Like the rest of you, I’ve read a lot of stuff about Sarah Palin in the last couple of weeks (annoyingly positive and grotesquely negative), as well as a lot of stuff that tries to account for the reaction she has unleashed (in the commentariat and in Liberal Elite Land—you should see my email!).

Bradley Burston, writing in Ha-aretz,comes closest, I think, to explaining why Palin resonated immediately (as I noted here, a day after she burst onto the scene) [e.a.]:

I get it. I get that millions of Americans have a crying need for someone to stand up and say the things that Sarah Palin has been telling them.

I get that many, many Americans are fed up with big government and shame in patriotism and energy dependence and media condescension. I recognize that there are many on the right who are galvanized by a woman addressing the nation in condemnation of gun control and abortions. It’s clear that many in the heartland and even on the Blue State coasts have been waiting years to hear someone take a take-no-prisoners verbal lash to Beltway waste and liberal political correctness and, by implication, to cultural pluralism and tree hugging and the very mention of the word Washington.

That Palin had struck a nerve with certain Americans who were fed up and couldn’t take it anymore was clear from the reaction at the RNC, where one woman was quoted by the New York Times [e.a.]:

Delegates said they were enthralled by Ms. Palin. “I think she’s great; she’s giving it back to the Democrats for all the sorry things they’ve said about her and about America,” said Anita Bargas, a delegate from Angleton, Tex. “She’s a conservative, and she has a great sense of humor.”

So there was that. But there’s something else in the Amazing Mrs. Palin (other than shades of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, a delectable British TV film that I suggest you rent and watch***), and a piece in the Rocky Mountain News nails it:

It’s class as much as gender. When you hear women say she’s just like them, they’re talking about someone who’s gone through what they’ve gone through - and made it. They don’t think Palin is average. They think she’s talented - and talented enough to start where they did and make it to the top, even if she had to go to five colleges to get there. [e.a.]

Yep—just like Mrs. Pritchard—and she had problems at home, too:

———–
*** Here’s what I wrote in October 2007 about The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard:

The other day, I was watching a silly but diverting British series, The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, which puts a sensible woman who’s fed up with politicians’ incompetence into 10 Downing Street to succeed Tony Blair. (Yes. I did say it was silly, didn’t I?)

The screenwriter is not at all sympathetic to Blair or to the war in Iraq, but she is sensible. She shows, for example, just how many decisions, large and small, a political leader must make every day. It occurred to me that if only more people would watch this show, they would have a glimmer of understanding beyond their pet theories about BushHitler and the Vulcans.

But when people want to judge, to condemn, to castigate, and to punish, no amount of understanding will stop them. Their fury has a life of its own.

So it goes.

Andrew Sullivan asks for his readers’ blessing to root around in mud of Sarah Palin’s life:

It seems to me that if you are on record saying that your life is an open book, and you have a state-run web-page about your infant son, and your own children’s travel is paid for by the state, and you presented your infant son at a convention televised across the entire world, and you sent out a press release outing your own daughter’s current pregnancy, then it is not despicable, evil, vile or outrageous for the press to ask factual, answerable questions about Sarah Palin’s experiences as a pregnant and non-pregnant mother and about her marriage and about her parenting of her children. Palin herself just said so.

Please email me and tell me why I’m wrong about this. I want to air all possible views and dissents. I want to do the right thing, to learn as much as we can about this woman. All I want is to know more - about this new, unknown, clearly dishonest person who is asking to be elected a potential president of the United States by next January.

You certainly have my blessing, Mr. Sullivan. It’s a free country, after all, with a free press. And The Atlantic also has my blessing to continue to compete with the National Enquirer.

After all, what’s in a 150-year-old brand name?

The story of how she does it is on the front page of the New York Times:

Fusing Politics and Motherhood in New Way

Ms. Palin’s three-day maternity leave has now become legend among mothers. But aides say she eased back into work, first stopping by her office in Anchorage for a meeting, bringing not only the baby but also her husband to look after him.

Many high-powered parents separate work and children; Ms. Palin takes a wholly different approach. “She’s the mom and the governor, and they’re not separate,” Ms. Cole said. Around the governor’s offices, it was not uncommon to get on the elevator and discover Piper, smothering her puppy with kisses.

“She’ll be with Piper or Trig, then she’s got a press conference or negotiations about the natural gas pipeline or a bill to sign, and it’s all business,” Ms. Burney, who works across the hall, said. “She just says, ‘Mommy’s got to do this press conference.’ ”

Ms. Palin installed a travel crib in her Anchorage office and a baby swing in her Juneau one. For much of the summer, she carried Trig in a sling as she signed bills and sat through hearings, even nursing him unseen during conference calls.

Todd Palin took a leave from his job as an oil field production operator, and campaign aides said he was doing the same now. [e.a.]

How she does it is simple: she has a supportive husband.

That is the essential ingredient in such an arrangement.

The pinched faces of the “feminist” talking heads on TV who criticized Palin this past week indicate that unlike Sarah, they don’t get the same kind of support at home.

Sally Quinn, I’m talking to you-–especially after your embarrassing appearance on Reliable Sources:

SALLY QUINN, “WASHINGTON POST”: No, I was not unfair about that. I went on Bill O’Reilly twice, the second time to say that I had underestimated her, I was wrong about her. I think that she is a formidable candidate.

