Can't get enough of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin? The Anchorage Daily News has kindly posted a photo gallery here.

Earlier today, we took a look at Alan Colmes’ comments about Sarah Palin’s most recent pregnancy. Colmes wrote:

Rogers Cadenhead gives the timeline associated with the birth of her newest child. She had a speech in Dallas and, even after the water broke, continued with her activities, and then boarded a plane for home. She did consult by phone with her doctor. Still, a Sacramento, Calif., obstetrician who is active in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said when a pregnant woman's water breaks, she should go right to the hospital because of the risk of infection. That's true even if the amniotic fluid simply leaks out, said Dr. Laurie Gregg.

While Colmes’s sudden concern for fetuses so long as they reside inside the body of conservative politicians is touching, some people inferred from this idiotic post that Colmes was suggesting that Palin’s putative poor judgment caused her baby to be born with Down syndrome. After sending the initial post down the memory hole, Colmes addressed this concern:

“I in no way mean to suggest that her child’s Down Syndrome was in any way related to decisions she made. In fact I never mentioned Down Syndrome in the post. However, I apologize that my post was not more clear on that point. That is my fault, and I’ll take responsibility for not being more clear on that point. “

Why anyone would infer bad faith when someone is belittling a politician’s handling of her own pregnancy is beyond me. Nevertheless, good of Alan to sort of man up.

At the other end of the crackpot conspiracy theory spectrum, we have Andrew Sullivan who seemingly blogs for the sole purpose of posing the existential question, “How many times can one man kill his own reputation?” Sullivan promulgates a theory that categorically rejects the notion that Palin irresponsibly handled her pregnancy. Why? Because Palin was never pregnant in the first place! Instead, she pretended to be pregnant and give birth (while a sitting governor!) in order to cover for her daughter who was in fact having the baby out of wedlock.

In his original post on the matter, Andrew stated that the rumor is “buzzing across the Internets” before calling them “unfounded and unseemly.” A full 41 minutes later, however, he characteristically disagreed with himself, inveighing, “This baby was a centerpiece of the public case for Palin made by the Republicans. They made it an issue - and therefore it is legitimate to ask questions about it.”

Speaking of the unseemly, contra Andrew, the story has not been buzzing across the Internets. Prior to Andrew propagating the rumors, they remained confined to the fever swamps where even on the Huffington Post the commentary was generally of the “Good god this is stupid” variety. At the Daily Kos, many of the commenters to the rumor-mongering diary lamented its idiocy and ugliness.

Since I know you’re dying to know the kind of persuasive logic that the Kos diarist displayed that piqued Andrew Sullivan’s interest, I offer the following excerpt:

“The final point of interest is that Trig Palin has been diagnosed with Down's (sic) syndrome (aka trisomy 21). This is an interesting point, as chances of having offspring with Down's (sic) Syndrome (sic) increases (sic) from under 1% to 3% after a mother reaches the age of 40. However, 80% of the cases of Down's (sic) Syndrome (sic) are in mother's (sic) under the age of 35 , through sheer quantities of births in this age group.”

Someone better tell Alan Colmes – the Kos Kid has him dead to rights.

Both Andrew Sullivan and Alan Colmes did the exact same thing – they disseminated attacks so vile and idiotic they would never dare put their own names behind them. They used their platforms, platforms that lunatics who come up with such crackpottery typically lack, to get the attacks much more attention than they originally would have received.

Colmes and Sullivan did the exact same thing in another regard. Both men, in eagerly publicizing crackpot theories, showed the boundless desperation and ugliness that Sarah Palin will face. If ever there were examples of “kitchen sink” political tactics, the blogging efforts today of Sullivan and Colmes provide them.

And both men have provided early returns on our question, “How low will the left go?”

(1) Gets Bush out of St. Paul, where he would have given a speech that the media and the Democrats would have pounced on, and puts him in the eye of the storm, doing the nation’s business, where he will be welcomed and greeted by friendly Republican governors.

(2) Puts the spotlight on those friendly Republican governors--Haley Barbour, Charlie Crist, and most of all, Bobby Jindal, (the male Sarah Palin)--who will do their jobs competently, in contrast with the mess made three years ago by the Democratic governor of Louisiana, whose performance even at the time was compared unfavorably to that of Barbour and Jeb Bush, then Florida’s governor.

(3) Puts the spotlight especially upon Jindal, a huge favorite of and rising star in the Republican party, who has the chance now to prove himself under pressure on a truly huge stage.

