All apologies

Why Roger Simon thinks the media should apologize :)

Cindy McCain has some thoughts of her own about the right to choose

Michael Tomasky (Guardian UK) on Palin's speech:

'But here's the thing she did not accomplish, I don't think, in the long term. This was billed in advance as a "policy" speech, and it was decidedly not that. Of the speech's 38 minutes, she spent about nine or 10 minutes talking about energy policy, and even then in only the most platitudinous tropes. In policy terms, that was it. A few shots at the Democrats for the old "they'll raise your taxes" bugaboo, but not one word on what she and McCain would really do to improve the economy.

I size it up like this. Let's say I were a laid-off, $45,000-a-year worker in Ohio. If I were sitting on an olio of right-wing resentments, about elitist liberals and the media and this and that kind of thing, I may have fallen in love with her. She was that compelling as a human being.

But if I weren't sitting on those resentments, I'd have been asking myself, "Uh, what exactly did she say to me, to address my concerns?" Barack Obama was hammered a million and one times for allegedly failing to do exactly this. But compared to Palin on this score he has been FDR a thousand times over. Palin's argument tonight wasn't an argument, it was an arrow aimed at the viscera: If you relate to what I'm telling you about the media and these liberals, join the team. If you don't, then … well, it seems that neither she nor the person who wrote the speech had the imagination to envision those people.

One last cautionary note to conservative serum-drinkers, or to liberals terrified now that she's impossibly formidable. Remember how things change in 24 or 48 hours. We're still sitting on a powder keg of Palin administration and family potential scandals. One could break Friday, and suddenly, the speech would be forgotten instantly. Or one might not. But whatever the case, the speech will fade. She will also soon face the reality that she will have to endure a tough interview or two, without a teleprompter and without an adoring crowd. And, since she opened up a can of whup-ass on the Democrats, it entitles them to open up a can on her. One can be sure they will.'


And why did she lie about that bridge on a national podium?