Harriet Palin

Watching Sarah Palin introduce herself to the world, all I could think about was Harriet Miers.
That same, eye-goggling effrontery of George Bush announcing to everyone that his White House counsel was the "best he could find for the job," the job, of course, being the nation's highest court. And more so, that same infuriating insinuation that choosing a woman necessitates a compromise in caliber - "sorry, folks, but we needed a lady, so we'll just have to make some sacrifices on the qualifications."

Palin is just so utterly unready for prime time. Inexperience is one thing, but the giddy demeanor and deeply unseriousness posture towards the challenges of the vice presidency (especially the role as second in command to an elderly cancer survivor) turns her into a punch line. She "promised her husband a surprise on their anniversary"? She never saw herself in public service, since she was always "just a hockey mom"? Part of me wishes Barack had picked Hillary Clinton after all - I would pay good money to watch HRC dismantle this twinkie in the debates.

Oh, and Sarah? It's pronounced nuCLEE-er.

Happy 72nd Birthday, John McCain!

Slate mischeviously suggests that McCain's timing in announcing his veep today (chatter I'm hearing says Mittens* despite the fake-outs) might have the "side benefit" of "taking attention away from the fact that McCain turns 72 today."

*Scratch that - sounds like Palin's the pick. I'll grudgingly admit that's a good choice for McCain: a play to angry PUMAs without selling out the pro-life voters, hard for Biden to rough up in a debate (as Ambinder points out)... not exactly an intellectual heavyweight, but since it ruffles my feathers when that charge is leveled at my favorite Senator, I'll bite my tongue for the time being.

A break from convention blogging

Friends, I give you my new favorite website: Cakewrecks.

Make it work, Cindy.

Tim Gunn turns his trademark pursued-lipped disapproval on Cindy McCain:

"I'm just not a fan. I don't know who her advisers are, but it's the whole look — her clothes have to be fixed too... I just don't think she's capable of improving the look."

Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend

I'm with Karen Tumulty: John Kerry's speech last night was masterful. Self-aware and even self-deprecating throughout, frank and uplifting in his case for Barack, incisive and electrifying on the case against McCain. There was no doubt in my mind that this is a speech he has been waiting to give since November 3rd, 2004.

"We dream of dying blue-collar towns blooming as green-collar meccas..."

While not nearly so treasured a memory as my ride in the Aspen's 4th of July parade, I had a chance encounter working the Ideas Festival last month that really made the experience for me-

Catching up on the May issue of Fast Company on the plane ride to Colorado, I had read this article about a larger-than-life activist named Van Jones and his crusade to lift the boats of the urban poor on the rising tide of eco-consciousness. His plan for training low-income workers in Oakland, and eventually nationally, as skilled laborers in fields like green retro-fitting and renewable energy production - and the reporter's breathless account of Jones' boundless energy- was an uplifting reminder that there does exist such a thing as win-win public policy.

Long story short, it seems the Aspen Institute had learned about Jones' work long before I, and had invited him to speak at the Festival, which is how I ended up just a few feet from him in a parking lot, enthusing - okay, gushing- about my appreciation for the work he was doing. (He was, for the record, unexpectedly friendly and self-deprecating, despite his obvious exhaustion. hooray, Van Jones!)

I had been thinking about Jones' campaign in the weeks since in small ball terms - my own policy interests, the Ideas Festival - but was reminded of his efforts last night listening to last night's convention speakers talk about expanding green jobs to rural and impoverished communities. I'm so heartened to see this party rally around great policy ideas - this sort of thing seems exemplary of "government as a force for good" progressivism.

And relatedly, the whole thematic build of "Renewing America's Promise" was capped off very well by Mark Warner, in my opinion. I'm increasingly convinced that Warner's real value to this party is brand ambassador - by dint of both his biography and his evangelism for technology, he is a powerful representation of the Democratic brand as innovation and (as he put it) The Future. This is terrific framing, I think - even more visceral and compelling than "change," not to mention a substantive way to bring up McCain's age without being gratuitous.

Oh, and go read that Van Jones article. I believe we'll be hearing that name again.

Popcorn for dinner!

I couldn't be more heartily aboard the Sarah Haskins fan train, which is why I was delighted to see her newest installment of "Target: Women" :

I would like Ken Burns to make a documentary about my family, please.

I'll say this about last night's convention's proceedings: the Democrats have been incontrovertibly established as the Party of Glossy Hair:















I thought Michelle was pitch-perfect (although I could have done with about five minutes less of her older brother- seriously with the basketball metaphors for leading the free world?) and delivered the exact speech called for by the occasion. Hearing such a bright and accomplished woman talk exclusively about her role as a wife and mother is a little demoralizing, but given the demands on her to prove her family's apple pie credentials, I understand the political necessity.

I'm more than a little cranky with CNN, though - after three hours of yammering through every convention speaker, Wolf, Anderson & Co. pronounced the evening's events disappointing. Lucky that I have them to tell me so! Goodness knows I wouldn't have been able to make that call myself, having heard neither Claire McCaskill, Jim Leach, nor hardly any of the other prime time speakers.

I would agree, though, with their analysis that we need to see a lot more Bush-McCain baiting red meat. A lot of what I did see last night left me with a sinking feeling of deja-vu of 2004's convention, when the "Sunshine Boys" put the kibbosh on Bush-bashing, creating a feel-good uplift promptly shattered by the GOP orgy of negativity in New York City a few weeks later. Fightin' Joe, we're counting on you...

"Cake in the conference room at 4, no occasion"

Yet another reason (besides voyeurism, schadenfreude, and sheer roadside gawking) to read the Hillary Memos:

Jeff Goldberg's hilarious "discovery" of the secret Obama emails.

Definitely read the former first.

Read anything good lately?

The desperately-awaited vacation starts this weekend, and, of course, weather.com predicts thunderstorms from Monday to Thursday. (Right, right, I know, North Carolina in hurricane season, no one's fault but mine, I got it.)

So. I'm armed with Jhumpa Lahiri's new book of stories, an essay collection I've purchased based solely on the title, and a couple back issues of Paste magazine. Help! Any recommendations for good beach overstuffed-chair-indoors reading?

No kidding

Apparently Greyhound had rolled out an ad campaign earlier this year based on the tagline: "There's a reason you've never heard of bus rage." The ads were running only in Canada.


I kind of feel for those ad guys. It must have seemed so perfect at the time...

The Hillaryland Chronicles

"The Frontrunner's Fall" - the most highly anticipated article I've seen since arriving at The Atlantic - is now live on the site. Josh Green's investigation, and more damningly, a dump of nearly two dozen internal memos, seems to confirm that politics' biggest victim was undone not by a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, media bias, or even the Obama campaign, but by the bickering incompetents on her own payroll.

Delta Blues

All right, I get few enough comments on my blog that I can take requests-

The Nikki Tinker thing was a total embarrassment, Blair, especially for EMILY's List, which is how I, at least, became a cheerleader for her in 2006. And especially given that Steve Cohen seems like a hell of a good guy and totally determined to represent his constituency, which is probably why he demolished her by 60 points yesterday.

As far as the antisemitism thing, though, I defer to Ta-Nehisi Coates' (our newest blogger on TheAtlantic.com!) explanation:

"Frankly, I've always doubted the power of Jew-baiting as a method of scaring up votes in any black community outside of the tri-state area Gotham. That's not because blacks aren't antisemetic, it's because--in the words of the great Jimmy Baldwin--they're antiwhite. Jew-baiting against a white Jewish guy in a majority black district, is like attempting a 360 dunk. Why go through all that when the the plain-old race-baiting layup will suffice?"

From the department of "get in line."

I saw this story on Jezebel and had to laugh:

"A Muslim teen in Oklahoma is alleging that a manager at an Oklahoma Abercrombie & Fitch refused to hire her because her head scarf "didn't fit the chain's image." A Muslim civil rights group has filed a federal complaint on the girl's behalf, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states that an employer must reasonably accomodate employees' religious practices."

Hmmm. Dear Muslim civil rights group - I, uh, don't want to seem dismissive of your grievances or whatever, but you guys, I promise this one really ain't about you.

Compounding the sleaziness...

... is the certainty that he waited until the first day of the Olympics (I'm being generous here and assuming not "until war broke out in South Ossetia," but really only because I don't think the overlap between salacious-gossip-consumers and followers-of-Georgian-military-action is that great), in the hopes that the story would get buried.

He is truly pathetic.

A platform to stand behind

With the heady days after the 2006 election now a distant memory, I'm not frequently given to thinking about my identity as a Democrat - an Obama supporter, maybe, but not so much as a member of the party. But Marc Ambinder has a draft of the official platform document today - available in PDF here- and the following, in the plank on Criminal Justice, is a nice reminder of why I am:

"Ending violence against women must be a top priority. We will create a special advisor to the president regarding violence against women. We will increase funding to domestic violence and sexual assault prevention programs. We will strengthen sexual assault and domestic violence laws, support the Violence Against Women Act, and provide job security to survivors. Our foreign policy will be sensitive to issues of aggression against women around the world."

dum DA de de duh duh duh, duh duh de duh...

The big day has already dawned and set in Beijing - and, according to James Fallows, all hope for favorable winds from Mongolia have been dashed:

"I simply do not have the heart to show what it looks like today -- August 8, the magical 08/08/08 chosen for its positive auspices for the Olympics. I'll just say, it looks very much like this view from six weeks ago. This is a disaster...
I suppose there's also a one-percent possibility that the international embarrassment will be a Chernobyl-type stimulus toward truly radical environmental action in China and around the world. But maybe that's fooling myself too."

'Citius, Altius, Fortius,' nonetheless, I guess. And the whole human-rights-violations piece aside, my heart does go out to the Chinese a bit - the West wouldn't have looked so hot hosting The Olympics during our industrial revolution, either.

Bigger than the bodega

Even in my frenzied, web-skipping hyper-consumption of news, I'm still occasionally struck by the kind of story that bears out Whitman's praise that "the true poem is the daily paper," and induces pangs of mourning for the decline of the medium.

The LA Times has that sort of story today, a profile of an East Harlem bodega run by a Dominican George Bailey and crushed - like its owner, customers, and neighborhood - by the weight of rising rent and food prices. It's a heartbreaking, exceptionally well-written piece, and even the "Julio must make $3,300 today - can he do it?" throughline, which sounds kind of gimmicky, actually proves to be a captivating narrative.

What really caught me are the consumer goods haikus of throughout the story ("toilet paper, masking tape, plastic toy dolls, paintbrushes and barbecue lighters..." "Advil PM, flashlights, cigars, Fixodent, Midol.."). In other words, the stirring details that are the casualty of a brave new media world where everyone and no one is a journalist. Present company, of course, included.

She'd like her money back, please.

My reactions to the asinine Paris/Britney attack ad have been pretty much covered elsewhere.

I would just like to add, however, that when Kathy Hilton is chastising you for wasting money and people's attention, well, that's just game, set, match.