But I do still have grave doubts about whether a mother of five, soon to be six, with a special needs child and a child who is pregnant, is going to be able to put her country first. I think we heard McCain say 100 times, “I’m going to put my country first.” …

And I think men and women who go to war, men and women who are in a position of vice president, president, have to assure the voters that they are going to put their country first. …

What I’m saying is you can’t do it all. … Not with this large a family and these problems that she has. So what I need to know as a voter, I need to be reassured that she will put her country first because I need a president and a vice president who will do that.

It was nice to hear CNN’s Ed Henry light into Quinn

KURTZ: But Ed Henry, does any of this make you cringe? I mean, when Joe Biden tragically three decades ago was in a car accident where his wife and one of his kids was killed, nobody said, oh, how could he take his Senate seat because he’s got two young kids at home who need a father? I mean, these are questions that seem to be asked of women.

ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. I think you’re absolutely right.

I don’t think Sally’s a pinhead, just for the record, and I have admired her work for a long time.

QUINN: Thank you so much.

HENRY: But I can’t believe what I’m hearing from you though, Sally, and I can’t believe what Emily said, basically that, you know, how could she be a mother and be vice president? Why are you not saying the same thing about Barack Obama? He’s a father of two young daughters who look quite beautiful.

How could he possibly, then, by this standard you’re creating, go to Washington and be president, which I assume is more important than vice president, we would all agree or just as important? And why are you not questioning whether he could be a good father?

I just think there’s a double standard. And I thought the whole point of women having equal rights was that they could have a family and a career. And secondly, that men, as fathers — and I’m a father — should be just as active as the moms are. So I don’t understand.

…

But you’re questioning whether or not she can be vice president.

QUINN: No, I didn’t say not be able to serve. Every woman — I have women friends who are CEOs, who are senators, who are — Nancy Pelosi, although she waited until her children were older to take on her job as speaker of the House. I have women friends who are directors.

I have — all of my friends are working in high-powered jobs, but we’re talking about the presidency of the United States. We are talking about the commander in chief here.

I’m only guessing, but it’s an educated guess. I’ll bet that all of Quinn’s “high-powered” friends have extremely unhelpful husbands.

I am now officially laughing my ass off at those who thought the upcoming blessed event was going to hurt McCain-Palin.

First, New York mag killed with this headline:

We’re Sorry, But Palin Baby Daddy Levi Johnston Is Sex on Skates

Then McCain greeted Bristol Palin’s baby daddy, who just flew in from Alaska for tonight’s big shindig at the RNC, where his future mother-in-law plans to wow the crowd, at the airport:

The debut of Sarah Palin, the new gal in town, is still the subject du jour 24 hours later, having wiped Obama’s smashing convention spectacular from the news cycle and thus, for all intents and purposes, from memory. His really big shew didn’t have time to stick, because McCain trampled all over it with fresh meat.

The media’s instant switchover from covering Obama’s triumph to covering the sensational instant celebrity Sarah Palin reveals the danger in relying on the MSM to carry your message (and your momentum, not to mention your water), as Obama did with the convention spectacular: you can be swept aside by the next story that comes along. And if the story introduces an exceptionally telegenic new archetype (who scores) into the tired old cast of the “Mediathon” (see Frank Rich’s brilliant article about the phenomenon)—well then, if you’re Obama, you might just have lost your mini-momentum.

But you had a fabulous moment! Even I thought so!

Wretchard analyzes the meaning and impact of McCain’s VP pick:

One of the more interesting questions for political historians is whether McCain chose Palin before or after Obama chose Biden. After a long period of bleeding numbers at the polls, Obama had a chance at Denver to take the initiative in two ways: first to refocus the election on George W. Bush and second, to dominate the news cycle for at least a couple of days. But several circumstances spoiled the opportunity. First, Denver turned out to be at least partly about the Clintons; an misfortune which BHO endured with gritted teeth. Yet even when the duo had sullenly lumbered off and he strode at last into the limelight before the stage the rumor that McCain was about to select his Veep was beating on the edges of the media’s attention. At first there seemed little to worry about; there were contingency plans in the event McCain selected either Romney or Pawlenty. But now it is clear the old attack pilot pulled a move which aims to exploit several chinks in Obama’s armor: gender and class.

From early indications, BHO’s camp has elected to expend at least some ammunition to attack Palin. Despite its aggressive appearances [it] is a defensive move designed to blunt the potential threat she poses to his narratives. The effort will divert resources away from what should have been Obama’s central focus: attacking GWB and McCain.

Every campaign is about both hearts and minds, of course.

We Americans don’t have much in our minds—we’re an ignorant lot, and apparently don’t care to change our ways—but we’ve got open hearts

There’s a surefire way to capture our hearts—with a great story.

It looks like the Red American hot mama from Alaska has got one hell of a story. And the visuals aren’t bad either.

Whether she’ll make a difference in the election is something we can’t know now. But that she has the potential to make a huge difference in the image of rural, conservative, evangelical Americans is undeniable (just as Obama has already made a huge difference in the image of African Americans).

Who’d a thunk it?

Being a dyed-in-the-wool cynic—somewhat like my favorite director, Billy Wilder, who was of the opinion that there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, and that the difference that really counts among human beings is between human decency and indecency-–I appreciate Glenn Reynolds’s observation:

For me, of course, most of the fun of the past 24 hours has come from watching Democrats get caught up in the whole identity-politics tangle. As the San Francisco Chronicle says, “Republican Sen. John McCain played the gender card like an ace Friday with his surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.”

