Stones Cry Out

• An excellent book review, so … get a copy today … I did.
• Ms Palin and the (liberal) creationism-in-schools meme, about as substantive (and as justified) as the Obama-as-muslim meme on the right. So look at it this way, consider yourself to be of the same stripe as those bloggers who repeated the Muslim meme if you yourself bought (and repeated) the creationism one. A common sense response to the two Palin “rumors.”
• Globalization and a part of the ugly downside.
• Vatican protest leads to mass demonstrations and violence … or not.
• The Redhunter compares the two VP picks.

Just what is John McCain up to?

In the movie Jaws, when the fictional Captain Quint makes first contact with the great white, and the shark behaves unexpectedly, he tells Police Chief Brody, “I don’t know Chief, he’s very smart or very dumb.”

On McCain unexpectedly picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, Kirsten Powers wonders,

I can’t help wondering if this is a trap. The McCain camp watched and learned as Obama supporters offended Hillary supporters by their treatment of her. The McCainiacs had to know that this group is incapable of behaving, that Palin would bring out their worst instincts.

Ed Morrissey states,

This trap has two doors, as Powers notes, and the Obama campaign and its supporters fell through both of them. First, it didn’t take long to speak dismissively of Palin as a “beauty queen” and a “small-town” hick, even though she governs the state of Alaska and has a favorability rating in the 80s…

The bigger trap, though, was the knee-jerk attack on Palin’s experience. Calling her a “small-town mayor” only underscored Obama’s own woeful lack of experience…

and then wonders,

Did McCain set Obama up to fall into this trap? If so, then perhaps that more than anything demonstrates how poor a candidate Obama is and how much more masterful McCain can be. Would you rather have the man who set the trap dealing with our enemies abroad, or the man who fell into it?

At the Belmont Club, Richard Fernandez states,

…McCain will take risks, but only after figuring the odds.

…

He has the ability to wait patiently until his opponent commits himself to a move then ruthlessly strikes to exploit it. He gives nothing away to clue his opponent on which way he is going to turn. Then suddenly he snaps the stick. A collection of links by Glenn Reynolds reveals a sudden appreciation by McCain’s opponents of his unpredictability. Some are hesitating to criticize Palin’s relative youth and inexperience, lest they fall into the Trap. What trap? A classic AP head says it all: Analysis: Palin’s age, inexperience rival Obama’s.

He’s a 72 year-old Maverick who, it would appear, knows his way around.

Also see:

Mark Steyn’s The Hostess with the Moosest

HotAir’s Desperation from Democrats

In my recent travels abroad, of which I will indeed blog more (with photos) presently, one of the observations I had was that the urban/rural cultural divide is more important and pronounced than a lot of our other cultural splits.

With that in mind, one of the (unspoken objection) that a lot of (urban) liberal bloggers have to Gov Palin’s inclusion on the ticket is that by her resume and rhetoric she is not one of “them.” She doesn’t hang out with, is part of, or identifies with any group with which they associate. And that is problematic because they misread or fail to read her cultural cues.

There are a lot of non-urban voters out there with more rustic values and virtues and they see them in McCain’s running mate. Their failure to note that seems akin to color blindness. Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t poll well in the Democratic party today either, and that’s the point.

The urban liberal Hillary voter may be put of by Gov. Palin … but the suburban/rural female (and male) voters, I think might poll differently.

It has been also remarked that by putting Sarah Palin on the ticket, Mr McCain loses his line of attack on Mr Obama regarding “experience.” While I’m not entirely convinced that’s the case, it also might be noted that Mr Obama loses the “Change” line of attack as well. Mr Biden, Mr McCain are all old hand beltway denizen, and Mr Obama is a Haaaarvard educated lawyer and Senator. That is without even noting that Mr Obama’s actual voting record and policies are basic liberal/progressive boilerplate.

Real change is an outsider like Gov. Palin, who is not a lawyer, DC regular or “one of the club” in any way shape or form.

A commenter recently noted that there was a tape of Sarah Palen supporting Ted Steven’s pork project nicknames “The Bridge to Nowhere”.  A writer on a local group blog, “Peach Pundit” says she was for it before she was against it.  As one of their commenters notes, she was for state funding if the state wanted, and her speech in Dayton confirmed that. 

A conservative Republican woman for vice president: To note that SCO called for this more than a year ago.

Yesterday, before McCain’s VP announcement, the Democracy Project blog put put their top 10 reasons why she should be VP.  Definitely worth a look.  My favorites ones are 9, 7, 5 and 2, but read the whole list.

Not Romney, Pawlenty, and not Lieberman.  John McCain has made either party choice in November a historic one by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.  This is so big, the Drudge Report website is overwhelmed with readers (I can’t get a link in edgewise).

Aside from the obvious appeal to history, and the disenchanted Clinton voters, Palin brings experience.  “Experience?”, you may say, “She’s not even been governor a full 2 years.”  Indeed, but that’s 2 years more executive branch experience that the other 3 candidates — Obama, Biden and McCain — combined.  Prior to that (via Wikipedia):

• Became mayor of Wasilla, AK on a platform of cutting spending and taxes.  She did both, with cutting her salary being the first thing.
• Appointed by then-governor Murkowski to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission as the Ethics Commissioner.  She quit over ethics issues in her own party, so she’s not afraid to call it like she sees it.

