Posted by Henry Payne on Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 6:42 PM
Payne & Ink column, 09.08.08
Obama who?
Cartoon follows. (which also appears here in the Editorials section)
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Obama who?
Cartoon follows. (which also appears here in the Editorials section)
The story that should have appeared on The New York Times front page Tuesday is instead in The Wall Street Journal's op-ed section, page A13, Friday (given the partisan bias of today's newsrooms, well-staffed editorial departments like the Journal's are essential to reporting basic news).
In fact, The Times has still not reported the story.
Journal staffer Kimberley Stossel does the basic journalistic leg work on the centerpiece of Palin's gubernatorial term - indeed, the issue that has distinguished her as a government reformer (not as a pro-life advocate as many in the national media continue to get wrong). As Stossel's reporting makes clear, Palin's tax and ethics reform of Alaska's oil policy dwarfs any legislation that Barack Obama has undertaken, and rivals anything the top of her ticket has attempted for that matter.
Simply put, Palin has reformed a corrupt state-industry oil partnership that not only had compromised elected state officials but had also led to bad fiscal policy. While embracing the state's natural resource wealth, she has also worked across party lines to make its markets more transparent and its tax system more stable.
Palin's reform results are open to debate, but it is the type of public policy issue she should be judged on - not on half-baked smear stories about her daughter's pregnancy or whether a woman can raise children in the vice president's mansion or whether her husband was arrested 22 years ago.
Unfortunately, it is not a story the MSM wants America to read.
For more Payne, go to HenryPayne.com.
George who?
Cartoon follows. (which also appears here in the Editorials section)
This was Sarah Palin's convention as Peggy Noonan brilliantly points out here. John McCain's flat, same-ol'-Vietnam-resume oratory assured that he was a footnote.
But Palin's extraordinary speech has only made her more dangerous to America's Left.
This campaign is going to get uglier.
I have not seen this kind of Media/Democrat hatred since Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1991. Then, as now, Thomas' only-in-America story was ignored by the MSM as they ridiculed his intellect, his background, his lack of experience. Thomas, like Palin, is a fundamental threat to Democrats' perceived hold on a constituency - in Palin's case, women.
Still, Thomas prevailed through hearings, then through committee vote. But the Left had invested in too much oppo research to let him slide. Finally, incredibly, the media/activist/Senate cabal made up of Newsday's Tim Phelps, Nan Aaron's Alliance for Justice, and Joe Biden's Judiciary Committee unveiled the "pubic hair on a coke can" on the cusp of Thomas' confirmation.
It set off the ugliest days in modern Washington history - what Thomas rightly called an "electronic lynching."
For Palin, her sudden stature will only bring more Leftist oppo. I hope I am wrong, but Palin's coke can moment is still to come.
For more Payne, go to HenryPayne.com.
The end.
Cartoon follows. (which also appears here in the Editorials section)
Detroit -- As Ed Craig notes here, Palin's home-run speech not only raised her market value, but the value of energy common sense as well.
Palin offers conservatives (if the Goracle disciple at the top of her ticket agrees -- a big "if") a real opportunity to bring the dangers of green extremism home to Joe Sixpack.
Here in Michigan, two counties are key to winning this swing state (they are national bellwethers too): White-collar Oakland and blue-collar Macomb which sit shoulder to shoulder north of Detroit. Palin's personal story will be a powerful magnet for Oakland's decisive soccer/hockey mom electorate. . . .
Full article is here.The end is near.
Cartoon follows. (which also appears here in the Editorials section)
How to explain the Left's hysteria over Sarah Palin?
From Newsweek's Kathleen Deveny to the NYTimes' Maureen Dowd to the haters on this blog, many cite "Sarah Barracuda"'s views on abortion as the reason they oppose her. But as the NYTimes David Brooks and Newsweek ("Now this is woman's work," Oct, 2007) have noted, social issues are not what have animated Palin's political career.
In fact, the centerpiece of her governorship has been fighting her own state party's political corruption (which is what attracted McCain, himself a lukewarm abortion rights advocate). One would think this would cheer FemDems as well: A career woman who has balanced family and taken on the old boy's network.
As Newsweek raved in a saner time: "In Alaska, Palin is challenging the dominant, sometimes corrupting, role of oil companies in the state's political culture. . . that has meant tackling the cozy relationship between the state's political elite and the energy industry and distancing herself from fellow Republicans, including the state's senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens. Palin said it's time for Alaska to 'grow up' and end its reliance on pork-barrel spending. Shortly after taking office, Palin canceled funding for the 'Bridge to Nowhere,' a $330 million project that Stevens helped champion in Congress."
Furthermore, abortion is hardly a litmus test even for top Democrats. For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pro-life.
So why the vicious attacks?
Base, raw political partisanship. Like black Republican Clarence Thomas before her, Palin is a threat to Democrats alleged hold on a key constituency - in this case, the "women's vote." Having performed the cardinal sin of being a GOPer, she must be destroyed.
In the eyes of FemDems, you see, women's suffrage only gave women the right to vote Democrat.
For more Payne, go to HenryPayne.com.
Reading the climate tea leaves at the RNC. . . . There's good news and bad news.
First the good news: New York Times green zealot Thomas Friedman is hyperventilating.
Friedman endorses Obama in his Wednesday column by rightly noting that the choice of Sarah Palin as veep returns some needed common sense to McCain's energy policy that until recently had been consumed by Goracle-speak on ANWR and global warming.
Of course, "common sense" is not the term Friedman uses. "With his choice of Sarah Palin," shrieks Friedman, "who has advocated drilling in ANWR and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.". . .
Read full article here.
Hurricane Gustav packs a wallop.
Cartoon follows. (which also appears here in the Editorials section)
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