Odlican komentar jednog od citalaca New Republic:
JosephCuomo said:
Chris Orr-
Last night I watched quite a bit of CNN, NBC, ABC, & CBS, and the only story to really break through the coverage of Gustav was (repeatedly) the Bristol Palin pregnancy story.
And this huge, prominently placed, front-page headline from today's NY Times--"Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process"--suggests that (as I said on another thread) the story has already begun to change the frame narrative of the GOP campaign: the media focus now is on the extent of McCain's knowledge of Palin's background before he selected her (What did McC know and when did he know it?).
The pregnant daughter here serves as the first serious breach in the levee, and now other doubts and concerns about Palin have come flooding through, attaching themselves to the new narrative, the narrative of McCain's questionable judgement in selecting SP: ". . .it was learned that Ms. Palin," says the NYT, "now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge."
There's also this: "Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background." Which makes the campaign seem assbackwards, trying to vet Palin only now AFTER the decision to nominate her was already made.
One would expect the new narrative about McCain's judgement to spin off several other related narratives as well, such as the one I heard last night on more than one network: will Palin survive the Convention as VP, or will McCain have to pull back and nominate someone else to replace her?
Even if McC rides out the storm and stands behind his selection of SP, the force of the narrative swirling around him (and his judgement)--plus the obsessive interest in Palin's pregnant daughter (last night, Larry King was already hoping that CNN's correspondent in Alaska might unearth the name of the baby's father)--the force of this narrative (as I suggested on another thread) looks as though it is going to blunt and obscure any message the Repugs try to get out during their own convention.
And this, in turn, will negate any anticipated bounce McCain might have received from a week's worth of free, prime-time, coast-to-coast air time.
September 2, 2008 12:41 PM
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JosephCuomo said:
One more thing: Palin may be a "true political savant," as your friend points out, but this is America, Chris, and Americans eat this stuff up, they eat scandals up--especially sexual scandals--they eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Indeed, every major newspaper and tv and radio station is already focusing on this pregnancy as a scandal.
And scandals have a way of undermining even the most saavy political operator.
Just for one instance, here's the NY Daily News on the subject today:
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He's a superhunky bad-boy ice hockey player from cold country; she's a chestnut-haired beauty and popular high school senior.
The all-American teen twosome will make GOP vice presidential pick and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a grandma at age 44--just in time for Christmas.
Doe-eyed Bristol Palin, 17, and ruggedly handsome Levi Johnston, an 18-year-old self-described "f---in' redneck," have been klix a year, locals in Wasilla, Alaska, told the Daily News. . . .
O
n his MySpace page, Johnston proudly declares: "I'm a f---in' redneck."
"I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing," he says on the site.
He also warns that if anyone messes with him, "I'll kick ass."
The Web site, before it was removed, appeared not to have been accessed for a year.
On it, he admits to having a girlfriend.
On the part where it asks about children, he wrote, "I don't want kids."
Mark Okeson, the assistant principal at Wasilla High School, told the Chicago Tribune that Bristol started her junior year last fall, in the town where Sarah Palin grew up.
He said Bristol inexplicably transferred to an Anchorage high school midyear, leaving Levi behind.
"I never heard the story why," he said.
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I would bet that this kind of breathy, lurid, obsessive coverage of the Bristol Palin pregnancy is everywhere today, Chris--in thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and tv stations across the country. (As I said above, the Bristol story was virtually the only story to repeatedly break through the coverage of Gustav last night on CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS.)
Which is to say, however astute SP may be politically, she and her running mate (as well as her unfortunate daugher) are now in the eye of the storm. And the storm is a shit storm.
September 2, 2008 12:48 PM
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Katastrofa!
na Gallup poll Obama skocio na 50%, na Rasmussen 51%. To je prvi put da ijedan kandidat predje magicnu brojku od 50.