Can't Resist Commenting on Palin

Well, word on the street in my social circles is that Palin nailed her speech last night in St. Paul. For the most immediate audience, I would say Republican insiders who were shocked or disgruntled at her nomination and other skeptical RNC attendees, she did. She had to prove herself to the Republican establishment, prove that she was not just a maverick gimmick, poorly vetted and ill-conceived. She hit all the red-meat notes while delivering a speech that probably resonated with the personal experiences of many Americans. She was strong and convincing where she needed to be, and familiar and sympathetic in all the right places.

In that way, it was a very polarizing, divisive speech in my opinion. Really, it was the second half that got me riled up, in that it hewed to party lines and was all rhetoric (albeit effective) and little substance--politics as usual, in other words. For instance, she played up Obama's proposed tax hikes and her own use of executive power to veto tax hikes in Alaska, obfuscating the real issue at stake and downright misrepresenting the facts (her own tax hikes in Wasilla probably affecting more people than would be affected by Obama letting the Bush tax cuts expire). I know, ALL POLITICIANS DO THIS. I'm just saying, I find this personally very polarizing because by telling Republicans what they want to hear, it shores up their righteousness in their own views and their disdain for the other side, while infuriating Democrats and making them ever more convinced that Republicans are all conniving idiots. It just gets worse and worse. On that note, I am retiring from politics.