what the hell?

After the debate finished, NBC News went to a live interview with Joe Biden. And then, "because the McCain-Palin camp refused our invitation" to allow Brian Williams to talk to Sarah Palin--maybe because he's male and Catholic??--they offered up Rudy Guiliani. I suppose any idiot will do...

Obama vs. McCain, Round 1

Roger Cohen had a good article outlining the foreign policy outlook of the two major party candidates.

If I remember all the way back to American History days in high school, American engagement with the world was divided into periods of Isolationism and Engagement. Isolationism generally went hand in hand with Economic Protectionism (high tariffs); the Engagement crowd (as would be expected) bore the flag of Free Markets.

What's got me bothered about this election is the breakup of 20th century Political and Economic theory. Consider:

Obama is For foreign engagement (Cohen's Universalism), but supports, in his proposal to tax outsourcing corporations, Employment Protectionism. So we'll talk with you about your nuclear weapons, but we have reservations about doing business with you.

McCain is For a go-it-alone isolationist foreign policy (Cohen's Exceptionalism), but says he's for Free Markets. So we'll bomb you whenever we want for the sake of our freedom, but after that we'll buy anything that you sell us.

I like Obama's mix-up better--because if you're willing to talk to the rest of the world at the start, you can come around to free markets. If you've pissed off everyone at the get-go, I don't see how trade policy will bring them back around.

Surprise Me Most

In his New York Times column today, David Brooks wrote on a theme worth your reading. His opening paragraph--

None of us have ever lived through an election at a time when 80 percent of voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction. But now that we’re in the thick of it, a few things are clear. From voters, the demand is: Surprise Me Most. For candidates, the lesson is: Weirdness Wins.

What Impresses My Ilk?

I'm impressed by moose hunting. I'm impressed by people who get elected and take on the establishment. That's not enough to make me impressed with someone nominated to run for vice president. It has nothing to do with "experience"-- whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. It has everything to do with the issues at hand. Push comes to shove, I think Sarah Palin is McCain's attempt to calm doubts about his positions. Palin is clearly anti abortion, anti gay marriage, anti environment, and pro American oil. I'm a church going, God fearing, theologically conservative evangelical Christian, but I can't vote for that. There is more at stake in the world. McCain didn't have a handle on that, and his new sidekick Palin offers less. She would be a good mayor of my town, where she can maybe be around to have coffee or something. But I don't want her to be the back-up for a guy with one foot already in the home.

Apparently. I'm not alone. From Time,

Lost in the stampede of social conservatives to embrace Palin this past week is the fact that she is culturally outside the mainstream of Evangelicalism. Over the past few years, a growing number of Evangelicals have been consciously distancing themselves from the more extreme stands of the Christian right. They live in the suburbs, hold graduate degrees, and while they might not want their children reading certain novels, would be embarrassed by attempts to ban certain books from libraries, as Palin is reported to have briefly considered while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. They don't attend churches where speakers charge that violence against Israelis is divine punishment for the failure of Jews to accept Jesus, as happened at one of Palin's churches two weeks ago (though Palin has now issued a statement saying she does not agree with those views). And they would disagree with Palin's decision to use her line-item veto as Governor to slash funding for an Alaska shelter that serves teen mothers.

That goes double for younger Evangelicals. These voters tend to be even more pro-life than their parents, but abortion isn't always a priority that moves their votes — it wasn't when McCain was alone on the ticket, and there's no reason for that to change with the addition of Palin. More important, Palin has problematic stances on many of the issues that do motivate young Evangelicals. Her insistence that global warming is not man-made, for instance, is unlikely to appeal to those Evangelicals who have embraced so-called "creation care" in the past few years. This is particularly relevant to the current race, as young Evangelicals account for much of that demographic's undecided bloc. No one knows what the size of their impact may be in November because young Evangelicals are consistently underrepresented in polls of white Evangelicals. (Even a TIME poll of likely white Evangelical voters conducted last month used a sample in which just 10% of respondents were between 18 and 35. That age group made up 22% of the total electorate in 2004, and its share of the electorate is expected to increase this year.)

Sadly, that's all the article says about me and my ilk. But it is worth reading.