In the hometown of Powerline, this is very amusing.  Of the Manhatan-Beltway Elite, for the Manhattan-Beltway Elite, by the Manhattan-Beltway Elite.  I hope Peggy N. stes them straight about Governor P.

CONVENTION CONVERSATIONS

Presented by: POLITICO, Yahoo! News, and The Pioneer Press

You’re invited to a series of morning breakfast panels that will set the tone for each day of the convention. The discussions will feature top political leaders and will be moderated by leading journalists from Politico.

 Crowne Plaza Hotel, 11 East Kellogg Boulevard, Downtown St Paul

8-9:30 a.m.

  Monday, Sept. 1 – The Media and Conservatives Go to War - Again

The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, TIME’s Mark Halperin, and ABC’s Rick Klein

The evacuation and preparation efforts in Louisiana are impressive, and the briefing by Governor Jindal that concluded a half hour ago should be required viewing by every public official who foresees ever having to conduct such a briefing.  Lots and lots of information, delivered quickly so as to retain the attention of the audience, and concluded with a stern warning to get out combined with an offer to help the procastinators.

What was very useful was the governor's specificity as to the threat and the worst case scenario.  If you want to communicate peril, it is the details that matter.  Nearly 2 million people have moved out.  If the storm proves to be less destructive than feared, nothing but time and money have been lost.  Hats off to everyone the governor thanked, and prayers for the safety of the public servants who are keeping watch on the emptied cities and towns.

My new Townhall.com column is up.  It looks at a couple more of the unique aspects of Governor Palin's experience.

Question:  Would you rather have Barack Obama or Sarah Palin in charge of post-hurricane rescue and relief efforts?  Who has had more experience with such situations?

And be sure to read this by Annette Budd, which I think reflects the thinking of many many women.

And this by John Mark Reynolds, which I think reflects the thinking of many, many men.

One more aside:  Annette's piece was flagged for me by blogger Josh Brage --just a bit of a Nebraska fan.  I am always impressed when one blogger promotes the work of another blogger.

One more aside: I hope Team McCain starts "Small Town Mayors for Palin" asap.  The left's mocking of Palin's public service as a mayor and city council member isn't going to travel well outside the big urban centers which, after all, generally function so well compared to small towns.

This is very good. Very good indeed.

And for background on the crazy left's charge that Governor Palin is a "creationist," see this article.  

On the "serious problem" ledger, there is a rumor she is a Steelers' fan.  This would reflect badly on her judgment.  Beldar, who is back in full force because of the Palin pick, is going to have trouble explaining that one.

On the other hand, her husband is almost as accomplished a snowmobile master as I am.

Charles Mason for The New York Times

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska greeting her husband, Todd, a champion snowmobiler, after a race in Fairbanks.

Scan the lefty blogs and you will see furious, even unhinged, attacks on Governor Palin.

Which has to mean that the Obamians are unsettled, perhaps intuiting that every time they raise her "inexperience," they indict the resume of their own presidential nominee.

The Palin-Obama contrast is sharpest when it comes to battling corruption.

Obama is a product of cronyism, and has never lifted a finger to battle the corrupt practices of the Cook County/Daley machines.  Read Freddoso's book where it is all spelled out, or just ask yourself how Obama came by his house.  Obama talks of reform but has never fought for it, but rather benefitted from old boy networks, even when the old boys were radicals like unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.  This is why Stanley Kurtz's researches in the Anneberg Project have Obama so panicked.  Where did the $100 million that Ayers and Obama controlled go?  Could they spend that much and achieve nothing?  Some "experience."

Palin, on the other hand, is the real deal --she rose by taking on the Alaska old boy network, and her talk is backed by a walk that is easy to see and admire.

A caller to Friday's show --a disappointed Romney backer-- sang Palin's praises and noted that Americans love the authentic when they find it in political figures.