(4) Cuts short the hours and hours of media chatter, which would doubtless have focused on a) how tarnished the ‘Republican brand’ is in this season; b) the immensely high bar set by Barack Obama, and c) the immensely strong current the party is swimming against.

(5) Cuts short the exposure given the ‘Republican brand’ by cutting short coverage of more conventional (and boring) Republican figures and boilerplate, and focusing largely on the three starring figures--Jindal, McCain, and Sarah Palin (the pale Bobby Jindal)--who are diverse, unorthodox, have cross-over potential, and are decidedly outside of the box.

(6) Eliminates the danger of a direct comparison between the oratorical talents of McCain and Obama, as a conventional acceptance speech will be no longer possible, and anything McCain says in this context will have its own innate power.

(7) Takes McCain from a setting in which he’s uncomfortable (partisan leader of a partisan army) to one--national leader rallying a country in crisis--which suits him much better.

(8) Takes the convention from the traditional role of being an orgy of enemy-bashing to one of national service and charity.

(9) Gives fools like former DNC chairman Don Fowler a chance to wholly embarrass themselves by chortling over the inconveniences he imagined the storm would inflict on the Republican party. Watch what you wish for, my friend.

"As for the core principles," writes Andrew Ferguson of the 2008 GOP platform, "they’re the same ones you’ll remember from back when the Washington Republicans were violating them: less regulation, smaller government, an end to bureaucratic 'social engineering.'

"But the urge to stick their fingers into other people’s business is too much for even Republicans to resist, as the Bush years have shown. The draft platform condemns the current tax code for its endless complications, for example, and then proposes several ways to make it more complicated: a tax-free Lost Earnings Buffer Account and a Farm Savings Account, more elaborate tax-free accounts for education and medical expenses, credits for people who don’t get health insurance at work and enough alternative-fuel tax incentives to make T. Boone Pickens hop up and down in anticipation."

Read the whole thing, as they say.

The New York Times interviews Ian Bowman-Henderson, a 19-year-old Obamaphile who traveled from Cincinnati to Denver to participate in the Democratic convention. Bowman-Henderson was not entirely happy with what he saw. He and other young participants told the Times that "the convention process had left them marginalized as more centrist views on issues like offshore drilling took hold."

What on earth is he talking about? Does Obama's opposition to drilling not go far enough for Bowman-Henderson? Clearly Obama's position on drilling isn't "centrist." It isn't even "liberal." Plenty of liberals support drilling offshore - they would have to, as otherwise the polls showing more than two-thirds of the public support lifting the drilling ban would make no sense. Obama's position is just wrong: wrong on the merits and bad politics to boot.

Tom Wolfe, lamenting the current state of American fiction: "Writers come from master-of-fine-arts programs now. If you add up the college education of Steinbeck, Hemingway and Faulkner, you get to spring break of freshman year."

That's the question Robert Kagan asks in this new essay. Today's so-called "realists," Kagan argues, have inverted the lessons of their predecessors:

Leading realists today see the world not as Mr. Morgenthau did, as an anarchic system in which nations consistently pursue "interest defined as power," but as a world of converging interests, in which economics, not power, is the primary driving force. Thus Russia and China are not interested in expanding their power so much as in enhancing their economic well-being and security. If they use force against their neighbors, or engage in arms buildups, it is not because this is in the nature of great powers. It is because the United States or the West has provoked them. The natural state of the world is harmonious; only aggressive behavior by the United States disturbs the harmony. ...

The original realists had no patience for such Candide-like optimism about the inevitable upward progress of mankind. "Whoever thinks the future is going to be easier than the past is certainly mad," wrote Mr. Kennan in 1951, six years after the most destructive war in history, five years into the Cold War, and one year into what was widely seen at the time as disastrous and seemingly hopeless American intervention in Korea. Mr. Kennan's provocative assertion aimed to jolt Americans out of their yearning to believe that the future would be different. But now it is leading realists who embrace The End of History, with an unshakable faith in the inevitable convergence of humanity around shared values and common interests. These were exactly the hopes and dreams Mr. Morgenthau set out to vanquish decades ago.

Want an example? Read Richard Haas in Newsweek. Haas says punishing Russia for its invasion of an independent democracy would be counterproductive. No, Haas argues, we should actually reward Russia, by lowering "U.S. barriers to Russia's joining the World Trade Organization, not rais[ing] them." Because "[a]utocratic Russia is more likely to evolve into something more open if it is integrated into modern institutions than if it is left outside."

No it isn't. But such is today's "realism," which has eschewed considerations of power in favor of Rodney-King style, "Can't we all get along" claptrap. WWMD: What would Morgenthau do?

