CNN

This was the ‘cuda! Sarah Palin was outstanding.

From the opening, when she asked “Can I call you Joe?”. Hitting Barry and Joe for looking backward not forward.

Biden will sit in on all policy meetings? Huh? No other VP has ever done that.

Too much populism from Sarah Palin. Wall Street is an easy target but America is Wall Street. Where do you think your pension, heck, Joe Biden’s pension is?

“questioning judgment rather than motives” Too bad the entire Barry Obama campaign puts the lie to biden’s comment.

“Bosniacs?” There ya go again, Joe!

Gotta leave ‘em gaffing.

The press has inundated Alaska with reporters and will have shortly interviewed every single person belonging to the 20% that do not rate Sarah Palin highly. Many of the reporters have flocked to the state capital of Juneau. Yes, Alaska has a state capital and it is Juneau.

Shocking, well, shocked reports are hitting the press about the inner workings of the Alaskan state government. No one should be shocked, however, since it is obvious that the Alaskan government operates pretty much like every other state government in the nation. Spend some time learning about your state government if you do not believe me.

The problem with state governments is called “Washington Syndrome“. It is highly contagious, infecting 90% or more of those exposed. It can also be genetically inherited.

The symptoms of “Washington Syndrome” are as follows:

• At the time the city was designated the capital, it made geographic or commercial sense. The location has not made sense, however, for a long time.
• The major industry of the capital city is government. The people of the metro area either work for the government or for businesses that support governmental operations like bars, law firms or caterers.
• The government of the city where the capital is located is treated as the red-headed stepchild. It is assumed that the sole purpose of the city government is to support the functions of the capital.
• Many of those who work in the capital maintain personal residences in other places. They have developed mechanisms that compensate them for traveling to and from their legal residences.
• Many of those who work in the capital maintain residences in and around the capital city’s metro area. They have developed mechanisms that compensate them for living away from their legal residences. Many of these same people spend more time in the capital than they do at their legal residences.
• Activities and beliefs that are normal, popular, seen as virtuous and desirable outside the capital are seen as abnormal, repulsive and criminal in the capital.
• Activities and beliefs that are abnormal, criminal, repulsive and unpopular outside the capital are seen as normal, virtuous and desirable in the capital.
• Those who work in the capital are willing to gossip, spread rumor and innuendo, and lie regardless of who they support. The capital functions on the ability to betray or avoid betrayal.
• The capital’s city is often charming in its own right but tourism is focused on the capital itself.
• The capital is the center of the universe and anything that happens outside the capital is viewed solely as to its effects on the capital.

There are many more symptoms than can be listed here. Diagnosis is easy since self-importance and delusions of grandeur are often so pronounced that the ordinary voter can distinguish them. The condition weakens in some cases after exposure to the capital ceases but other cases remain quite active for decades after.

A must read: McCainBlogette.com Meghan McCain and two pals write a blog that is light, thoughtful and chock full of great photos.

Meghan writes:

The first political convention I ever attended was when my mom was pregnant with me in 1984 and the Republican Party nominated Ronald Reagan for a second term as President. I have been on political stages and in campaigns since before I could walk or talk. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that it is difficult to establish your identity and independence as the son or daughter of a politician. When I was 14 years old, a reporter questioned my father about me having a hypothetical abortion, had I been pregnant at 14. This reporter’s question single-handedly changed my life. This story comes up in almost every profile written about me and in almost every interview. It’s a rough go being the son or daughter of a politician. I have not known Bristol Palin very long, but there is a certain kinship I feel to her as I do other political daughters such as Chelsea Clinton, Jenna and Barbara Bush and Mary Cheney. You can’t fully understand it unless you have lived it. So I just wanted to let it be known that I support Bristol and the entire Palin family.

Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden hardly come from blue-blood backgrounds; Biden, now famously, is an Irish-Catholic son of Scranton, Pa., and Obama was raised by a single mother. But the fact that Palin, even as a governor, remains grounded in a recognizable American lifestyle — warts and all — has not gone unnoticed among Republicans, as the first wave of opposition research has been unloaded on her.

“Authenticity is the most important characteristic for someone seeking public office,” said Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association. “Any news that comes out about her is not going to hurt her because it reinforces the point that she is authentically one of us.”

Unlike running mates from both parties, dating back decades, the Palin family isn’t part of the moneyed elite or the governing class. Neither wife nor husband is the scion of a well-connected family. Sarah Palin attended a state school, and her brushes with the law are of the same nettlesome kind that drive recreational fishermen crazy in all 50 states.

Politico
By CHARLES MAHTESIAN

Here’s some of the questions the left is raising about Sarah Palin:

Inexperience: What would she do about the War on Terror if President? Could she handle the job? This is just a way of slyly pointing out that Sarah Palin is a woman. And, you know, women can’t fight wars. Other than Margaret Thatcher and Golda Mier. And lots of other patriotic, educated, thoughtful women.

Motherhood: How can she be a good mother and President? Shouldn’t she be home taking care of her baby? Was John Kennedy a good father? He had small children. Another sly reference to Palin’s sex, and denigrating the abilities of working moms.

Foreign policy: She has no foreign policy experience. Just because she’s Governor of a state that borders two foreign countries, she can’t know anything. Barry Obama knows less. He’s never governed a state, or anything for that matter, and he thinks borders is a bookstore. Joe Biden has never governed anything and he favors breaking up sovereign nations without their permission. We have a State Department and a Defense Department for a reason. Sarah Palin is smart enough to look to the experts when she needs to.

If you are easily shocked, cover your eyes. Sarah Palin does not have a penis. That is the sum total of the left’s criticism of her. At 44, she is not a girl but a woman. She is self-made, a wife and mother, comfortable in the outdoors and in the conference room. She represents everything that the left has been battling for with women’s rights for the last forty years. She is success on that issue.

So, since she does not believe as they do, they attack her as a woman, as weak, inexperienced, as incapable of handling the tough job of President. Just as Clarence Thomas is not black, Sarah Palin cannot be a a “real” woman because she is not a man.

Sarah Palin has some foreign policy experience. She went to Kuwait, to visit with her state’s troops in July 2007.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin talks to Nome, Alaska, native 1st Sgt. Dewey Green. Palin visited the Soldiers of 3rd Battalion, 297th Infantry Regiment, Alaska National Guard to learn about their mission in Kuwait. Photographer: Pfc. Christopher Grammer

Soldiers from Company B, 3rd Battalion, 297th Infantry Regiment, pose for a photo with their governor, Gov. Sarah Palin, July 25. The Alaska government official ended her two-day tour of Kuwait’s bases at lunch with her Soldiers at the Camp Virginia Dining Facility. Photographer: Spc. Wesley Landrum

Gov. Sarah Palin, of Alaska, smiles as she talks to a Soldier from the Alaska National Guard. The governor’s visit was part of a two-day tour of Kuwait that took her to various bases around Kuwait. Photographer: Spc. Wesley Landrum

Sarah Palin for Vice President.

Everything we could want in a candidate.