This is what has unsettled the left.  McCain was already Popeye, "I yam what I yam," and now he's added a genuine American original to his ticket.  Palin could become "Mrs. Smith Goes To Washington," and that sort of change excites a broad coalition of voters sick to death of Beltway Bigs.  Evert denunciation of Palin's tenure as a small town mayor signals every small town resident just what Obama thinks of them.

Obama was already looking constructed and contrived before adding the anchor that is Slow Joe Biden.  Now his minions are resorting to cliches and stereotypes to try and blunt the impact of Palin.

But the anti-politician Palin only needs to keep doing what she has been doing in Alaska to the approval of 80% of the population --being a "hockey mom" and talking straight and tough to the elites. (And take a look at this examination of Palin v. Biden on oil exploration.)  Scott Johnson ordered up a True Grit photo shop which will get a lot of play in the weeks ahead, and for good reason.  This is a story line millions of Americans will love --the old soldier and the young, energetic reformer teaming up to shake the old cronyist guard to its deep roots.

Or you can have the celeb with zero achievements who is prompter-dependent.

In light of Gustav, I wanted to share the description of a panel issue I organized at Chapman University School of Law in October 2005, post-Katrina, and later discussed on a panel in January 2006 at UCLA.  The description and my list of questions and issues are below.  I think that all of the questions should remain part of the discussion today:

"Dangerous Liaisons:
FEMA, Moral Hazards, and Human Decisions
to Set Up Home or Shop in Risky Places"

        Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Floods & Fires, oh my!  There are a number of geographical areas throughout the United States and the world that have a high risk for, a higher than normal susceptibility to, natural disasters.  Recent and historic earthquakes in California are one example.  The recent devastation in Louisiana and neighboring states due to hurricanes and floods is perhaps the most salient example pervading current news.

        Compassion for losses to human life, subsistence, employment, and property is a natural element of our human condition.  Charity is something to be encouraged.  But, reflection is something to be inspired as well.  Reflection requires an analysis of the moral, economic and legal implications of (1) the rationality of locating businesses and homes in high-risk areas; and (2) the incentive structure that is created when a public safety net exists to protect individuals against the consequences of risky choices.

        Fundamentally, the question for this panel will be whether public and/or private insurance markets tend to encourage locating homes or businesses in high-risk areas.  Does the public safety net of the Federal Emergency Management Agency create a moral hazard – i.e. allow individuals to place their homes or businesses in naturally unsafe areas without fear that they will eventually need to internalize the costs of their location decisions because someone will be there to bail them out if things go wrong.  Does the existence of a federal bailout regime skew investment decisions?

        As an alternative argument, is there a social responsibility to provide protection for harmed individuals regardless of their location?  The entire country has profited from such risky developments, has it not?  As the country braces to confront each natural disaster, including the recent one in New Orleans, it is imperative that we analyze how the law should be structured to reflect properly the economic realities and incentives involved in locating properties when known risks exist.  This panel will provide an in-depth view of the issues involved.

Mine.

John Taylor's.

Fred Barnes'.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com)

Mark Steyn's.  Key graphs:

First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy....

Third, real people don't define "experience" as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been around long enough to have got both the War on Terror and the Cold War wrong. (On the first point, at the Gun Owners of New Hampshire dinner in the 2000 campaign, I remember Orrin Hatch telling me sadly that he was stunned to discover how few Granite State voters knew who he was.) Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. She's done the stuff he's merely a poseur about. Post-partisan? She took on her own party's corrupt political culture directly while Obama was sucking up to Wright and Ayers and being just another get-along Chicago machine pol (see his campaign's thuggish attempt to throttle Stanley Kurtz and Milt Rosenberg on WGN the other night).

Here's John Fund on the many questions surrounding the cloaked past of Barack Obama.

And be sure to check outPajamasTV, which I'll be working with in St. Paul and beyond.

My Townhall.com column on why conservatives are so charged up over the selection of Governor Sarah Palin dropped the links to:

RobinsonandLong.com, and

GunsandRosaries.