With all the excitement in Denver, Dayton, and, soon, the Twin Cities, you might have forgotten to take your dose of propaganda and revisionism for the week. I’m talking, of course, about the advertising supplement known as Russia: Beyond the Headlines in the Washington Post. (As it turns out, Putin is actually strengthening democracy in Russia!) This past week’s edition will be hard to top, with its lead story: “Georgian Bombs Rained on Us.”

“Many had already gone to bed when the Georgian shells came down on the city,” reported Alan Tsorion from Tskhinvali, “and all agreements and promises flew away with chunks of house foundation and twisted metal that used to be cars.” In a basement, Tsorion hears one woman ask, “How long will the bombing last? Let’s raise our hands and surrender before they kill us all. It looks like Russia has forgotten us.” But thankfully, Russia had not forgotten them and sent peacekeepers to liberate the victims of Georgian aggression, just as they courageously did in Hungary in 1956 and Prague in 1968.

According to the supplement, the Georgians have massacred 2,000 people in South Ossetia and more than 30,000 have fled the area. According to one resident, “In the morning of August 8, people started fleeing into the forest. About a thousand people dressed in NATO uniforms encircled half of the village and shot at those who were trying to flee. They had no mercy for old people or women.”

Apparently NATO has launched World War III. Next week in Russia: Beyond the Headlines: “Medvedev Airdrops Peacekeepers into America’s Heartland to Defend Against Wolverine Insurgents.”

From the Journal's piece on McCain's choice for vice president: "Striding out of [Palin's] downtown office with just a press aide and reporter in tow one June afternoon, a woman passing by pointed her finger at the distinctive-looking governor and said, 'Are you...? Oh my God! I like you, although I don't always agree with you.'"

"Distinctive-looking"? Why not "incredibly attractive"? That would be more accurate.

This is a great state. I've visited many times, and it has it all: a nice governor, nice people, great scenery, and the best radio station in the country. Which you can listen to online. In between convention coverage, of course.

Sure, the economy seems to be the central issue of the election. But there is no question that elections are also decided on how many of your supporters show up at the polls versus how many of your opponent's supporters do. And John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate means that more of his supporters are going to show up on November 4 than many originally thought. At least that's the feeling you get when you read stories like this, and hear Rush Limbaugh swoon like he's never swooned before.

Already lower than I imagined. HotAir reports that under the headline “Did Palin Take Proper Pre-Natal Care,” Alan Colmes has "rocketed into the gutter," writing:

Rogers Cadenhead gives the timeline associated with the birth of her newest child. She had a speech in Dallas and, even after the water broke, continued with her activities, and then boarded a plane for home. She did consult by phone with her doctor.

Still, a Sacramento, Calif., obstetrician who is active in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said when a pregnant woman’s water breaks, she should go right to the hospital because of the risk of infection. That’s true even if the amniotic fluid simply leaks out, said Dr. Laurie Gregg.

The post has since disappeared, showing Colmes has at least a sense of self-survival if not a sense of decency. Bear this in mind next time you hear someone on the left claim they lose elections because they’re just too gosh darn nice.

On MSNBC's Hardball Friday, Pat Buchanan said that Sarah Palin and her husband "were at a fundraiser for me" back in 1996. Politico's Ben Smith noted that there is no record that Palin donated to Buchanan.

In a new post, Smith reports that, according to Buchanan's sister, Palin's only contact with Buchanan was at a fundraiser for an Alaskan politician--not for Buchanan:

I also spoke to Bay Buchanan, Pat's sister, this morning. She also said her only knowledge of Palin's contact with Buchanan was at the event in the '90s, which she described as a fundraiser for Alaska Republican Jerry Ward. Ward couldn't immediately be reached.

Was there something inconsistent in McCain's naming Governor Palin to his ticket after making much hay out of Barack Obama's not being ready to be president? I don't see it. Most of us McCain-Palin supporters think Senator Obama is ready and qualified to be vice-president, as is Governor Palin.

For a particularly fine discourse on the subject of experience, you should read the blog of the distinguished Harvard law professor (and occasional Weekly Standard contributor) Bill Stuntz linked to by John McCormack in the post below. Stuntz is not soft on Palin . . .

Clearly, her résumé is thin, maybe disqualifying. Perhaps the jobs she has held are too small to count in a national presidential campaign. But that isn't obvious, not yet anyway. What matters more, to me and I bet to more than a few others, is what she's done in those jobs.

But he is judicious and fair. Read the whole thing.