Should McCain be above tricks like that? Well, maybe, but . . . nah, it’s politics, who am I kidding? And I have to say, this whole election, which a year or two ago looked to be a boring slog between Hillary and Rudy, has been the most entertaining I can remember. Regardless of how it comes out, let’s be thankful for that! [e.a.]

Of course policies do make a difference, and to the extent that political parties can change policies it does matter which party is in power. But the needle doesn’t ever move too far from the center in America. Neither party will ever be the ruin of the country, and neither party will ever be the savior, either.

So … unless we’re out there participating and making a difference (and even if we are out there participating and making a difference), we might as well sit back and enjoy the show.

This is our glorious democracy.

And politics—which includes public circuses and spectacular attempts to influence public opinion while stealing your opponent’s thunder—is indeed the greatest show on earth.

Jack Shafer on the media’s typical coverage of campaigns contains this gem about last night’s spectacle in Denver—and a useful reminder [e.a.]:

Instead of decoding the Obama propaganda, the broadcast press mostly wallowed in it: Flipping the dial, I didn’t hear much in the way of disparagement from the talking heads. Indeed, the fact that the networks paid $100,000 to install a Skycam to hover over the cheering hordes at Invesco Field proves how easily they can be co-opted by a campaign that spends the money to produce a terrific “show.” The Skycam added no journalistic value to last night’s coverage, only buckets of oomph for the Obama-Biden ticket. If you can’t avert your eyes from such spectacles and the network anchors refuse to frame them skeptically, be prepared to discount the emotional effect they may exert on you.

He’s right, of course. What he doesn’t note is that the very next day, the Republicans put on an equally compelling “show” with the very photogenic Sarah Palin:

Aren’t political campaigns fun?

Especially when a resurgent Russia is all but forgotten in the process?

If I were in the Obama camp, I would quit trying to sell the idea that the “change” he’s offering is generational, because, as I recently noted, the Clinton generation (of which I’m nominally a part) is not exactly ready to hand over the reins (and Obama’s tendency to talk like a punk doesn’t help matters).

But generational change is how some Dems are painting the “differences” between the Clinton and Obama camps—differences that are being elided as Obama “Moves to the Center,” claims Thomas Edsall in the HuffPo [e.a.]:

In the international relations policy arena, sources in and out of the Obama camp described a more subtle process taking place, as Obama is forced to decide which Clinton experts to add to the team, and at what level in the hierarchy.

“While there are exceptions on both sides, one of the key differences between the Clinton and Obama foreign policy gurus is generational. And this generational split has significant consequences,” one knowledgeable expert said, speaking on background. “In the main, the senior folks in the Clinton administration (1993-2001) went with Hillary, while many of the less senior people went with Obama.”

Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy advisers came of political age during the Cold War, in many cases during in the Carter administration, and tend to see the world in terms of states and state conflicts, this source said. In addition, many of Hillary Clinton’s top advisers “spent eight years dealing with Saddam [Hussein's] intransigence in the 90s,” making them more receptive to the arguments for invading Iraq.

Conversely, this expert argued, many of the Obama advisers are post-Cold War theorists who tend to see the world in terms of failed states, the influence of technology, food crises, non-state actors like Osama bin Laden, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the uneven distribution of the benefits of globalization.

Another way of seeing this “generational difference,” of course, is this: having experience (aka coming of political age is a form of experience, which the Clintonistas have) versus having smart-(ass) ideas (aka being post-Cold War “theorists”—which the Obamabots think they have).

Meanwhile, one prominent California family lives out a different kind of drama at home, where it’s not a left-sectarian fight but rather a GOP-vs-Dems debating (sorta) society:

Of all the supporters behind the two presumptive nominees for president this year, none are quite as intriguing as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has thrown his support behind Senator John McCain, and the governor’s wife, Maria Shriver, a Democrat and vocal backer of Senator Barack Obama.

The lawn of their Brentwood home has dueling campaign signs. The breakfast table has become a casual debating society. Ms. Shriver is even threatening to bring a life-size cutout of her preferred candidate into the house, something the governor has seen her do in other elections. “When one of the candidates screws up,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said of the cutouts, “the kids carry them outside.”

And to my great relief, the Dem side in this battle is represented by a fair-minded person—a “little-d democrat” [e.a.]:

“I think there are great benefits to having kids grow up understanding that we do not live in a one-party system,” Ms. Shriver said. “That there are two ways at looking at an issue. To be patient, and to compromise, those are good lessons not just in politics but for life. I grew up believing there was only one way to think. There isn’t.”

All hail the friendly enmity between people with different politics!

Is anyone surprised that the Reverend Wright has struck a blow against his favorite son Barack Obama? (I’m not, as anyone who has been reading my blog knows.)

Here’s Rasmussen:

In the week before the media frenzy over Wright, Obama and McCain were essentially tied in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Less than a week later, and two days after Obama’s speech, McCain had opened a seven-point lead over Obama. Significantly, by Thursday’s polling, McCain had pulled slightly ahead of Obama among unaffiliated voters. McCain also enjoys unified support from Republican voters while Obama only attracts 65% of Democratic votes at this time.

