Glenn Reynolds didn’t love the McCain performance at the debate, but finds folks who think the old man did great. His conclusion:

You should never trust my judgment of these things, as I remember thinking that Carter won the Carter-Reagan debates. But Obama clearly won the post-debate spin, anyway.

Well, is there anything — anything? — that McCain, or Obama, could have done that could possibly have resulted in Obama not winning the post-debate spin?

I can just see it…. [make-believe quotes follow]:

The Associated Press:

Obama’s decision not only to engage in the debate while intoxicated, but to bring a paper bag with a brown glass beer-bottle neck clearly extending from the top to the podium, is being hailed by analysts as a paradigm-shifting tack that exemplified Obama’s “change” and “youth” themes and left McCain on the canvas from the early going.  “McCain looked old and disoriented — his shock at Obama’s brilliant ‘blitz campaign’ move just reinforced his image as out of touch and doomed to ignominious defeat,” said Chris Matthews.

The New York Times:

Ironically, analysts agreed that the fact that McCain was able to demonstrate a detailed understanding of the Pentagon weapon-systems accession process while enunciating his plan for a theater-by-theater reshuffling of tactical and strategic priorities in tandem with an analysis of the macroeconomic effect of military budget reform over a 14-year period put him at a huge disadvantage compared to his young, radiant adversary.  “Obama went to Harvard Law School and turned down the post of Secretary of General of the United Federation of Planets to do community work with nuns and orphans,” said Chuck Todd.  “He healed my dandruff just by gazing at a JPEG of my dog!”

MSNBC:

Eighty-two percent of those responding to a telephone poll following the debate agreed with the statement, “Barack Obama’s reading answers off a cheat sheet written on the inside of his left lapel demonstrates that he has more in common with today’s youth than that old buzzard John McCain.”  This is hardly surprising, as our Keith Olbermann said in his broadcast last night:  “McCain’s experience is a handicap, really, because he only spent six or so of his years in the Senate doing what matters:  opposing President Bush.  That’s about the same as Obama, but with one big difference:  Obama is the Word incarnate, and McCain is just a guy who couldn’t avoid getting shot out of the sky by a bunch of guys in black pajamas.”

Um, get my point?

Michelle Malkin has what’s probably a pretty good fundamental post on the “banned books” thingy.  The story’s not all that fresh, but I am still seeing this issue make the rounds, and it seemed like a good idea just to make this available.

And you don’t have to be as partisan as Michelle to get the point:

We can say for certain that no book was ever banned. Nor is there any record that Palin initiated a formal process to censor any books.

June Pinell-Stephens, longtime chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the Alaska Library Association, said she scoured the organization’s archives and could find no record of any formal actions to ban books in Wasilla under Palin’s tenure as mayor.

That jibes with Wasilla Library records as well. . ..

The 93 titles appear to be a generic list of frequently banned books. It was not part of the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board.

In fact, the Harry Potter series listed didn’t even begin until 1998, two years after this list is alleged to have been generated. In short, the list is a fake.

As for Kilkenny’s claim, there is no proof that Palin tried to fire the librarian because she refused to consider removing books. In fact, Palin asked for the resignation of a handful of department heads to test their loyalty, according to reports at the time. The claim that Palin had specific books she wanted removed is also unsupported. Kilkenny herself said she does not recall that any titles were named by Palin at the time.

Yes, a reporter provides a secondhand account 12 years later in which he says the librarian named books Palin wanted removed. But Stuart’s recollection seems hazy (he didn’t get the right title at first). The librarian isn’t talking. There are no public records or meeting minutes to substantiate the claim. And no one else corroborates that Palin ever listed any titles. So we find no basis to find that part of the story true.

But Palin did ask the librarian if she would consider removing books. Maybe it was posed as a rhetorical question as Palin says. But she asked. So we rule the statement Half True.

A very little half.

The email hacking story?  Now…. that’s something else.  But not for now.

The Master of Charisma

Don’t feel too bad if you don’t know that Richard Greene has a radio show called “Clout.” It’s on Air America which means, of course, that the title is pretty ironic, even if it isn’t meant that way.  Greene is one of those lefties who cannot fathom any reasoned basis for disagreement with his political faith, and therefore writes tired, cliched and barely readable pieces such as “The Psychopathology of The Republican” to demonstrate to himself and his vast audience that the half of the country that doesn’t see things his way is mentally ill.  Yeah, mentally ill — and this coming from no less than a “9-11 Truther” and assassination conspiracy loon.  So far, nothing newsworthy here.

In fact, though, Greene, a former lawyer, is a professional “communications coach,” and his website tells you — twice in the first 65 words — that he was crowned by the Times of London “the Master of Charisma.”  (That’s gotta hurt someone!)  Indeed he does have a nice smile, and a book.  Now that I’ve suffered my first adverse jury verdict, it’s clear I should have gotten a free consultation in exchange for this ultra-valuable plug!

