Ramesh Ponnuru is right that Biden doesn’t seem to understand, or refuses to admit, what Roe v. Wade held, and doesn’t even seem to be able to explain the doctrine of incorporation properly, so it is perfectly right and necessary to hit him on this.  It is always useful to be reminded that the man who derided Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas does not understand these things.  There is an argument, I suppose, that one would rather have a candidate who reaches the right conclusion, even if she can’t articulate why, than someone who comes to the wrong conclusion and offers a lot of windy, inaccurate justification.  However, I’m not sure that it is ultimately very helpful to Palin to make technical critiques of Biden’s dissembling and confusion, just as it never made a lot of sense to defend Palin’s answer on the Bush Doctrine by saying that Charlie Gibson didn’t define it correctly, either.  In other words, it is fair to hit Biden and Gibson on their technical errors, but in the very criticism of Biden or Gibson Palin’s partisans are effectively admitting that they are judging her interlocutors’ statements by a standard so much higher than the one they are using for her statements that they are acknowledging that she can’t really compete on the same level.   

It would make it more of a fair fight if Palin seemed to know in detail what Roe held and also how it was related to Griswold, which would be possible if she knew that there was a case called Griswold.  Yes, it’s good that she thinks the matter should be returned to the states (even though this federalist position is actually extremely unpopular with some pro-lifers), but if she had to make an argument about why Roe was wrongly decided and so should be overturned I’m sorry to say that I don’t think she could persuade anyone.  Biden makes a lot of unforced errors and false claims, as he did in his interview with Couric, but he is not going to have an opponent who can exploit that weakness.  Another problem is that he can make a wrong answer sound more informed than it is, just as McCain was able to bluster about Pakistan despite being basically wrong in what he said, because for some reason people give him the benefit of the doubt on foreign policy.  Likewise, as an old Judiciary Committee Chairman, Biden receives deference from reporters who don’t care or don’t know much about the details of these Court rulings. 

It is also true that there is no need to endorse the conclusions of Roe if one acknowledges that there is a right to privacy.  The problem is that she gave no indication that she understood that these might be seen to be in conflict or that there is any tension between them.  Politically, I’m not sure how satisfactory this will be to legal conservatives and pro-lifers who must be hoping that Palin would be a driving force in shaping McCain judicial appointments, since it seems likely that she will have only as much influence in these matters as she does expertise.  Perhaps it is also obvious, but it might be worth noting that if Palin did not have a personal reputation for valuing the sanctity of life her answers on Roe would be seen as red flags for pro-life activists who would regard her references to federalism and a right to privacy as clues that she is lacking in the kind of conviction they want.  In Palin’s case, the personal is not only the political, but her personal story seems to have redefined what an acceptable answer on this question is.  National Republican candidates are often criticized when they opt for a federalist answer, which seems to many pro-lifers to be a dodge or an unacceptable compromise.  The social conservative tribune in the primaries, Huckabee, made a lot of hay out of Fred Thompson’s federalist position, and constantly came back to the plank in the party platform supporting a Human Life Amendment as something that he thought his rivals were abandoning.  Whether or not one agrees with Huckabee, he spoke for a large constituency that is not necessarily interested in a federalist solution, but instead wants the practice banned nationally.  As most people assume that Palin is familiar with life issues, it can hardly help her reputation that even on this subject she seems less than fully prepared. 

Over the last few weeks, I have been watching Palin’s defenders deploying their expertise to make sense of answers by Palin that were wrong, insufficient or embarrassing.  When she manifestly knew nothing about the Bush Doctrine, her defenders chimed in that her answer was fine because the precise definition of such a doctrine–if there really is a doctrine or just a jumble of policies–is so intensely disputed.  In short, the sheer nuance and complexity of an issue excused her utter cluelessness, or, to put it another way, she knew so little about the subject that she would have no way of knowing that Biden or Gibson erred.  When she talked vaguely about Putin rearing his head, there was only a relative handful of people who could have deciphered that she was referring to long-range Russian bomber flights.  Even on something like that, where presumably Palin did know something about what she was saying, she could not articulate it.  No doubt her claim that she reads “all” newspapers will soon be cited as proof of her voracious appetite for knowledge and her curiosity about the world.  What Palin’s defenders are showing is that it takes well-informed, very engaged policy wonks to lend even minimal coherence to her statements.  Unfortunately, she will not be able to call on them tonight.

P.S.  Speaking of federalism, what would Palin be able to make of Biden’s defense of the constitutionality of VAWA?  Could she cite the relevant precedent of U.S. v. Lopez and explain why these federal laws represent an unacceptable encroachment of the federal government into areas that are properly the preserve of state and local governments?  Could she explain why the commerce clause does not apply in the case of the gun legislaton thrown out in Lopez or in the case of VAWA?  To ask these questions is to answer them, because I think we all know that she could not.  I can’t say that gives me much confidence.  I was debating these issues in my high school government class; Palin probably does not know that these issues exist.  That’s a problem, and the more people try to pretend that it isn’t the worse it is going to get for her and her defenders.

Update: Hilzoy comments on the Court ruling answer:

First, I cannot imagine a conservative watching this video without wincing. I just can’t.

A lot of people have this same reaction and assume that these interviews must be embarrassing most of Palin’s supporters, but what I think Hilzoy and many others are not taking into consideration is the degree to which Palin’s fans simply don’t care and are doing their best to answer her question to Halcro about policy details (“does any of this really matter?”) with a resounding no.   

Second Update: Here’s another thought.  The question Couric asked was about Court rulings that Palin disagreed with, and we all know that McCain thinks that Boumediene was one of the worst rulings in history and Palin thought it was cute to knock Obama for his opposition to Boumediene by misstating his position in her convention speech.  So, here’s a question for the VP debate moderator to ask: “Gov. Palin, you said in your convention speech that Sen. Obama wanted to read terrorists their rights.  Why do you say that, and how do you interpret Boumediene v. Bush to have anything to do with reading suspects their rights?”  Or maybe keep it simple: “Gov. Palin, does habeascorpus apply in cases concerning suspected terrorists, and do you think the Supreme Court was wrong to grant suspected terrorists due process?” 

Third Update: Alex Massie has more.

Caught up in his own argument over Palin’s qualifications, Quin Hillyer writes:

Conservative activists refuse to acknowledge any fault with the choice of Palin for Veep. Those of us who express doubts are barely tolerated.

Like Kathleen Parker, Conor Friedersdorf has been finding outjust how little doubters are tolerated.  One of the most worrisome things about the selection of Palin and the increasingly non-credible apologies offered on her behalf is how defending Palin has encouraged the reinforcement of the debilitating cocooning instinct of a lot of conservatives that has brought them, their preferred party and the country to their current predicament.  As Michael said early on, Palin’s convention speech had transformed the race into a straightforward Us vs. Them conflict, but it became clear with declining GOP party ID and disillusionment with the Bush administration that there were not as many of “Us” as there used to be.  Indeed, many of those who might have once considered themselves to be on the GOP “side” no longer want to be identified with that particular “Us.”  One of the reasons for the GOP’s decline has been the constant effort for years to mobilize people along Us vs. Them lines in ultimately superficial but emotionally-charged ways, while simultaneously embracing policies that do not represent the interests of “Us.” 

The deeper malady afflicting conservatism and the GOP that the failed Palin strategy represents is the abandonment of persuasion and the reliance on demonization and fear, which was used notably against early conservative dissenters against the war and used also in the arguments for the war itself.  In this case, we see demonization of her critics and the fear of Obama at work, because the positive case for her and McCain is so trivial as to be non-existent.  Attacking opponents is all very well, but at some point you have to have something to show for your support.  Instead, even as they have ignored the interests and demands of their constituents (except when faced with major revolts over immigration and now the bailout), the national GOP has redoubled its use of demonization to distract from its failure to serve the people who voted for them.  The country has not changed all that much in the last four or eight years, but it has changed enough to make the demonization of the other side a losing proposition as the other side has now become at least temporarily larger.  Running off dissenters and doubters is a habit that movements develop especially when it believes that it is on the cusp of an era of dominance and when it believes that it represents the broad majority of the people, but what is curious about this habit is that it arises alongside the knowledge that the movement’s success is extremely precarious and can be maintained only through the unsustainable process of whipping supporters into a constant state of agitation and activism.  Having cultivated a siege mentality, the movement finds that conformity is even more vital, which in turn worsens the abandonment of persuasion, intensifies the need to enforce conformity, and keeps losing the movement support.     

