Governor Sarah Palin tolerates us. Pardon us if we don't return the favor.

Our founding fathers knew what the word tolerant meant.  Below a quote from Revolutionary Spirits by Gary Kowalski, pg. 82:

On religious freedom, George Washington said:

"To the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, he offered assurances that the government of the United States 'gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,' ...  Significantly, Washington added, that 'it is now no more that toleration is spoken of,' as if religious minorities were merely vexations to be endured by members of a more predominant faith...."

I'm sure there are other groups that Palin tolerates as vexations to be endured.

 She is dangerous. 

I had a conservative law professor who used to say to me about politics when I argued with him in frustration about the conservative frame of the say-nothing Republicans, "Yes, Craig, but the pendulum alway swings." What he meant is that America goes through conservative periods, and liberal ones.

It is now swinging leftward. As a student of politics, I wasn't certain about this until the last 2 weeks. It's not just the economic issues. Or Iraq. It's not the cultural issues like our right to marry.

I believe this election is the 1980 election all over again. People aren't just deciding between Obama and McCain, they are deciding between which party and idealogy will dominate for the next couple of decades. Which paradigm will control debates.

This is why Palin and McCain can't gain any traction. Why the GOP is in disarray. Both the CBS and CNN flash polls count this as a Biden win despite Palin doing her best folksy impression. This is why McCain feels the need to pretend he's not a conservative. This is why Palin has to say she's okay with gays because no other answer is acceptable. The base line has shifted to us although we haven't changed much legally yet. The key word is yet. They know this.

Both Palin and McCain aren't doing anything wrong according to the GOP play book. The problem is that no one is buying that play book. They have passed jugement on it.

I am starting to lean toward this election being a blow out, and consequently, the scenario you describe not ever coming close to being anything beyond a good bit of improv.

I think this is a very important and pivotal moment, one that is being overlooked elsewhere. It used to be that bigots could be open about their intolerance of gays, especially in politics; now, a vice-presidential nominee has to hide the fact that she's a bigot, because to be open about it would be bad press.

Of course, I don't agree with the Obama/Biden position, either--I want full equal rights that are guaranteed to me in the Constitution. But while Obama/Biden may not support gay marriage, I suspect that they won't actively oppose its development across the country, whereas McCain/Palin would. Therefore, my vote becomes one for who I think will do the most to make this country stronger again, a valued member of the world community again, and fix the destructive errors of the past 8 years, and that choice is unquestionably Obama/Biden.

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Michael Jensen, you just about summed up Sarah Palin in one paragraph!

I actually wasn't surprised by David Gregory or Buchanan's comments. While Buchanan will frequently speak independently, there are plenty of times he's repeating the talking points and overlooking reality. I often end up feeling the same way about Michelle Bernard.

I used to watch David Gregory's show for Rachel Maddow (heck, I used to watch Tucker Carlson for her) and he wiped out any respect I had for him from his days of openly scoffing at McCellan's most obvious lies. His take on McCain gaffes was usually either 'Shouldn't we talk about what he meant?' or 'When you think about it, isn't he right?' (which was his take on Graham's "mental recession" comments).

The one thing I miss about watching Race to the White House was the frequent sight of Rachel Maddow bursting into laughter when someone would say something unbelievably stupid.

Thank you for bringing up Quayle. I was still in high school during the 1988 elections and he was the laughingstock of Bush Senior's campaign, but I don't believe and/or remember any of the Republican pundits/commentators saying things like "the bar has been lowered in expectations for the VP candidate, so he can't do any worse than expected".

She wants to be treated like "any other candidate", but everyone has "low expectations" of her.  So, that makes what she does and HOW she does it, better, because the bar hasn't been raised?!

As a woman, I'm absolutely offended with those remarks towards Palin and I'm not even a supporter of that woman. It saddens me that SHE'S not more offended that these folks (including people in her own party) have such low expectations of her.

Lately, Palin's been using "maverick" like a crutch, as if when she's stuck on a question her answer becomes "But didn't you notice our tagline? We're mavericks, that explains it all." I really wish we could see someone would bring up that most of the maverick reputation is based on saying things that weren't actually backed up with a matching vote in the Senate.

I so hope that's the case, too often I end up frustratedly agreeing with cynical assessments of voters' ability to make a choice based on positions and merits as opposed to the candidate's charisma and myths about claiming to have invented the internet. It would be nice to see voters seeing it as the marketing tagline it is.

This is no different than when Bush, the son of a man who had himself been president less than a decade earlier, who had an Ivy League education and spent decades hanging out with the Republican politcal elite managed to convince people that he was an "outsider" who wasn't a part of Washington's tangled politics.  Oh, and his running mate was a former Congressman and Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration.  All of this could be excused though, because he drives a pickup truck out at his recreation ranch.

Now McCain trots out the "maverick" thing.  Apparently he's a "maverick" because he's pushy and stubborn, which is also an accurate description of George W Bush.  We all saw where that one led to!

Palin, who was formerly a mayor in a remote Alaskan town of under 10,000 people and has done a brief stint as governor of a state that ranks only 47th in the U.S. in terms of population is also picking up the "maverick" thing.  How she's a "maverick" is unclear, since she hasn't had an opportunity to get engaged in national politics until now.

Hopefully though the thrill of one-word labels really is starting to wear off and people are thinking in terms of what these people really stand for, not what label they slap on themselves for branding purposes.

The Palin Bingo was wonderful.

http://www.palinbingo.com/