Her debating style was rarely confrontational, and she appeared confident. In contrast to today, when she seems unversed on several important issues, she demonstrated fluency on certain subjects, particularly oil and gas development.

But just as she does now, Ms. Palin often spoke in generalities and showed scant aptitude for developing arguments beyond a talking point or two. Her sentences were distinguished by their repetition of words, by the use of the phrase “here in Alaska” and for gaps. On paper, her sentences would have been difficult to diagram.

John Bitney, the policy director for her campaign for governor and the main person who helped prepare her for debates, said her repetition of words was “her way of running down the clock as her mind searches for where she wants to go.”

In the AARP debate, Mr. Knowles and Andrew Halcro, an independent, double-teamed her to press her about how she would pay for health care.

In response to Mr. Knowles, she mentioned “certificates of need” and said they had been inflexible, “creating an environment where a lot of folks are lacking the receiving of their health care that is needed in some of the areas, especially in some of our larger markets.” She added, “The State of Alaska needs to be looking specifically at that inflexibility that exists today in order to fill some of the market needs that are out there in Alaska in our larger markets.”

She then added, “I can’t tell you how much that will reduce monetarily our health care costs, but competition makes everyone better, it makes us work harder, it does allow reduction in costs, so addressing that is going to be a priority.”

Mr. Knowles was nonplussed, saying that he did not understand her answer and that Ms. Palin had missed the point.

Mr. Halcro asked how she would pay for critical health care programs.

“Well, the point there, Andrew,” she said, “is that these are critical, and again it’s a matter of prioritizing and it’s a matter of government understanding its proper role in public safety, is health care, so it’s a matter of priorities.”

Mr. Halcro called her answer “political gibberish.”

But other times, she gave direct answers that appealed directly to her audience. The candidates were asked in a debate on Aug. 17, 2006, by a rural resident via video whether they would restore a longevity bonus for senior citizens, a payment intended to keep them from leaving the state.

“No,” Mr. Murkowski said gruffly. John Binkley, a third candidate, said yes. Ms. Palin’s response was filled with emotion.

“Yes, our precious, precious elders,” she said, looking into the camera. “For those who were prematurely lopped off, I am so sorry that that has happened to you.”

But generally, her voice carried surprisingly little affect.

“In tone, manner and sometimes even language, she treated every issue exactly the same,” Michael Carey, the former editorial page editor of The Anchorage Daily News, wrote in an essay about Ms. Palin. “She gave no suggestion that some issues are of higher priority than others. Her voice was cheerful, up-tempo, optimistic, never off key but always in the same key.”

gr wrote:it would be nice to think that's what's happening, right? but it's not really. she gave a terrible answer, but to an essential question such as "what publications do you read?" as if a governor and a mother of 5 sits around during the day, paging through Newsweek with her feet up on the desk. does anyone outside of the media seriously care what media she reads? stop wasting everyone's time with this crap.

gr wrote:on competency, she ran a successful statewide campaign and currently has a 80% job approval rating in her state.

gr wrote:so she's been asked every sort of question about her background aside from those facts. instead we get some bogus internet rumor about bannign books 12 years ago. makes sense to me. wake me up when we look into Obama's ACORN-Ayers-Reznik involvement or Biden's plagerism and senate votes. or mccain's rather inflated "maverick" record for that matter.

jeff2sf wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

pacino wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Re: Failing banks. No one seriously is arguing that people don't get hurt when businesses fail. It's that propping them up when they are obsolete economically is extremely costly and inefficient, causing far more economic dislocation in the long run. The bailout in this case would be a huge misallocation of capital, at taxpayer expense, and ultimately would not work anyway.

The myth that needs to be exploded is that capitalism works for everyone. Rather, in capitalism, the market picks winners and losers. In planned economies, the political system does the picking instead. But in a dynamic economy of any variety, there are going to be winners and losers.
.

This is pretty much how I see it, for right or wrong. The strong survive and the weak and/or stupid are replaced. Companies aren't people, even if they do have some of the same rights.

So I prefer they take another week, if necessary, and fully vet the other ideas floating around to make sure they get this right. I couldn't care less if the banks fail if they have another way of stabilizing the economy. Wall Street isn't going to self destruct in that time..... big money won't let that happen.