And since you are here, consider sending a copy of "Letter To A Young Obama Supporter" to an under-25 voter who might need recovering from the Denver swoon.  

Don't panic, we're not suddenly dropping politics just as the presidential campaign heads into the final couple of months.  But since it's Labor Day weekend, the dog days of August are coming to a close, and the rosters are getting ready to expand for the final stretch to the playoffs, I thought I'd share my trip to Cooperstown this week. 

Visiting the Hall of Fame had long been on my own personal bucket list, and when the opportunity came earlier this year to take a trip to Cooperstown Dreams Park and take part in a week-long tournament of youth baseball as an umpire, with the perk at the end of the trip being a trip to see the Hall, I was happy to olige.  Fifteen games later, Friday was getaway day, with the Hall being the first stop out of town.


Read More...

To get a sense of the huge enthusiasm among conservatives for the Sarah Palin pick, scroll down the postings at RobinsonandLong.com which aggregates the most important center-right voices.

I have a new Townhall.com column up explaining this reaction, but it is wide, deep, and it will endure.  Short version: With this pick the future of the Republican Party is securely conservative, pro-life, pro-family, pro-military and strong on national defense, pro-Second Amendment, pro-property rights, pro-free market, pro-energy exploration and anchored in outside-the-Beltway Reaganism.

UPDATE:  An e-mail this evening remarks on another first: Sarah Palin is the first mother of an American soldier to be nominated for the second highest office in the land.  This is indeed a special group to represent.

As is the community of parents with children with special needs.  After hearing CNN's John Roberts astonishing idiocy today, I had parents of children with Down Syndrome on in two segments today.  Their children, they were quick to point out, are kids like all other kids and require just as much love and attention as all other kids.  Roberts and CNN need (1) to apologize for the idea that children with Down Syndrome are heavy burdens, and (2) get smart about kids with disabilities.

For reliable information on Down Syndrome --as opposed to CNN's insinuation-- visit the National Down Syndrome Society.

And see Powerline's John Hinderaker's post, which rightly concludes:

So it is hard to imagine a more complete outsider, in terms of national politics, than Sarah Palin. She ran and was elected as a reformer, has governed successfully as such, and owes nothing whatever to anyone in Washington. Personally, I'm not as anti-Washington as many conservatives, but it would be just about unAmerican not to root for a rebel and outsider like Palin.

UPDATE 2: Wisconsin women:  Do you agree with your Lt. Gov?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would make a "pretty fragile" president, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton said Friday as politicians trotted out their talking points on Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's surprise vice presidential pick.

In a conference call with reporters, Lawton, a Democrat, said she was taken aback by the choice.

The 44-year-old Palin has served as Alaska's governor for the last two years. Before that she was the mayor of Wasilla, a town of 6,500 about 30 miles north of Anchorage.

Lawton said Palin has absolutely no national security experience.

"If she becomes president of the United States of America, I think we would have someone who is pretty fragile at the helm," Lawton said.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus called Lawton's remark sexist. Palin's experience leading the largest state in the union and the Alaska National Guard is more than Democratic presidential Barack Obama has, Priebus said.

"She's, number one, an outsider, smart, articulate governor in a state that couldn't get further from Washington," he said. "She's a person who finally can break that glass ceiling. We're proud to nominate a female vice president."

Update 3:  Charles Krauthammer is a brilliant man. But he lives inside the Beltway,and this note from him confirms that.  Sarah Palin is vastly more experienced than Barack Obama when it comes to executive decision-making, and so the ticket of McCain-Palin is much to be preferred over the ticket of Obama-Biden when it comes to leading the nation.  The GOP hasn't given up an inch of their argument about "Not Ready To Lead."  Obama is the total rookie and he's at the top of the ticket.  Palin --with years of "do this, do that" experience, is in the second seat.  This is the huge difference.  Obama has zero management experience (except for the stuff that Stanley Kurtz is trying to unearth from Obama's tyears running the failed Annenberg Challenge for unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.)

