She is not emotionally intelligent. She is charming, at least to a substantial subset of her audience, and she has all the approved body language of a television personality. But she seems incapable of accepting responsibility for anything she does or of admitting to flaws or mistakes, she honestly doesn't seem to know the difference between being a candidate for Vice President and being the chair of the PTA, and she relies on shtick instead of thought.

Lowry is welcome to his starbursts -- I blush to admit the times I've been entranced by some soap opera hunk -- but please don't think her performance was a universal success or a model of how to communicate with "most Americans".

DD: "a transcript of Palin’s debate performance would reveal lots of gibberish,"

It wasn't Palin who said that the US had driven Hezbollah out of Lebanon....

Maybe he was TRYING to say she "connects with the camera" -- or MAYBE he was saying she makes him want to drill, drill, drill her. It's EXTREMELY creepy. Coveting the Vice Presidential candidate for a romp in the hay shows those great right-wing family values. Just like all those anti-gay, gay politicians who get caught with their pants around their ankles after years of denial and intolerant politicking.

It is truly amazing to me that the very same pundits who went on endlessly about what they referred to as Hillary Clinton's "shrill" voice -- even the ones who pretty much CLAIMED that's ALL they hated about her, but that that was enough to not vote for her -- can, with a straight face, say they like Sarah Palin's presentation. Her voice makes me want to blow my brains out. At least it has heightened my awareness of how I speak with my husband -- I will be sure to NEVER nag him with that cracking voice and disrespectful smirky tone.

I’m so glad the GOP feels warm and fuzzy about her again. Too bad the fuzziness clouds their intellectual honesty about her complete lack of readiness to step in should the feared McTrain Wreck occur in one missed beat of that 72-year-old heart of the four-time cancer survivor.

Why not just run Elizabeth Hasselbeck, if all that's needed is a good television presence? Or any of the Fox News Fembots.

I would suggest that Laurie Dhue, Megyn Kelly, or Gretchen Carlson could do the schitck AND know the issues (better than Palin, at least.)

What's scariest to me is how far our expectations have sunk in regards to our national leaders. That a woman like Palin can be considered a serious possibility to be 2nd in line to be President of the United States in about 100 days says a whole lot about the current conservative "movement".

Scary.

It's true. I downloaded and recut the debate so that Palin was isolated.

I whacked off at least six times.

Not since the Reagen fireside have I enjoyed myself that much.

Conservatism is hot, baby, hot!!

Gibberish? You mean like how the Constitution provides a right to same sex hospital visits? Although it doesn't provide a right to same sex marriage. Although actually Biden did refer to people in same sex marriages, although, as we know, he doesn't believe in same sex marriage. Whatever.

Parse that.

Now, strip away Lowry’s hyperbole prose and, er, straightening, and Lowry is basically saying that Palin connects with the camera better than most politicians.

Right. And strip the centerfold away from Playboy, and it's the freaking New York Review of Books.

Well, why didn't McCain just select Erin Andrews from ESPN as his VP. I know that I can't take my eyes of her when she's on and she's got a loyal fan base just off her tv appearances and not her knowledge of her subject.

Dan, your really straining to let Rich off of the hook on this one. This kind of Teen-Bop magazine worship is unfitting for a position like the Vice-President. I haven't enjoyed it from supporters of Obama, and its even worse from someone whom I'm sure considers themselves a serious journalist like Lowry. If he's looking for titillation he should just get a subscription to Cinemax.

I'm on team creepy. He's clearly appreciating her knees in Starbucks a little too much.

I'm torn in the sense that this is something that everyone may have been thinking but no one had the guts to say, and, at the same time, that somethings just really shouldn't be said in a presidential election. Or don't need to be said.

I'm wondering - what if he said something about race opposed to gender. Like maybe, based on his "connection" through the TV that he was uncomfortable with Obama being black. I don't think he would because there is a serious taboo there. So why isn't there one about women? Is it something that Palin has consciously cultivated? Or is there just a lack of a taboo where there should be one? Or is this the reason people are coming down on him like a ton of bricks now.

In the first few weeks after her nomination, there was much made of her "sexy" librarian look. And I have to think there is a reason her bathing suit competition footage is one of the big clips on youtube. She isn't hard to look at - I think we can all admit this in a mature way.

But given Lowry's comments (as opposed to Kusnet's), if someone said the same thing about me, I would be upset. It's one thing to be complemented on a date (although, on recent experience, that can go badly too) and another to assess a VP debate performance.

Again, the fact is that Palin IS attractive. I don't think there is anything wrong saying that (any more than suggesting that McCain is old or not attractive*). But there is something wrong with the way Lowry phrases it. I don't think it helps Palin in the slightest. Part of what turns me off so much about her is the winking thing. Seriously - knock it off and learn to give an answer in an interview. His comments ammount to "Well, she didn't say much, but she sure is a nice lookin' broad."

For his part, Lowry needs to keep the starbursts in his pants if he wants to be taken seriously - and if he wants her to be taken seriously. He's made it clear that Palin is connecting than with more than the camera...

*Who is doing his makeup anyway? It's AWFUL. He looks like a clementine.

Well this is longer than what I thought.

Roger Ebert has a good column on the gibberish 'going up' bit ..

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/10/you_didnt_ask_me_about_the_deb.html

And here's a clip of Laurence Olivier's Oscar speech referenced in the Ebert article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_iEkp3Kxc

But Rich Lowry still sounds pretty ridiculous with his own bit of going up. I know you said to ignore the hyperbolic prose, but that's the *point*, Daniel.

Dan is right. Lowry simply makes the obvious point that Palin is savvy with the camera and manages to speak to people directly.

