425 thoughts on “My PUMA is flummoxed by Palin.”

1. 291 · Manju said 285

   How so? I agree with the first sentance but no where in your own definition of tokenism does it state that the token has anti-(token group) views.

   It’s not that all people who are tokenized have anti- views. It’s that the fact that she does REVEALS that McCain’s campaign chose her as a token and has (apparently) no ability and/or willingness to distinguish between identity as a woman and feminism. This isn’t just a problem with his campaign and extends well beyond Republicans, but it’s particularly egregious here. They’re using a woman to bolster patriarchy.

2. 295 · Dr Amnonymous said

   So they’re out there. And “in the fringes.” But they’re, in your words, “a sizeable minority”? Sorry, doesn’t add up. You could be right, but I see no evidence to support this:

   i said “simialr views” to plain, meaning simply anit-abortion which is about %40 of the American female public. so labling a huge minority like that a gendered uncle tom becomes problematic. now you appear to have refined your views to just include those who oppose abortion in every circumstance, which is more defensible, but still doesn’t allow for women to have the full humanity of being renegades within their group identity.

   i’m personally not opposssed to uncle tom/self-hatred arguments…but i think its one of those subjects that demands nuance as in the way franz fannon handled it.

3. Homage to Rahul. Bristol’s keeping her baby.

4. I don’t think you want the past continuous. The past tense is appropriate. As in fought. Now he’s dropped his pants and bent over. And this is just the icing on top of a pretty damn conservative record.

   Sorry, I don’t smell suspicious, only reek of contradiction, so you must be thinking of somebody else.

   Please don’t be mean to yourself or homophobic. There’s enough of both to go around in South Asian American circles already 🙂

5. Ohhh damn! This is offically the weirdest election I have ever seen.

   Who is like Britney Spears now Mother Fu@#a!

   Okay that was a little overboard.

6. 269 · A N N A said

   So…uh…Sarah Palin’s 17-year old daughter Bristol is pregnant, huh?

   Here you go…I told you McCain is shrewd. Palin the controversial candidate will attract a lot of media attention directly competing with Obama’s celebrity status. Will definitely translate to some extra votes for McCain.

7. I had so much fun reading that with my Apu accent. Your mummy sounds like a lot of fun, and thanks for the laughs.

   I do think he likes having the young (or otherwise surgically altered) women around

8. 304 · Dr Amnonymous said

   Please don’t be mean to yourself or homophobic.

   Oops. Forgot to hold on to my PC in all the hubbub about the Mac.

   There’s enough of both to go around in South Asian American circles already

   What, we have affirmative action now for self-hate?

9. It’s not that all people who are tokenized have anti- views. It’s that the fact that she does REVEALS that McCain’s campaign chose her as a token and has (apparently) no ability and/or willingness to distinguish between identity as a woman and feminism.

   i don’t think it does. presumably mccain chose her as a token in order to get women to vote for him. but that would’ve been easier if he just chose a woman with just mainstream anti-abortion views.

   by choosing such a maverick, which btw contradicts your own def of tokenism (tokens “have bland or inoffensive personalities”) he actually hurts himself with the general pop, though he helps with the evengelicals (but they didn’t need a woman).

10. 309 · Manju said

    presumably mccain chose her as a token in order to get women to vote for him. but that would’ve been easier if he just chose a woman with just mainstream anti-abortion views.

    well, it’s not a simple either-or. he is pulling the political jujitsu of getting the really mad hillary voters by putting up a woman, while really shoring up his evangelical credentials, and demolishing part of barack’s unique appeal as a breaker of barriers. two of those three things are purely because he put out somebody there who has ovaries, but does not advance the cause of feminism (except in a bizarro world where basic definitions are upended).

    the equivalent would be if mccain had selected alan keyes, except that he is tangibly angry and fringe (and dare i say it, crazy), whereas her rabid views (which make her appealing to evangelicals) are masked by her pleasant demeanor.