Obama isn't ready to be C-in-C.  McCain is.  And McCain has an understudy who will soak it all in rather than blather on endlessly.

 

Please keep talking about Sarah Palin's inexperince in foreign affairs.  By reason of just her work with Canada, she's light years ahead Obama.

BTW, here's Mitt Romney's statement:

“Governor Palin's story is one that all Americans will find inspiring. She's a Washington outsider with a commitment to the conservative principles that will make our nation stronger. I look forward to campaigning for Senator McCain, Governor Palin and Republicans all across the country.”

Another display of class by the former Massachusetts governor, which should be matched by all of the GOP heavyweights.

UPDATE: Beldar has lots of great posts on Gov. Palin.

Pro-life conservatives across the country have to be thrilled with John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP nominee for Veep.  Reformers have to be thrilled.  Inside-baseball analysts have to be thrilled.

Jonathan Martin gives the quick run-down of how the MSM will understand Palin:

Palin is a strong conservative, opposing abortion rights and enjoying a life membership in the NRA.

She also has a compelling personal story, having given birth in April to a son, her fifth child, who has Down syndrome.  Another son is in the Army and is to deploy to Iraq next month. 

Politically, Palin would underline McCain's reform message and offer him a running mate who could not be, in more ways than one, further from the Beltway.

When the Dems come after Palin for inexperience in foreign affairs, the reply will be obvious --the GOP vice-presidential nominee is as experienced as the Democratic presidential nominee but also has executive decision-making that Obama lacks.  

Palin's  tough stance on reform of long corrupt practices is going to give her a very clear advantage over practiced cronyists Obama and Biden.

And she knows the crucial energy issue very, very well, as well as a variety of land-use and property rights issues dear to many in the crucial mountain west.

McCain has turned the race on its head, and if Palin proves to be as able a campaigner as her fans say, GOP and American politics will have been changed in a way that fundamentally celebrates opportunity and talent.  What a contrast to Obama's rhetoric of last night.

Archbishop Neinstadt of St. Paul, MN 

Archbishop Gomez and Bishop Contu of San Antonio, 

Bishop Farell of Dallas, TX

Nancy Pelosi has single-handedly energized the Roman Catholic hierarchy into effective action against her attempt to obscure Roman Catholic teaching on the rights of the unborn.  In so doing, she has also made it very clear to Mass-attending Catholics that their votes in November are moral acts which their Church considers to be hugely significant. (HT: PowderTracks.)

I'd like to than the Speaker for raising this issue at this time, and for provoking so many of the bishops to act with such speed and clarity.

And kudos to Archbishop Chaput for leading the way on Monday.   For a complete explanation of the Church's teaching on the political responsibilites of the faithful, get the archbishop's new book, Render Unto Caesar.

Put aside all the theatrics of the night, however over the top.  Obama sunk his own speech when he began to talk of how he would confront Russia and defeat al Qaeda.

He doesn't have the qualifications to run a battalion, much less the entire military. No corporation would make Obama CEO, and few states would elect him governor on his resume.  It is all talk, all wind.

The idea of Obama defining American policy vis-a-vis Putin or Ahmadinejad is at best, deeply disturbing.

Really.

As for the veep, I know knowthing.  I keep going back to RobinsonandLong.com and scanning the numerous posts from connected people, none of whom know anything either.  Team McCain intends to roll this out tomorrow and I won't be believing anything until they do.

Though that won't stop me from checking back at R&L throughout my show.  Traffic at R&L has been soaring as more and more readers discover the aggregator of their dreams, with a Lileks twitter tossed in.

Don't forget to support the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where Stanley Kurtz is a fellow. There is no better way to push back against Obama's heavy-handed attempt at controlling the news than by supporting the Center.