Best-of clips, assembled by RWN.

A longer best-of clip, also called "The Whole Speech," at Hot Air.

Let us not also forget that Guiliani rocked, too. In fact, he rocked hard.

If you dummies had listened to me for fuckin' once we could have had Rudy/Sarah, but noooooo. You with your Fred and your Mitt and your Huck.

Yeah, you guys are a real bunch of astronomers, aren't you?

You fuckin' dummies. You straw-chewin' hicks.

Posted by: Ace at 01:29 AM | Comments (73)
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Powerline with the quotes:

The Associated Press, a solidly Democratic institution, can't deny that Sarah Palin socked it to the Dems tonight, as they headline: "Palin delivers star-turning performance at RNC." The AP begins: "Sarah Palin delivered." From there, they go on to do all they can to mitigate the basic point, describing Palin as "embattled," and a "novice" who "lacked the soaring oratory skills of Obama."

Which raises an interesting point: I really don't believe the Republicans are smart enough to pull this off, but how can it be bad that our Vice-Presidential candidate is constantly being compared to the Dems' Presidential candidate? More on this later.

The AP still holds out hope: "One speech does not a campaign make. ... Even as she spoke, airplanes in Alaska were unloading reporters and political operatives sent to pore through her personal and public life." It's interesting, isn't it? Where are the planeloads of "reporters and political operatives" poring through Barack Obama's "personal and public life?" Those poor newspapers and other media organizations have been strapped for resources for so long that they just haven't been able to look into Obama's career and associations. Now, thankfully, planeloads of reporters have become available. Maybe when they're done investigating Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend, do you think they will turn their attention to the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States?

That was just a rhetorical question, of course. After all, news organizations have to have priorities!

The AP continues:

A big test comes at the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate with her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden.

Fortunately, Biden is an idiot. Sarah Palin is pretty sure to disappoint the AP once again.

How did this happen? How was even the leftist AP left fumbling for talking points?

The media of course gets its talking points from the DNC. They get half of their stores from the DNC, and all of their analysis.

The media trusts the DNC. They like the DNC. The DNC are nice people who do all of their actual work for them, leaving them free to to snort coke and pursue their hobbies of functional alcoholism and sleeping with each other's spouses; why shouldn't they like the DNC?

So the DNC and the Obama camp told the media that Palin was stupid and a bumpkin and all of that and the media got ready to write the stories, and analyze the speech, as they had been previously instructed by the DNC and David Axelrod.

And then the speech happened.

And the media was baffled, befuddled, and bewildered -- the DNC and David Axelrod had given them the wrong script entirely! Even they could see that somehow their helpful friends in the DNC had badly erred.

But they had nothing to say, because the DNC and David Axelrod hadn't prepared them for "Plan B" (as the snide/sarcastic line is now being called).

So the media just sat there in stupefied silence wondering what it was they were supposed to say. And not having been well prepared, they could only manage to do the easiest thing possible, which is to say the purely obvious.

And the obvious, as it turns out, was that it was a hell of a speech, and that she hit a grand slam, and certainly seemed ready for high national office, at least, that is, by the criteria established by David Axelrod and the DNC (to wit, that one is ready for high office if one can deliver a hell of a speech).

So why did David Axelrod and the DNC let down their nice friends in the media and leave them with nothing to say?

They just didn't see it coming, either.

But they can see foreign threats coming. Apparently the Iranians and Russians are easier to read than a bumpkin beauty queen from Wasilla.

Yeah, you guys are real fuckin' scholars, eh?

Ya fuckin' dumb humps. Ya blithering ninnies.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 AM | Comments (25)
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The last thread got swallowed up in the Palin/Obama game and thus not a lot of serious analysis was offered. No more Obama/Palin game, at least not in this thread!

First reaction: Well, obviously, I loved it. A+.

Second reaction: This is a strange thing. McCain now has a Veep who is a far bigger crowd-draw than he is. It's a good situation for him -- no one will show up for a Biden speech. But McCain and Palin can split up and tour the country, and crowds will show up for McCain because he might be President and for Palin because she's, well, Palin.

As a bonus, Palin's appeal is somewhat different than McCain's. McCain can tour moderate-ish districts, while Palin gets them roaring in the heartlands. (Actually, I think Palin may be in high demand in those moderate-ish districts, too, but McCain can't put her everywhere at once. Unfortunately.)

Every day of the week there are going to be two key battleground states where the team is going to be drawing big crowds and free media coverage. Obama will only be able to manage one a day.

If you've been watching the coverage, you know the meme the Democrats are furiously pushing to the MSM (which, in turn, pushes it to the public, albeit less furiously) is that Palin was "shrill" and "sarcastic." She's a bitch and a potty-mouthed whore, they're trying to say, and you shouldn't like her. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 PM | Comments (108)
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Maddow is claiming in the transcript she has of the speech, words are spelled out phonetically.

She says that this transcript must have come from Palin's teleprompter, and thus proves she needs words sounded out for her.

This is incendiarily, spectacularly stupid. She's either someone who doesn't read much herself or or a nasty lying hack.

