Maybe next time.

H/T Julio

This conservative agrees with the notion that Palin is not qualified to be vice-president but thinks, for the sake of the party, she has to stay on the ticket

Conor Friedersdorf has joined the small but hardy band of conservatives (now holding steady at two) who are calling for Palin to be removed or to resign from the ticket.  Conor will get no argument from me when he says that she is not qualified, but I think he misjudges things when he thinks that there would not be a significant revolt.  I could see this leading to a very healthy outcome of conservative alienation from the GOP so intense that it might lead to some significant changes either in the priorities of the party or in the emergence of an alternative movement on the right.  More likely, though, things would revert to what they were before Palin was picked as suddenly energized evangelicals and activists lose interest and remember all the reasons why they dislike McCain.

FTR, his two conservatives is only accurate if you buy into the notion that people who don’t fall into the party line are, by definition, not conservatives.

He is concerned though, not about the presidential ticket, but about the down-ticket casualties.

Personally, I do not find this prospect all that disturbing at the presidential level, but it could be a problem if the GOP minority in the House loses many more seats in a wipeout election.

He quotes Conor as asking

Can conservatism survive as an intellectually viable political movement if its adherents privilege the electoral chances of the GOP above averting the installation of an unkown and by all outward appearances woefully unqualified person in the White House?

but

I reply: Conservatism is an intellectually viable political movement?  Has something changed recently?  I am only partly joking.  My point would be that the same conservative movement that has welcomed Palin as a conquering hero cannot now throw her out into the cold on the grounds of some supposed intellectual rigor and the defense of venerable tradition.

But above all, he is concerned how the Palin fans would take the perceived betrayal.

It is always a revelation to conservatives who find themselves on the other side of an issue just how much a majority of their fellows defines conservatism as lockstep agreement with whatever the GOP line happens to be.  Denunciation, if not necessarily death threats, is the usual response.  The GOP is against nation-building?  So are they.  The GOP is in favor of nation-building?  They couldn’t be happier, and anyone who is against it probably hates America.  More important, even if they don’t change their beliefs as dramatically as this they are usually quite willing to support the pols who do.

Welcome to the Republican party of the 21st century. Maybe McCain will be able to reign them in? Maybe he’ll get help from the Rovelings who are running his campaign?

Kathleen Parker on what it is like when the ‘base’ discovers you are not a true conservative.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a Dumpster, but since she didn’t, I should “off” myself.

Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

Who says public discourse hasn’t deteriorated?

The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I’m familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced responses of a different order. Not just angry, but vicious and threatening.

Some of my usual readers feel betrayed because I previously have written favorably of Palin. By changing my mind and saying so, I am viewed as a traitor to the Republican Party—not a “true” conservative.

Palin’s fans say they like her specifically because she’s an outsider, not part of the Washington club. When she flubs during interviews, they identify with that too. “You see the lack of polish, we applaud it,” one reader wrote.

I have been waiting for five years to hear the Dixie Chicks get their apology.

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn’t sound American to me, but Stalin would approve. Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different than one’s own, then we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

Maybe Kathleen will get hers at the same time?

Here’s a good question for the next presidential debate:

The current administration has tortured prisoners in violation of US and international law. Will you hold accountable those responsible?

There is a discussion at  TPM Cafe on this very topic.

My question is what happens if there is no accountability for America’s first program of state-authorized torture? Does it send a green light to torture again when the next attack takes place? Is it an invitation to other forms of lawlessness by the U.S. Government?

Fed up with the McCain campaign’s slander, Obama hits back with some tough talk of his own.

Obama Runs Constructive Criticism Ad Against McCain

Check out the little old lady at the back who won’t let her husband vote for McCain. Which way was his vote counted?

H/T Julio

I wrote the other day about how a few conservatives are starting to regret their earlier support for Palin

Kathleen Parker:

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn.

and contrasted that with the campaign to ’set sarah palin free’:

KLo:

You’re the one who is going to win this election. Be yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Apparently, anything other than wholehearted support is tantamount to treason, as both Kathleens discovered from their mailbag:

To Parker:

Your article sounds more like a female on the rug. You don’t do yourself credit for the lousy journalism you displayed in your article. The article filled with so much BS, mud slinging, it came to a point it became unbearable to read any more drool from your part. So I must ask you, are you some pig that resembles Rosy O’Donnell, or do you hate real feminine, soft and powerful woman who has reversed years of corruption in Alaska, and fearful that she will do the same thing, but her problem that might shatter this dream is her poor performance in a few interviews?

and

My, My, Kathleen, what a nice conservative facade you have!! Truly, your aren’t fooling anyone with your so called concern for the betterment of the Republican Party by asking Sarah Palin to get off the ticket. What you did was embarrass yourself and negate every positive article you ever wrote about Republicans. See, I think you are a fake — a wolf in sheep clothing. A pretend conservative. Someone who can’t be relied on in tough times and has zero loyalty. Someone who lies in wait to attack. In your dark heart, that opportunity couldn’t come too soon. So, please, spare us conservatives, who actually care about supporting our party through smooth & rough roads, with your disingenuous regrets.

and to Lopez:

You belong on MSNBC. You’re no republican and should be ashamed of what you wrote. You’re a disgrace to this journal and the republican party. Everyone knows you are a democrat with a name Lopez. I don’t ever want to hear from you. Thousands of complaints about you have been expressed.”

