Another blow to Palin's reputation

David

Shh...don't tell Melanie and her chums....

Ganpat Ram

Oh come on, James !

What world are you living in?

This reminds me of the Russian proverb: "When the head is off, don't mourn for the hair."

Can't you see that the electoral fate of McCain and Palin has dwindled to insignificance?

I used to support them until few days ago, but I can see how silly it is still to do so.

We have much much much bigger things to worry about.

The whole American economy is on the verge of collapse as the banks are unwilling to lend and the government is too shackled by capitalist superstitions and hangups to boldly nationalise them to ensure the flow of credit.

Taking that step will save the economy and their own bacon, but it will also vindicate old Karl Marx and so they are hemming and hawing and fatally putting off the evil day.

The Amrican system, in short, has FAILED.

Now all Obama's minuses become pluses.

He is strangely un-American, strangely agnostic in his view of US capitalism, inclined to hobnob with its critics?

So much the better, now....We desperately need a person in the White House who has not bought completely into all the superstitions and shibboleths of US capitalism, who would be ready to CHANGE everything.

That man is Obama.

He is incredibly there, this man of strange and unexpected antecedents, and he WILL be elected.

Forget McCain and Palin.

They belong to a discredited American past. I used to take all that seriously. Now I see how flimsy and gimcrack the Great American Myth really is.

We need a new, democratically socialist USA. Obama can begin to put it in palce.

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.

Wake up, James !

ndm

Actually, the "proper and lawful exercise ..." stuff has been known and understood since the start of Troopergate. The problem never was Moneghan's firing. The problem was and always has been Sarah Palin's abuse of power in her family's vendetta against Wooten - an abuse of power brought to light by Moneghan's firing.

This, for example, is from a very early report on Troopergate:

-- The governor’s spokeswoman on Saturday offered a dismissive reason for the firing: It's the halfway point of the term, so it's natural for change to occur.

-- So the governor changes people on a whim? Governors have the power and right to do that, but public trust in a governor gets tarnished when a removal appears to be botched.

CG

She seems like a truly nasty piece of work. Let's hope she doesn't get anywhere near the White House.

Chuck Unsworth

My real disappointment is the apparent profound intellectual shallowness of the lady.

Perhaps I'm hoping for too much from a Vice-Presidential hopeful for the most powerful nation in the world (save for China, of course).

David Preiser

Except the guy apparently deserved to be fired. Palin's pressuring her subordinate to do his job properly really shouldn't be considered an ethics violation in that context. She was not guilty of abuse of anything, as the inquiry revealed. So why the hand-wringing? Are you reading press reports about it, or did you look at the fact yourself?
Too bad this is once again distracting from paying attention to The Obamessiah's politics and ugly connections.

Ken Horne

When will you tell the public that the Couric interview was a edited version of what Sarah Palin really said to show her in the worst possible light. Couric is of the far left and worse.
This rubbish by the Democrats in Alaska is more of the same. They can't stand that a real woman is going to be the next Vice President.At least your Melanie Phillips has the guts to slam Obama on a regular basis,telling the truth about his devious past. If America becomes 'Obamaland' the world will 'Obamaworld' shortly after. The thought is truly horrifying.

Austin Barry

McCain's insane choice of this burgerbar airhead as a running mate means that Obama will be elected as the President of the USA and of Messianic self-regard and neon-lit pomposity. I fear though the crazed rump of Republicans, those who shout "kill him" and "terrorist" whenever Barack Hussein Obama is indicted at McCain stump meetings will likely hoist this new Messiah on a crucifix formed by the crosshairs of gunsight. Violence, as H.Rap Brown reminded us, is as American as cherry pie.

Hayward Maberley

Mr Horne,
You take me back to my childhood and listening to the BBC.
Your contribution read like something from scripts written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman for Round the Horne. The lines would end with Spasm, a raving loony played by the other Kenneth, Williams, croaking, "We be all doomed; I got a touch of the dooms!"
Keep it up Kenneth!

