Sarah Palin speech to Republican National Congress: US bloggers view
Updated on 04 September 2008
Sports metaphors abound for Sarah Palin's much awaited speech - but was it a winner or an own goal?
"Saint Sarah beats expectations in Saint Paul" declares Steve Clemons of
The Washington Note.
He praises the "powerful home run speech" by the Alaska governor, although he takes issue with her contradictions - such as portraying herself as a believer in liberty while trampling over the human rights of terror suspects, and her "neo-Orwellian" position of fiscal responsibility in the face of embracing war and lowering taxes:
"Palin, like George W. Bush and Cheney, seems to think that by asserting falsehoods or juxtaposing contradictory goals like maintaining a large forward based troop presence in Iraq but keeping taxes from going up sells just fine to Americans."
Still, though, she wins on presentation: "But despite my substantive differences with Palin, this performance tonight beat expectations and moved her to a new level.
"Her competition at this incredibly flat, low energy confab in St. Paul is thin - so one could easily argue that she had a lot of room to pull off a success. But that is too cynical."
Sarah Palin's conference speech - highlights
Experience? How do you get any if no-one takes a chance on you?Hilary Rosen, Huffington Post
At leading American blog site the Huffington Post, Hilary Rosen wonders whether she is "off-message", taking issue with those who dig at Palin for her inexperience.
"I am a woman who someone took a chance on several years ago and gave me a job that had only previously been done by old white guys," Rosen writes. "Experience? How do you get any if no one takes a chance on you?"
This doesn't mean she supports Palin, though, pulling together a list of criticisms of Palin-McCain hypocrisy, including their refusal to stand up to oil companies, opposing the extension of universal health care. The right reason to oppose them in Novermber, she says, is what they represent rather than the people: "Yet, the only real change they have proposed is a change from a suit to a skirt in the VP's office and one man fighting a misplaced war for another in the Oval Office."
Her delivery sold the whole thing - earnest and all fight, but without ever coming off fake, especially on the humour.Katherine Miller, Right-Wing Vitriol
The Democrat Daily Kos blog is cautious about declaring the speech a "grand slam". "It certainly had some slams in it, posts Meteor Blades, "with the knife stuck in and twisted while she smiled, which might well be part of the governor's vaunted managerial experience.
"She got paid $75,000 a year for her on-the-job training in Wasilla. But, Alaska only pays her $81,648 for governing the whole state."
A 15,000+ voter poll below the post has 46 per cent saying Palin's speech was "as infuriating as it was boring", although the next biggest chunk - 16 per cent - give it the top accolade: a "grand slam".
But over at Right-Wing Vitriol, the conservative blog of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, Katherine Miller reckons Sarah Palin has hit a "home run through Dan Quayle's body".
"Her delivery sold the whole thing - earnest and all fight, but without ever coming off fake, especially on the humour."
Miller's highlight, from a policy standpoint, was her defence of oil drilling to allow US energy security, but really it was all in the telling: "Critically, she came out poised from the beginning. This speech was huge, and she didn't flinch. At all."
Blogging from Alaska, Palin's former Republican rival for the state's governorship Andrew Halcro starts off gushing with praise: "It was a great night for Alaskans as Governor Sarah Palin hit all of the high notes and delivered a well rounded speech that touched all of the bases, giving Palin's speech an 'A'.
It probably would have been an A+, he says, but he knows her reputation as governor, and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a political rival, takes issue with some of the claims she makes.