Also, for those not already readers of the site, check out the extensive discussions of the Palin choice at the Ashbrook Center's No Left Turns blog. Peter Augustine Lawler, also an occasional Weekly Standard contributor, reports from the annual American Political Science Association meeting in Boston:

It's impossible to overemphasize how happy the various kinds of social conservatives are here at the convention about the choice. I won't name names, but I'm including famous professors at leading institutions. Many of them have never really liked or trusted McCain. Strangely enough, they trust her. And they now trust him more.

More of his observations here.

Bill Stuntz has a thoughtful post on three different definitions of "experience" put in play by this year's election.

Quoth lefty blogger Publius after Obama's Invesco coronation:

I think McCain's decision to announce the VP pick tomorrow may be too clever by half. I mean, it will certainly draw some attention. But it's not like the press will completely ignore Obama's speech tomorrow or over the weekend. In this sense, announcing tomorrow will prevent McCain from getting maximum coverage of his VP selection.

Whoops!

You have to hand it to former DNC Chairman Don Fowler and House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt: they sure know how to find a silver lining in a sad situation. While some consider it tragic that New Orleans may be about to be hit by a serious hurricane, they think it's something to laugh about. You see -- it's going to hit New Orleans right about the time the Republican convention gets underway!

Fowler was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995-1997. He's the one on whom the camera is focused during this clip, laughing that New Orleans is going to get hit, and subsequently commenting that 'everything's cool.'

It's nice that Michael Moore isn't the only one that sees the upside of massive death and destruction.

Via RedState

Newt Gingrich e-mailed me the following, which he gave me permission to share with the wider world:

Authenticity is the one word threat to the Obama-Biden ticket.

There is something going on this weekend which traditional pundits, traditional consultants and traditional politicians are simply missing. All of the normal biography-oriented and issue-oriented analysis misses an emotional gestalt event comparable to when Ronald Reagan in 1980 crystalized his leadership in New Hampshire when he seized control of the GOP debate.

In one sudden moment Friday, John McCain fundamentally changed American politics in a manner that transcends issues and details.

The great threat to the Obama-Biden ticket can be captured in one word: authenticity.

There is something unaffected and "unsophisticated" (in the Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and University of Chicago meanings of the word) about Governor Palin. She really was point guard of a state championship basketball team. She really is a competent hunter. She is a hockey mom. She has one son about to go to Iraq.

She has 13 years in elected office

By any practical standard she has done far more in the real world with much more spontaneity and practicality than Barack Obama. And there is something deeply real and courageous about John McCain ignoring most of his advisers and all of the "insider wisdom" to reach out to a younger woman whose greatest characteristic is undaunted courage and a willingness to clean out the corruption in her own party.

This is a moment of stunning authenticity versus a sad collapse on the part of the Obama campaign from " change you can count on" to politics as usual, as marked by Obama's choice of a senator first elected when Palin was 9 years old.

As I wandered around from a family restaurant to the dry cleaners to a variety of other non-political places, people kept walking up to me and talking with energy and enthusiasm about their reaction to McCain’s choice of Governor Palin. As I sifted through their emotions and the intensity of their reaction it hit me that they were responding to "the real thing." The power of Palin is that she is so out of the establishment, and so out of the talking-heads, inside-the –Beltway-elite mindset, that the 80 per cent of Americans who believe we are on the wrong track suddenly can identify with someone who isn’t part of what got us on that track.

Palin will make mistakes. The news media and the Obama researchers will find things to attack. But if she stays relaxed and continues to be authentically who she has been for 44 years, the country is going to love her, and they are very rapidly going to get disgusted with the cynical negative nastiness of politics as usual.

Finally 2008 really has given us "change we can count on." Ironically, it is the McCain-Palin ticket.

From NRO, “The Hostess with the Moosest” by Mark Steyn

Steyn has at least momentarily emerged from his self-imposed semi-seclusion to remind us of how much we miss him:

First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy…

Third, real people don't define "experience" as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been around long enough to have got both the War on Terror and the Cold War wrong. (On the first point, at the Gun Owners of New Hampshire dinner in the 2000 campaign, I remember Orrin Hatch telling me sadly that he was stunned to discover how few Granite State voters knew who he was.) Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. She's done the stuff he's merely a poseur about. Post-partisan? She took on her own party's corrupt political culture directly while Obama was sucking up to Wright and Ayers and being just another get-along Chicago machine pol (see his campaign's thuggish attempt to throttle Stanley Kurtz and Milt Rosenberg on WGN the other night)…

Sixth (see Kathleen's link to Craig Ferguson below), I kinda like the whole naughty librarian vibe.