11. Favoring Abortion: Men Versus Women

    If it’s out there, point me to it

    views on abortion:

    Situation Men Women All or Most Cases 54% 58 To Save Woman’s Life 88 88 To Save Woman’s Health 82 83 In Cases of Rape/Incest 80 81 Physically Impaired Baby 53 55 To End Unwanted Pregnancy 43 40 D&X/Partial-Birth Abortions 28 19 Pregnancy is 6 Months+ 15 8

12. Here’s Barack Obama on Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. Watch the video and read the report. Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. My mother had me when she was 18, and how family deals with issues and teenage children — that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who’s supporting me understands that’s off limits. I hope I am as clear as can be, so in case I’m not, let me repeat: We don’t go after people’s families, we don’t get them involved in the politics, It’s not appropriate and it’s not relevant. “Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought that it was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired,” McSame and Bushy we are still waiting for your apology for smearing the name of all women, especially Bridget. Have you no decency? One can understand a-piece-of-trash-you-wipe-off-your boots-while-walking-across-a-cow-pasture like Rush Limbaugh spouting abuse about Chelsea. He has his ends mixed up. But not McSame. He is called to much higher standards. Much higher.

13. identity politics, identity politics, identity politics… I relish the day when the parties start foisting recriminations against each other about appeasing vote banks. Welcome to the future where whites are just another quirky ethnicity and talk of a national culture will be seem as the sham that it is

14. 310 · the doctor said

    but does not advance the cause of feminism (except in a bizarro world where basic definitions are upended).

    what’s the defintion you’re using?

15. 306 · Priya said

    269 · A N N A said

    So…uh…Sarah Palin’s 17-year old daughter Bristol is pregnant, huh?

    Here you go…I told you McCain is shrewd. Palin the controversial candidate will attract a lot of media attention directly competing with Obama’s celebrity status. Will definitely translate to some extra votes for McCain.

    Short term benefit.

    However, Obama is taking the right approach. And Palin’s troopergate is the real story.

    And for the record, Campbell Brown brought it on Tucker Bounds.

    Color me surprised.

16. talk of a national culture will be seem as the sham that it is

    Crap! I’ve been suckered into celebrating the 4th of July and Thanksgiving all these years? Thx. for the memo! I guess we should just wake up and let the Russians take all the Arctic oil.

17. 314 · Manju said

    what’s the defintion you’re using?

    The common sense one. Will women be better off in a world with Sarah Palin’s policies on no protection for equal pay for equal work, abortion without exception, abstinence-only education, no hate crime protection, and so on and so forth?

    I don’t expect Sarah Palin to have certain views just because she is a woman, but I certainly shouldn’t be expected to believe that her views advance the cause of women. The “feminist” explanations for these positions certainly do not meet the smell test, not the first time, not when they are rehashed for the hundredth time either – not from a logical point of view, and not in a historical context either.

18. thedoctor: >>What is needed though is a bigger policy solution that forces energy companies to invest in new sources cheaper extraction technologies, alternative energy sources

    Innovation at the point of the gun. Now that’s an innovative idea.

    M. Nam

19. R. Nixon Warren Earl Burgery Harry Andrew Blackmun Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. William Hubbs Rehnquist

    G. Ford John Paul Stevens

    R. Reagan Sandra Day O’Connor Antonin Gregory Scalia Anthony McLeod Kennedy

    G. H. W. Bush David Hackett Souter Clarence Thomas

    G. W. Bush John Glover Roberts, Jr. Samuel Anthony Alito

    ============ Dr. AmNonymous, these are the Supreme Court Justices appointed since the Nixon administration. Do you know how many of them have voted “YES” on cases with implications to overturn Roe vs Wade?

    3 – Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas.

    This intellectual fearmongering that McCain would appoint Justices is unfounded. The real question that needs to be asked is, will he appoint Justices so Conservative that they will refuse to touch anything the Congress would not…

    But time and again I see phrase viewpoints like “McCain is going to take us back to the days of Segregation”. People like Jyotsana, whose perspectives I actually read/respected in the past, have resorted to cheap puns and then we have the rest of the audience indulging in perfunctory retorts that can hardly be termed as the level of debate that has existed on this blog before…Referring to the DailyKOS as a reliable source of information is a leap of imagination the likes of which my small brain can’t deal with.