Matthew Blott

Grr, Spectator, I'm not the first to grumble about this - sort the comments out!!!

israel

Sorry to burst your bubble ken, but the interview with Couric was a lot worse than what was shown on tv. CBS kept a lot of it off the air after the bleating that Karl Rove acolyte Steve Smith did about the media being "in the tank" for Obama, cheerfully ignoring all the barbecues McCain used to throw at home for his favorite journalists who have left him in disgust at the strategy of his campaign.

The report stated that Palin had the right to fire Monagan, but it also that she had abused her power. This dimishes the attacks she can use now in speeches. If she continues on the same tack people will increasingly see her as a hypocrite.

Old Hack

Well she may have lost some appeal to swing voters but has her ability to motivate the Republican base been diminished? I suggest that one of the reasons that McCain hired her still stands. Those folks aren't going to buy the Troopergate report without reading it through red goggles.

Bocephus

Ken 11.37

Katie Couric may have Democratic values but to claim she is "far left" is way off the mark. She spent 15 years presenting the Today Show nothing could be more Middle America than that.

TrevorsDen

Don't make me laugh - Clinton was USING troopers to procure women for him.

Now there was a really nasty piece of work who did get to the White House and then proceeded to treat young women like a child in a candy store would treat a chocolate bar.

But hey guess what - he was a Democrat so the US Liberal press treat that story as vast right wing conspiracy.

Clinton uses troopers to help him cheat on his wife - Palin fires a trooper for cheating on her relative.

Guess who I would rather see in the White House?

And BTW - I can see no benefit to any candidate and none of the people they beat to their nominations. Such though is the way with politicians everywhere. The Russians have Putin for instance and the French have Sarkozy and only just got rid of Chirac.

Maybe fortunately for us all the much derided markets will inevitably suggest solutions that lie beyond politics. The savage fluctuations in the markets will force solutions and future procedures on us, independently of politics, that will set the ground rules for the future.

Sadly from a British perspective we have a PM (the author of 'light touch' regulation) who sees this as an excuse to boost his own bleak popularity.

callingallcomets

When the Americano blog began I really thought it would travel well beyond the Toby Harnden type re-hash of the latest from WaPo/NWT/AP. After all, why in this day and age should the DT bother paying loadsadollars to such hacks for regurgitating this stuff when we can read the US media online in real time? Maybe, at last, we would get some in depth, sophisticated reporting that really came from between and behind the lines – what a hope! It is clear, James, that not only are you a Harnden clone who can’t really be bothered to operate outside the zone but you have made no attempt to try disentangling the details of politics in Alaska…par for the course, I suppose – nevertheless, so disappointing. Still, here is a primer to get you started, James…

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/11/troopergate-less-than-critics-wanted-but-still-trouble/

I suspect that your sympathies, like most of your commentators, lie with the pet conservatives who are allowed to grace the columns of the NYT – David Brooks, anyone? – who view Palin with disdain because they perceive her as some trailer trash rube from the boondocks who was shoved on to the ticket at the last minute to shore up the hillbilly vote, so dim she thinks she can see Russia from her front room and had to answer “which one” when asked about the Bush doctrine (Ruth Lea on QT a day or so back)….
Well, you underestimate her at your peril. She has rough edges, still has stuff to learn and, of course, would be so out of place at any Beltway dinner table but she is savvy, learns very quickly and, above all, she is a conservative who connects with ordinary, everyday Wal-Mart people – just watch how they respond to her at her rallies – and as Mayor and Governor her achievements outrank any failures.
It seems unlikely that McCain will win and he will join Gore and Kerry in the pantheon of losers – but Palin will not sink out of view. As the Obama supporting feminist icon Camille Paglia wrote “This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.” http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/10/08/palin/index1.html
She will use the next four/eight years to become the focus of a new manifestation of Republican Populism, mixing conservative social values with an anti big business platform, maybe an updated version of the Contract with America but much more than Newt 2…much more even than the Gipper……think Bull Moose…think Teddy Roosevelt….
BTW, re Ruth Lea – the Governor’s “nearness of Russia to Alaska” remarks, so often parodied, were attached to other comments about Russia that somehow ended up on the ABC cutting floor (I wonder why?)…and I would love to have heard which one of the five interpretations of the Bush doctrine was Lea thinking of?