The Wikipedia article has much more about her that I find absolutely excellent.  Great job, Senator McCain. 

John McCain, after congratulating Barack Obama for his historic nomination, appears to have chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his pick for VP. (see CNN, FoxNews)

Palin, the Barracuda.

CHANGE… we can believe in.

In an essentially 50/50 race, this is an awesome, gutsy, risky, and potentially brilliant move. Can we say… Maverick?

Kind of makes you wonder what Hillary is thinking now, doesn’t it?

(image: McNamee/Getty)

We have a new poll up regarding your viewing habits of the Democratic and Republican national conventions.  With their foregone conclusions and political theater, do you bother tuning them in?  Are you a political junkie who loves the speeches?  Are you a casual observer, using the conventions to gather information before you cast a ballot in November?  Did you know that the conventions were this week and next?  Let us know.

The Catholic church has had to correct the thinking of some Democrats in the past in reference to the church’s position on abortion.  (Well, they’ve spoken out in the past; there’s no evidence yet that the actual thinking was corrected.)  Most recently, the Speaker of the House herself has come under fire for misrepresenting Church teaching in order to buttress her own views.

Politics can be treacherous. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked on even riskier ground in a recent TV interview when she attempted a theological defense of her support for abortion rights.

Roman Catholic bishops consider her arguments on St. Augustine and free will so far out of line with church teaching that they have issued a steady stream of statements to correct her.

The latest came Wednesday from Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who said Pelosi, D-Calif., “stepped out of her political role and completely misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion.”

It has been a harsh week of rebuke for the Democratic congresswoman, a Catholic school graduate who repeatedly has expressed pride in and love for her religious heritage.

Enough “pride” and “love” for her to, y’know, accept her Church’s teaching?  Apparently not.  The “steady stream” of corrections don’t seem to do much.  More below the fold…

Read the rest of this entry

• What Joe Carter has been up to.
• The point every liberal misses (iit seems), “Republicans have as much sympathy for people who are sick, poor or troubled as anyone does. Where Republicans and Democrats differ is in their opinions about how best to help such people. Democrats tend to believe in direct government action as a remedy. Republicans tend to believe that government is often part of the problem, and that better remedies are available …”. Amen. [emphasis mine]
• Ayers. Again.
• Why venerate the Mary as Theotokos? A short answer.
• Contra the inner video/dialog.
• Google and geo-thermal energy.

In pictures taken or made by both adoring fans and by the press, Barack Obama keeps getting the heavenly, messianic treatment.  Check out this blog that highlights all sorts of examples.  And see here for a few others.  Covering enthusiasm is one thing; framing the shot it another.

But it looks like the guy’s starting to cater to this feeling by giving his acceptance speech in a mock-up of a Greek temple. 

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.

The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos’ National Football League team plays.

Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president.

He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.

The show should provide a striking image for the millions of Americans watching on television as Obama delivers a speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination.

(Click here for a picture.)

The keyword here is “image”.  Granted, both parties manage the image of their candidates; perception is too often reality for many folks and the parties play to this.  But this is simply way over the top, and McCain’s ad about Obama’s celebrity starts to ring truer and truer.  The whole Adonis imagery he’s playing to is indicative of a guy who is drunk on his own Kool-Aid.

After this, you can’t say that messianic imagery is simply foist upon Mr. Obama by his fans.  He’s participating in it and encouraging it.  And now we know why he chose Invesco Field; the convention center was too small for his head.

• A point for the Christian well taken.
• Kevin Edgecomb pointed to me to this post regarding the Georgia/Russia situation, which is well worth reading.
• A new very very big number.
• The Incredibles in part was a statement against the cult of mediocrity … which is not just a conservative fantasy. It is a thing which should be fought.
• An interesting experiment and question posed, which is more important the sense of safety or actual safety.
• Diseases returning and why.

A sanity check by both parties in the US is desperately needed. Look, I have no love lost for Mr Obama. I think as a President, if elected he will turn out to marginally worse than Jimmy Carter’s 4 year term. He’ll push for a number of programs, continue centralizing healthcare and attempting as much as he might in expanding various entitlements programs a number of fronts. McCain similarly will push for (and against a likely Democratically controlled Congress get somewhat less of what he desires) a different set of programs. But, no Mr Coates is completely loony when he offers that a McCain Presidency is to be equivalent to “sell the freedom of their daughters …” or that for the poor, a McCain Presidency implies … “the outcome will be sickness and death and homelessness and, for those cut off from health coverage and help …”

Look, Presidents have a lot less domestic influence than we pretend. Mr Bush has been in the office for 8 years and gosh, our daughters aren’t slaves and the lot of the poor is not that appreciably different than a decade ago.

But over the top rhetoric and outright demonization of the other side is just unhelpful all around.

Try some sanity on for size. It might help.