The bailout fiasco was just the most recent example of how the administration used fear to try to cripple critical thinking about the merits of its plan, and it certainly showed the lack of interest in persuasion.  Flinging insults and denunciations has been the main tactic over the last several years, and issuing dire threats and warnings has been the main element of policymaking.  RedState’s fatwa on Conor and Culture11 as a whole is typical of the people who banned any new posters and commenterswho spokein favor of Ron Paul, and it is unfortunately exactly the response I imagined would greet Conor’s proposal.  It is also fairly representative of the low quality of argument that one finds among the enforcers of party loyalty.  This should serve as a reminder that any movement that thrives on vilification and purges is ultimately destined for failure, because once it has given up on persuasion and lost interest in critical thinking, including self-criticism, it will attract less and less support as it ceases to have anything worthwhile to offer.

Now that it is becoming increasingly clear that McCain is going to lose in a blowout (and here I must acknowledge that I never imagined this would happen and assumed the electorate would remain evenly divided), what will be the aftermath within the GOP?  Before we get to that, first consider how truly bizarre a Democratic victory, large or small, will seem.  Democrats have not won an open(i.e., no incumbent President or Vice-President on either side) presidential election since 1884.  Republicans have won the last four fully open elections (1896, 1920, 1928 and 1952).  Republicans are accustomed to their unpopular incumbents being thrown out from time to time, and they are used to their incumbent Presidents or Vice-Presidents winning, and they won all three open elections of the twentieth century, so it has been a very, very long time since they have gone to the country with an ostensibly fresh or at least non-incumbent candidate and been rejected when there is no incumbent on the other side.  That will make this loss much more damaging and shocking than 1996 in the repudiation of the GOP that it will represent.  In 1996, Republicans at least had the consolation of remaining in control of Congress. 

Of course, Republicans have experienced one calamitous defeat in the last fifty years, and this was 1964, which has entered into legend as the springboard for Reagan and the immediate disaster that later yielded success, but this year is not like 1964.  The only real similarity between the two nominees is that they both happen to be from Arizona.  Unlike in ’64, McCain’s nomination was not the product of a bitter intra-party battle that started to change the character of the GOP but was instead an almost default acquiescence to the heir apparent out of a lack of enthusiasm for the alternatives.  After November 4, it is hard to imagine anyone picking up McCain’s standard as the rallying point for the future of the party, because he has resolutely not stood for any coherent message of any kind.  Oh, right, reform–a message as elastic as it has been vacuous.  The Palin Phenomenon has gone from what some thought might be the future of the American right to a growing debacle that her fans hope will not become an absolute nightmare tomorrow night.  Obviously, losing VP candidates do not return to claim the leadership of their party, especially not if they are on the losing side of a lopsided election, so whether or not Palin has contributed significantly to McCain’s defeat (probably) she will be dragged down with him and that will be the end of her story on the national stage. 

It is hard to know what the Democrats will do with a victory.  If the last two years are any indication, they will squander it as recklessly as the Republicans squandered their opportunities, but how the GOP will respond, if it will be able to respond, is very much up in the air.  The next few months after Election Day will see all manner of recriminations as the various factions try to find convenient scapegoats, of which Palin will be the most prominent and the easiest to use against social conservatives.  Expect to hear a lot about how Republicans need to “move beyond” and “get over” pro-life concerns.  In the wake of the bailout, whether it passes or doesn’t pass, there will be little patience with more flirtations with anything resembling big-government conservatism.  Expect retrenchment and revivals of the old time religion, and also expect that anything called reform will be viewed warily.  Becoming once more a purely oppositional party, the GOP will promote or keep leaders who are good at giving stemwinders and then cutting pretty awful deals with the Democrats.  The also-rans of 2008 will bide their time, but will find themselves upstaged by some moderate, big-state governor and the return of Jeb Bush.

Simply priceless: 

NPR: Given what you’ve said, senator, is there an occasion where you could imagine turning to Gov. Palin for advice in a foreign policy crisis?

McCain: I’ve turned to her advice many times in the past [bold mine-DL]. I can’t imagine turning to Senator Obama or Senator Biden because they’ve been wrong. They were wrong about Iraq, wrong about Russia.