Obama’s favorable ratings have also fallen below the 50% mark since the world learned of his former Pastor. This can be seen as part of a larger trend that began shortly after Obama’s victories in the Wisconsin Primaries. At that time, just before Hillary Clinton began raising questions about her competitor, Obama was viewed favorably by 56% of voters nationwide. That had slipped to 52% just before Pastor Wright’s views became big news and to 47% just before Obama’s speech. Two days after the speech, Obama’s favorables remain at 48%.

As Rasmussen notes, all eyes—particularly the superdelegates’—will be on the electorate.

Note that all eyes will not be on the media, which is what I’m focusing on here on this blog.

Rasmussen doesn’t say it, but I will: after his much-lauded speech, the MSM gave Obama an assist in attempting to put the Rev. Wright behind himself.

I predicted that on March 16; (it wasn’t hard to do, considering the history of Obama-mania):

Well, we’re at the point now where the PR-concocted images and ugly reality keep colliding. And Obama is bound to keep “disappointing” us (or those of us who believed that Obama really is the “transcendent character” that David Axelrod created for our benefit from the exotic strands of Obama’s life).

From now on, Obama and his advocates and surrogates will have to work really hard (though they’ll have the help of a favorably disposed media) to get us to keep our minds off the things that make us doubt him.

Now, with on-the-ground results in stark contrast to the rosy optimism on offer from most MSM outlets (which claimed that with the Speech, Obama had put the Rev. Wright controversy behind him) the MSM is once again exposed as trying to lead (and mold) the electorate’s opinion*** rather than reporting on what it finds and presenting a snapshot of it.

————-*** More specifically, the cable “news” channels are leading the electorate—trying to influence public opinion—via pseudo-events created by the Obama campaign: the Philly speech; the Chicago Tribune interview in which he answered Rezko questions; the interviews he granted PBS and CNN [this from a candidate known to keep his distance from the press] after his Philly speech—to cite just the examples I know of without doing further research, although a cursory spin on Google News provides evidence that he went further into damage control mode. I see he did an interview with ABC, too. And with WITN.

And those are only a few instances of damage control that he’s preoccupied with this week. He first went into overdrive last week, as ETP’s Rachel Sklar reported.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain were all but missing from this week’s news, except as they related to Our Hero, Barack, the protagonist whose quest for the White House is presumed to be the cable “news” audience’s favorite story of the year. We shall see!

I was watching MSNBC tonight when Keith Olbermann was rendered speechless to discover what will happen tomorrow: a piece of political theater to top even yesterday’s passing of JFK’s halo to Barack Obama.

Tomorrow, Rudy Giuliani will endorse John McCain at the Ronald Reagan Library, where, coincidentally the final Republican debate of the campaign is being held.

Olbermann nearly sputtered with outrage but was constrained from saying anything too sardonic by the fact that he was, at that moment, in his “anchor” persona rather than his creepazoid-demagogue persona (which he didn’t even attempt to hide from Howard Kurtz this past Sunday on Reliable Sources—or perhaps he did, but he failed). He gives me the willies.

Speaking of symbols, James Kirchick has a very interesting analysis of what doomed Rudy Giuliani and what accounted for McCain’s rise [e.a.]:

And as Iraq recedes from being a top concern for voters, so does the case for a candidate running on a Sept. 11 platform. Giuliani’s appeal is predicated on the existence of an unruly world. …

Moreover, McCain can claim credit for the policy behind American success in Iraq far more convincingly than Giuliani. … McCain is the only candidate who actually staked political capital on backing the surge, and he has been its biggest booster in Congress.

He is now reaping the benefits of his prescience. … [A] seemingly safer world means less reason to vote for the tough guy pledging to eat terrorists for breakfast.

When the facts on the ground change, everything changes with them.

From Christopher Hitchens, natch:

Let us give hearty thanks and credit to Rudy Giuliani, who has never by word or gesture implied that we would fracture any kind of “ceiling” if we elected as chief executive a man whose surname ends in a vowel.

Yet actually, it would be unprecedented if someone of Italian descent became the president of the United States and there was a time — not long ago at that — when the very idea would have aroused considerable passion. Now that it doesn’t, is it not possible to think that that very indifference is the real “change”?

Indeed. Hitchens also nails the real problem—identity politics—with a delicious bon mot [e.a.]:

People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of “race” or “gender” alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.

So what else is new?

Philip Weiss discovers anti-democratic extremism.

I was shocked by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Any fool knew it was coming, that is the not the point. It was the pure evil infamy of it. They hate democracy. Who hates democracy? Well, some elements of radical Islam. When David Axelrod of Obama’s campaign yesterday hinted that Hillary Clinton was somehow responsible because she voted for the Iraq War, I thought, Don’t be an idiot. …

After the Cold War, Susan Sontag famously said that the National Review was more reliable than the Nation on the Soviet Union. This time around the left must show that it is more reliable than the Weekly Standard and the New Republic about “the war on terror”. We are winning this ideological battle because we have not overstated the threat, and they have, and we do not ignore the fact that the Palestinian situation is a red flag across the Muslim world. Yet we can’t forget: there are forces of darkness out there.

The sewer rats in his comments section are none too pleased about Weiss’s revelation:

We liked you better when you blamed everything on the Jews.

