Sunday, with a cloudy aspect and a bit of rain on the horizon. Better get the punditry in before we get wet.
Barack Obama: Rebuilding something better. And excerpts from the Ghana speech, w/live blog.
Andrew Alexander (WaPo Ombudsman):
The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.
Frank Rich:
In the aftermath of her decision to drop out and cash in, Palin’s standing in the G.O.P. actually rose in the USA Today/Gallup poll. No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the "base" of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.
Indeed. But it's small. And it can't win elections. And it should not be pandered to by the press any more, as if it's still in power.
Maureen Dowd:
PALIN: @SenJohnMcCain — How the heck are ya, ya big hero?? Long time no hear, pardner. Y did u defriend me on Facebook?
MCCAIN: @AKGovSarahPalin — I needed room for Kissinger
Andrew Sullivan:
Writing about Sarah Palin always presents a quandary. Does one operate under the usual assumption that this is a rational figure, a serious politician, a rising Republican star . . . or do you acknowledge the copious evidence that she cannot tell the truth, has delusions of grandeur, has no policy record to speak of and quit her job as Alaska governor halfway through her first term because she is, in her own explanation, "not a quitter"? I think that you have to proceed under the assumption that this is a joke of a candidate and a symptom of a political party in the middle of a mental breakdown...
But trying to makes sense of Sarah Palin is a fool’s errand. I spent a lot of time last year trying to figure out how her bizarre pregnancy story could make any sense at all — it doesn’t — and came up with nothing but a suspicion that large parts of it were made up. If you present the facts to Palin spokespeople, they seem offended and regard you as some liberal hater. But the facts reveal she lies all the time about almost everything and so is probably improvising about her reasons for resigning.
Peggy Noonan: You go, Andrew!
"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.
"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
David Broder: Achieving health reform will be difficult and it will cost money, so Congress is nervous. Breaking.
George Will:
Before he became an economic adviser in the Obama White House, where wit can be dangerous, Larry Summers said: Liberals oppose a VAT because it is regressive and conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine, but a VAT might come when liberals realize it is a money machine and conservatives realize it is regressive.
Greg Dworkin:
Teens and young adults are disproportionately affected by this H1N1 flu, and adults much less so. That means that the recommendations for flu vaccine will change this fall for pandemic vaccine, separate from the usual drive to vaccinate the over 65’s (if you were born before 1957, you likely have some cross-protection from a previous version of this virus.) $350 million in extra funds for this shovel-ready project have just been made available to cash-starved states ($30 million to California alone.) Expect to hear more, but the possibility of a worsening picture in early fall, with more school closures and, alas, more deaths and illness in a younger cohort, is very real. Interestingly, the on line reaction was: how can we help get the message out?