I left out numbers, two, four and five to make sure you follow the link. For goodness' sake, read the whole thing.

Christopher Hayes, an editor at The Nation and adoring fan of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, claims that Sarah Palin was a Buchananite based on an AP report that Palin wore a Buchanan button to a Buchanan campaign event in 1999. This news led to Democratic congressman Robert Wexler's frothing-at-the-mouth attack on Palin's alleged anti-Israel beliefs evident in her alleged endorsement of Buchanan.

But, as Ben Smith reports, and both Wexler and Hayes fail to note, Palin "promptly responded to the story in a letter to the editor, saying that 'the article may have left your readers with the perception that I am endorsing this candidate, as opposed to welcoming his visit to Wasilla. As mayor, I will welcome all the candidates in Wasilla.'" In fact, Palin was involved in the campaign of Republican Steve Forbes in 2000.

Last night, Buchanan claimed that Palin was a "brigader" for him in 1996 and attended a fundraiser, but there's no evidence that she contributed to the campaign or was involved in it. And if Palin did attend a fundraiser of the former host of CNN's Crossfire, does that prove that she shared his views on Israel?

I normally don’t link to the work of my Weekly Standard colleagues in these Required Reading thingies, fearing that doing so could set off a frenzy of bribery and what-not as everyone lobbied for inclusion. But I have to make a one-time exception today because our coverage both here and in the nation’s leading dailies of the Sarah Palin selection has been so damn excellent:

1) From TWS, “Let Palin Be Palin" by William Kristol

“That's why Palin's spectacular performance in her introduction in Dayton was so important. Her remarks were cogent and compelling. Her presentation of herself was shrewd and savvy. I heard from many who watched Palin--many of them not predisposed to support her--about how moved they were by her remarks, her composure, and her story. She will have a chance to shine again Wednesday night at the Republican convention.”

2) From TWS, “Providential Palin” by Fred Barnes

“She brought down Alaska's governor, attorney general, and state Republican chairman (see my "Most Popular Governor," July 16, 2007). She killed the "bridge to nowhere." She used increased tax revenues from high oil prices to give Alaskans a rebate. She slashed government spending. She took on the biggest industry in Alaska, the oil companies, to work out an equitable deal on building a new gas pipeline. Obama can't match even one of these accomplishments.”

Yes, it’s true – Palin has only been governor of a small state for 20 months. But she has accomplished more in that time than Barack Obama has in 17 years of highly dignified dithering since leaving law school.

3) From TWS, “How Palin Got Picked” by Steve Hayes

Seriously – this is a remarkably reported piece. You are there as the Palin selection goes down. I’m not giving an excerpt because you really have to read the whole thing.

4) From the New York Times, “Two-Front Republicans” by Matt Continetti

The Palin selection says something profound about the reform of the Republican party. Take it from Continetti, the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject:

In recent years, the Alaska Republican Party has become a metaphor for the national Republican Party. There are probably more caribou than pigs in Alaska, but its Congressional delegation is nonetheless addicted to pork. Flush with oil money, Alaska’s Republicans have built a welfare state that Washington’s “big government conservatives” must surely envy. Corruption is rampant. The party is out of touch. Senator Ted Stevens, who championed the infamous $400 million bridge, faces prison. On Tuesday, Alaska Republicans nominated him for another term.

This is where Ms. Palin comes in. She campaigned for governor on an anti-corruption platform and has spent the past two years in combat with oil executives, lobbyists and politicians comfortable with the status quo. She helped prevent Senator Stevens’s bridge to nowhere. In Alaska, as in the country at large, Republicans have done everything they can to get thrown out of office. Ms. Palin was elected to save the party — and the state — from itself.

5) From the Wall Street Journal, “Palin Fought for Reform in Alaska” by Fred Barnes (yes, him again)
Lefties hoping that Palin turn out to be just another pretty face are headed for heartbreak:

“She has a record of integrity matched by few elected officials. Mrs. Palin resigned in protest in 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission over alleged ethical violations by the state Republican chairman, a commission member. Two years later, she upset Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski in the primary and defeated a Democrat in the general election.”

From Rasmussen Reports, “Palin Makes Good First Impression: Is Viewed More Favorably than Biden” by Scott Ramussen

From Rasmussen Reports, “Daily Presidential Tracking Poll” by Scott Rasmussen

Now I know why the left was so angry when John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate (apart from the fact that they’re always angry except for when Barack Obama is soothing them with sweet clichés): They knew Sarah Palin would play with the American public in a way that even eminent statesman Joe Biden (chortle) would not.

