Drill, Baby, Drill and the McCain Thievery Speech

On Wednesday night Sarah Palin gave her speech in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the Republican National Convention. She was proceeded by a vicious tongued Rudy Guiliani, who brought the art of mockery as substance to a whole new level. It was especially amusing, even disturbing, to see the crowd chanting "Drill, baby, drill" or some such nonsense, taking a complex policy issue down to the level of a teacher leading the children in a phonics exercise. (To do so as oil prices have come off their peak is even more telling, with light, sweet crude settling at $107.89 today). Sarah, presumably a Christian, and probably born again at that, had no problem reading the speech created for her, and one that continued with the inaccuracies and diversionary points dipped in a batter of military and small town rhetoric meant to resemble something like patriotism and toughness, but not.

Meanwhile the Dow dropped 345 points for the type of reasons that should have the average voter thinking beyond whether the next vice president is a hockey mom, or good with the gun, or able to churn out children like pop tarts.  The Dow dropped as new applications for unemployment rose (AP) and retail numbers reflected a sluggish economy, and a gun and a highly productive birth canal won't fix those problems.

Of course everyone has been watching Palin and McCain, and the two, the team, have been focused on 1) distorting facts about Obama riducluing 2) playing up issues of family and military experience and 3) taking a rather un-Republican dip into identity politics, using sexism to defend Palin from close analysis, and using carefully coded racial appeals to tap into the subconscious of those so inclined. 

McCain has already fundamentally miscalculated America's greatest threat, naming terrorism as his supreme focus. But it is a battle that can never come to an end when you are of the opinion that there are no underlying factors that cause terrorism to begin with. Further it is a battle that cannot be fought and won when the house in which you live is tilting in economic collapse.


Will people drill down, and perhaps go here (for Obama) and here (for Palin), as a start, to compare what each person has really done?  Or will we continue to ignore the details while plastered to the trivia, to a level where we can dismiss education, community service, and legal study as noble and valuable pursuits.


(As I write this, and while likely voting for Obama, McCain is giving his speech, elements of which are actually quite good and serious sounding, unlike most of his campaigning. He just did a whole riff on change, and that every area of society needs to catch up to the modern global economy.   However I can't give him points for theme thievery, talking out of two sides of his mouth (sounding kind here, while vilifying elsewhere), and the repeated references to his past military suffering. He has given a speech that his past and future campaigning cannot live up to).