Obama vs. Palin

Via InstaPundit, some thoughts by Doctor Zero at Hot Air, on Barack Obama and Sarah Palin:

The effort to stuff Boehner into a Darth Vader costume over the past few weeks was comical. If the Democrats want to run some more plays out of Alinsky’s faded old handbook, they’ll need to focus on someone exciting.
Palin is linked to other high-profile female candidates, like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, so she looks like an inviting target. The subtext of the media narrative Democrats are trying to spin is that outspoken female conservatives are somehow unnatural. … A woman who would enlist in the heavy infantry of the regressive fundamentalist Republicans must be crazy.
I hope the White House takes Ambinder’s advice, because it would be suicidal. His crack about Palin’s “reveling in the culture wars” betrays his ignorance. He is confused by the details of her biography, and the sincere affection she earns from her admirers. His Palin Card is drawn from the wrong suit. She’s the Queen of Diamonds, not the Queen of Hearts. Her most impressive statements over the last two years have been on matters of economics, policy, and politics. She has shredded the Administration over health care, the Gulf oil spill, and unrestrained government spending. She’s endorsed dozens of primary candidates, with something like a 70% success rate. Her most notable clashes with “culture” have involved asking it to stop making rape jokes about her daughters.

Proving, once again, that it is just about impossible to shame a Democrat.

Obama would be making a deadly mistake by calling out Sarah Palin for a political cage match. Let me put this bluntly: virtually no one in America gives a damn what Barack Obama says about anything at this point. What could be more predictable, and less interesting, than Obama’s opinion on any given subject? Who wants to contemplate the economic wisdom of a guy who looted the Treasury for a trillion dollars, with less benefit than we could have achieved by stuffing hundred dollar bills into random cereal boxes? Who’s excited to hear about the next plan to convert taxpayer dollars into Democrat campaign funds? Who’s hungry for another hour of tedious excuses about permanently broken markets and the titanic dead hand of George W. Bush? Who wants a lecture on ethical business practices from the titular head of the party that gave us Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters? What use is another hollow foreign-policy speech from a man who sees no global adversary to rival the menace of Arizona? Even Obama’s supporters don’t hear anything he says any more. There’s nothing left to hear.
Palin, on the other hand, commands attention.

I think that is basically right. At this moment, Sarah Palin may be a more important figure than Barack Obama, despite his infinitely greater powers. Obama’s most basic problem is that he has never been a thinker. He has not invested the years of hard work that are needed to develop coherent policy positions. Superficiality has always been good enough to get by for Obama, and now, when his policies are in tatters, he has neither a philosophical foundation nor a deep knowledge of the issues to fall back on. He is left staring into the headlights like a doomed deer.

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