How’d yesterday’s rollout go?

Sarah Palin has made a good first impression. Before being named as John McCain’s running mate, 67% of voters didn’t know enough about the Alaska governor to have an opinion. After her debut in Dayton and a rush of media coverage, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 53% now have a favorable opinion of Palin while just 26% offer a less flattering assessment… By way of comparison, on the day he was selected as Barack Obama’s running mate, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden was viewed favorably by 43% of voters.

The Palin selection has also halted Team Barry’s post Denver bounce. Yesterday, Obama led by four. Same thing today.

I guess the Nervous Nellies in the conservative press can now stop muttering about 1988 and blindly speculating about how Palin will play with the great unwashed. We now have some empirical data. The polls are nice, but still nicer is the cool $4.49 million that the McCain campaign raised yesterday. Anyone with memories of 1988 will know Dan Quayle’s elevation didn’t trigger quite the same reaction.

Following the lead of hackish lefty bloggers, the Washington Post has published a shoddy report on an alleged scandal involving John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin.

In a nutshell, Palin faces allegations that she pressured a political appointee, public safety commissioner Walt Monegan, to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was involved in a messy divorce and child custody fight with Palin’s sister. Last month, Palin fired public safety commissioner Monegan. She has said the firing wasn’t about trooper Wooten, but Palin’s foes in the legislature appointed an investigator to determine if any wrongdoing occurred. A report is due in October.

The Wooten controversy began before Palin announced her candidacy for governor in 2005, when she and her family pushed for an investigation of Wooten’s criminal and abusive activities. The Post reports:

The domestic dispute entered the public arena when the governor's sister filed for divorce from Wooten on April 11, 2005.

The same day, the governor's father, Chuck Heath, contacted state police with several allegations against Wooten: using a Taser on his 10-year-old stepson; shooting a moose without a permit; and drinking beer while driving a patrol car.

While the Post refers to mere "allegations" made by Palin's father, it fails to note the state troopers' investigation and 482-page report--released to the Anchorage Daily News--that found Wooten guilty of these charges:

Troopers eventually investigated 13 issues and found four in which Wooten violated policy or broke the law or both:

• Wooten used a Taser on his stepson.

• He illegally shot a moose.

• He drank beer in his patrol car on one occasion.

• He told others his father-in-law would "eat a f'ing lead bullet" if he helped his daughter get an attorney for the divorce.

The Post's failure to report that Wooten was found guilty naturally leads to its failure to report Wooten's scandalously light punishment for issuing a death threat and Tasering a 10 year-old:

"The record clearly indicates a serious and concentrated pattern of unacceptable and at times, illegal activity occurring over a lengthy period, which establishes a course of conduct totally at odds with the ethics of our profession," Col. Julia Grimes, then head of Alaska State Troopers, wrote in March 1, 2006, letter suspending Wooten for 10 days. After the union protested it, the suspension was reduced to five days(emphasis mine).

The second half of the Post article is comprised entirely of unchallenged assertions made by Monegan and the troopers' union boss John Cyr--who includes this blatant lie among his tendentious statements:

Cyr said Wooten has "a spotless record" and no allegations in his file other than those filed by the governor's family.

According to the Anchorage Daily News that's not true:

Beyond the investigation sparked by the family, trooper commanders saw cause to discipline or give written instructions to correct Wooten seven times since he joined the force

So where do things currently stand with the controversy? The Anchorage Daily News reported on August 14 that although Palin “has previously said her administration didn't exert pressure to get rid of trooper Mike Wooten,” the governor said she had recently become aware that her staffers had made two dozen calls to the public safety department about Wooten. “Many of these inquiries were completely appropriate. However, the serial nature of the contacts could be perceived as some kind of pressure, presumably at my direction,” Palin said.

In one of the supposedly inappropriate phone calls, a Palin staffer--who has since been placed on leave--tells a staffer at the public safety department that “‘Todd and Sarah [Palin] are scratching their heads, 'Why on earth hasn't this, why is this guy still representing the department?'”

So: Is there really much of a scandal here? In my view, the only way this story can hurt Palin is if the media continue to ignore or downplay exactly what Wooten did. Any normal American would want to knock Wooten’s teeth in for Tasering a 10 year-old and threatening to kill Palin’s father. If anything, this “scandal” reinforces Palin’s record of being a reformer who stands up to thugs and bureaucrats content with the status quo.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is skipping the Republican National Convention this week in Minnesota to manage an ongoing budget dispute in Sacramento. Republican officials say Fred Thompson will take his place in the prime-time lineup Monday night and onetime presidential candidate will have nearly three times longer to speak than he was originally given for his speech on Tuesday.

