Heed this well. Frank Rich is no fool!

[tannybogus]

<snip>
That’s why the Palin choice was brilliant politics — not because it rallied the G.O.P.’s shrinking religious-right base. America loves nothing more than a new celebrity face, and the talking heads marched in lock step last week to proclaim her a star. Palin is a high-energy distraction from the top of the ticket, even if the provenance of her stardom is in itself a reflection of exactly what’s frightening about the top of the ticket.

By hurling charges of sexism and elitism at any easily cowed journalist who raises a question about Palin, McCain operatives are hoping to ensure that whatever happened in Alaska with Sarah Palin stays in Alaska. Given how little vetting McCain himself has received this year — and that only 58 days remain until Nov. 4 — they just might pull it off.
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07rich.html?ref=opinion

I want to just dismiss Palin too. I want to blow her off as a small time pol with no experience and scandals and problems galore and all will see through her easily.

Whatever you think of her, do not underestimate the Rove crew and their abilities. They may not be as formidable as they once were, but as Rich points out, they might be

able to hornswoggle enough people with only 58 days left. Don't forget vote finagling. Every Dem better work their asses off.

[ikojo]

1. Even though more Americans live in cities or metropolitan

areas, there is still this reverence for small towns and so called small town values. This is what McCain/Palin are running on, big city versus small town. It's the same attitude that champions small business over big business with small business somehow being seen as less capitalistic and less exploitative than big business. It's all wrapped up in sepia toned words of nostalgia for a place that has never really existed. Small towns are no more saintly than large cities, they have their problems (can you say METH anyone, I knew you could) as big cities. There are pockets of poverty in small towns (although they tend to be white) as there are in cities.

I've lived in small towns and I'll take a city any day of the week.

[alarimer]

9. I think all this talk of "small town values" is code for homophobia and racism.

The way they turned "family values" into other words standing for basically the same thing.

[ikojo]

12. DING!!! DING!!!! DING!!!!

We have a winner folks!!!!

Even Democratic candidates play the small town card. Jay Nixon who is running for governor of MO has a current ad highlighting his small town upbringing and the fact that his two sons also attend the Univ of MO.

I totally agree with "small town values" being code for I hate gays and blacks or values that say gays and blacks knew their "place."

[donco6]

18. Anyone remember "Hope" Arkansas? n/t

[EFerrari]

14. It's a brilliant move, when you think about it.

They've hijacked Norman Rockwell and redefined all his icons. :shrug:

[Jim__]

2. I don't think the Palin pick was brilliant in and of itself.

It's only with the full cooperation of the press that it can appear brilliant. Palin the orator, Palin the brilliant and Palin the reformer are all nonsensical creations of the McCain campaign that are being backed by the press. Palin the liar is what we would get from any honest reporting and McCain and Palin would be flushed down the toilet.

It doesn't matter what either campaign does, if the press fully supports one candidate, that candidate wins.

[summer borealis]

6. Perfectly stated.

[SoCalDem]

8. Instead of sitting around boo-hooing about how Mccain is so mean to them

and how their "hands are tied"..I say GO with McCain's premise.. SHUT HIM AND HIS CAMPAIGN TOTALLY OUT..

He claims he cannot get any "fair" treatment..this from the "media darling" who cooks for them, and invites them onto his private compund, and onto his bus?

Kind of a heavy-handed over-reaction, eh??

Why not just say.. "Hey, you won't answer our questions, or even let us question this nobody you've invited to "the prom"..so..

from now on, we will not cover any of your campaign events..you will get NO airtime from us..unless you PAY FOR IT..and even then we reserve the right to veto particularly untruthful commercials..

and then DO it..

No McCain on anywhere but Fox..(we won't get THEM anyway.)

[Mz Pip]

11. That would be the best way to handle it

I wish the media would do that and put him on ignore.

Fat chance.

[cloudythescribbler]

3. And the myth of Wasilla-as-Mayberry is apparently a sick joke

Wasilla is, according to info in Wikipedia on the subject, a collection of suburban sprawl ("the worst kind of ..." according to one guidebook), where 35% of the workforce works in Anchorage. Huge suburban malls & gravel lots lined up along highways is NOT my idea of the kind of small-town America Palin was trying to evoke

I don't mean to trash those who live in such suburbs (one person noted to me that it sounded like much of Long Island) but to suggest that it's like what folk think of as "small town America" is really silly.

As for Palin, the soap opera stuff has HUGE potential appeal, especially while the MSM systematically ignore serious discussion such triviata as what REALLY happened regarding the "bridge to nowhere". Some might recall that Alaska ended up getting ALL the money, only now more or less FREE, in practice, to use that goldmine as the state government (Palin, anyone?) saw fit.

Reminds me of the systematic silence for five months about the flimsiness of the FlipFlop spin, while it hardened into a national cliche.

I don't mean to suggest that the "Alaska Sweetheart Deal" is itself so likely to be decisive in the election, but rather that it is a telling barometer of what IS decisive -- the media cravenly following THE AGENDA.

It's all about getting with the program, 'take off your britches and sell out under ice', while maintaining the mere pretense of a free marketplace of ideas

[TahitiNut]

19. Yup. Wasilla is strip-malls and big-box with little autonomous generational identity

The land-rapists and consumer-rapists in collusion. Palin was the "useful fool" with little to no competence - to the degree the town council required she hire an administrator to actually handle the day to day management. "Executive"? Only in the feudal corporate sense.

[deutsey]

4. "easily cowed journalist"

That's redundant, isn't it?

[olegramps]

5. Easily Cowed Journalists

This is the crux of the matter and what has resulted in eight long years of administrative incompetence. The Fourth Estate totally let down the America people in that they were easily cowered by this Rovian pack criminals to remain silent. There was only one voice in the Washington Press Corps that had the courage to challenge this administration. Helen Thomas. In her book she called her colleagues nothing more than "lap dogs." The fact is they were little more than "Quislings" in their muted support of this PNAC dominated administration. The same scenario is being replayed in regard to McCain and Palin. McCain has surrounded himself with he same neo-cons that have brought our Republic to the brink of ruination without a whimper from the media. His partner in crime is a member of a nit-wit religion of out-right hysterical mindless psychotics.

[stillcool]

7. I am sick of being...

told to be afraid of the big bad GOP and their media. In the space of one week, John McCain has proven beyond a doubt that he is a serial liar, that he can not stand up to the Radical Religious Right, and that his judgment is impaired. The problem with the television remains the same and so does the solution. Who will tell the people?

[tannybogus]

10. I am not saying be afraid and cower.

I'm saying that everybody better redouble their efforts. Don't waste energy on fear.

Turn the energy into action. People shouldn't relax and dismiss Palin. I don't think

she will end up helping McCain, but who the hell knows what voters will do. We already

know the GOP will fix the vote in other ways.:hi:

[EFerrari]

13. Frank Rich is right. Palin belongs on American Idol, not in the White House.

lol

:toast:

[lonestarnot]

15. Yes. Work "our" asses off!

[chill_wind]

16. McCain's new Campaign Manager-- advised reading.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6973717&mesg_id=6975459

[jpgray]

17. Frank Rich is an idiot. As is Maureen Dowd.

I submit their entire coverage of campaign 2000 as evidence. Their vicious high-school personality attacks on Gore should have convinced any reasonably informed individual of their total inadequacy. Their most damning feature is an obsession with fashionable "narratives" over accurate analysis. This piece, of course, is no exception to that rule.