It’s been a relatively slow news day in some ways. Sure, there was the shocking news that Palin has decided to not cooperate with the Troopergate investigation. Sure, she agreed to it, sure, she said she’s cooperate, sure, it was unanimously voted for by Republican and Democrat alike on the ethics panel … but that was all prior to her becoming the Big VP. Now, of course, it’s all about how the investigation has been tainted by the Democrats. That the investigation was predicted to be finished just before the election had, I am sure, nothing to do with it, nor with the other efforts to get a different body to investigate who wouldn’t report until well after the election.
But remember, we’re all about Change!
It’s not just obstructionism and stonewalling, mind you. It’s just easier to make this a big Us vs Them political conflict, standing on principle against your political enemies, than to explain how you let an initiative to combat Alaska’s shockingly high sexual assault and abuse rates langush due to apparent lack of gubernatorial interest. Way to go with that pro-woman, pro-family idea, Sarah!
The other more amusing news was John McCain’s Al Gore moment. Gore was lambasted in the media (you know, the “liberal” media) for noting that his Senatorial efforts had helped pave the way for the Internet — which got turned into the “I invented the Internet” meme, with much ridicule ensuing.
Now McCain’s campaign is claiming that, through his involvement on the Senate Commerce Committee, McCain “invented” the Blackberry, Wi-Fi, and … well … more of the Internet.
Asked what work John McCain did as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate’s top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry.
“He did this,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. “Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”
Right. Which would be amusing enough, if it weren’t that McCain actually seems to have been on th wrong side of every major telecomm bill passed in recent decades.
Oh, well — I guess it’s easier to talk about dubious achievements than explain how continuing the economic policies of the last eight years is going to make things all better again, or how making it tougher to get or pay for health insurance is likely to help the country. And if that fails, then you can always just claim that the media is against you (not that, for argument’s sake, one photojournalist did something unprofessional and stupid and was roundly condemned by the very media you claim is out to get you).
On a more positive note, Obama delivered a major speech on the economy today (I haven’t sifted down to the sound bites yet). And he picked up the support of an important cultural arts group.