Schwarzenegger hinted that he might skip the convention at a press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday. "The work for the people of California, and to solve this budget problem, is the most important thing right now for me," he said.

Thompson, who is launching a new political action committee -- FredPAC -- in conjunction with the start of the convention, will now have twenty minutes to speak rather than seven. Other speakers Monday night include Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush.

Courtesy of Ace, two pictures worth the proverbial 2,000 words:

With Gov. Palin's five chlidren and McCain's seven, the presumptive GOP nominees have more offspring than any major-party ticket since 1920. In that year, Democratic Ohio Gov. James M. Cox (six children) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (also six children) lost to Harding and Coolidge. Interestingly, both the McCain/Palin and Cox/Roosevelt campaigns were launched from Dayton, Ohio.

Two quotes today.

From Thursday: "So we zoomed off after [a pedi-cabby named] Colette, who stopped several blocks away at a hotel, and out came Daryl Hannah. Probably you want to know what she is really like, as a person and a human being. I would say, based on gawking at her from a distance of 2 feet, that she is quite attractive, although of course not in the same league as my wife."

And today: "I've been to every convention since 1984, and I have to say that Democratic delegates always manage to look good when they engage in group "rock-n-roll"-style dancing, in stark contrast to Republican delegates, who always look like they're subjects in some kind of cruel mass experiment involving random-firing high-voltage buttock probes."

It's a hit: "Over 38 million Americans watched TV coverage of Barack Obama accepting his party's nomination for president on Thursday, far more than tuned in for the acceptance speeches of past Democratic contenders."

How many of these viewers were watching Obama for the first time? Did they like what they saw? How many were voters who have already made up their minds?

The answers to such questions are not clear. But it is likely that the Obama bounce is about to bounce a little higher.

Fantastic tick-tock from ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg

It wasn't until Sunday night that John McCain, after meeting with his four top advisers, finally decided he could not tap independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to be his running mate. One adviser, tasked with taking the temperature of the conservative base, had strongly made the case to McCain that it would be a disaster for the party and that the base would revolt. McCain concluded he could not go that route.

The next day, McCain studied the three men at the top of his shortlist: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. All had different strengths and negatives, but McCain was not satisfied. None of them had what McCain believed he needed to do -- and would have done -- with Lieberman.

McCain wanted to shake up the ticket.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's name was in the mix as an unconventional choice for months, but she had not been considered a front-runner. So, over the next few days, with McCain continuing to believe he needed someone who had more of a maverick streak than his other choices, lawyers reviewed her vetting information. They kept their activities from even some in McCain's most senior inner circle....

The campaign secretly flew Palin into Dayton last night. She and McCain met privately for a couple of hours. McCain concluded she would "shake up the system" and was "a maverick," qualities he believed Lieberman would have brought to the ticket. But she also would appeal to conservatives -- which Lieberman most certainly would not have done.

After their meeting, McCain concluded he was comfortable with his choice. He notified Pawlenty this morning that he was going in a different direction.

St. Paul
Republicans gathering early here in St. Paul are ecstatic about the Palin pick and-–not surprisingly--less than blown away by the Obama speech in Denver last night. I talked to some experienced Republican operatives this morning and they shared thoughts on both topics.

First, on Obama last night, a senior GOP communications consultant said this:

“One of the first rules of communication is ‘Don’t reinforce a negative stereotype.’ For Obama, that stereotype is ‘I’m more of a rock star and a celebrity than a person with the experience necessary to be commander-in-chief.’ I would have given a more sober, serious speech in a less-hyped setting. I think it was over the top from a visual perspective, and I’m not sure your average guy in Ohio shares the enthusiasm that was in the stadium.”

A GOP operative working at the convention in St. Paul said this: “I guess we now know the kind of ‘change’ he has in mind. He wants to bring about a bunch of liberal, redistributive policies. I don’t think that’s the type of change people want.”

Finally, an experienced GOP campaign veteran I talked to worried about younger voter reaction to the speech. “I can see how young people might buy into this whole thing. The hype, the music, the enthusiasm--it’s like nothing they’ve every seen in politics before. The problem is it’s the same old product with just a new salesman. I worry that young voters don’t get that.”

Participants here are still digesting the Palin pick, but early reactions are glowing. Here’s a sampling of immediate reactions from folks here in the Xcel Center:

“It’s a great pick. The team will have broad generational appeal.”

“I’m glad it’s not a Washington insider.”