Posted by: Realist | December 28, 2007 at 07:57 AM

For his cheerleading of those other blamers of the Jews, Weiss made a Top Ten Moonbats of 2007 list:

Weiss has become an “Israel Lobby” fundamentalist. In his eyes, to question the scholarship of Walt and Mearsheimer is to question truth. Every page of their book is gospel. Any negative review of their work is automatically dismissed as a “smear,” and every day that passes without an expose of the “Israel Lobby” on “60 Minutes” or the cover of Time magazine is further evidence of Jewish control over the media.

This mild critique doesn’t do Weiss justice. He has to be read to be believed. I’ll give you all the pleasure of finding out for yourselves, but I won’t provide another link.

As much as I hate polls, I love commonsense observations—like this one from Al Sharpton [e.a.]:

Until recently, Sharpton’s relationship with Obama has been more aloof. Sharpton has also been underwhelmed by Obama’s campaign. “He never came off as a fighter,” he says, a strategy that he thinks has hurt Obama with a key demographic: black women. “Black women like a fighter. Even if you’re fighting a fight that is not my fight, I will believe that you might fight my fight. And to come off as ‘I’m all right with everybody’ doesn’t give people who want a fight a comfort level. I want somebody who’s at least a little upset with somebody, because I’m mad as hell. If you’re not mad, how do I get passionate about you?”

Sharpton thinks Obama should take more cues from his wife, Michelle. He still thinks about the time he bumped into her at a recent Chicago fund-raiser. He claims the conversation went like this.

“How you doing, Mrs. Obama?”

She’s tall, and looked down at him. “I’d do a lot better if we had your endorsement.”

Sharpton tried to play dumb. “What do you mean?”

“We need your endorsement. I’m just telling you straight out: We need your endorsement. What are you going to do?”

Sharpton didn’t know what to say. “I’m like, ‘Uh, well, duh.’ I mean, she was like a sister back in Brownsville, where I grew up!”

It’s not the observation that Sharpton makes that I find particularly interesting (though I do find it interesting—and I think it’s true for white women as much as for black women: in times of trouble, of course we want someone who is going to fight for us). I find it interesting that, while debates rage on about race and IQ and whether you can even mention them in the same breath, Sharpton feels free to throw around general, unquantifiable observations about black women, knowing he’ll never be challenged to back them up with statistics and secure in the knowledge, as this same piece in New York magazine indicates, that for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, he da man.

“Here, check this out,” he says, resting the cigar with a thud. He fishes in his pants pocket, produces a cell phone, pushes a few buttons, and passes it over for a listen.

The voice sounds familiar. “Hey, Al, this is Hillary Clinton, and…” Is it really her? Yep. …

He wants the phone back. “Here,” he says, making sure to save the message. “Now, check this out.”

Another voice. “Al, this is Barack Obama…” Obama! Seriously? The senator also wants advice about the debate at Howard.

update: I note that Eric Trager is rooting around to find out what the sudden turn of events running up to Annapolis means.***

As I write, at

9:45 AM ET, November 26, 2007

this story is nowhere to be found on Memeorandum, and it’s buried on p. A 11 of the dead-tree NYT, but it’s could signal a turn of fortune in the Middle East, too.

It looks like Condi Rice has managed to land not only Saudi Arabia but now also Syria for the heretofore mirage-like conference at Annapolis:

The Annapolis meeting, a major initiative pressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will begin negotiations on a peace treaty to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while simultaneously committing Israel and the Palestinians to carry out long-postponed obligations contained in the first stage of the 2003 peace plan known as the road map.

The presence of major Arab countries, now including Syria, is meant to provide Arab sanction and support for the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to make the concessions required for peace.

The NYT’s Steven Erlanger doesn’t allude to the implications, but this is huge. This means that Syria is allowing itself to be “peeled away” from Iran, leaving Hamas minus one sponsor.

The Israeli spokesman clarify what’s at stake here:

Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, said, “The Saudi and Syrian presence is very important and is an American success.” While the Syrians are not sending the foreign minister — a diplomatic distinction that has meaning — Ms. Eisin said that from Israel’s point of view, the rank of the representative was much less important than the Syrian presence.

“Hamas is appalled, which is why we have reason to be satisfied,” Ms. Eisin said.

About the results of the meeting, Ms. Eisin said, “We’re hopeful but not optimistic.”

Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, noted that Syria had agreed to cancel a planned “anti-Annapolis summit” meeting and attend instead. “If the idea of the meeting is Arab-Israeli dialogue, Syria matters,” he said. “It would be even more positive if this were an indication of a change in Syria’s orientation” — away from Iran and toward the Saudi- and Egyptian-led Sunni Arab consensus.

There is a steaming pile of bullshit about Rice’s supremely important role in this accompanying article in the NYT,  but even if you can believe only a tenth of what’s in the piece, there’s no question but that this is a coup.

I hate to sound optimistic, but I begin to see on the horizon a loose but fully international alliance that includes Muslims, Christians, and Jews—and it so happens that it’s a disruption of the so-called “Shia arc.”

At the very least, it seems as if a page is being turned.

————-
*** Trager writes:

Over the past few weeks, consensus has continually held that little should be expected from the Annapolis conference, which opens tomorrow. Op-ed after op-ed and poll after poll have dictated that Israeli and Palestinian leaders are too weak, if not too far apart in their positions, for any meaningful progress towards peace to take place.

