{"id":3224,"date":"2008-09-04T12:02:38","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T17:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3224"},"modified":"2008-09-04T14:02:25","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T19:02:25","slug":"3224","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3224","title":{"rendered":"There’s There, There"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce Benidt from The Same Rowdy Crowd – <\/em>one of the better (read:\u00a0 more readable, less drearily awful) leftyblogs in town – seems to enjoy good oratory too<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Democrats have come up against a force here. It\u2019s the same force \u2014 absent substance \u2014 that worked for George Bush. But Palin is ten times the speaker Bush was and is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is no comparing the two as speakers.\u00a0 Bush is, at best, an adequate orator, with immense preparation and motivation.\u00a0 He’s at his best one-on-one – not an inconsiderable talent with a job that involves so many personal meetings and so much mano-a-mano <\/em>armtwisting\u00a0 and cajoling.<\/p>\n

But Palin stands out – especially given the absolutely awful state of political oratory in America today.\u00a0 Indeed, this campaign is blessed with two excellent orators.\u00a0 The difference, I think, is that Obama is a lot like an actor; he’s at his best with the big prepared speech.\u00a0 Is Palin more like the stand-up comic, capable of rolling with the verbal punches?\u00a0 She as a reputation of thinking on her feet; here’s hoping.<\/p>\n

Personal opinion \u2014 she\u2019s competely unqualified to be president should something happen to the aged McCain, and McCain\u2019s choice of her is reckless and rash and would endanger the country he claims to put first. And some of what she said was just a lie \u2014 Obama will raise taxes on a steelworker, for example.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tomayto, tomahto; if Obama taxes the company that sells the steelworker the gas to run his car, the steelworker pays for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I digress.\u00a0 “Reckless choice” has become the Dem meme lately, begging the question “and so why is the even-less-experienced Obama any better?”<\/p>\n

But, she did a very good job tonight, she jabbed at Obama with zest and a smile, and in a dull field of dreadful GOP speakers, she is not just a breath of fresh air but wind and rain and sunshine all at once.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dull, dreadful speech is epidemic in American politics. Besides Palin, the list of good American political orators is painfully short.\u00a0 Offhand, I can think of only a few; Tim Pawlenty, Rudy Giuliani…<\/p>\n

…I’ll work on it.<\/p>\n

Palin stumbled when delivering a few sentences about foreign issues \u2014 the only time she was dull and clunky. When talking about family and state government and no new taxes and small town values, she was kickass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree.\u00a0 About 80% into the speech, she\u00a0got into some wonky material about foreign policy, and a little energy drained out.\u00a0 But she recovered and, obviously,\u00a0finished big.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s trouble for the Dems. A smart pick by McCain in terms of getting elected. A frightening choice for the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No more frightening – if experience is the arbiter – than the top <\/em>of the other ticket is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce Benidt from The Same Rowdy Crowd – one of the better (read:\u00a0 more readable, less drearily awful) leftyblogs in town – seems to enjoy good oratory too: Democrats have come up against a force here. It\u2019s the same force \u2014 absent substance \u2014 that worked for George Bush. But Palin is ten times the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08","category-convention-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}