Latest Neocon Tactic: Preemptive Excuse-Making
Oct 1
According to the latest meme going around Right Blogistan, if Palin does poorly in the debate Thursday night, it won’t be because she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, but because moderator Gwen Ifill is unfarily biased against her. (Note: As of this writing, the link is dead thanks to an Instalanche. As a result, I have to break protocol and link to Malkin [temporary Malkin link removed once main link went live].)
On this issue, I agree with Nate at 538.com:
It’s not that the right’s critique isn’t utterly transparent, but media backlash was one of the principal dynamics in motivating the Palin bounce in the first place.
But there’s another factor here too. In preparing for a debate, you are often preparing nearly as much for the “judge” or moderator as for the opponent. Both campaigns probably have a pretty good idea of what types of questions she is likely to ask, how he is likely to ask them. Palin and Biden have undoubtedly watched videotapes of Ifill moderating the 2004 debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney.
By changing the moderator, you’re throwing everyone a curveball, and catering to the candidate who is better able to adapt on the fly. Which, most likely, is not going to be Sarah Palin.
#1 by Dan M. at October 1st, 2008
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your main link is live. you can stop giving Malkin traffic and page rank. Oh, and look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow; it says that if you want to say that a link shouldn’t be considered an endorsement, to do “<a rel=nofollow href=”blah”/>…</a>”.
#2 by gattsuru at October 2nd, 2008
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For the love of humanity…
You realize that :
Is still on your front page? I don’t like claims of hypocrisy, for the simple reason that I have absolutely no clue what goes through your minds or even how the neurons are working, but that particular display makes Nancy Pelosi’s display Tuesday or even my trains of thought paragons of linear logic.
I’m sorry, we’ve already had this particular vice-presidential candidate so heavily mugged by questionably ethical journalistic methods that a quote aired suggesting she’d start a war with friggen Russia, when the unedited transcript said economic sanctions. You honestly want to argue that writing a damned book on one of the tickets isn’t an issue?
I currently do network design. That job involves, at times, the testing and purchase of network hardware and software. In my spare time, I happen to write both short fiction and non-fiction (no, the horrible tech manuals aren’t always bad Engrish, sometimes it’s folk like me). Do you want to know what would happen if I tried to put together a report on router choices while writing a book called Cisco 2800s for Dummies? or The Age of PANs?
I’m not sure they’d bother with a pink slip, since they could just probably institutionalize someone faster.
Given that the McCain camp claims that they weren’t informed about the book until the last few days, and that negotiations involving the debates are well-recorded and thus that claim would be rather easily falsifiable if PBS has given even a hint of this book…
Well, it’s your prerogative to deny evidence when it’s blinking you in the face, but given how often you rail against it and the typical historical effectiveness of such, I would have expected something better.
#3 by tgirsch at October 2nd, 2008
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Shorter gattsuru: “Waaaaaahhhh!”
Say, where was all your pissing and moaning about the “mugging” during the awful ABC Clinton/Obama debate, in which the first hour was dedicated to nothing but “gotcha” questions? If allegations of hypocrisy concerning selective outrage are what you’re after, perhaps you should look in the mirror.
Finally, your citation of what I wrote is too clever by half. I was talking about how the debate would be reported by the punditry (largely vindicated, by the way), not pre-emptively complaining about the debate being unfairly conducted (because of something, by the way, that has been public knowledge for more than two months, but somehow is only just now being viewed as a problem…)
#4 by shirt at October 2nd, 2008
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There can only be one excuse for tonights performance: from http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/geissal23.html
“If you are butchering a pig, you will want to wash it down now. A pig is a clean animal in a natural environment but gets pretty dirty when confined.”