Mori Dinauer

Over the weekend, both The New York Times and The Washington Post ran hard hitting profiles of Sarah Palin‘s tenure as mayor of Wasilla, AK. Interviews of Wasilla residents, city council members and civic officials, paint a picture of Brownie-levels of cronyism, government secrecy, and abuse of power to fulfill petty personal vendettas. I imagine […]

Sarah Palin‘s interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson revealed a candidate able to cram for a quiz and pull out a C performance while mastering the political art of substantive answer evasion (and eye remoisturization). This doesn’t excuse her casual approach to threatening large countries with sizable nuclear arsenals and not bothering to develop an opinion […]

Conservatives are understandably excited about the rehabilitation the GOP brand has received in the wake the RNC, but Gallup observes that such increases in support are normal post-convention, adding that the only unknown is staying power — bounce or bump? If the latter, I’d side with the conventional wisdom that asserts the presidential debates can […]

Yesterday, David Brooks noted in his column in passing that “The Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now,” but based on the last 24 hours, I think Josh Marshall has the more accurate take: “There’s just no getting around it at this point, the man [McCain] is not morally fit to serve as president.” […]

Sarah Palin and John McCain continue to lie about being a pair of mavericks, even as every major news organization, it seems, has called them out on Palin’s supposed opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere. So what happens when a lie is widely refuted, yet still lives on? I can’t help but think this incident […]

Apparently the fact that McCain/Palin received a convention bump in the polls is supposed to be cause for panic amongst Democrats, but isn’t this yet another rehash of the “why isn’t Obama winning by ten points” argument? The source of the panic, incidentally, is a whole gaggle of national polls confirming McCain either ahead or […]

John McCain‘s acceptance speech last night drew 500,000 more viewers than Barack Obama‘s, 38.9 to 38.4 million, although pundit reactions — right and left — to the speech could probably be best described in the aggregate as “competent.” In addition, as Daniel notes below, the source of the hideous green lawn behind McCain’s head during […]

Sarah Palin‘s acceptance speech was viewed by over 37 million people last night, just shy of Barack Obama‘s 38 million one week ago. This is unsurprising given that a CBS poll taken before her appearance found that fully 66 percent had no opinion — i.e., knew nothing — about her. An introductory video scheduled to […]

Palin, Palin, Palin: Joshua Green explains how Palin could ende up like McGovern running mate Thomas Eagleton. Palin vetoed state funding for teenage mothers. Dan Balz reports on the sole meeting between Palin and McCain’s VP vetters the Wednesday before the Friday announcement. Politico breaks down the odds of Palin becoming president due to President […]

Was Sarah Palin thoroughly vetted by the McCain campaign before last Friday’s announcement? Front page stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post say no, but the Associated Press decides to take the path of least resistance and ask the guy in charge of VP vetting for the McCain campaign. His answer? A […]