Yet it’s hard to reconcile the notion that Annapolis is little more than an impressive photo op with the serious diplomatic capital that Arab states have invested in it. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia announced that it would send Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, marking the first time that the Saudis are participating in talks with Israelis present. Representatives of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen will also participate. Indeed, the Annapolis conference has achieved such profound legitimacy that Syria—believing that it risked regional isolation by not attending—announced that it would send its deputy foreign minister.

According to TAPPED, Nancy Pelosi held an intimate breakfast this morning with some friendly journalists. Among the other topics mentioned was immigration. Pelosi outlined her strategy regarding this “new” hot-potato that is dividing her party.

Her solution? To get the correct-sounding talking points:

Calling herself a “devout Catholic,” the Speaker said she’s been talking to members of the clergy about modeling from the pulpit respectful ways of speaking about immigrants.

[e.a.]

Ya know, voters aren’t like kindergarteners or religious congregations. They don’t want moral instruction about respect—or moral instruction about anything else—from their political representatives. I thought that’s what the antipathy of us secularists toward the religious right was all about: we don’t want moral instruction from anyone’s God or the self-proclaimed representative of anyone’s God. Correct?

Well, I don’t know anyone who’s yearning for a religious-themed left. So why is Pelosi looking to the Catholic Church for “modeling” a message for Democrats on immigration?

If you’re interested in understanding more about the Democrats’ looming problems with immigration, you can read Fred Siegel in Contentions:

Clinton’s definitive “no” [at last night's debate on driver's licences for illegal immigrants] took her partly off the general election hook. But with nearly 80 percent of voters opposing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, her party, as represented by Obama and Bill Richardson, is still in the hot seat on this issue. Led by liberal Democrats, seventeen states have opposed a national standard for driver’s licenses. (In eight of these states, licenses are already being issued to undocumented workers.) This has led Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac Poll to analogize that, like affirmative action for racial minorities—an issue that badly damaged the Democrats in the 1970’s and 1980’s—today’s immigration issue has split the party’s working class supporters from its liberal activists. And as with affirmative action, liberal activists are quick to deride their opponents as racists.

Brown is right about the broad similarities. But there are also significant differences. Affirmative action and racial quotas pitted middle- and lower-middle-class white male Democrats against African-Americans and liberal activists. But on immigration, the remaining white working-class Democrats are aligned with most African-American voters, who are often those most directly in competition with low cost illegal immigrant labor.

No amount of “modeling” respectful ways of speaking about immigration is going to allay the fears of working-class Democrats, or to bring together the two disparate strands of the Democratic party—the elites vs. the hoi polloi. The fight is on. It cannot be papered over.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy was in town this week. Did you hear? No? Me neither.

However, I did hear a few weeks ago that Sarkozy had walked out on a 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl in the first few minutes of taping. At the HuffPo, they thought his rudeness was stunning.

Watch French President Sarkozy walk out of a 60 Minutes interview he called “stupid” and a “big mistake.”

Steve Boriss has an altogether different view:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked-out of an interview with 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl when she asked about his troubled marriage. His last words were “If I had to say something about Cécilia, I would certainly not do so here.” Well, that certainly seems reasonable. So the question that must be asked is not why Sarkozy would act the way he did, but why a seasoned American reporter like CBS’ Stahl felt she could act the way she did, by asking such a personal, inappropriate, and disrespectful question.

I dunno. While I was in Europe earlier this fall, I watched the BBC when I had access to satellite TV. Its anchors ask very rude questions, and they are pitbulls—which I’ve complained about enough in the past. But I was reminded that this is also useful and necessary behavior when those same anchors are confronting apologists for, say, genocide in Darfur—and the anchors on the BBC World Service routinely do confront representatives of the world’s “bad actors” on television.

Their “evenhanded” approach to Israel (which is expressed in constant strong disapproval) buys them permission to criticize “other” bad actors, too, see? That kind of relativism is how we achieve “balance” on the scales of political correctness, which, in the early 21st century, seems to have replaced the political principle of human dignity as the thing we civilized Westerners are most committed to. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Rudeness goes with the territory of journalism, not to mention the territory of American democracy and French republicanism. No one forced Sarkozy to seek power and fame and fortune, or a place on the world stage. And he is not made of glass.

Of course the 60 Minutes incident upset the applecart for him, PR-wise. It was obviously meant to be the beginning of a rollout, leading up to Sarkozy’s visit with his buddy Bush and his speech to Congress. Instead, he managed to alienate the MSM so badly that TV coverage was scant. For those of you who blinked and missed it, here’s CNN’s coverage.

By contrast, here’s how the UK’s Guardian narrated the event:

Sarkozy gets rapturous welcome as he mends relations with US

The long years of animosity between the US and France formally ended just after 11am yesterday when the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, entered the House of Representatives to applause and yelps of approval. Congressmen gave him a standing ovation and queued to shake his hand.

What accounted for the “rapturous” welcome? Sarkozy’s rousing image of America the Good:

On behalf of my generation, which did not experience war but knows how much it owes to their courage and their sacrifice; on behalf of our children, who must never forget; to all the veterans who are here today and, notably the seven I had the honor to decorate yesterday evening, one of whom, Senator Inouye, belongs to your Congress, I want to express the deep, sincere gratitude of the French people. I want to tell you that whenever an American soldier falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France. I think of them and I am sad, as one is sad to lose a member of one’s family.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The men and women of my generation remember the Marshall Plan that allowed their fathers to rebuild a devastated Europe. They remember the Cold War, during which America again stood as the bulwark of the Free World against the threat of new tyranny.