“I can’t wait to see her debate Joe Biden.”

The selection should also sit well with delegates who worried Senator McCain might pick a pro-choice candidate or even a Democrat. Bottom line: The Palin pick is generating a lot of initial enthusiasm in the convention hall right now--passion the McCain camp hopes will build into next week.

1. Steps on the story of Obama’s speech (and convention), and possibly the bounce coming from them, and wipes them off the news cycle. The Sunday news shows will be all-Palin, all of the time.

2. Sends Republicans into their convention on a huge head of steam.

3. Wipes out the image of McCain as the crotchety elder and brings back that of the fly-boy and gambler, which is much more appealing, and the genuine person.

4. Revs up the base AND excites independents, which no one else in the party, or perhaps in the world, could have accomplished.

5. Puts youth, change, and history on both of the tickets.

6. May detach some young people, especially women.

7. May attach some women pissed off about Hillary.

8. As a pro-life super-achiever, puts feminists in a tizzy.

9. Revives some of the double-edged nature of the Democratic primary, which featured a black vs. a
female trail-blazer, and put both sides on notice on sensitivity issues. Democrats used to raising charges of racism against Obama’s critics may face charges of sexism and/or condescension if they try to diss her.

10. Steps on Obama’s claims to have been a reformer, as he reformed nothing (much less the corrupt mare’s nest of Chicago arrangements), while she was a dragon-slayer up in Alaska.

11. As a mother of five, one a Down Syndrome baby, helps her side take on the Democrats on abortion extremism and the Born Alive bill.

12. Reignites the deep and unhealed stresses inside the Democrats, some of whom will now wonder more loudly than ever why they didn't pick Hillary.

13. Counters Michelle in a way Cindy couldn’t.

14. Counter-intuitively, makes the issue of Obama’s light resume more potent than ever. Her lack of experience is no more than his is. And he’s--to use a term from Alaska, and the Iditarod--their lead dog.

Barack Obama's spokesman says that Alaska governor Sarah Palin is too inexperienced to be vice president:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same,” said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.

Jen Rubin calls the "town of 9,000" line "bittergate II"; Sonny Bunch writes:

“Please,” John McCain is praying right now AS I TYPE, “Let a Democrat say that an executive with 2 years of experience and no foreign policy expertise isn’t ready for the presidency. Oh pretty please. Because you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take that soundbite, put it in an ad, slap Obama’s mug up there, and run it over and over and over again.”

Because Palin has exactly as much experience as Obama–arguably more, since she’s an executive. The only difference is that she isn’t running for president.

And here's the official McCain campaign response:

“It is pretty audacious for the Obama campaign to say that Governor Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. She has a record of accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match. Governor Palin has spent her time in office shaking up government in Alaska and actually achieving results -- whether it’s taking on corruption, passing ethics reform or stopping wasteful spending and the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ Senator Obama has spent his time in office running for President.” --Jill Hazelbaker, McCain Communications Director

TALKING POINTS: GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN

Governor Sarah Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president. She has brought Republicans and Democrats together within her Administration and has seen approval ratings of over 80 percent.

· She has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources.

· She leads a state that matters to every one of us -- Alaska has significant energy resources and she has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.

· She has actually used her veto and cut budgetary spending. And she put a stop to the bridge to nowhere that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars.

· In Alaska, she challenged a corrupt system and passed a landmark ethics reform bill.

· As the head of Alaska's National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops.

Her experience in shaking up the status quo is exactly what is needed in Washington.

In choosing Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain put Washington on notice that he is serious about shaking up the status quo.

What we're seeing is a maverick who has shaken up Washington picking as his teammate a maverick governor who has shaken up her own state.

What it's going to take to change Washington is a team of Mavericks who have a record of accomplishment in shaking up the status quo.

"I am absolutely delighted by this selection. Once again, John McCain has shown that he is an independent thinker who paints in bold strokes. Sarah Palin is a conservative reformer with executive experience who will bring a breath of fresh air to Washington. She will be an ideal running mate for John McCain, and will make a major contribution to our country's future."

As just one example of how Obama used last night to shift the focus of his campaign, he altered one of the most well-known lines from his primary stump speech. During the last several months, one of Obama's signature lines, used in both speeches and ads, was:

Because we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril.

It's a line tailored for the liberal base, suggesting that the two most pressing issues are Iraq and global warming. Last night, he changed the line to:

We meet at one of those defining moments--a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

This is a pretty clear distillation of Obama's new focus.

Bill Kristol, about to take off on a flight, emails that Sarah Palin is McCain's VP pick.