Damn. What a great speech. It was an outstanding rhetorical performance. Never mind the facts of her own career...lies and embellishments go a long way. They never stopped Nixon, after all, and he gave some of the most effective speeches of the mid-twentieth century.
It also struck me that once you strip away the happy-goofy condescension and sarcasm, it was a pretty good Democratic speech.
Sarah Palin's main claim to fame, as she presented it in her speech last night? Why, she just went in there and reformed an entrenched establishment! If you didn't know that she was talking about her erstwhile patron, Ted Stevens, and his patronage network, you'd think you were listening to Nixon or Agnew rage against Harvard swells. But no! She took down the Alaska GOP. She put Republican Governor Frank Murkowsky's jet on eBay! What a corrupt nogoodnik that guy was. Good thing she got rid of him! Down with the Bridge to Nowhere! Down with the Republican Establishment! Up with people! Hooray!
Policy, you ask? Why, by gosh, she just went ahead and raised taxes on those big bad oil corporations and ended their tyranny over the people of the state of Alaska! Not only that she gave an even greater share of their profits to the citizens of Alaska! Now, brags like that coming from Obama would surely be denounced as state socialism. But he's not a Hockey-Mom!! Down with corporate tyranny! Let the people share in the profits of industry! Hooray!!
And while we're at, let's make sure we take good care of special needs kids. Oh yes! And getting knocked up before marriage is no crime. Oooh no! Those poor young teenage girls who find themselves in this difficult spot, why, they need our support now more than ever! Doncha know. Hooray!!
Just think, finally, of all the red-meat Republican policies she did not mention! Abstinence-only? Anti-contraception? Overturning Roe? Endless war in Iraq? Book burning? Deportation camps for illegal immigrants? Overseas export of American jobs? Deficits unprecedented in the annals of state finance? More tax breaks for the ultra-rich? Hardly even a peep, I tell ya. Does it mean that all these are off the agenda now, too?
Three cheers for the Palin agenda! Vote for Obama in 2008!