    Something pertinent about this whole issue though is that, Indian Americans as a community, its majority religion’s values and India as a country will not be affected adversely no matter who comes to power. Hence, what is heartening to me is that, it has come down to individual vested interests, and that is kinda awesome because for once we all seem to be arguing as Americans and not DBDs and ABDs or whatever other label we may wanna give each other.

20. I meant, Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican Presidents since the Nixon administration

21. 318 · MoorNam said

    What is needed though is a bigger policy solution that forces energy companies to invest in new sources cheaper extraction technologies, alternative energy sources

    doc, clenntech is the new IT in the VC world. no need to force anyone. private investments in this sector are so large peoiple are aftraid of a bubble. and there is real specualtion that the US could become a net exparter of oil in the not so distant future.

22. 317 · the doctor said

    The common sense one. Will women be better off in a world with Sarah Palin’s policies on no protection for equal pay for equal work, abortion without exception, abstinence-only education, no hate crime protection, and so on and so forth?

    your definition is way too subjective, since reasonable people can disagree on these issues. it not unlike calling those who oppose Israel anti-Semites. now they may very well be, and there opinions certainly intersect with anti-Semitism, but there is much more to anti-semitism than that.

23. Its interesting to see that some liberals are dennouncing DailyKos as fringe when the fact is that Elizabeth Edwards blogs there, alongwith a few Dem congressmen. First they accused Palin’s daughter of giving birth to the Downs Syndrome baby without any proof, Now the theme is that she’s a whore who cannot control herself. Where are the feminists in all this? Its interesting Daily Kos stayed quiet on John Edwards’ affair.

    I am not at all impressed by Obama’s denouncing this after the mudslinging has already been done. Wasn’t this done before to Clinton.

24. 322 · Manju said

    your definition is way too subjective, since reasonable people can disagree on these issues. it not unlike calling those who oppose Israel anti-Semites.

    It’s nothing like that, but ok.

25. 323 · Vic said

    I am not at all impressed by Obama’s denouncing this after the mudslinging has already been done. Wasn’t this done before to Clinton.

    How dare he not anticipate what other people might say even before they say it? Or should he have just said that he can’t do anything about it, ‘cuz that’s the way it is?

    Its interesting to see that some liberals are dennouncing DailyKos as fringe when the fact is that Elizabeth Edwards blogs there, alongwith a few Dem congressmen.

    DailyKos is a grab bag of people, filled with quite a few shrill lefties. It is one of them who said it. And a blogger on DailyKos also rebutted it quite firmly.

26. And for the record, Campbell Brown brought it on Tucker Bounds.

    Totally OT: She beat that boy with the ugly stick and it wasn’t as if she asked anything unfair. She just asked tough, probing questions and he didn’t have anything resembling a direct answer. Answers a Mcain spokesperson should be ready with….I might actually start watching CNN instead of the cartoon channel. To be fair, I don’t watch any of the news channels except for the BBC and that’s just because I find English accents sexy.

    Rahul D,

    As for whether the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade. The answer is yes. You forget Plessy v. Ferguson was later overturned by Brown v. Bd of Ed. It’s not an uncommon precedent to have precedent overturned. Roe’s central holding has also been recast by later decisions affecting its scope such as Webster and Casey. I think it is fair of you to say that Roe v. Wade is unlikely to be overturned and that the most a cultural conservative could hope for is continued limitation on when an abortion would be permissible. But to say that it’s impossible for Roe’s central holding to be ultimately overturned, goes too far. Therefore, it would be rational for pro-choice supporters to argue that a Mccain presidency poses an unreasonable risk.

