Palin on top, other stuff on the bottom. No rich creamy center, I’m not that kind of blogger. I’m way behind on links anyway, so this’ll be a doozy.
* To start, another note on the Bristol stuff - Sarah gave her oldest son, Track, a veto over her considering a Senate run in 2004. Beldar (a blogger who’s been more on top of Palin information than anyone else this week) notes quite obviously that it’s quite reasonable to suggest that the same offer was made regarding the VP slot.
* Cato notes that Palin’s tax record isn’t perfect, which we knew. Note the accurate description of the severence tax - you listening, Washington Post, New York Times, etc? As a counter, here’s a defense of the severence tax issue and more positives from Palin’s tax record in Alaska.
* Want to compare Obama and Palin a bit? Real Clear Politics does a solid job right here. Perhaps too heavy handed on the abortion stuff, but still a good general primer.
* Obama spokesperson Mark Bubriski had to retract a statement regarding Palin and Pat Buchanan. Defending on Robert Wexler’s nonsense about Buchanan being a Nazi sympathizer, it was a classy move by the Obama campaign to make that statement and to do so without any factual evidence. It turns out that Palin served on the Steve Forbes campaign, not Buchanan’s. Didn’t stop the media from running with it, though. The irony? Buchanan and Obama share similar Israel preferences.
* Sarah Palin: the best candidate small ‘l’ libertarians can expect on a major ticket.
* More on Vettinggate: Yuval Levin, Patterico channeling Beldar (see, Beldar!), The Washington Post (and don’t tell me the Post claims the opposite - you have to actually read the article to notice the important points), Jan Crawford Greenburg (who has always been good, and perhaps accidentally makes the case in the second half of the post), and Wizbang, and most importantly, Byron York (which should put this nonsense to rest). Let’s be clear - if an outlet is telling you that Palin wasn’t vetted, they are simply lying to you. It doesn’t pass the smell test or the fact test.
* More irresponsible media factchecking: Note the claim that Palin cut benefits for teen moms. The fact? The “cut” was actually slashing an increase from $5 million in additional funding to $3.9 million. In other words, the teen pregnancy center increased its funding significantly, just not as high as proposed before Palin got her knife out. Nope, no benefits were cut here, folks. Dead wrong. The worst part is the evidence linked on the Post website with it - it clearly says expansion. Ridiculously sloppy work.
* A religion-themed question and answer with the writer of Sarah Palin’s biography via Christianity Today.
* Palin’s administrative accomplishments. Put that up against Obama any day of the week, in my mind.
* Palin in a 2006 debate. Biden’s not going to eat her alive.
* The New Republic: The Case Against the Case Against Palin.
* If a lot of the above shows one theme, it’s that the media may be in for a heap of backlash for how they’ve treated this Palin situation. If they spent even a quarter of the time on Obama as they have on Palin, one can only imagine the outcome. But the right isn’t happy - in fact, it has probably set things back considerably in terms of media perception. And then people wonder why people believe the media is helping Obama win the election.
* Possible lazyblogging because I may have discussed this before, but did anyone notice environmental groups coming out against a CO2 scrubbing technology because it would reduce the need to reduce usage of fossil fuels? I don’t like the hype that environmentalists are trying to shove us into a technological dark age or trying to knock the west down a peg, but stuff like this doesn’t really help that perception, either.
* Considering the Palin mythbusting that has to occur, it’s lax of me not to have linked Wizbang’s McCain Mythbusting post from a week ago. Irresponsible all around.
* Did everyone see the new Census figures? They came out the day of the Obama DNC speech, which makes one wonder why it didn’t get a mention. Among it’s findings - there are fewer people without health insurance (both number and ratio), the number of poor and middle class have both decreased while the number of upper class have increased, and median income rose.
* Fact: I drove through this tax revolt on my way to work the day it happened, and if I didn’t have an EZPass, I would have been late.
* QandO offered a critique of Bill Clinton’s speech at the DNC.
* The Aussie meat pie revolt.
* Fred Thompson is rolling out a new political action committee, FredPAC. I got the e-mail announcement last night - it’s designed to reach the goals of a Constitutional federal government and responsible taxation, among others. This could end up being a very positive PAC for me to look into.
* Speaking of taxes, an informal poll of Democratic delegates regarding tax rates at the DNC showed some surprising results.
* Randy Mott, a guy who doesn’t blog enough, has a huge data dump regarding the last 10 years of climate change.
* One final fun link: Seven gaming consoles that were never meant to be.