Joseph Butson

This past weekend, 5 columnists at the New York Times trampled on Governor Sarah Palin:

Frank Rich

Gail Collins

Bob Hebert

Tom Friedman

Maureen Dowd

Pronouncing on the Governor’s inadequacy seems like a team sport at the newspaper and it seems that a certain group-think has settled in. How could the Republican VP nominee provoke this group that they all felt compelled to opine, in some cases in a unhinged way [Hebert.]

It seems John McCain’s VP nominee really has got under the skin of a group of columnists who a)weren’t going to vote for him or b)write flatteringly about him. Would this group have pronounced on Governor Claire Macaskill [MO] if she had been selected as Senator Obama’s VP nominee?

I suppose we’ll never know but since the Governor of Missouri is pro-choice and a Democrat, I some how think she would at least be spared the gang treatment is she had been a VP nominee. It does make you wonder whether this is a last gasp of a decaying newspaper franchise.

The former head of the IMF, Kenneth Rogoff, has few fine things to say today on the investment banking mess.

“In 2006, the financial sector accounted for a third of corporate profits in the US, although it only represents 2 or 3 percent of total gross domestic product. Goldman Sachs alone distributed $16.5 billion in bonuses to its 26,000 employees. I’m sorry, I think it’s unbelievable. You can’t just make money out of thin air like this, and underlaying this there were enormous risks being taken.“

Ahem. Did he say $16.5 Billion? Oh my! So lets not have too many tears for the investment bankers who no longer can afford gasoline for their yachts.

I think it was a mistake to bail out the likes of Bear Stearns and not force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into Chapter 11. Their is plenty of capital on the sidelines for all these assets, at the right price.

“I just do not trust the American people,” said Eleanor Shavell, 58, a computer programmer, who, along with several others, joked she would move to Canada if Mr Obama loses. “I cannot believe that 80 per cent of this country thinks we’re headed in the wrong direction yet 50 per cent are supporting McCain and Palin. I guess it’s like at school, there’s always got to be a bottom 50 per cent.”

Obama supporter in new Hampshire as quoted in the Financial Times.

The British press have been reliable sources of perspective through out the Presidential primaries and general election period. They are not without bias but compared to the unofficial party organs in the news business here stateside, they seem, mainly, moderate and insightful.

And funny:

Lest you think they are without critiques of McCain, in today’s Sunday Times this advice was offered:

“At the same time, though, the Palin nomination has driven the McCain campaign in a worrying direction. While trying to build on his new momentum, Mr McCain needs to make some adjustments.

Ms Palin is a social conservative. Her nomination moved the Republican ticket to the right, delighting the party’s conservative and Christian evangelical base. Too little is yet known about her views. Once these have been explained, the country needs to learn how far she thinks that her religious beliefs are a private matter, and how far they should guide public policy. Mr McCain, whose appeal to centrists rests on a willingness to make common cause with like-minded Democrats, needs to show that the character of a McCain-Palin administration would be true to that reputation.”

Much has been made of Obama’s tack to the middle of the political spectrum since clinching the nomination, a very shrewd move and done rapidly and early this summer.

Republican’s have attacked the migration but it didn’t work. It is generally accepted as a tradition in Presidential politics, regardless of the Obama’s claims to do politics differently. To attract a broader slice of the electorate outside once a nomination has been achieved, all parties move to capture independents and loosely affiliated party members.

Obama offers Democrats much and his charismatic personality is closest to Kennedy, in terms of broad political appeal. The party needs to help him. His campaign team is out of ideas and has no tactics, save attacking Republicans, and he deserves a winning campaign team to match his strength as a candidate.

The “hold the ball” strategy of the campaign against the Clinton barely worked. It owed its success to the team’s command of the numbers game and arcane Democratic primary and caucus rules. Without a Clinton co-opted in the remaining weeks, it might not work out for Obama.

Matt Bai’s NY Times magazine article from last December dealt squarely with the Clinton legacy and it is a legacy of an important break from New Deal politics. Gore ignored it and Kerry did too. I’ll never know why since it is the Clinton Democrats that Obama needs to prevail this November 4th.

The CBC’s very good documentary series “The Passionate Eye” hosts a documentary of a controversial photo from the day that is known as the most photographed, filmed and seen: September 11, 2001.

If you follow the link to the CBC’s site, you can follow the story behind the photograph. Sombre? Yes. Serious? Of course. Should we forget? Never.

George Will writes an Macro Economics 101 column on a subject  that 80% of the population either never studied, or did but forgot [or memorized but never actually learned], to demonstrate how the economy actually works. It is basic stuff but is “disruptive” in terms of a typical worldview that resents success and feels compelled to control it through government fiat.

And then I catch this comment by a Newsweek reader who provides an even more useful lesson in the law of unintended consequences!

“Comment: GEORGE, YOU KNOW THIS, BUT

WHEN THE LIBERAL ELITE “MAIN STREAM MEDIA” INJECTS ITSELF INTO A NATIONAL US ELECTION, IT LEADS TO THE “LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES”

IF THERE’S WAS NO “MSM” BIAS AGAINST HILLARY, HILLARY WOULD BE THE US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND OBAMA WOULD BE THE VP CANDIDATE

IF THE TICKET IS CLINTON/OBAMA…..THERE IS NO SARAH PALIN EFFECT

IF THERE IS NO SARAH PALIN, THERE IS MCCAIN/ROMNEY REPUB TICKET

THEREFORE, THERE WOULD BE 8 YEARS OF CLINTON/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

THEREFORE, THERE WOULD BE 8 YEARS OF OBAMA/KEANE ADMINSTRATION

BY US LIBERAL ELITE MEDIA BACKING OBAMA AND TRASHING HILLARY, THEY LOSE A POSSIBLE 16 YEARS IN POWER AND WILL PROBABLY NOW LOSE 8 OUT OF THE LAST 11 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

THE MSM DESERVES WHAT IT GETS”

Heh!

The Great White North [aka True North aka Hockey Nation] has an election on too. Oh yeah, and you know all those prominent, and not so prominent, Americans who declare they’ll head to Canada if the Democrats don’t win: Canada’s government is Conservative. Further, they are fighting a war that isn’t so unpopular, health care, though in better shape, it needs reform.

And they Conservative’s are winning!

OODA Loop - Observe, Orient, Decide and Act

Colonel John Boyd’s strategm is being credited as the campaign strategy being practiced by the McCain campaign. If results are to be considered as the metric of “who is winning,” it appears one campaign is playing checkers and the other is playing chess.

Michael Barone credits Charlie Martin with the discovery. Read then here and here.