Palin, embodiment of Athenian democracy...

I'll post this from the Corner without comment:

Stadium Star [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Palin didn't need Greek columns. People react to her because they believe she represents what the Greeks established.
10/18 11:13 AM

What is to be done?

I'm about to read this. If you are interested in policy suggestions for the financial crisis, give this a read:

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I should add, however, that there is actually no point in speculating on the origins of the crisis, since, according to the McCain camp, it is ACORN and Obama's fault--quite an accomplishment, huh? Causing a worldwide meltdown in the financial markets is quite a feat for one man and a small organization.

An opening for the Obama administration...

I think this American Life broke some news yesterday. (Link to show here, to summary article here.)

After explaining why a stock-injection plan is better than the Paulson plan:

Instead of just taking toxic assets off of banks' books, the U.S. government would directly inject capital into ailing firms. In return, the government — and taxpayers — would get an ownership share in the firms equal to the amount of their investment. "The taxpayers, the government become stockholders and owners of the banks," Davidson says.
How is that better? First of all, it's simply easier, because it avoids trying to find the right price for mortgage-backed securities whose value is impossible to pin down at the moment, Davidson explains. If you give $10 billion to a bank, you get a $10 billion share.
"A lot of the economists I talk to say it's just fairer," he says. "It's a better deal for the taxpayer."With the Paulson plan, the taxpayer ends up owning toxic assets of questionable value. If the mortgages bundled into these securities default, then the taxpayer is on the hook.
"In the stock-injection plan, we would not only own stock, we would own something called 'preferred stock,'" Davidson says. That means the taxpayer would be the last one to lose money, because the non-preferred shareholders would take the first losses. Taxpayers would be more protected and less likely to lose money, he says.

They drop this bit of news, which I hadn't heard anywhere else:

So it was surprising to learn on Friday that, despite intense opposition from the powerful banking lobby, language authorizing the government to use a stock-injection plan did make it into the final version of the bailout bill. The law does not make a stock-injection plan mandatory, but it does leave it as one option that the Treasury secretary can use when bailing out a distressed bank.

Let's hope Obama's Treasury Secretary notices.

Getting back to the really important stuff...

No, not paying attention to the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, according to the Post the McCain folks think the really important stuff is Obama's liberal record:

"We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of McCain's top advisers. "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."

Postmodern Palin

Matt Yglesias links to an interesting blog comment:

Palin seems to have a "Message: I Care" problem. She gets too meta with her answers, wanting to explain - "I’m going to talk straight to the American people and show them my etc."; "I’m the new energy" - the symbolism of herself. For the apotheosis of Republican anti-intellectualism she’s determinedly postmodern, embedding the essay about her novel into the story as she tells it.

I have been thinking about this too, and basically agree, but I would put the emphasis elsewhere. I'll give a couple more examples of what she does, before I get to the meat of my thoughts. I started thinking about this during her first interview with Katie Couric:

Couric: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

Palin: He's also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about - the need to reform government.

He is “known” as the maverick—as though his image is what he is.

Here she is in the debate doing the same thing:

Palin: …And we're going to forge ahead with putting government back on the side
of the people and making sure that our country comes first, putting obsessive partisanship aside.

That's what John McCain has been known for in all these years. He has been the maverick. He has ruffled feathers.
...
Palin:
… Also, John McCain's maverick position that he's in, that's really prompt up to and indicated by the supporters that he has. Look at Lieberman, and Giuliani, and Romney, and Lingle, and all of us who come from such a diverse background of -- of policy and of partisanship, all coming together at this time, recognizing he is the man that we need to leave -- lead in these next four years, because these are tumultuous times.

Even here she while she is giving reasons why he is a maverick, it is still superficial, these people think he is a maverick—and therefore he must be. It is not explaining, however, what he does to make him so. At bottom, of course, it begs the question of why his mavericky-ness actually matters? Why should we care that he is a maverick?

Which reminds me of a famous E.J. Dionne column decrying conservative post-modernism:

“Conservative academics have long attacked "postmodernist" philosophies for
questioning whether "truth" exists at all and claiming that what we take as
"truths" are merely "narratives" woven around some ideological predisposition.
Today's conservative activists have become the new postmodernists. They shift
attention away from the truth or falsity of specific facts and allegations --
and move the discussion to the motives of the journalists and media
organizations putting them forward. Just a modest number of failures can be used
to discredit an entire enterprise.”

I agree with this; this thinking has become a cancer in the conservative movement, eating away any serious discussion of the issues (Why discuss when you can attack?). This debate proved another example as conservative activists attacked Gwen Ifill for supposedly being biased simply because they were worried that Palin would do poorly.

Palin, however, is not just using accusations of bias and power to obscure the truth of something, but rather I think she actually thinks in image and narrative. That is to say, she wants power, "believes" what she needs to "believe" to be a conservative, and thinks in terms of soundbites and show--that is substance of her politics. Obviously we all think in narrative, but most of us construct that narrative with relation to the facts. Besides being colored by our background, religious and political views, our narrative embraces a passion for certain things, certain projects, that actually matter to us. For example, many on the left actually worry about global warming or a continuing loss of good jobs for those who like to work with their hands. (Many conservatives, too, worry about the state infringing on their freedom and therefore work towards stopping that.) For projects we care about, the focus of our efforts is to actually improve, policy say, to help those people and things we care about. The motivation is to change something, to improve something, and not (only) use those projects to further our own ends. We all have mixed motives, but in the end we want to actually effect some sort of change.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that she doesn’t care about anything. It seems to me that politics is just another walk down the runway for her. Even though we can all see a will to power in politicians, she seems totally bereft of passion for something beyond herself. (Aside from her family, I am sure she loves her family and sees their flourishing as a project of hers.) At a minimum she doesn’t care about education for its own sake, and her inability to name a source of news that she regularly reads indicates anything she does care about is not an issue that affects the public. (Because after all, if your projects were public projects, wouldn't you read the newspaper? Wouldn't you have a plausible story about your life informing yourself--one, in fact, that should please both liberal and conservative elites?)

In any case Joe Biden effectively addressed Palin's superficiality and the entire maverick image question during the debate—in a way that to my mind destroys the premise that his alleged maverick-nature mattering:

BIDEN: I'll be very brief. Can I respond to that?

Look, the maverick -- let's talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He's been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives.

He voted four out of five times for George Bush's budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he's got there.
He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against -- he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.

He's not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.
He's not been a maverick on the war. He's not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

Can we send -- can we get Mom's MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can't -- we can't make it. How are we going to heat the -- heat the house this winter?

He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter. So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.

McCain’s Economic Plan For Nation: 'Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress'

McCain�s Economic Plan For Nation: 'Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress'