01 September 2008

And now a rebuttal on Palin ... or not

I have no good idea of how Palin as VP will work politically. She shores up the base, which was absolutely critical, steps on the Obama speech buzz, and certainly has the potential to be seen as one of those gut instinct decisions that later looks inspired.

Or not.

She has some political baggage that could blow up in McCain's face. She may turn out to be a poor campaigner. People may not like her voice. Or resent the naughty librarian factor - the graphics of old man John next to her might not work. And we do seem to choose our presidents on such peripheral and ephemeral claptrap (and have even since the Kennedy/Nixon debate on TV - which I can remember watching).

Here's Krauthammer's opinion. Rick Brookhiser seems to have doubts while Jonah Goldberg shows some common sense (though he later seems to walk it back) and channels Begala on an important point, Brookhiser is roundly attacked by everyone, and The Designated Adult is over the moon for her, while David Frum definitely is not (and is roundly attacked by 98% of his respondents).

To quote that other great political philosopher, Chou-en-Lai, "too soon to tell."

You know, if the fate of civilization as we know it wasn't at stake this would be a lot of fun. And I just realized that I had unconsciously borrowed this post's format from Claw of the Conciliator.


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6 Comments:

At 03 September, 2008 19:44, Blogger Elliot said...

ie, some commentary, followed by a lot of links?

You'll be happy to know that starting next week I'm taking a fourth year class in medieval culture. The prof is Anne- Laurence Caudano. Her area of expertise seems to be Eastern Europe, Kievan Rus and Byzantium, that sort of thing.

 
At 03 September, 2008 19:45, Blogger Elliot said...

PS: One of the books we're reading is "The Letters of the Rozmberk Sisters."

 
At 03 September, 2008 23:38, Blogger Clemens said...

No, actually I was thinking along the lines of a brilliantly terse narrative linking disparate thoughts together into a luminous whole that no one else had seen before.

Honest.

 
At 03 September, 2008 23:44, Blogger Clemens said...

As for the Medieval stuff - GO FOR THE GOLD! It will make a man of you. Especially that Kievan Russ stuff. And Byzantium, especially if you get into Byzantine Greek - I hear it makes Pauline Greek look clear and straight forward.

BTW, I see that Prof Caudano is a member of the Cambridge Latin Therapy Group. Wow. I shall spend the rest of the night trying to figure out what they do, and how I can become a member.

Enjoy the class. I would love to take it with you. Keep your notes! Post them on the Claw!

 
At 04 September, 2008 14:53, Blogger Elliot said...

Okay, I'll put up some class-related commentary, but it'll probably be on my other blog, Gravity & Waggery.

 
At 04 September, 2008 15:13, Blogger Elliot said...

PS:
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/latintherapy/

 

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