    As for Palin, I think Mccain made a very courageous and at the same time a very cowardly (some would say intelligent) choice. It was courageous in that he threw caution to the wind and picked up a female outsider that no one knows, who seemed to follow in his mold. (the maverick) It’s even more courageous if he knew that Sarah’s kid was with kid. The political pool on that is not exactly the easiest shot to pull off. It’s cowardly because he went against those same maverick instincts and appeased the Republican base. I think it had very little to do with women voters or hillary pumas. The images of a united Democratic convention must have sent shivers down his spine as he would have to deal with a tepid Republican party cheering him on. The public at large would have seen a dispirited, divided Republican Party. In comparison to the spectacle the Dems put on that would have been a disaster for Mccain. Now, the loonies on the left will certainly be matched by the ardor of the loonies on the right.

    If he really wanted to pull a surprise, he would have fashioned a time machine and gone back to John Kerry’s offer of the vice presidency and taken it. That ticket would have won. The maverick that independents and right leaning dems came to respect then wouldn’t have to jump through hoops to keep the “conservatives” happy.

27. First they accused Palin’s daughter of giving birth to the Downs Syndrome baby without any proof, Now the theme is that she’s a whore who cannot control herself. Where are the feminists in all this?

    i saw something on cnn (i think) a few weeks back about how the mccain camp thoroughly studied the clinton campaign, first and foremost b/c she got to obama at the end as he crawled pass the finish line.

    all the themes that immediately emerged from McCain: obama w/ messiah complex, as shallow w/ no substance, as race baiter, as not ready to be commander and chief, came directly from the clinton playbook, as jim clyburn recently observed as well.

    well, they mentioned how clinton was able to rally her base (women) which had nothing to do with policy (since her and obama were pretty much on the same page) but everything to do with the perceived unfair treatment of clinton. everyday snubs that women could identify with. liberal like chris mathews, dave shuster, and keith olberman were the main culprits and obama got blamed b/c he didn’t call them out.

    i didn’t think much of it at the time b/c how in the world could mccain tap into that. but now it all makes sense. mccin knew progressives could be baited into exposing thier misogamy and palin could benefit from tapping into this sypathy, which was, as anyone watching primaries know, quite considerable.

    but obama seems to have learnt his lesson too, although these attacks on palin and her child are much more obvious than the ones on hillary. he stupidly had a spokesman immediately attack palin when she was announced but then backtracked quickly, disowning bill burtons comments. he’s got top reamin chivalrous and above the fray. this is a trap and andy sullivan and daily kos have fallen into it.

28. Doctor…

    You are incredibly naive to disingenuous to think that Obama did not know that this was going to come out. The campaign knew every possible negative information on Palin a few hours after she was selected to run. They probably discussed it and the only argument probably was on when and how it was going to come out.

29. 326 · Jangali Janwar said

    If he really wanted to pull a surprise, he would have fashioned a time machine and gone back to John Kerry’s offer of the vice presidency and taken it. That ticket would have won.

    word is his 1st choice was Lieberman but focus groups proved that too risky. appears he really wanted to shake things up and eep dems off balance. probably not a bad strategy, especially after obama monumental speech which would have catapulted him to a double digit lead if it weren’t for this.

    he could crash and burn if palin pulls a stockdale in the debates (and i mean stockdale, not Quayle, whose performance really wasn’t all that bad). word is she’s agood debater and could prove tricky. libs are just convinced she’s and idiot b/c her religiouis views are so idiotic and she reminds them of hicks. but this was a trap truman, reagan, and bush laid.

30. As for whether the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade. The answer is yes. You forget Plessy v. Ferguson was later overturned by Brown v. Bd of Ed. It’s not an uncommon precedent to have precedent overturned. Roe’s central holding has also been recast by later decisions affecting its scope such as Webster and Casey. I think it is fair of you to say that Roe v. Wade is unlikely to be overturned and that the most a cultural conservative could hope for is continued limitation on when an abortion would be permissible. But to say that it’s impossible for Roe’s central holding to be ultimately overturned, goes too far.

    i think this is fair.

31. 328 · Vic said

    You are incredibly naive to disingenuous to think that Obama did not know that this was going to come out. The campaign knew every possible negative information on Palin a few hours after she was selected to run.

