How can you put one of the lead neocons in charge of foreign policy without being one yourself? And if you do, can't you expect 4 more years of neocon foreign policy? The word "neocon" makes people, even Republicans, cringe. But it also undercuts the "reform" image and tarnishes McCain's foreign policy credentials at he same time.
3. Introduce America to Phil Gramm. You know... husband of the Enron lobbyist. Guy who called the American people a "nation of whiners". Do we want 4 more years of Enron economic policy?
4. Remind the American people about the justices McCain wants to appoint.
5. Remind the American people that the DNC and Barack Obama wants their donations... as long as they aren't lobbyists or from a PAC. This candidacy is about the public interests, not the special interests.
6. Ask the media if they are going to be intimidated by the Republican Party like they were in the lead up to the Iraq War. We want to know more about Scheunemann, Gramm, Troopergate, Chief of Police firings, the AIP and the bridge to nowhere panderings.

[AzRealProgressive]

02:03 AM on 09/09/2008

I think all of that has been done. The debates will be interesting.

[Snow97]

04:44 PM on 09/07/2008

While McCain's long speech lacked the snideness deployed by Giuliani, Thompson, and Palin, it is disingenuous to distance McCain from the tone and prevarications of those preceding speakers (after all, McCain's speechwriters almost certainly wrote Palin's speech). Taking the high road is laudable -- except when you send your character assassins ahead, along the lower one.

[littleblackcat]

04:36 PM on 09/07/2008

Mr. Rich, you need to be on Hardball, Countdown, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Morning Show, The Bill Moyers Show, Meet the Press (Oh, to have Tim Russert alive and well), and on the evening news of as many stations as possible. Thanks to the gutting of education in this country and the continual downslide of the economy, the Average American is too worried about keeping body and soul together and too distracted to think about the political scene with a clear head, as they should. With too little knowledge they are easily scared witless and it behooves everyone who really knows what is happening to get that message out in plain language. To hell with political "correctness", we need the plain TRUTH spoken LOUDLY. Keep up the good work.

[jnratliff]

04:35 PM on 09/07/2008

Just remember he was for it before he was against it.
But he was also against it before he was for it.
That does not matter because he was a POW.
The ignorance of republicans is astounding. Is that what makes them such hypocrites?
Or does being hypocrites make them appear so stupid?
You tell me republicans which is it!

[ObamAtomic]

07:30 PM on 09/07/2008

Appeareance,haha republicans !Stupidity,,101......
Obama/Biden

[blurredtruth]

03:25 PM on 09/07/2008

Maybe, but the lack of vetting of Obama is truly amazing. The scenario meets another one in the 20s and 30s where change was the word...Germany. Keep that in mind.

[tigerakabj]

03:57 PM on 09/07/2008

It only seems that way b/c Obama has very few skeletons (if you can call Rev. Wright one). If he had half of the stuff coming out about Palin (i.e. Alaska Independence Party), he wouldn't have gotten past March.

[lvmblvmb]

04:03 PM on 09/07/2008

Ok, as has been said 1 billion times: if you need to resort to Nazi comparisons, you lose the argument by default. It's intellectually dishonest, not to mention just plain dumb, as are most of the people who make said argument.

Secondly, Obama has been running for 19 months, participated in 30 debates, sat down in innumerable interviews and has had every aspect of his life looked into going back to when he was five years old.

I'd say he's vetted.

[AzRealProgressive]

02:07 AM on 09/09/2008

He has not been vetted completely by any stretch. Read what the rest of the muslim world views him as, and then imagine how that will plat out since Obama has admitted he was a Muslim at one time. This is how the world sees him

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5845

[gop4obama]

02:36 PM on 09/07/2008

Hello from www.palinbycomparison.net

[ex-pat]

07:23 PM on 09/07/2008

Pages just keep being scrubbed

[Bitsko]

02:12 PM on 09/07/2008

Possibly the most insightful and intelligent opinion piece Mr.Rich has done yet. Great job,

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

02:20 PM on 09/07/2008

IMHO, every piece Frank Rich does is insightful and intelligent.

[Richard Owl Mirror]

02:11 PM on 09/07/2008

Did Matthew Scully channel Sarah Palin or did Sarah Palin channel Matthew Scully ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCDxXJSucF4
Vice Presidential Candidate Gov. Sarah Palin (AK) Full Speech at the RNC From: CSPAN

Gov. Sarah Palin Biography Video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddRoiVWfLyU

Matthew Scully had that speech written in advance and had to tweak it to replace the masculine inflections and insert the emphasis on a woman delivering it.

The rousing 'one-liners' you think are genuinely Sarah Palin's views and thought's were scripted for anyone to deliver. The only portions of the speech which were written specifically for and about Sarah Palin were references to her Family and Biography.

As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.
-Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfO_8XCb_s4

~@~

Choose wisely and investigate the Known Unknowns, perhaps you will find the ever elusive UnKnown Unknowns ?

[Richard Owl Mirror]

02:02 PM on 09/07/2008

"Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilot was a Mayor"

[maribelle1963]

04:57 PM on 09/07/2008

No, Pilate was a governor.

[opinion123]

01:55 PM on 09/07/2008

I'll try to post this comment again!

I just watched McCain's spokeswoman Nancy Fartenhauer on with Wolfe Blitzer/CNN. She strains at spinning the economic and energy policies of McCain/Palin. What a big liar! This is just another example of who they depend on to dupe the masses into voting republican. These people really do think that the majority of Americans are stupid.