The promulgation of gaffes

"He who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and um by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that uh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed."

The story making the internet rounds today is about Palin's rather incoherent answer to a question about Paul Revere (quoted above -- from Sully, hence all the dropped 'g's and what-not). To her credit she doesn't just repeat the mythology of the Wadsworth poem [ED: D'oh, speaking of gaffes, that should be the Longfellow poem], but she certainly makes a hash out of her answer. Whatever her train of thought was, she lost track of it and the answer became a muddle. Let's be honest, if those words had flown out of Obama's mouth we would be happily snarking away about them.

In fact, it reminded me of the time when, while tugging at the heart strings over Little Billy needing his asthma medicine during a stump speech, Obama lost his teleprompter (above video). He tried to string the story out while waiting for it to be fixed, but for some reason the word "inhaler" wasn't on the tip of his tongue and he drifted into incoherence. He actually mimed squirting an inhaler into his mouth as searched for the right word. I remember it because I had great fun mocking him when the video came out.

The difference is that you had to search YouTube for Obama's derailed train of thought, while Palin's will no doubt be played again and again on the networks and the late night comedians will have a field day with it. Further, we all know she is going to be asked, again and again, stupid and condescending questions about Paul Revere. That's just the way it is -- the media is their megaphone and they use it. 

My suggestion is not to try to untangle her muddled paragraph to counter that megaphone. They won't much listen, and to the extent that they do you'll just end up sounding muddled yourself. Instead, the counter should be asking the media, again and again, why they budget so much print space and air time to carrying the Democrats' water. Why is Palin's stumbling answer on the evening news while Obama's gaffe about Little Billy's breathalyzer shunted directly to YouTube?

Slowly but surely chipping away at the media's editorial judgement has worked, and it is reducing the volume of their megaphone in the process. Keep at it.

Finally, speaking of Paul Revere, remember these goofballs?

Two-faced politicians

 The other day I stumbled across Julian Wolkenstein's post Symmetrical Portraits. He took frontal photos of people, and then split the photos in half, flipped them and made images of the people if their face were composed of two left or right sides. I was struck how different the two manufactured faces ended up appearing. Inspired by that, I decided to try my hand with current political types.

First I did Barak Obama's official portrait. As with all pictures in this series, the first is his right side and the next his left. The difference in his skin tone between the two pictures is from the lighting of the original picture, I did not adjust it at all. Still, at the risk of being accused of racism, I was amused by how scrawny, dorky albeit friendly looking, the right-faced version of him was while the pursed lips and intense stare of his left-faced version gives off a hint of menace. 

Right-faced Sarah, again because of the lighting of the original portrait, looks like she fell asleep in a tanning bed. Meanwhile, left-faced Sarah looks positively demented with her giant smile and large eyes.

 

Right-faced Reid, with his close set, beady eyes looks pretty dodgy, but left-faced Reid looks like a fiendly old coot.

Yikes! John Boehner is either an NFL lineman or a bobble-head doll. Unless his face was titled slightly to the left in the photo I used (and it didn't appear to be), he has a very asymmetrical face to say the least.

Gadzooks!!!  And I thought Boehner was a asymmetrical. Thick or thin, the right and left faced versions of the botoxed Pelosi both make her look completely bonkers. Hmmm... I wonder if there is a message in that?

I hope you enjoyed this foolishness, but I don't think I dare find out if the two faces of Pelosi can be topped for strangeness.

Call me crazy, but...

...regarding the Palin experience issue; do the Democrats really want to be running their Presidential candidate against the Republican's Vice Presidential candidate?

I've been increasingly impressed by the tactics of McCain's campaign, and his choice of Palin, while it certainly carries risks because of the national stage is so much larger than the Alaskan stage she's operated on to date, seems like it has netted a lot of positives for him.

As I said in opening, the Democrats seem oblivious that, while jumping on Palin's inexperience as an excuse for Obama's inexperience, they have been maneuvered into comparing their candidate against McCain's running mate? I can't imagine the Republicans ever wasting their time contrasting McCain against Biden in an attempt to try to score points. Such a comparison always diminishes the head of the ticket.

Secondly, as I read the blog comments today, the Republican base seems positively giddy and delighted by her selection. McCain did what Obama did not do with Biden -- McCain energized his base. This was of course important to him, since his base was less than enthusiastic with him so far. It looks like he's got a lot more troops in the trenches now that Palin is on board.

Considering Hillary being shoved out the door by Obama, the choice of a woman was also a very good move. The Democrats seem to be conflating feminism with women in general to try to diminish her, and that too is a mistake in my opinion. The Republicans will never get the feminist wing of the PUMAs, but many women do not primarily identify with conventional feminism. Many women are bound to be impressed by what she's achieved, and diminishing those achievements to diminish Palin will not play well with them.

Finally, today's announcement scuppered any lingering buzz from Obasma's acceptance sppeech.

Of course the final tally of McCain's choice of Palin will depend on how well she performs in the arena of national politics, but so far she seems to have been a solid and clever choice.