Read the rest. Amazing.

I can understand that you might face the ire of the base if you criticize their heroine, but Ramesh Ponnuru got the hairdryer treatment for reporting the bailout as he saw it:

A reader:

Over the next few days I expect to see your posts—that the bailout failure should all be blamed on  Republicans (despite 40% of Dems not voting for it), and that Republicans deserve the blame for the coming Depression that you predict.

Comments like yours are gold to the MSM and to Democrats in the weeks before an election,  because when such comments come from the left they don’t have any sting.  But coming from you guys, they can really make the story and swing votes left.

I don’t get the point of it.

and Ramesh’s response:

Speaking only for myself, the point of it is to say what I think is true, whether or not it helps the candidates I hope win. Whatever value there may be to reading me would disappear if I wrote only comments that help Republicans.

Ramesh should know by now that truth has a liberal bias.

I don’t understand why McCain did not choose his best buddy Lindsey Graham as his running mate. Especially when he goes around saying smart stuff like this:

“I’m going to choose the bad choice over the catastrophic choice.” And then he said, “We don’t have the luxury of kicking this can down the road like we did with immigration or Social Security and dealing with it another day, hoping somebody braver than us will come along and have courage that we can’t muster to deal with immigration or Social Security. This is on our watch.”

Sam Harris says it for liberal elitists everywhere.

Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady’s misfortune—and, above all, upon the “liberal elites” with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

…

Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world’s only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

“Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child’s brain?”

“Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I’m an avid hunter.”

“But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind.”

“That’s just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink.”

…

The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

I have been checking the reactions to the debates on all the partisan blogs and it really is astounding how one-sided the commentary is on both sides. I saw a poll - which I can’t find again - saying  95ish% of democrats and republicans claimed that ‘my candidate won the debate’.

I wonder if the problem is group think? You are in a crowd watching your guy when someone shouts ‘Hell yeah!’ and you are like ‘hell yeah!’ and ‘that’s bullshit!’ and then you watch the remainder of the debate through partisan-tinted glasses.

Over at The Corner, they seemed to be watching an American Super Hero take on a North Korean Fifth Grader in a wrestling match. They certainly weren’t watching the same debate as me. Except one guy…

I have been hanging out at the corner for a few weeks now and they really are an odious bunch. They are allegedly the cream of the conservative intellectual movement but - with two shining exceptions - you’d never guess it to read them. The worst of the whole bunch is Jay Nordlinger who is from the why do liberals hate america school of conservative thinking.

So I was mightily surprised to read his debate summary which had gems like these

35. If I were an ordinary American — who didn’t know anything — I’d say, “Hmm, Obama sounds okay — a moderate fellow. And don’t we need a change?” Bodes ill . . .

39. Amazing to have Obama, a left-wing Democrat, denounce “tremendous spending” and “an orgy of spending.” He’s a very good campaigner, sadly.

43. Obama said, “General Petraeus has done a brilliant job” — will that sit well with the “General Betray Us” people? But I imagine they’ll sit still for anything in a general election, just to get Obama in.

and his conclusion…

70. I think many people will take away the following impression: “They would both make a good president. They’re both solid, centrist, centered, informed, capable. But if I want a change — and Lord knows this country needs a change — I should vote for the Democrat.”

More here. Go read them. They are actually pretty good.

It was almost as if he had convinced himself that the conservative talking points about liberals were true and - for the first time ever - he was hearing a real liberal speak. What? They don’t hate the troops? I thought that liberals were all tax and spend !! Why does he want to kill Bin Laden when everyone knows the democrats love terrorists!

I wonder if this…

As is my custom, I’m writing my comments without hearing any other commentary — I am unaffected by other opinions.

…made any difference?

Apparently many of his readers were shocked too.

Many, many readers have written that my quick points on the debate depressed them — why did they have to be taken down, after being so up after McCain’s impressive performance? No one need be depressed: McCain did very well. He held up our end, as I said at the bottom of my notes. Of course, he has the advantage of the better positions.

But Obama’s more like a pro — more like a professional debater than a politician who happens to do all right in such settings. Not that that is necessarily the most effective thing, politically: There is such a thing as being too smooth.

And his rationale - when he is finally exposed to liberal policies instead of conservative talking points about liberal policies?

Obama is pretending!

What’s depressing, to a person like me, is that Obama has mastered the trick of coming off as perfectly moderate…

Wait until he finds out that we really DO love the terrorists and we want to tax the middle class and give the money to crack whores and we really DO want the government controlling your doctors! Mwuhahaha!