    Hope you’re wearing your tin foil hat, otherwise Obama will read your thoughts even before you know them.

    I think Manju’s read on the Palin situation is exactly correct. But Biden definitely has to walk a fine line in the debates, smack her down (as he’s wont to do, like in his multiple brilliant Giuliani putdowns) and he appears misogynist, let her get away easy and the law of low expectations means she emerges a winner.

32. What type of father mother licks the boots of the men who abuse his daughter? Words fail me

33. 302 · Manju said

    295 · Dr Amnonymous said

    So they’re out there. And “in the fringes.” But they’re, in your words, “a sizeable minority”? Sorry, doesn’t add up. You could be right, but I see no evidence to support this:

    i said “simialr views” to plain, meaning simply anit-abortion which is about %40 of the American female public. so labling a huge minority like that a gendered uncle tom becomes problematic. now you appear to have refined your views to just include those who oppose abortion in every circumstance, which is more defensible, but still doesn’t allow for women to have the full humanity of being renegades within their group identity. i’m personally not opposssed to uncle tom/self-hatred arguments…but i think its one of those subjects that demands nuance as in the way franz fannon handled it.

    I haven’t refined anything. I started out pointing out that Palin is so far to the right on abortion that she’s to the right of most American anti-abortion advocates (substantially, according to the poll you used) and that if this is pointed out, which if the Obama campaign has any sense, it will be, will completely undermine whatever value to his campaign McCain might have thought nominating a woman would have provided. I don’t know her or that much about her – I only know that her political positions support patriarchy (among other regressive hierarchies in the u.s.)

    Of course women have the right to be whatever the f@#k they want – but you’re confusing nuance with sophistry again 🙂 The nuance is about how identity and politics interact in situations that are actually complex and not obvious, not about this nonsense of an extreme rightwing supporter of patriarchy (amonng other things) being positioned as a draw for women’s votes. Understanding Hillary Clinton’s candidacy’s relationship to women’s rights requires nuance; understanding Sarah Palin’s requires two or three pieces of information and not overly complicating what is fairly simple.

    It takes a ridiculously low estimation of women’s critical thinking skills (again assuming the information about Palin’s views is provided and focused on and amplified) to believe that Palin in ANY way will benefit McCain with women voters besides people who were going to vote for him anyway (people like Michelle Malkin). Turnout among crazy people might be a different story, but I don’t think there will be enough to make a difference in this election; how many of them weren’t enthused by McCain but will want a 40 something person with 2 years of executive experience as a governor to allay their fears that TEH MOOSLEMS WILLZS GETZ US AND THE RUSSIANS ARE COMMUNITS AGAIN OMG.

    But I’ll buy you a cookie at Obama’s inaugural if I’m wrong. 😉

34. Hopefully, troopergate will spring a surprise in Obama’s favor.

35. 328 · Vic said

    The campaign knew every possible negative information on Palin a few hours after she was selected to run. They probably discussed it and the only argument probably was on when and how it was going to come out.

    And you know that how?!

36. 318 · MoorNam said

    Innovation at the point of the gun. Now that’s an innovative idea.

    Not all R&D expense is the same although a lot of it is actually spent on employing people. Broadly innovation expenditure can be split into high technical risk projects and high market risk projects. The corporate sector has no stomach for hgh technical risk projects. If not for the government none of it will ever get funded. A very large part of the R&D expenses of the corporate sector is into engineering rather than science. Barring the work done by AT&T, and IBM, and now to a lesser extent by Microsoft and Google, all of which touches on the fringes of computational science and info theory, deep scientific research does not happen in the corporate sector. As George Monbiot remarks wryly, except for the Wright brothers’ first flight of the Kitty Hawk, and before that the true aviation pioneer Richard Pearse’s first flight, everything else in aviation has been funded by the government. Without the government there would have been no aviation as we know it. In fact between the wars the Wright brothers had so stupidly pursued patent litigation and muddied up the waters that the US government had to step in and create a cross-licensing partnership and throw the by now obsolete ideas of the Wrights out of the reckoning. The corporate sector is not and has never been interested in anything beyond a quarter, which is why we are seeing no action on stem cells or IR sensitive solar cells or many other engineering projects. Darn, elder care robotics so vital to an aging population like our country’s sees almost no interest in the VC community. The market alone is a poor guide and misses innovations by a mile. Interstate highways, internet, high quality medication, aviation, are some of the many innovsations that we must thank government for. And BTW where’s that corporate sector constructed particle accelerator located?

