Weekend Update

just back from michigan and settling in to watch the steelers game. tried to catch up on the press over the last few days. here are my highlights. promise to be back in business tomorrow.

• Senator Barack Obama's campaign announced today that more than half a million new donors contributed to the Obama campaign during the month of August, bringing the total raised for the month to over $66 million and the cash on hand to more than $77 million. More than 2.5 million people have contributed to the campaign. his most prolific month yet.
  

• From Alaskan blogger: ‘Alaska Women Reject Palin’ Rally is HUGE! Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.

What I've learned about Sarah Palin over the last few days. She likes/has/or think she has:

secrecy: deliberately using personal email accounts as a way to circumvent subpoenas. which her staff discussed doing in their public emails. brilliant.

hiring friends with no experience into high-paying jobs: then firing said friends when they pissed her off. she also fired other officials for pissing off her friends (like the state attorney).

nepotism: palin's husband sits in on high-level meetings, is consulted on significant state matters, and has intervened in state hiring practices.

so-called executive experience: as mayor of wasilla she used what little authority she did have to fire people (like the director of the town's museum--for being too progressive) and to build a skating rink which ended up in litigation (because it wasn't clear that the city even owned the land. hello? small technicality).
here's the agenda from a typical city council meeting: approving funds to upgrade the public well, issuing a restaurant permit and taking up a measure forbidding residents from operating bed-and-breakfasts in their homes. After a lively debate, the bed-and-breakfast measure lost, 4 to 1.

hubris: one thing that really stood out for me during the charlie gibson interview--that palin says she didn't hesitate in accepting the nomination. that she knew she was ready. really? don't you think someone who was a little more humble, a little more thoughtful, would have stepped back for just a minute to consider whether their experience has prepared them for the oval office? frank rich makes this point, and many others (particularly about her similarities to bush--like acting insulted when pressed to provide facts and analysis during interviews), in the ny times today.

freak out for the week: where the hell is obama? barely seen any coverage about him all week except when he called out mccain for his lying. the kos, by the way, thinks that rachel maddow (bridg and dave's sweetheart) was the first to use the word "lies" and that's what gave the rest of the media the permission to start using the word as well.

but, still, as hillary clinton said on saturday night live last night: the media needs to grow a new pair and stand up to mccain.

as i've been saying pretty much since palin was nominated, if there is this much dirt on her already and we've just started digging, i can't wait to see what happens next. i won't be satisfied until she's forced to resign from the campaign and obama goes back to being our de facto president.

selected sources:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302596.html?nav=hcmodule&sid=ST2008091302649&s_pos=

/www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14rich.html?em

www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/