Palin's Speech

As I figured, Palin is effective on television. She delivers speeches well, and she knows how to serve the red meat to the crowd. Much of it was made of lies, but it worked in a Young Tory of the Year kind of way:



I did find something curious though. Palin delivered, toward the end of her spiel, a long hagiography about John McCain's military service, and how much we should honor it, and how it proves that his character is one vastly superior to that of his opponent. I'm not surprised McCain/Palin is making this argument. It's the best one they've got. But I think back to four years ago. That time the Democratic nominee was the Vietnam veteran, and many of the people who cheered Mrs. Palin's remarks tonight were there, wearing band aids to mock John Kerry's military service. Later in the campaign their side invested millions in scurrilous ads that purported to show that Kerry's military record was a fiction. I guess the Right's sentimentality about military service kind of comes and goes, doesn't it?