37. Dr. AmNonymous, these are the Supreme Court Justices appointed since the Nixon administration. Do you know how many of them have voted “YES” on cases with implications to overturn Roe vs Wade? 3 – Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas.

    Hey look – it’s 3/5 of a Supreme Court majority to allow states to ban abortion! Now let’s throw in one of Roberts and Alito and whoever a Republican President might appoint to appease the Christian fundamentalists and voila!

    I think I’ll go with Jeffrey Toobin’s analysis over yours:

    I don’t think the current Court will overturn Roe. Since Kennedy wrote much of Casey in 1992, I don’t think he will simply walk away from it. But it will not take long if there is another Republican appointee. A state will pass a total abortion ban, and it will be challenged. That case will maybe take a year to get to the Court — which will, I think, uphold such a law.

38. 333 · Dr Amnonymous said

    The nuance is about how identity and politics interact in situations that are actually complex and not obvious

    i agree with this which is why the “she’s anti-abortion = anti-woman!!!” reductionism isn’t helpful. it could be done to you. is your anti-globalization stand tantamount to being anti-indian? are you therefore a bigot b/c you oppose policies that help indians rise out of poverty? well, the catch is you don’t think these policies actually help. you belive that’s debatable at a minimum .but your opponents don’t want to debate. they want to start from the presumption they right to begin with.

    and of course they’ll hold your feet to the fire when pat buchanan rails against outsourcing, when clinton talks of hard working american in the context of nafta. when another d-punjab message emerges from the obama camp. they’ll point out how you position intersects with racism and xenephobia and you have no defence b/c you weren’t so generous to palin.

39. Hey look – it’s 3/5 of a Supreme Court majority to allow states to ban abortion! Now let’s throw in one of Roberts and Alito and whoever a Republican President might appoint to appease the Christian fundamentalists and voila!

    Whoops sorry – should have read more carefully. I guess it will take both Roberts AND Alito. Or maybe 2 appointees.

    If I were a working class or middle class woman or a feminist, those are not people or odds I would want to have to count on 😉

40. The campaign knew every possible negative information on Palin a few hours after she was selected to run. They probably discussed it and the only argument probably was on when and how it was going to come out.
    

    And you know that how?!

    Common sense….and having to closely work with politicians during my regular line of work. Its not a coincidence that this came out when Republicans are just about to start their convention. Obviously its an opinion . This is a message board and not a court of law.

41. 338 · Manju said

    i agree with this which is why the “she’s anti-abortion = anti-woman!!!” reductionism isn’t helpful. it could be done to you. is your anti-globalization stand tantamount to being anti-indian? are you therefore a bigot b/c you oppose policies that help indians rise out of poverty? well, the catch is you don’t think these policies actually help. you belive that’s debatable at a minimum .but your opponents don’t want to debate. they want to start from the presumption they right to begin with. and of course they’ll hold your feet to the fire when pat buchanan rails against outsourcing, when clinton talks of hard working american in the context of nafta. when another d-punjab message emerges from the obama camp. they’ll point out how you position intersects with racism and xenephobia and you have no defence b/c you weren’t so generous to palin.

    You love nuance right? Here is all the nuance you need: hate the sin; love the sinner. When you feel like it, go back and read what I actually wrote and I’ll be happy to continue this conversation.

    I’m not really worried about my ability to defend myself 😉

42. 340 · Vic said

    Common sense….and having to closely work with politicians during my regular line of work. Its not a coincidence that this came out when Republicans are just about to start their convention. Obviously its an opinion . This is a message board and not a court of law.

