Here’s first Obama ad after pick of Palin
3 comments August 30th, 2008
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Archive for August 30th, 2008
McCain might deliver his acceptance speech from hurricane disaster zone
Add comment August 30th, 2008
 
Hurricane Gustav SEEMS ever more likely to wreak havoc on the Republican National Convention as well as the Gulf Coast.
President Bush might not attend the GOP conclave at all, and John McCain might deliver his acceptance speech from an area affected by the storm.
Gallup poll shows Palin with lowest rating for any running mate since Quayle
7 comments August 30th, 2008
 
Not since George H.W. Bush selected then-Sen. Dan Quayle as his running mate 20 years ago has a presumptive vice-presidential nominee scored as low as Sarah Palin in terms of public confidence, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.
 The survey gives Democratic veep choice Joe Biden an 18-point lead on his Republican counterpart Palin on the question of readiness to serve as president if needed.
The poll also shows Barack Obama maintaining an eight-point lead on John McCain.
Fox News has the story HERE.
UPDATE: A new Rasmussen poll SHOWS, as does the Gallup Poll, that Palin goes over better with men than with women.
So much for the theory that McCain’s choice would score especially well with women in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s failure to capture the Democratic nomination.
One other thing: Polls show that Obama’s acceptance speech was widely well-received. Fifty-eight percent of respondents rated it excellent or good, and only seven percent gave it negative marks. The rest said it was OK or had no opinion.
Perhaps most tellingly, 43 percent said the speech made it more likely that they will vote for Obama.
GOP conclave iffy as Gustav aims at Gulf Coast
3 comments August 30th, 2008
Hurricane Gustav, a Category 4 storm at this writing, is prompting massive evacuations along the Gulf Coast in anticipation of landfall by Monday.
Officials in areas likely to be impacted by the storm say they’re much better prepared than was the case when Hurricane Katrina hit the coast in 2005.
Meanwhile, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain SAID Gustav might prompt postponement of the GOP convention scheduled to begin Monday in St. Paul, Minn.
Applesauce disclaimer on Sarah Palin
27 comments August 30th, 2008
Politics can be an ugly business, as most candidates for high office will attest — and as Sarah Palin soon will discover, if she hasn’t already.
I’ve wrestled with myself over whether to publish this post and reluctantly have decided that I should. The gist is that there’s a lot of ugly buzz about Palin’s personal life flying around, and I want no part of it.
In my posts of the past 24 hours, I’ve endeavored to confine my criticisms of Palin to political matters. My comments have been sharp, but none of those barbs have had anything to do with the personal lives of the governor or her family. As far as I can tell, they’re lovely people, even if I sharply disagree with Palin’s political views.
I understand that by merely raising this issue I might somehow encourage readers to go hunting for rumors about Palin that go beyond her political record. That’s not my intent, but I also recognize that the nasty scuttlebutt eventually will gain wide circulation. We’re a nation of gossips. But I want to pre-emptively warn against giving any credence to scandalous rumors that have not been fully documented.
I won’t traffic in unproven allegations about personal lives, and I’ll delete any comments from readers who aren’t so particular.
Sarah Palin doesn’t deserve to endure the kind of crap that’s been thrown at Barack Obama over the past year or so. If something unflattering, but provable,  about her political career arises, that’s fair game. Everything else should be out of bounds — and it will be on this blog.Â
Listen to the giggler
18 comments August 30th, 2008
Here’s a recording of Sarah Palin giggling like a schoolgirl as a radio talk-show host refers to Alaska State Senate President Lyda Green as “a cancer” and “a bitch.” (Incidentally, Green is a cancer surivor.)
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McCain didn’t even know Palin before picking her
18 comments August 30th, 2008
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This isn’t political, but it’s important
3 comments August 30th, 2008
 
It’s that time of year again when I’m obliged to register my annual complaint about one of my greatest pet peeves — namely the odd penchant among people associated with the gridiron culture to use the word “football” seemingly six times in every sentence.
I’ve been beefing about this for years now, and a search of the Internet shows that I’m not the only person annoyed by it. But the problem persists. Broadcasters, coaches, players and others involved in the sport have to remind themselves every few seconds that the game is called “football.” Consequently, any reference to a player becomes “football player”; a team is a “football team”; a field is a “football field”; and so on.
The next time you watch or listen to a football telecast or broadcast, listen for the ridiculous overuse of the word “football.” Once you notice, it’ll drive you nuts after a while.
When this odd compulsion is combined with the overall stupidity of what some jock types have to say, you sometimes get inane utterances like the one Mike Ditka delivered a few years ago in reference to a certain athlete: “This guy is a football player. He comes to play football ‘cause that’s what he is, a football player.”
I’m sure Ditka thought his observation was profound.
This habit of overusing the term “football” is no doubt involuntary. It likely arises from some subconscious sense that frequent use of the word conveys an especially keen grasp of the sport’s traditions and true meaning; it separates the men from the boys, the insiders from the outsiders. There’s almost an inherent machismo to the word. Football! It suggests kicking something or somebody.
This strange, repetitive linguistic phenomenon is equally common at the professional and college levels; it’s even infected the prep world. In the pro game, however, it has a curious comcomitant: You don’t often hear broadcasters, coaches or players refer to “the NFL” in their unscripted patter. No, no, no. The initials won’t suffice. It has to be “the National Football League.” I mean, how weird is that?
Baseball has no parallel to this nonsense. Baseball people can discuss their sport at length without using the word more than once or twice, if at all. I like to think that’s because baseball people are more intelligent, which is why the game has inspired more good literature and poetry than has football.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. I used the word “baseball” three times in that preceding paragraph, but only for sake of comparison. Listen to a radio account of a baseball game sometime, and three or four innings can pass without any mention of the sport’s name.)