Leave aside that they agree with him on Russia (maybe this is McCain’s way of admitting that he was wrong?).  He can’t imagine turning to the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in a foreign policy crisis?  Really?  I doubt Biden would have the right answers, but he would seem to be one of the people in Congress you would hope the President is consulting at some point.

So he would rely on Palin’s advice, which we are supposed to believe he has already relied on many times in the last four weeks.  Let’s imagine how one of these advisory sessions might play out:

McCain: I’m very concerned that the Russians are going to make a move against Ukraine.  What do you think I should do?

Palin: Well, do what I do whenever Putin rears his head over our airspace: don’t blink. 

McCain: But what action should we take?

Palin: I’ll have to get back to you.

Yes, the jokes pretty much write themselves when it comes to this pair.

Ambinder:

Quinnipiac’s latest set of swing states polls finds Palin with a net negative impression in several states, including Florida, where she’s spent quite a bit of campaign time. The numbers in Florida are stunning, in a sense; there’s been a net swing of 13 points in Obama’s favor during the past two weeks. He’s even competitive among white voters, with McCain besting him by only five points.

I guess they can call off the Great Schlep.  Palin’s mega-crowd in Florida probably misled a lot of people to think that Florida was more secure for McCain than ever.  Obviously, an Obama win in Florida is a killing blow.  There is no realistic path to victory for McCain without Florida; there might be some wacky possibility involving Oregon and Minnesota, but that isn’t going to happen.  There has been a nineteen-point swing to Obama among independents in Florida since September 11.  If you graphed Palin’s fav ratings in Florida, they would resemble the equities markets over the last two weeks; she now has net negative fav rating in that state.  It’s not all that surprising, but Palin and the financial crisis have combined to destroy McCain.   

Pew’s latest numbers show a significant move to Obama in swing states, but more interesting than that is the consolidation of Democratic voters behind Obama and the erosion of Republican support for McCain.  The base mobilization strategy that the Palin pick seems to have represented temporarily worked, but now Republicans are drifting away and it could be that choosing Palin had the unexpected effect of pushing Democrats who had been attracted to McCain back to their own party.  Obama’s weakness with Democrats has been a year-long theme of mine, and it became the obsession of a lot of pundits during and after the primaries, and I am here to acknowledge that this seems to have disappeared.   

It is hard to know why this would be the case, but probably the nastier tenor of the campaign made Democrats who actually bought the “maverick” shtick reconsider.  Plus, Pew respondents tended to agree with my assessment of the debate:

However, substantially more say Obama did an excellent or good job (72%) than say the same about McCain (59%).

Obama wasn’t outstanding by any means, but it seemed hard for me to believe that most people could come away from last Friday with an impression that McCain had prevailed.  As you might have guessed, Republicans were the only group that gave the edge to McCain.  More people in virtually every other demographic rated Obama’s performance as good/excellent than rated McCain’s that way, and the two basically tied among 65+ voters.  McCain had a four-point edge on foreign policy among debate watchers compared to a fourteen-point edge among those who didn’t watch.  On every issue except Iraq, debate watchers were less likely than those who didn’t watch to find McCain stronger on issues, and even on Iraq there is just a one-point gain compared with those who watched the debate.    

Go back and check out those Quinnipiac results on the difference between pre- and post-debate support.  In Pennsylvania, Obama went into the debate six ahead and came out fifteen ahead.  I guess the clingers have gotten over any lingering bitterness.  If Quinnipiac’s numbers are right, Obama is on track there to trounce McCain by Casey-Santorum margins. 

As an aside, Quinnipiac’s swing state (FL, OH, PA) respondents oppose the bailout by almost two to one.

Update: The RCP Electoral College projection (with no toss-ups) is currently showing Obama 348, McCain 190.  That isn’t quite as lopsided as 1996 (which was 379-159), but seeing McCain as MonDole is looking more appropriate all the time.  Fivethirtyeight projects 336-202, and as in the RCP map they have Florida and Ohio going to Obama.  As with Bush’s approval rating, the question is how low can McCain’s final EC tally go?

Take note, James: bailout zombie alert.

At TalkLeft, there is a post criticizing the TAC editors’ open letter to Palin:

The American Conservative sees in Palin what it once saw in George Bush: a regular person with strong traditional values who champions faith, limited government, and pro-life judges.