I remember the Berlin crisis and Kennedy who unhesitatingly risked engaging the United States in the most destructive of wars so that Europe could preserve the freedom for which the American people had already sacrificed so much. No one has the right to forget. Forgetting, for a person of my generation, would be tantamount to self-denial.

But my generation did not love America only because she had defended freedom. We also loved her because for us, she embodied what was most audacious about the human adventure; for us, she embodied the spirit of conquest. We loved America because for us, America was a new frontier that was continuously pushed back—a constantly renewed challenge to the inventiveness of the human spirit.

My generation shared all the American dreams. Our imaginations were fueled by the winning of the West and Hollywood. By Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington, Hemingway. By John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth. And by Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, fulfilling mankind’s oldest dream.

What was so extraordinary for us was that through her literature, her cinema and her music, America always seemed to emerge from adversity even greater and stronger; that instead of causing America to doubt herself, such ordeals only strengthened her belief in her values.

What makes America strong is the strength of this ideal that is shared by all Americans and by all those who love her because they love freedom.

America’s strength is not only a material strength, it is first and foremost a spiritual and moral strength. No one expressed this better than a black pastor who asked just one thing of America: that she be true to the ideal in whose name he—the grandson of a slave—felt so deeply American. His name was Martin Luther King. He made America a universal role model.

The world still remembers his words—words of love, dignity and justice. America heard those words and America changed. And the men and women who had doubted America because they no longer recognized her began loving her again.

Fundamentally, what are those who love America asking of her, if not to remain forever true to her founding values? [e.a.]

Indeed. Politicians should take note of Sarkozy’s tone and vision. The one who can adapt it for today’s audience will capture the White House. That’s my bold prediction.

Also, Hollywood, which is still busy presenting an evil and redemption-free image of America to movie audiences—and paying the price—should pay attention.

Here’s the background to the Norman Mailer–Norman Podhoretz “feud” that Andrew Sullivan so generously alluded to and so stingily failed to provide the context for. (Every story has at least two sides.):

In taking a critical stand on the Berkely [Free Speech Movement] uprising, we did not deny the reality of the grievances against the university that had presumably caused the trouble. Nor did we deny the need for changes in the way Berkeley, and the American educational system in general, operated. That would have been the conservative or right-wing position. What we did deny was that the situation had become so bad that nothing less than revolution could possibly do any good. We thought that Berkeley was a fundamentally sound institution that should and could be improved without resort to “tactics of force and disruption” and the rhetorical violence that always seemed to accompany tactics of that kind. …

[We were served notice] that to deviate from [the Movement party line], then, even gently, was at a minimum to risk abuse and to open oneself up to the most insulting interpretation of one’s motives.

This too was reminiscent of the experience of our intellectual elders in the thirties….
In the sixties things were a bit different, but what s ome were later to think of as the “terror” also came into play then. The word “terror,” like everything else about the sixties, was overheated. No one was arrested or imprisoned or executed; no one ws even fired from a job. … The sanctions of this particular reign of “terror” were much milder: one’s reputation was besmirched, with unrestrained viciousness in conversation and, when the occasion arose, by means of innuendo in print. People were written off with the stroke of an epithet—”fink” or “racist” or “fascist” as the case may be—and anyone so written off would have difficulty getting a fair hearing for anything he might have to say. Conversely, anyone who went against the Movement party line soon discovered the likely penalty was dismissal from the field of discussion.

Seeing others ruthlessly dismissed in this way was enough to prevent most people from voicing serious criticisms of the radical line, and—such is the nature of intellectual cowardice—it was enough in some instances to prevent them even from allowing themselves to entertain critical thoughts. The “terror,” in other words, could at its most effective penetrate into the privacy of a person’s mind. But even at its least effective, it served to set a very stringent limit on criticism of the radical line on any given issue or at any given moment. A certain area of permissible discussion and disagreement was always staked out, but it was hard to know exactly where the boundaries were; one was always in danger of letting a remark slip across the border and unleashing the “terror” on one’s head. …

They were afraid of what might be said about them … and not only to their faces but behind their backs when they would be unable to defend themselves and when, as they knew all too well from their own reluctance to defend others against such insulting charges, there would be no one else to stand up for them either. …

Of course one could recant and be forgiven; or alternatively one could simply speak one’s mind and let the “terror” do its worst. Yet whatever one chose to do, the problem remained. …

[In 1968] the new radicalism was riding so high that it was in no mood for anything but allegiance, praise, and flattery. This had been enough, and more than enough, to frighten William Phillips. but what was more surprising, and more significant, it was even enough to intimidate Norman Mailer, whom Phillips commissioned to write the piece for Partisan Review about Making It.

The author of these words is Norman Podhoretz. This is from his book Breaking Ranks (1979).

I would add two things:

One: Norman Mailer has said (I can’t find the reference, but I will) that judging a man by his politics is like looking at him from the perspective of his asshole. He and Podhoretz were friends, and that Mailer tried to keep up the friendship after this, Podhoretz reports. Under the circumstances, the friendship withered.

Two: Podhoretz went on to have a magnificent career, and a profound impact on two generations of thoughtful, politically engaged Americans—as did Norman Mailer.