Transcripts typically contain phonetic spellings. This is because the person transcribing the text doesn't understand a word, and just puts down what it sounds like, with a "[ph]" designation after it to indicate the transcriber is just taking his best guess.

What Maddow was reading was not the script from the teleprompter, but a transcription tapped out quickly by a transcriber.

It is stunning that anyone in the media could not know this. I knew this before I, ahem, joined the media, because I'd read dozens of transcripts and had seen those "[ph]" notations over and over again.

Is Maddow too fucking stupid and too lacking in any kind of savvy or history of reading transcriptions to know this, or is she just a partisan liar put forth by the Obama campaign to spin the most absurd possible lie about Palin?

I demand answers.

Hmmm: Shill blows my mind and tells me I'm wrong, and that actually teleprompters usually spell out words phonetically. Which I have trouble comprehending, but if that's so, Maddow's still a liar for suggesting then there was something odd about a teleprompter script containing phonetic spellings.

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 PM | Comments (76)
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Give to the RNC Victory Fund. Because of public funding rules, direct McCain contributions are useless after tonight.

Hmmm... Benson says searching via this toolbar donates money to the GOP, rather than going to Google or whatever other search agent you use.

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:28 PM | Comments (10)
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Thankfully rather hypothetical.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (63)
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The MSM's and yours.

MSM Talking Point: Repeated endlessly, "Someone wrote her speech!"

Someone wrote Obambi's speech, too, Hoss. Didn't see you pointing that out then.

Britt Hume directly challenged Nina Eaton and Mort Kondracke on their repetition of this mantra.

OOOOH!!! Obama's statement says in the first paragraph she delivered the speech well, but it was written by George Bush's old speechwriter -- Gee, I wonder if that's why Mort and Nina and everyone at MSNBC were already repeating that line?

Ya think?

Hey, MSM: Your lines were written by Barack Obama's spokesman.

Am I lying?

BROKAW: Is explaining to Keith Olbermann what just ran over him.

"Well, as we've all been saying, or at least I've been saying, this is a very competent woman..."

Or words to that effect at the end. The point is Brokaw had to correct "we" to "I" as he realized that the people he's talking to have done nothing but belittle Palin since she was announced.

TNR: A "focus group" -- really just the guy sitting around with some moderate friends as well as liberal friends -- concludes Palin's speech was "alarmingly" strong.

Several moderate-Democrat friends of mine have been emailing--few if any would ever vote for McCain--but all agree that Palin was very strong. The more liberal among them are a little panicked.

I completely misjudged how negative she would be. Her lines about Obama were brutally cutting and possibly over the top in places. But she's a far better messenger than an angry white man.

That's Michael Crowley, who's an asshole, but I forget why.

Eh. What's it matter.

Thanks to Allah for that.

Another review: Marchand Chronicles:

Sarah Palin: Roland Martin

Barack Obama: Donut

Childless Bachelor Mark Shields... who just insulted Palin as a cruel mother for subjecting Bristol to the hate and slander that he personally woud visit on her, said that her line about the Presidency not being a journey of personal discovery "belittled" Obama.

And he meant that in a bad way.

Andi's Freak-Blog: Like a live-blog, except he's freaking over what just happened.

After pushing a grotesque gothic conspiracy theory of changeling babies and faked pregnancies all weekend, he actually has the fucking stones to commit these words to pixels:

"10.40 pm. We've just seen a picture of a seven year old cradling and stroking the hair of a Down Syndrome infant. This, apparently, is relevant to deciding who should be the next vice-president of the United States."

Thanks again to Allah.

Boy, back in the day, when Allah didn't have to be respectable, and when I could spend all day on Sullivan, I tells ya, man did we have a nice little high-low thing going on this goof...

Phreshone:

OBAMA = JOE THEISMAN'S LEG

PALIN = LAWRENCE TAYLOR

Posted by: Ace at 07:18 PM | Comments (1009)
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Check out all the pictures... very little interest in presidential candidates. Obsessive interest in a pregnant 17 year old.

I can't wait for the sonograms.

They did supply this picture, though:

Gee, what do you think they're trying to say? There's old and busted John McCain, clutching in pain from a fatal heart attack, and there's little inexperienced Sarah just wavin' and wavin' without a care in the world...

Thanks to AQ.

Posted by: Ace at 05:55 PM | Comments (23)
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Posted by: Ace at 04:33 PM | Comments (61)
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I wanted to be surprised, but I had to read them anyway, because I was worried it would be too fluffy.

From what I see -- I can't tell. What's here is a decent mix of "narrative" (bio) and, if not red meat, at least juicy rare meat.

Below the fold, the one line I will quote. Spoiler alert if you don't want to read it.

I have to quote it, because it's funny. And it's true.

Before that, I'm told this Ann Coulter column is very funny; and the useless drearily liberal Timothy Noah whines, possibly correctly, that the media's nasty full frontal attack on Palin has set her up to knock it out of the park.

I think he's deliberately raising expectations there, in hopes she'll fail to meet them and therefore "fail," but unless you're an in the bag unhinged Obama supporter, you're probably hoping for the plucky reformer to do well. And that will help her.

Some. Well-wishing only gets her so far. She's got to deliver.

But I think she will.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:11 PM | Comments (72)
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