[UPDATED]

CONVENTION,
DAY FIVE....

NO, WAIT! WAKE UP! IT'S OVER!


AND IT'S....













PALIN!!!!

I've known very little about Alaska governor Sarah Palin, though she sounded like an interesting choice for Veep. As of this morning I read one thing-- her Wikipedia bio -- and watched a couple of minutes of two videos of her on the Kudlow business show, and was prompted to write the following to a knowledgeable but dubious friend:

How can you read that Wiki bio and compare her to Barack "all my years were Lost Years" Obama? If any bio of Obambi were that meaty, it would have to be a detailed intimate tale of Saul Alinsky-inspired, grant-based boondoggling, partnered with terrorist Ayers, on behalf of programmes aimed at destroying education in that gleaming urban success story and shooting gallery, Chicago (city of my birth)-- a big ball of nothing, all of it while sucking on the teat of the Chicago boss-machine. We would see a thin list of legislative initiatives in Illinois all aimed at making life more comfortable for black criminals and more brief for unborn children.

Palin, of whom I knew nothing till reading the Wiki stuff, sounds to me like a real old Wild West sheriff who comes into town with six-guns blazing and quickly populates the local Boot Hill with the corpses of scumbags. I am SO glad it isn't the strange and oily Romney (who spent like a drunk and managed to set few people on fire during the primaries) or the slightly fey Pawlenty (who's probably a good guy, but indistinguishable from a thousand other good guys) or Lieberman (totally right on maybe two things, and whacko left on everything else, except those good things like school vouchers which he sold down the river when nominated for veep). I like it.

I know it will be viewed by many as a gimmick or stunt, but that will subside when they hear her on the stump. (I've been watching videos of her on Kudlow.) She's pro-oil, pro-life & family, pro-reform (much more effectively than McCain), and full of American pioneer spirit. Being female is a bonus, but not her most interesting or exciting quality. I like it.

Then again, my mind could be total hog-slop after watching the Dems for four days.....

P.S. Canadians should consider this a Very Good Thing.

PALIN' BY COMPARISON:

The Krauthammer weighs in with this succinct and pummeling summary of last night's Obamapalooza at the Barackopolis. Money quote:

The oddity of this convention is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man, a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger — a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night.

Ever-so-slightly-right-of-center pundit David Brooks dares to scar the pages of the New York Times with the speech to the delegates that the DNC forgot to schedule. Money quote:

We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most consequential election since last year’s “American Idol.”

One path before us leads to the past, and the extinction of the human race. The other path leads to the future, when we will all be dead. We must choose wisely...

For this election isn’t about the past or the present, or even the pluperfect conditional. It’s about the future, and Barack Obama loves the future because that’s where all his accomplishments are.

HEH.

On a serious note, last May Nat Hentoff was prescient about the virtues of the Palin pick. Read it here.


PALIN/JINDAL IN 2012!!!