Maureen Dowd reels off presidential (and candidatial) boo-boos, along with some of the comments on them. Language isn't just about edgication, it's about whether your brain has any connection to your mouth. Or your pen. Or your keyboard. Let's start with George W. Andover, Yale, and Harvard aren't to blame. Temperament and focus is. Are.
“Is our children learning?”
Warren Harding must have been more of an influence on the man than Teddy Roosevelt. Harding was almost as famous for his screw-ups as W.
"When Harding died, E. E. Cummings lamented, 'The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead.'"
Sarah Palin is in the Bush/Harding tradition.
“With the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that, as governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change subcabinet to start dealing with the impacts.”
“You know, there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, with these impacts.”
“Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet.”
“When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not.”
“It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there.”
Dowd nails it. "A political jukebox, she drowned out Biden’s specifics, offering lifestyle as substance. 'In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been, you know, all our lives,' she said, making the middle class sound like it has its own ZIP code, superior to 90210 because 'real' rules."
Americans like "real" -- but only in quotation marks. The televisual Ms. Palin won the popularity contest among independent voters at last week's debate, according to the latest Ipsos/McClatchy poll. But Obama-Biden won their vote.
"It also found that Palin's performance in the debate did nothing to clinch undecided votes for her running mate, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Before the debate, those same undecided voters were leaning 56 percent to 44 percent for McCain. The day after the debate, the numbers tilted 52 percent to 48 percent for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
"'It's suggesting an overall tendency of undecideds toward Obama, so it is significant,' said Clifford Young, a senior vice president at Ipsos Public Affairs. 'We're catching an underlying trend that's going on.'"
And a survey shows Minnesotans turning to Obama by 18 points.
"A new Minneapolis Star Tribune poll shows Barack Obama opening an expansive lead in Minnesota, which appears to further shrink the electoral map of John McCain.
"Some 55 percent of respondents said they support Obama, compared to 37 percent who back McCain. The last Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, conducted in September, showed Obama and McCain deadlocked at 45 percent.
"The 18-point improvement comes as 58 percent of respondents said the Illinois senator would do a better job handling the economy while only 30 percent said the same of McCain."