    You work with campaigns, but have rejected the possibility that the hurricane was a bigger news story today than the convention, and the McCain campaign itself released this information on a day it would get about 1/100 the attention it would on a normal day?

43. Just a little bit of Historical trivia, Kennedy and Souter were heavily opposed by Anti-Abortion folks and policy lobbies…Souter rabidly so…

    McCain cannot get a heavily conservative justice through to the Supreme Court…do you see Bork sitting on the bench?

44. 342 · Dr Amnonymous said

    and the McCain campaign itself released this information on a day it would get about 1/100 the attention it would on a normal day?

    How dare you? McCain was a POW for five and a half years!

45. 343 · RahulD said

    McCain cannot get a heavily conservative justice through to the Supreme Court…do you see Bork sitting on the bench?

    This is a very good point.

46. You work with campaigns, but have rejected the possibility that the hurricane was a bigger news story today than the convention, and the McCain campaign itself released this information on a day it would get about 1/100 the attention it would on a normal day?

    Who said I work with campaigns. I do work closely with local level politicians. This story is getting plenty of coverage…enough to distract from any message that Palin might have. Why is CNN and Wolf Blitzer discussing this story for half an hour from 10:30 PM EST onwards even after Obama said to not focus on it.

47. 343 · RahulD said

    McCain cannot get a heavily conservative justice through to the Supreme Court…do you see Bork sitting on the bench?

    That’s not a problem. Alito is an excellent example of how it’s done. Post Bork, presidents have been very smart to get judges who do not have a long written record that they can be hanged on, and know to say sweet nothings like stare decisis and “it depends on the circumstances of the case”.

    As Roberts’ first term demonstrated, this court splits 5-4 on pretty reliable ideological lines. The second term has been different in that Roberts, with concern for his legacy (especially because even conservative icons like Posner excoriated his performance in the first year) focused on establishing narrow consensus and greater unanimity, but certainly did not hesitate to go down the 5-4 route on cases where it really counte (DC vs. Heller is one example). A reexamination of Roe v Wade is very likely to go down that same route.

    And even if not for Roe v Wade, another conservative justice or two will mean that pretty much every other case can easily get decided 6-3 (or 5-4 + Kennedy around 60% of the time) in favor of the conservative viewpoint, which will mean that the liberal wing will be rendered completely toothless and ineffective (right now, the only bargaining chip they have is Roberts’ concern for posterity leading him to try and achieve a measure of unanimity).

48. 346 · Vic said

    Why is CNN and Wolf Blitzer discussing this story for half an hour from 10:30 PM EST onwards even after Obama said to not focus on it.

    Because Obama abducted them and replaced them with wind-up dummies (beard included) equipped with a recording of Daily Kos talking points.

49. McCain cannot get a heavily conservative justice through to the Supreme Court…do you see Bork sitting on the bench?

    but could he get a libertarian? bork had some first amendment issues on top of abortion. libertarian thinkers in general believe in abortion but concede its not constitutionally protected, though their stand on stare decisis differs.

    its legit to worry about roe v wad. a long shot but legit. however it would give the dems a huge issue in the legislatures., they were idiots to push this thru the judiciary.

50. 346 · Vic said

    Who said I work with campaigns. I do work closely with local level politicians. This story is getting plenty of coverage…enough to distract from any message that Palin might have. Why is CNN and Wolf Blitzer discussing this story for half an hour from 10:30 PM EST onwards even after Obama said to not focus on it.

    I dunno…maybe because it’s a media spectacle when a female vice presidential nominee’s teenage daughter gets pregnant? Why does Wolf Blitzer do anything that he does? Obama doesn’t control the media, as even McCain campaign people have acknowledged:

    A senior McCain official said its camp had no evidence that the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama was pushing the story, but said the blog rumors circulating on websites that appeared to support Obama had the effect of being “a real anchor around the Democratic ticket.”

    On the other hand, fivethirtyeight, a pretty fair blog with a pro-Obama slant but more important things to worry about, notes that the news was released by the McCain campaign “at the precise moment of Gustav landfall.”