Sarah Poise, and the BOOHOO Reax
Ms. Underestimated has it in three .wmv segments.
Remind me again — Who’s the great speechmaker?
John McCain has a tough act to follow (/understatement).
TNR blogger Mike Crowley at The Stump reports reax from the left:
Several moderate-Democrat friends of mine have been emailing–few if any would ever vote for McCain–but all agree that Palin was very strong. The more liberal among them are a little panicked.
It was so good that the New York Times’s home page could only acknowledge what transpired:
Off the cuff, not in the script:
…. the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: Lipstick.
Ed Morrissey, following up on what I expressed at the start of this post yesterday:
Perhaps the media and Democrats would have been better advised to set expectations high for Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech tonight at the Republican convention. After ridiculing her as a small-town yokel for the better part of three days, Palin would have looked good if she managed to avoid drooling during her speech. In the event, though, they could have set expectations as high as a Barack Obama acceptance speech, and Palin would still have exceeded them in a tremendous debut on the national stage.
Palin made it clear to the condescending media and her Democratic critics that she is no pushover, no cream puff. Her nickname, “Sarah Barracuda”, seems a lot more fitting after tonight.
A snide commenter at yesterday’s pre-speech post asked, “‘Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH’? Did your five-year-old help you come up with that one?”
Well, first of all, the kids are older. But more important, this pitiful, whiny response I got in an Obama campaign e-mail early this morning from a David Plouffe shows how utterly appropriate the nickname is:
Thomas –
I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight (uh-huh — Ed.). But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know that it demands a response.
I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign.
But worst of all — and this deserves to be noted — they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process.
You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say, everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when we come together. Make a donation of $5 or more right now to remind them.
Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.
Let’s clarify something for them right now.
Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.
….. Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America’s promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it’s happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.
Wahhhhhhhh — and bullcrap.
It is long past time to puncture Obama’s “community organizing” mystique.
Memo to “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” and Mr. Plouffe:
- In all too many cases, the Saul Alinsky-driven Obama definitely included, a “community organizer” is someone who attempts to accomplish through clever PR, gaming the system, blackmail, and intimidation what they can’t accomplish at the ballot box or by running for office.
- It is more than safe to say that many “community organizers” who want to achieve elective office have to pretend to be something they are not to get there. Obama would be among them. His books, his false recitation of accomplishments, his resume-padding, are all false facade.
- It is more than safe to say that many of those with such a “community organizing” background who subsequently achieve elected office are more interested in serving as a conduit for their “community organized” constituencies than they are in serving the people they are supposed to represent.
Note that the movements Mr. Puff Plouffe cites are ALL from a very distant past of 40 years or more. Who does he think he’s kidding? “Community organizers” have long since co-opted the tactics of authentic social movements to undermine the democratic process (e.g., ACORN), and have long since lost their legitimacy. Their George Soros money gives them the time and resources to subvert representative government that “ordinary people” who try to play defense don’t have.
Exit question: Thanks to Sarah Palin, a $26 billion natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the rest of the US will be built that will tremendously benefit the US economy and the lives of “ordinary people.” What positive things, if any, has Barack Obama ever done to revive the economy and create more jobs in South and Southeast Chicago where those steel plants closed?
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UPDATE: Note that commenting Obama co-whiners haven’t even tried to answer the exit question.
The Anchorage Daily News has a different take on the pipeline:
http://www.adn.com/politics/story/515517.html
Comment by Tony B. — September 4, 2008 @ 9:59 am
Sarah Palin - speech was a thing of beauty…
Watching Sarah Palin deliver he Republican Nation Convention speech was a thing of beauty. I felt as if I was watching history in the making. After the performance last night, I believe the media will have a difficult time declaring Palin a gimmick.
….
Trackback by The Emotional Cripple — September 4, 2008 @ 10:04 am
#1, BS.
Comment by TBlumer — September 4, 2008 @ 10:18 am
Three of the four “community organizing” examples that Plouffe cites are a century old, and were led by the early progressives of the Republican Party (before Wilson and his liberal fascists made “progressive” a bad word). Don’t believe me? Check LaFollette’s autobiography.
I view Gov. Palin as an old-school LaFollette Progressive. Just as he did, she took on her own corrupt party (and won) and also fought entrenched business interests (Fightin’ Bob - Big Rail, Slashin’ Sarah - Big Oil) for the benefit of her constituents.
Comment by Headless Blogger — September 4, 2008 @ 10:55 am
Nice language, Tom.
Interesting article, though. While it does repeat Palin’s exaggerated price for the still-mythical pipeline, it also trumpets Palin’s imposition of a windfall profit tax on Alaska’s oil producers. Balancing Alaska’s budget isn’t tough.
Comment by Tony B. — September 4, 2008 @ 11:29 am
#5, Oh spare me the Barbra Streisand.
#4, THAT is the Point of the Day.
Comment by TBlumer — September 4, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
No, it’s true.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008103325_alaskatax07.html
Comment by Tony B. — September 4, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
Regardless of who was the speech writer Palin proved with her demeanor and delivery that she will arise above the mudslinging this with charm and grace while dishing out critic with a pleasantness that defies description.
One point I did not hear regarding the experience factor is that if the worst does happen Palin would always be able to select a running mate with 35 years of senate experience.