Let’s get something straight.  I am fairly confident when I say that TAC never saw much of anything in George Bush, since the magazine was founded in part to oppose the major initiatives of his Presidency, including war in the Near East generally and in Iraq specifically, and most of us certainly did not think that Bush had any interest in limited government.  It is true that Mr. Buchanan endorsed him in 2004, stressing mainly the issue of judges, but that was a fairly unpopular view with most of the readership and was not shared by any of the other editors.  It’s not really true that TAC “felt betrayed” that Bush allowed a “values agenda” to be hijacked by interventionist foreign policy, since by the time the magazine started that betrayal of the people who voted for him was already complete or was in the process of being done. 

However the TalkLeft blogger gets this much right:

The president was never committed to the right’s values agenda or to a conservative belief in responsible spending and limited presidential power.

Then again, I think pretty much everyone who has worked for TAC or read it on a regular basis already knew that and knew it long before anyone else.  Still, it’s refreshing to find someone from the left who understands that Bush is not an ultra-conservative or really much of a conservative of any kind, as it sometimes flatters liberals to believe.  I also can’t really disagree when this TChris says:

Palin’s heart may be full of faith, but her understanding of foreign policy is clearly nonexistent. She will embrace McCain’s positions with loyalty and relief, to the extent that she can understand and remember them.

This is essentially what I have beensayingfora month now. 

While I can’t speak for the editors, the way I read the open letter is as a vehicle to offer a comprehensive critique of the failures of the Bush administration and neoconservatism.  As an indictment of the fanaticism and failure of Mr. Bush and his advisors, it is outstanding and required reading.  It is my guess that the “open letter” format is simply a way to relate the magazine’s main themes to a figure who is much in the news right now.

It should go without saying that Michael Gerson has no business accusing anyone else of irresponsibility, considering the horrors that he played some small part in enabling.  He offers this gems for our consideration:

The temporary government purchase of bad mortgage debt is not equivalent to the liquidation of the kulaks.

Well, in that case, it must be a good idea.  I can already see the slogan: “This isn’t Stalinism, and it won’t lead to mass murder.”  Obviously, this is an extremely compelling argument–we must admit defeat now that Gerson has weighed in with such an insight.  It’s a shame the White House doesn’t still have Gerson’s talents at their disposal.  Had he drafted the President’s speech on the crisis, the bailout might have lost by a hundred votes and be truly dead and buried. 

Gerson has another insight:

But it is a reminder of why Republicans are no longer trusted as the congressional majority.

Actually, no.  It’s hard to believe, I know, but Gerson is wrong.  The reason they were not trusted any longer was that they had never said no to the President on a matter of consequence, no matter how horrible or mistaken his policies were, and because the policies that they (and Gerson) endorsed became deeply unpopular with the public.  A large part of the public is once again furiously opposed to an administration plan, and this time, incredibly, the House Republicans refused to capitulate.  It probably won’t last–the House will reconsider later in the week after the Senate takes up the measure today, and there is no realistic chance that the Senate will vote it down, which will put even more pressure on House members to flip. 

What is remarkable about all of this is that the establishment is actually wrong and is pushing a bad plan, and for one of the few times in what seems like living memory the House Republicans are doing the right thing, regardless of their self-interested reasons for doing so, and we are being treated to a deluge of outraged commentary from the same miserable people who have been wrong about every major policy question for the last ten years.  It is not strictly rational, I grant you, but opposition to any consensus that includes Michael Gerson and Tom Friedman must be on the right track.

I have other flags too — including an Albanian one. I guess that still leaves me in “neocon” territory, because the Albanians are wildly pro-American. But I have a Greek flag, too — and ain’t no one more anti-American than the Greeks. So that makes me kind of cool, doesn’t it? ~Jay Nordlinger on Palin’s Israeli flag

Um, sure, I guess.  I have a two-headed eagle, black and yellow Greek Orthodox/Byzantine flag, but the difference between me and some of the other flag-collectors out there is that I don’t think U.S. foreign policy should be dedicated to realizing the Megali Idea. 

Nordlinger goes on to explain why Palin’s poor grammar doesn’t matter, because lots of other people also have poor grammer.  There’s no dumbing down going on here, no, sir!