The New York Times editorial does a fine job of encapsulating the obvious weaknesses displayed by Vice President-elect Palin, in her ABC interview:
One of the many bizarre moments in the questioning by ABC News’s
Charles Gibson was when Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, excused her
lack of international experience by sneering that Americans don’t want
“somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that
Washington establishment where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet
heads of state.”
And this is a scripted interview with a sympathetic "journalist." Meanwhile, the real journalists are kept off limits, as happens in bastions of freedom like China. Will the duhs and ignos care — and do they outnumber us? A fascinating article in New York discusses "the bloody new political realities" of the McCain choice. And be sure to read Bob Herbert’s excellent column in the NYT, where he poses what may be the pivotal issue of the campaign:
While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday
night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten
the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is
not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.
How can Obama turn it around? A panel of political pros offers advice in The New Republic. In the same issue, David Jamieson explains how Palin was a star of the extreme right long before she was sprung on the nation.
Identity will be central to many voters: white identity. An article in the New York Review of Books argues that Obama will lose many votes simply because he is black, and vote tampering, reinforced by the courts, may make it difficult to recoup the losses with new voters.
While the Republicans talk glibly of war with Russia, the Economist takes a sober view of nervousness in Ukraine. Another important read: Will Egypt be the next Middle East hotspot?