A Conservative for Obama

John McCain is many things, but “conservative” is not one of them. See Wick Allison’s succinct essay on why he’s voting for Obama after donating the maximum to McCain during the primaries, A Conservative for Obama:

Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of “oughts.” We ought to do this or that because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether it works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling good rather than doing good.

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.

This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

This man used to be publisher of National Review.

H/T Doc Searls

Read David Brooks

Conservative friends especially need to read David Brooks today on the role of experience and prudence in the conservative movement:

Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said…

The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

H/T to Daniel Drezner.

We can be conservative and libertarian without being stupid, folks. Really.

The interviewer’s name was Charlie

Sarah Palin scored points for knowing her interviewer’s nickname, but didn’t do so well on the actual questions. Most notably, she went all “moose in the headlights” when asked about the Bush Doctrine. Jim Fallows explains why Palin’s ignorance is troubling:

What Sarah Palin revealed is that she has not been interested enough in world affairs to become minimally conversant with the issues. Many people in our great land might have difficulty defining the “Bush Doctrine” exactly. But not to recognize the name, as obviously was the case for Palin, indicates not a failure of last-minute cramming but a lack of attention to any foreign-policy discussion whatsoever in the last seven years.

Fred Kaplan’s recap in Slate is excellent:

The other spine-chilling moment came when Gibson asked about her recent comment, in a speech at her church, that the war in Iraq is “a task that is from God.” (ABC then showed a YouTube clip of the speech.) Palin tried to finesse the question, saying that her remarks were only “a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words” that we should pray not that God is on our side but that we are on God’s side. Gibson didn’t back down, noting that she had in fact gone on to say, “There is a plan, and it is God’s plan.” To this, Palin replied:

I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that these are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That in my worldview is a grand—the grand plan.

Two things came to mind upon hearing her say these words. First, they sound like the earnest answer given by a contestant in a beauty pageant when the M.C. asks her about world peace. (Sorry to seem sexist, but it’s true; read it again.)

Second, and more to the point, do we want someone a heartbeat away from the presidency—and a 72-year-old cancer survivor’s heartbeat, at that—to possess both impetuousness (“You can’t blink”) and holy certitude? Isn’t that what we’ve had, actually in the Oval Office, the past eight years?

Robots are wired to react a certain way, but people are required to think.

Here’s the bonus beauty queen interview for comparison:

In other news, Lorne Michaels Wants Fey for SNL’s Palin:

Saturday Night Live creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels said the show is talking with Tina Fey about playing Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin at some point this season, possibly as soon as this Saturday’s season premiere.

This would be superb, of course.

Sarah Palin, Abuser of Children

Newsweek has some interesting back story on Sarah Palin’s Troopergate scandal. Three years ago, the Alaska courts found she had engaged in a form of child abuse and told her to stop:

Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers’ union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were “not job-related,” and that Wooten was being “harassed” by Palin and other family members.

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten’s behavior and character. “Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse,” the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: “Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives.”

The emotional abuse of children suffering from their parents’ unpleasant divorce is a very serious matter, one that casts doubt on the mental stability and judgment of the adults involved. Given that Palin acted this way from one step removed – it was her sister’s divorce, not hers – makes this behavior even more troubling. If I hadn’t already decided not to vote for Palin because of her lack of intellect and experience, this would have turned me around. We don’t need any child abusers in the White House.

Palin faces the firing squad

Obama still has a healthy lead in the electoral college, which will only increase as Palin has to speak in public without a script. Nothing to worry about, the McCain campaign can’t keep her in seclusion forever.

She’s supposed to do an interview with Charlie Gibson tomorrow, but there are apparently all kinds of off-limits topics, like the pregnant daughter. That’s an interesting topic alongside Palin’s cutting back the funding for a teen mother’s center in Alaska, of course. And I take it there are similar issues around funding for special-needs babies as well. And I’d love to know why she left a church where people speak in tongues while trying to get elected governor, and why she lost her first attempt to win statewide office as Lt. Governor.
Originally posted as a comment by Richard Bennett on Broadband Politics using Disqus.

Electoral Math

Apparently many Americans vote with their sex organs. In the latest polls, McCain leads Obama:

Many of the shifts toward McCain stem from gains among white women, voters his team hoped to sway with the pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate. White women shifted from an eight-point pre-convention edge for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage now.

So while McCain is a cynical bastard for putting an unqualified woman on his ticket, he’s not stupid.

I didn’t say it

The McCain campaign is rallying around Sarah Palin:

Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn suggested that Palin’s work on the parent-teacher association of her son’s school gave her useful experience for the vice-presidency.

“Every woman in this room knows that if you can handle being a room mother … a PTA chairwoman, Girl Scout cookie mom, there’s a lot of things you have the ability, the organisational skills, to handle. She transferred those leadership skills to the political arena.”

Damning with faint praise.

This is out-front and honest: Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan talking about the Palin nomination on hot mikes. Money quote: “It’s over” – Noonan.

What was McCain thinking?

Hmmm. (Skip the first 8 minutes, it’s just the old man rambling.) She’s young, good-looking, inexperienced, a bit ideological, and a member of a marginal group; just like Barack Obama, actually. But she’s running for VP, not to be the big dog. She’s not at all embarrassing, not a Katherine Harris, Harriet Miers, or Dan Quayle. All in all, a good contrast to Biden who’s tainted with the scent of corruption.

This just might work for McCain.

UPDATE: But seriously, what was McCain thinking? Palin is a nice woman, but there’s no way in hell she should be allowed inside the White House if not on a tour. McCain has effectively conceded the election. Welcome to the Oval Office, President Obama, listen to Sen. Biden carefully and don’t screw too many things up.