No, not him

LAWRENCE OLIVIER AS ARCHIE RICE, LONDON, 1957, photo by Snowden

I mean him:

Really, it’s too delicious. First, in May 2006, Andrew Sullivan introduces America to the crisis of “Christianism”:

 So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

 (though I note that the concept was introduced a year and a half earlier, in November 2004, on the Daily Kos)

However, there is another movement in this nation, which I refer to as Christianism.  The term is dervied from “Islamist” — or those people who claimed to be followers of Islam, but are nothing more than terrorists who do not follow the principles of Islam.  There are those “Christians” who do not seem to be following the principles of Christianity — thus the term “Christianist”.

Then today, having hysterically hyped a bogus concept for more than a year, Sullivan, finding himself uncomfortably off-message, asks: “Is Christianism Peaking?” His lede is a closeup of this dude,

the Big Bad Wolf who stared down the “Christianists” who got Sullivan’s knickers in a twist.

I won’t bother to copy and paste anything from Sullivan’s furious backpedaling. Just five days ago, he was claiming that Christianists were taking over the military and preying on innocent Orthodox Jewish kidney-stone sufferers—the horror! the horror! (I made fun of him here.)

He is left to bleat incoherently about his politics, religion, and moral code—not that I’m paying attention. I’m fascinated by the fact that he abandoned his year-long anti-Christianist crusade just like that. Stopped on a dime.

Yglesias slapped him about it. But it looks like the very influential Frank Rich is the one who made him back off.

The new bosses are not quite like the old bosses, eh?

Via ETP, hard evidence that politics is just that—the greatest show on earth. And proof that at a certain level inside the Beltway, after dark, all of those harsh words rendered in print and harsher judgments barked into microphones are left behind. Because at that level they’re civilized people, you see. (Eric Alterman thinks otherwise—he thinks New York is more forgiving after dark than Washington—as he mentions in this fascinating episode of bloggingheads.tv, about which more another time.)

The photo below, featuring Paul Wolfowitz and Arianna Huffington, *** was taken this past Saturday night at a reception before the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. To read the press last week and over the weekend, you’d think that Paul Wolfowitz is fighting for his very life as the long knives at the World Bank slash him and his girlfriend.

[[ Indeed, he may not survive this attempted takedown. I don't feel particularly sorry for him. I am spitting mad on behalf of his girlfriend, however. And if any case ever cried out for attention from feminists, this is it: an accomplished woman is forced to leave her job, where she's up for a promotion, because her boyfriend, who has nothing at all to do with her work, is appointed the head of the institution she works for. But you would have to put aside other political considerations ("Are you now or have you ever been a Neocon?"---addresssed by Garance Franke-Ruta in that same episode of bloggingheads.tv) in order to come to that conclusion, and I don't see too many people other than sturdy Christopher Hitchens, that noted woman-hater, making this obvious case and standing up yet again for intellectual honesty and a measure of justice. ]]

But back to my point. Here Paul Wolfowitz is smiling warmly at Arianna Huffington, who wrote a blog post just last week titled “Are Gonzales and Wolfowitz the Next to Swim with the Fishes?”

Arianna with Paul Wolfowitz and AOL founder James Kinsey

Left or right, progressive or conservative, Republican or Democrat, hawk or dove—these folks are all the same. Moreover, they are (as is said about the rich) not like you and me. They’re insiders. Their game is about getting there and staying there.

Remember that the next time you feel their intimate presence and read their words via this great new democratic forum, the blogosphere. Not everyone here is created equal. They are not like you and me.
———-

*** She’s so tall! (Jane Fonda is no shrimp, but look at the height difference!)

HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington with actress, activist and radio host Jane Fonda

Bloggers for Edwards are causing a ruckus because their previously published words and opinions don’t exactly comport with Edwards’s messages and/or positions—or with the image that some of Edwards’s fans expect of him.

Ezra Klein, writing at TAPPED, thinks it’s unfair—to the bloggers.

And if it turns out that a possibly controversial public record will effectively bar you from political positions down the road, how many young people will avoid the wonderful, chaotic, educational world of the blogosphere because they don’t want to close off future options?

Well, not blogging is one option. Those bloggers could also pause, count to ten, and use the critical thinking skills (presumably) bestowed on them by their high-priced Ivy League educations before hitting “publish.”

He has won over uniikely people with his showbiz-style rallies and colorful banners and fiery charisma. That’s one possible reason for the incongruous image of a hot chick wearing (barely) a Hezbollah flag (Hezbollah is a sharia-loving Islamist party, something that doesn’t seem to have occurred to this young woman: that her future under Hezbollah will preclude showing off her dreads blond-streaked tresses and her skin).

The Big Pharaoh explains things a bit differently:

The political arena of Lebanon is known for the often bizzare alliances between the various political factions. One of the strangest alliances we’re witnessing these days is between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement, the powerful Christian political party led by General Michel Aoun,

In Lebanon people regard Allah to be above in the sky and their political (sect) leader on earth. If their sect leader said the sun will rise from the west, then you should expect his followers to agree. This is what happened in the case of the Aoun-Hezbollah alliance. Aoun, who was against Hezbollah when he was in Paris, is now saying Nasrallah is cute and cuddly. His Christian followers immediately answered with an amen.

The above led to the below picture. A Christian chick and follower of Aoun draped in the Hezbollah flag. That’s the definition of irony right: a low waist wearing Lebanese chick with a tattoo above her buttocks draped in a Hezbollah flag.

This is Lebanese politics people.

Oh.

Are we having fun yet?