The Master of Charisma also has a nice publicist, the charming and straightforward Leslie Grant.  And what is interesting is that the same Greene — who is, after all, an expert at speechifying  — has circulated, via

Greene's "Psychopath" and Family

Leslie, a pretty interesting, and arguably objective, “report card” of “psychopath” (per Greene) Sarah Palin’s speech at the convention, and it goes like this:

The Sarah Palin Speech Report Card

As Greene predicted, Gov. Sarah Palin did, indeed, “rock the house” with her address.  She instantly became a “celebrity”/”rock star” much like Sen. Obama (due to HIS speech at the 2004 convention) and has changed the game for the 2008 general election.

Greene says that the speech accomplished 4 things:

1.      Solidified and energized the Republican base

2.      Ratified John McCain’s suspect judgment in picking her

3.      Made the Republican ticket attractive to small town residents and women across the country who would not otherwise have participated in the election in any way

4.      Made a huge step forward in establishing her as ready to step into the Oval Office, if that were necessary.  There is still more work to be done on that front, however.

Quality:

Poise:  A+
Humor:  A-
Connection to the crowd:  A
Voice Tone:  C-
Toughness:  A
Gravitas:  B-
Warmth:   B+
Modulation and variation of voice to achieve effect:  A

Substance:
a)      When talking about John McCain:   C+
b)      When talking about her life and family:  A
c)      When attacking Obama and Biden:  A
d)      When discussing national and international policies:  C-

Likability:  A

Ready to be “Commander in Chief”:  C (up from a D before the speech)

Overall Grade:  A

An A — that’s good!

There are two possibilities here.  One is that Richard Greene makes believe he’s deranged, bona fide radical-left hatemonger, because from such things people can sometimes make a living.  Note that this is a guy with a syndicated radio show and a blog on something akin, at least conceptually, to a national platform — and he’s circulating a press release to conservative bloggers instead of publishing the item himself.  Acknowledging Sarah Palin’s merits could be bad for business.

The other possibility is that the political Richard Greene is for real, but the speechmaking and consulting hustler within him cries out, Truther-like, that Sarah Palin is …. that good.

Cross-posted on Right Wing News.

Kaus to fellow “conspirators”:

Forget Palin. Stop writing about her. If we make the election about Palin, we will lose. She’ll probably win her debate and will almost certainly handle the interviews well enough (to the satisfaction of the voters, at least, if not the experts). The election’s not about Palin. It’s about McCain. We can beat McCain.

Maybe, maybe not.  But his advice sounds right.  The more they flail on about Governor Palin, the worser it gets for ’em.

Instapundit:

IN THE MAIL: I CAN’T SEE THAT MANY INSTAPUNDIT READERS buying this book. On the other hand, the back-cover question — “How many Democrats does it take to lose the most winnable election in American history” — looks like it may be answered . . . .

Do you ever think about how many consecutive presidential elections Democrats have characterized as “the most winnable election in American history”? I would say that would include every single election that a Republican has won since since after 1980. (No one would have described Carter’s reelection campaign that way.)

This is not merely because Democrats exist in a friendly-media echo chamber. It is because they are constitutionally unable to acknowledge the existence of two sides of issues, much less elections, with any degree of objectivity :

Abortion is not a controversial practice; it is a fundamental human right. Same-sex “marriage” is not a stunning social innovation; it is a basic civil liberty. And George W. Bush… Ronald Reagan… and now John McCain… these are not merely men of unusual achievement and leadership whose views one may disagree with, however vociferously; they are mental and moral midgets deserving of the deepest contempt and comparison with the greatest war criminals of history.

That’s why they think it will do to throw up the likes of the awful candidates they have to oppose, and to argue with a straight face that a silver-spoon mediocrity such as John Kerry is axiomatically superior to a George W. Bush because the latter is alleged to be a silver-spoon mediocrity. That makes perfect sense to a Democrat. Yours is Hitler; what else do you need to know about ours, except that he is very, very great by contrast, and that anyone who disagrees is also a Nazi?

That is why, for Republicans, at the presidential level just about every election is “the most winnable election in American history” — no matter how many times and how unabashedly the national media crown the next JFK. From time to time, Democrats will come up with a Bill Clinton, whose moment will be right, and they will win a cycle of four or eight. But by and large they do not engage seriously, and have no memory; not the slightest understanding of why the galant, heroic John Kerry lost to the most wicked, dumbest President ever in the middle of the wrongest, most immoral war ever waged.

Democrats consider every election to be theirs for the taking because they are so obviously right about such clear axioms of political and moral reality that it hardly matters who leads the ticket, who shares it, or what they say along the way. Every election is theirs to lose because only an idiot or a murderer could disagree with them on the issues.

It is this fact remains our last, best hope. And when time to time it fails us, it is always there next time, not because we believe it, but because they do.

UPDATE:  It rolls on!  “Democratic operatives are enraged that the ‘most arrogant bunch’ they ever saw are ‘on the verge of blowing the greatest gimme in the history of American politics.'”