Comment by bengold — September 4, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
Ordinary people join the PTA. If that isn’t enough and they feel they can do more, they run for mayor. If their job as mayor gets noticed, they might be offered a position on a gov’t committee. But if the gov’t committee is incapable of accomplishing its mandate due to entrenched interests, then an ordinary person would resign and run against those entrenched interests as far up the ladder as they need to to get things done.
Seems to me that’s what an “ordinary” person might do. Or maybe not. Maybe it takes an extraordinary person to do that.
NED
Comment by NewEnglandDevil — September 4, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
#7, this is in essence a severance tax, or royalty, after deducting an arbitrary fixed amount. It is NOT an income or a windfall profit tax as mischaracterized in the article. It is meant to compensate the state for the permanent value loss of resources extracted, and it has been in existence everywhere for generations. If the formula got tweaked, so be it. My understanding is that she also cleaned up the accounting and reporting to make it more transparent.
It’s only an income tax if you think oil cos incur no costs beyond the $25 a barrel arbitrarily assumed. If that were the case, at $100 a barrel they’d be making pretax profits of at least 75% ($100-$25).
The truth is that they make less than 20% in pretax profits: XOM.
This is just another example of biz reporting ignorance that fooled you.
Comment by TBlumer — September 4, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
Palin was a lousy mayor who took a town with $0 debt in 1996 and left it $22 million in the hole in 2002, mostly from the hockey rink/sports complex she shoved down their throats which never became the money generator she promised it would. Another white elephant from another white elephant. Even with the stable Clinton economy during most of her mayoral tenure and Jack Abramoff’s crony she hired to lobby Washington to help her now indicted buddy Ted Stevens ring up $27 million in federal pork for tiny Wasilla (pop. 5000 when she entered office) she still managed to leave the town swimming in debt. Three of her pork projects even made McCain’s own wasteful spending list.
She was so heavy handed the town’s folk forced her to hire an administrator to handle day to day operations or face a recall.
As governor she is borrowing from Alaska’s future while she wants to give away today’s Alaskan windfall oil tax bonanza and the huge surpluses they’ve generated in bread and circuses tax giveaways. Alaska gets 89% of it’s operating budget from taxing oil coming out of the ground just like Arab kingdoms and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. They have no state income or sales tax up there. Instead of using that windfall to pay for all the profligate spending her Republican legislature keep sending her she’s issuing bonds to pay for it all which Alaskans and US taxpayers will have to pay off in future years while she takes credit for tax “rebates” while she’s governor.
Her fiscal policy is a disaster in the making which won’t hit til she’s left the governor’s office. As it is Alaska has gotten far more federal pork per capita than any other state for decades.
The following organization is the offshoot of President Reagan’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control started in 1984, also known as the Grace Commission. Definitely not a Dem friendly group.
Citizens Against Government Waste
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homePage
Rank State Pork Population Pork/Capita
She’d be a disaster as Vice President especially to a President who despite his grevious wounds and type A personality is already past the age his father and grandfather died of sudden heart attacks.
She can put on all the lipstick she wants but her political record is for the dogs.
Comment by markg8 — September 4, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
#11 — which is why she would have been a cinch for re-election as mayor if not term-limited.
She’s now responsible for pork for the whole state when she wasn’t even in charge of it until 2007?
If that’s the best you’ve got, she’s a star.
Comment by TBlumer — September 4, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
Call it whatever you want. With its “windfall component,” it sure raised a lot of tax revenues. Under Palin’s direction and signature, the Alaska Clear and Equitable Share (ACES) tax replaced the Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT).
“Like the PPT, the ACES tax is levied on the net value of oil and gas production. The base tax rate under ACES is 25% (it was 22.5% under PPT) and the progressive surcharge tax rate under ACES is 0.4% for every dollar the net profit per barrel exceeds $30 (it was 0.25% on profits exceeding $40 per barrel under PPT).”
source: Alaska Department of Revenue Fall 2007 Revenue Sources Book, p.13.
Comment by Tony B. — September 4, 2008 @ 5:26 pm
#13, Then she gave $1,200 back to each AK taxpayer. Your point?
Comment by TBlumer — September 4, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
Tom wrote, “Then she gave $1,200 back to each AK taxpayer. Your point?”
The point is, the tax increase discouraged additional oil production at a time when the other 49 states could least afford it. Go read about it at CATO.
The subsequent wealth redistribution merely highlights the fact that Alaska is our most socialist state. And this isn’t Palin’s only tax increase. Check out the sales tax in Wasilla. McCain has no idea, and you, Tom, are sounding more and more like a Republican, as opposed to a conservative.
Comment by Tony B. — September 4, 2008 @ 11:58 pm
#15, uh, link?
Your statement about AK socialism is the inadvertent joke of the day. Let’s see, there’s at least CA, VT, NY, and RomneyCare MA way out front.
Comment by TBlumer — September 5, 2008 @ 6:49 am
Congratlations TB! You’ve made it. You are now on the Obama campaigns list of targeted bloggers. Expect them to cut-and-paste talking points here from now on if you even minimally criticize The Messiah.
Comment by Joe C. — September 6, 2008 @ 9:41 am
#16, I’ve had my suspicions for awhile. I’d say they’re a bit overmatched, given what I’ve seen come over here thus far.
Comment by TBlumer — September 6, 2008 @ 11:05 am
Bring. It. On.
Comment by Rose — September 6, 2008 @ 1:54 pm