Jack Kelly Sunday

I think I figured it out. Here's what the republicans do. They simply state, over and over again and with all the confidence in the world, stuff they want just enough voters to believe. They're hoping to have just enough, say, 50.7%, to win the next election.

And then they'll turn around and claim it as a mandate.

Doesn't matter that what they said isn't always 100% true. Or 100% complete.

That's what Jack Kelly's been doing with Sarah Palin. Note this week's column.

It's filled with fact-free sentences that sound like they have actual facts in them. Case in point:

Journalists last week cast aside the mask of objectivity to reveal they are so deeply in the tank for Mr. Obama most have grown gills. For six days, Sarah Palin and her family were subjected to a relentless barrage of innuendo. Journalists were trying to "define" her before she had an opportunity to introduce herself to the people in the lower 48. She was portrayed as an ignorant redneck from a hick town who should be home caring for her children instead of running for high public office.

Really. Who? Who said she should be home caring for her children instead of running for high public office? Which journalist portrayed her as an ignorant redneck? Until there's a quotation to support this allegation there's no way (and I suspect this is Jack's plan) to check if it's true. Who's barraging us with innuendo now, Jack?

Then there's this confusing pair of sentences:

Then Sarah Palin got her opportunity to speak, and her enemies learned firsthand why her nickname is "Sarah Barracuda."

Dismiss if you will the rapturous response to Ms. Palin's speech by the delegates in the convention hall and the posters on conservative blogs. The best testament to its power was the lame response of the Obama campaign. They noted she had the help of a speechwriter (the very talented Matt Scully) in preparing her remarks. Well, duh. Every major political figure has speechwriters. Sarah Palin works fine without a script. It's Barack Obama who ums and ahs without a teleprompter.

Actually, that's not exactly what the Obama campaign said. They said the speech was written by Bush's former speechwriter. Here's the response:

The speech that Governor Palin gave was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice, but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change.

Jack would like to have us think that the speech Governor Palin gave was her own work and that she only got some "help" "preparing" it with it from a speechwriter. The "well duh"part is intended to blunt the point as being obvious. Turns out, though that the speech was written by McCain's speechwriters. In fact it was written before they knew Palin would be picked for VP. From the Washington Post:

There was a flutter of attention when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told a group of Post reporters and editors yesterday that his team was having to rework the vice presidential acceptance speech because the original draft, prepared before Gov. Sarah Palin was chosen, was too "masculine." While we all wondered to ourselves what might make a speech masculine or feminine, no one batted an eye at the underlying revelation: that the campaign was writing the nominee's speech before knowing who the nominee would be.

So what was the point of Jack's barb? I'm not sure.

Jack continues spinning:

First, this race is no longer between a candidate who advocates change and the status quo, as Democrats would like to frame it. It's between two different visions of change, and between a ticket that's actually delivered reform, and a ticket that just talks about it. The argument that John McCain represents a third term for George W. Bush was strained to start with. It's ludicrous now.

Second, the Republican base is more fired up, and the party more united than it's been since Ronald Reagan ran for his second term. Conservatives see in Sarah Palin Ronald Reagan in a dress, the brains and backbone of Margaret Thatcher in a younger, prettier package. The Grand Old Party has a bright new face.

Since we're quoting The New Republic, here, I'll let Howard Wolfson take on Jack's first paragraph. He wrote it the day John McCain gave his acceptance speech:

McCain needs to refute this charge [that McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time] tonight by making his differences with GOP orthodoxy clear to the American people. This will not be easy. First, the crowd of GOP loyalists doesn't want to hear it. These are Bush partisans who believe that their man has been a good president, and many remain deeply suspicious of McCain. Will McCain challenge his base?

Secondly, McCain's case on the merits is weak. During the Bush Presidency, McCain has moved steadily rightward, repudiating his own positions on issues like taxes and abortion. And he wears his support for the war in Iraq--a war the public associates with Bush--like an albatross around his neck.

Hardly ludicrous, Jack.

For ludicrous, I'd have to go with "Palin is Ronald Reagan in a dress" or "Palin as a 'younger prettier' Margaret Thatcher." Apart from the obvious sexism of both, the facts (remember those?) simply do not compare. Margaret Thatcher was first elected to national office in 1959, sixteen years before becoming leader of her party and nineteen years before becoming Prime Minister.

Nineteen years ago, Sarah Palin (though younger and prettier) was still three years away from joining the Wasilla City Council.

To compare one to the other is just, well, ludicrous.

Jack, when will you write about Sarah Palin's abuse of power? Her flip-flop on the "bridge to nowhere"? Her accepting a federal earmark that John McCain criticized? How about how she believes that the War In Iraq is a "task from God" or how her pastor believes that George Bush's critics would be banished to hell?

Nope - all we got was how Sarah Palin is "Ronald Reagan in a dress."

Hekuva job, Jackie.