To illustrate, let's make his a comment by Mrs Lowry, during the 1980s:

"A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen…. Reagan too projects through the screen like crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only female in America who, when Reagan dropped his first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think he just winked at me.” And his smile. By the end, when he clearly knew he was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can’t be learned; it’s either something you have or you don’t, and man, he’s got it."

It would have been an accurate description of Reagan's television charm and nobody would have raised an eyebrow.

Something tells me that Rich Lowry personifies the 1 -900 marketers' ideal target demographic.

I think Dan is trying to do a little for Rich Lowry what Lowry was trying to do for Palin.

Lowry is not a dope; he can see Palin's nomination is not the Republican Party's proudest moment, and he surely knows that referring constantly to talking points in a nationally televised debate is not something we ought to want a potential commander-in-chief to have to do. But he is a Republican working for a conservative publication, and feels compelled to make the best case for Palin that he can. This is what he's come up with.

To someone lacking Lowry's motivation, what he wrote sounds pretty lame. Dan writes that kind of stuff too, now and then, almost always for laughs (that he gets, every once in a while), and has come to Lowry's defense. Which is fine; heaven knows I'm no media critic or much of a judge of how other people react to someone on television. Just for the record, though, post-debate polls seemed to indicate that a majority of viewers thought Sen. Biden won the debate, and candidates who really do connect with the camera have usually come out ahead in polls after an event like this.

Maybe this had to do with what was said. But maybe it was Palin's voice. Again, don't quote me as an authority; I'm one of the people who can't stand to listen to Hillary Clinton for more than about a minute, so just because Palin's voice is only a couple of ticks less obnoxious to me doesn't mean much. On the other hand, Sen. Obama's reputation for eloquence, which is considerable, rests at least as much on his presentation -- how he sounds -- as on what he says. His voice is a genuine pleasure to listen to. So was Reagan's, Kennedy's, even Richard Nixon's. A voice that communicates authority, or passion, or whatever the audience is looking for can be a great asset to a candidate. Sarah Palin doesn't have that kind of voice; hers is sing-songy, nasal and forced. That may take away for her some of whatever she gains through her non-verbal communication.

He might just as well have said, "I was sportin' tall lumber, dawg," and gotten it over with.

I don't imagine it would have taken long...

I'm sorry; I really think Lowry meant it just the way he said it.

Shortly after Palin secured the nomination my girlfriend took a train from NYC to DC. At the table next to her in the cafe car sat three early-30s republicans; two guys and a woman. My girlfriend said they discussed Palin for the best part of the journey (4 hours) and ALL the guys talked about was how "mesmerizing", "beautiful", "enthralling" etc. Palin was.

Lots of conservative men voted for Bush because they wanted to have a fantasy beer with him. I think that plenty will vote for Palin (not McCain) because they want to have a different kind of fantasy meeting with her.

I mean it isn't the only time that Mr. Lowry has gotten overexcited about something. People are giving him too much crap for it: http://www.236.com/blog/w/chez_pazienza/rich_lowry_the_william_f_buckl_9339.php
He's just a very passionate, visceral, creepy schmuck. That's all.

Palin was the LOWEST in favorability among the 4 candidates before her horrible couric interviews and now after them I'm sure has dropped even lower. In the polls of viewers of the VP debate, more had a favorable impression of Biden the Palin.

This isn't a "connection with the camera", we can believe in.

It has become clear to me over the past few months that most of the people who plan to vote for Mr. Obama are narrow-minded, intolerant, and prone to ridicule anyone who doesn't agree with them as some sort of ignorant bumpkin. And this from the people who proudly wear the mantle of "liberal." Not only has the American Democratic party allowed itself to be hijacked by those who believe the solutions to the world's problems lie in 1)blaming Bush-Cheney for everything wrong abroad and 2)taxing everyone else more and giving them the money to fix problems at home; those who used to be able to trace their liberal ideology to Jefferson and Locke have allowed the same hijacking.

I realize this is difficult for many to understand, but just because we live on earth does not give us an inalienable right to free health care, lifetime employment, free day-care for our children, or anything other than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The entire Democratic party platform could be distilled down to "free beer and pretzels if we are elected."

I used to be disgusted, then I was merely amused, now I'm disgusted again.

The issue with Lowry's smitten stupidity is it is exactly the same smitten stupidity that defines the modern rightwing. There is literally no difference between Lowry having his little pea-brain mainpulated by Palin's wink, then there is with Chris Matthews "sitting up a little straighter" when flyboy, draftdodger George W Bush had his broadway spectactualr on the deck of the USS Lincoln. As you recall, Matthews was so smitten by the choreographed PR stunt he said, "We're all neocons now." And there's no difference between THAT and all the easily duped rightwingers who watch FOX, listen to Limbaugh, and who still believe by a shocking percentage that Saddam Hussein & Iraq was involved in 9.11, that we're "winning" in Iraq (even if no one can even define what winning a war that makes Iran signifcantly stronger does that's even remotely in the US's best interest). It's because rightwingers don't think with their mind, they think with their fuzzy little wussy, tear-soaked hearts.

When you have a ridiculous rightwing tool like General Petreaus fooling rightwingers with his "objective assessment of Iraq" because he wears shiny metals and plays the lead role in a rightwing fantasy the way they like their fantasies acted out. The fact Petreaus was chosen to replace real generals who had a real knowledge of the mess in Iraq, because as a long-time Republican operative he could be counted on being a "good soldier" for the GOP even if he was bad soldier for US troops. His "assessments" have lead to pointless deaths of US troops so the Bush Administration could ride out the clock and let the next administration take responsibility for cleaning up the horrific mess President Bunny Pants made in Iraq, but all that's lost on the rightwingers who "sit up a little straighter" when he comes on the TV screen.