Set Sarah free!

I mostly listened to the Vice Presidential debate on radio, though I did get to see some of it on TV. Palin held her own and well exceeded the low expectations that the media had set for her. She was confident, poised and articulate -- even as she faced off against the verbosity machine that is Joe Biden. Biden was...Biden. He spoke quickly with an authority that is designed to make his statements seem like fact -- even when they aren't. Palin took him on effectively, and wasn't afraid to confront Biden's frequent exaggerations. I thought that had John McCain done that well last week against Obama the Republicans would be in better shape today.

Palin missed some chances tonight, specifically to refute the Obama-Biden claim that McCain was responsible for deregulation which got us into this mess. That's clearly only part of the story; Congress has been a big part of the problem by forcing too much regulation on Fannie and Freddie. If Fannie and Freddie had been forced to react to market risks on loans, they would never have made the vast number of sub-prime loans that they did.

Palin also missed a big chance to wack Biden on the War in Iraq -- specifically on his claim that Obama supports the same withdrawal plan that Maliki and Bush are negotiating about. Hello? The only reason anyone is talking about a withdrawal now is because of the surge that John McCain supported and Biden and Obama opposed. I wish that Palin had hit him over the head with that.

One thing that I didn't like about Palin's performance tonight: her consistent use of "corruption" and "greed" to describe Wall Street.  Certainly, some corruption always exists at the nexus of money and public policy -- but to make blanket statements that tar and feather an entire sector of our economy is populism worthy of John Edwards, not the Republican Veep candidate.  The mess we are in is more about the corruption of Capitol Hill and the lax interest rate policies of the Fed than it is any systemic disease on Wall Street.  Banks took advantage of the rules and pushed the limits to make money.  With risk comes reward -- and often failure. 

Also, I would have liked to hear Palin say also that the behavior of  borrowers played a role in this mess, too -- and that it wasn't just the responsibility of "predatory lenders".  People have to take personal responsibility for their decisions, and if this is not a theme promoted by McCain-Palin then they become nothing more than the victim-baiters that Obama-Biden are. 

In any event, my suggestion to John McCain is this: Set Sarah Free!

Let her go. Let her be spontaneous. Let her be the maverick, fun woman that she is. She's the only candidate who can relate to the American people as a real person. It is something that helps to differentiate the McCain-Palin ticket from Obama (effete, Chicago intellectual) and Biden (career Senator). It's what turned on the Republican base and got independents excited about McCain after the Convention. He needs to let her work her magic.

McCain's campaign -- and thus his chances to be president -- are in bad shape at this point. All polls in the battleground states are now leaning for Obama. He needs to do something dramatic to turn this around.

MSM anoint selves as newsmakers

Watching the debate between Senator McCain and Pharaoh Obama was an interesting and joyful evening for me. After all, we can probably agree that there is no greater pleasure then to watch or participate in a verbal battle of wills and ideas. That is of course, until you're married, but I digress. In any event I was quite happy to watch the debate. Happy, because debate and discussion is one of the fundamental principles behind the greatness of America and her people. While some shy away from public speaking, it is important to note that debate matters not just for the debater but for the audience as well. Debates provide everyone who watches them a unique perspective into both the ideas and qualifications of an idea, a candidate or a proposal. They are an integral part of America and if you don’t like them, move to Iran. But I found that the 9/26 debate gave me insight not so much into the candidates as into the media themselves.

As soon as the debate had finished, and in some cases before it began, the MSM was in high jabber. With preordained conclusions these pundits crashed into the discussion with confusing, factually ignorant and plainly biased commentary. Any ideas of reporting the news seems to have gone out the window as the MSM made a longwinded and really rather pathetic attempt to make the news. No sooner had the debate ended then the MSM attempted to give the debate ‘tie’ to Obama. Strangely this award came with claims that the debate was ‘about what we expected’ from people who for weeks had insinuated the first debate would be the first miracle of Obama. Amidst flurries of self-congratulation, led by CNN, the MSM made a sincere attempt to package the debate in the terms of their world and not that of the American voter. For weeks we have seen signs of this; and from the plainly unfair and simply mean treatment of Gov. Palin to the nearly dictatorial claims about Sen. McCain that now, daily, dot the pages of the NYT.

But the behavior of the MSM in regard to the debate and now the financial crisis has broken new ground. Ground where all facts go out the window and where major MSM providers have no problem altering the facts so as to rattle the cages of everyday Americans.

Now I wish that the media wasn’t the chimera of graft and smear that it is today and I wish that I didn’t even have to talk about them. But unfortunately, for me and for you, I do. I do because the media has interjected itself into the current political debate in an all-consuming manner as judge, jury and executioner. The political media today is not about America, it is not even about the news any more; it is about only itself -- an all-consuming orthodoxy that makes the form of debate a sad panda and me a sadder kitten.

For months now some principal media imps have done nothing but apotheosize Obama and run down McCain. I am sure you have seen it, let it be Rachel Maddow calling the idea of Americans voting for McCain ‘twisted’, or Keith Olbermann essentially blaming the entire financial mess on John McCain.

But, in this long, long, very long election a few media types have stuck out as true servants of Mordor. Acolytes of Morgoth, they go by the names; Maddow, Cafferty, Olbermann, Milbank, Hewitt, Beck, Holmes, Roland S. Martin, Toobin, and the bear himself: Stephen Colbert. These lesser scamps are the grave of facts and the edge of discussion; the true bane of debate. They are puerile and a farce. They demonstrate by action their desire to make the news and not report it. From hill to dale they slant the facts with a desire similar to that of old wicker rotting in the sun. Each has a craft, a parlance of overstatement that ruins even the simplest situation. None seem to have a desire for truth and rarely can they see past themselves.

Now I can’t do much about the sad state of the media but I can write this little piece. This little shot across the bow that lets these forces know that not everyone bows to them. Oh, and also that someone else can use the axe that is literary criticism just as easily as they do.