Companies ARE people. They are made up entirely of people and the gains and losses effect those invovled. Not sure why we can't get past that idea. Who owns these companies? To a certain extent, regular ol' people

But those jobs will move to other companies where those people can get jobs. I don't think the financial sector is going to disappear.

And I'm certainly not saying it won't be painful. I just think it would be better for the people in the long run. Let's put it this way, how many people are going to lose jobs if inflation and unemployment go up because of the 700 billion bailout? I would rather lose banking jobs than jobs across the board. I would rather see some money going towards helping the banking people find new jobs and helping homeowners get some relief (though homeowners shouldn't be completely off the hook either) than bailing out companies that took unnecessary risks and tried to fool people into thinking everything was fine.

I realize that it will be very painful, but I don't think there's an easy or completely fair answer.

Why on earth would more jobs get lost because of the bailout as opposed to doing nothing? Banking jobs are gone and not coming back (till the next bubble). But I have no idea how you can paint a picture where unemployment goes up because of the bailout.

mpmcgraw wrote:Do all people in Alaska talk like that? (and no I don't mean stupid)

That is seriously the worst accent ever. I like the idea of stayin in Alaska for a little bit just for the hell of it at some point in my life, but if the people that live there all talk like that there is no way in hell.

TenuredVulture wrote:

CFP wrote:Geez... not one? Did she pay attention to the recent court cases? D.C. v. Heller? Anything. Lawrence v. Texas. Mapp v. Ohio. Brown v. Board. Come on.

Or hasn't she ever seen a cop show where the bad guy gets his Miranda rights read?

VoxOrion wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Harvard economist weights in and says let the banks go bankrupt

I think that argument needs to be out there.

I agree. There was a sense, particularly last week, that this was a verboten concept. It should be out there.

So, the two key elements of the Swedish model were: banks had to give the government a stake in return for funding and the taxpayer was protected. In fact, according to Bildt in a comment piece in the International Herald Tribune, the taxpayer actually made a profit.

In all, the Swedish authorities injected SEK65bn (£5.3bn) into the banking sector. The equivalent then of 4% of the country's GDP or, according to some analysts, $850bn in the US case today - a shade more than envisaged by the Paulson/Bernanke plan.

dajafi wrote:That we're evidently paralyzed on both the big issues of long standing (global warming, immigration reform, health care, et al) and in crisis response, suggests to me that the ideas we sometimes mock PtK for--a new Constitutional Convention or other root-and-branch change--might be more worth taking seriously than I at least had thought. I'm not there yet myself, but who knows where it's all heading.

I always said to myself: Our government is so broken that it can only work in response to a huge crisis. But now we’ve had a huge crisis, and the system still doesn’t seem to work. Our leaders, Republicans and Democrats, have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this system-threatening meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package, as if they lived on Mars and were just visiting us for the week, with no stake in the outcome.

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:That we're evidently paralyzed on both the big issues of long standing (global warming, immigration reform, health care, et al) and in crisis response, suggests to me that the ideas we sometimes mock PtK for--a new Constitutional Convention or other root-and-branch change--might be more worth taking seriously than I at least had thought. I'm not there yet myself, but who knows where it's all heading.

Tom Friedman weighs in on the bailout today. This may be the only part he got right:

I always said to myself: Our government is so broken that it can only work in response to a huge crisis. But now we’ve had a huge crisis, and the system still doesn’t seem to work. Our leaders, Republicans and Democrats, have gotten so out of practice of working together that even in the face of this system-threatening meltdown they could not agree on a rescue package, as if they lived on Mars and were just visiting us for the week, with no stake in the outcome.

VoxOrion wrote: I think 9/11 is a very fair comparison and things went very differently. People understand burning buildings, attacks, aid, etc. That confidence in understanding the problem at hand and the ways to solve (well, in that case, resolve) the immediate threat were obvious (get fighter jets into the air, get aid to NY and DC, increase security at known entry points, give the industries most likely to fail a bump, etc) and it was easy for everyone to stand together.

seke2 wrote:i like how the one dude in the back tries to put his hand up for mccain, then his wife pulls it down, and then he puts it up for obama too.