Quotes of the day

“What caused McCain’s surge? It was the choice of Palin. Who’s Palin? She’s a conservative down the line, maybe a couple detours here and there, but she’s a conservative. They’re trying to, by the way, diminish her by saying she’s a populist. The Drive-Bys today have stories, ‘If this woman’s the future of the Republican Party then the Republican Party’s dead.’ That’s what they’re writing today. Well, we can take that to mean just the exact opposite. If she or somebody like her is the future of the Republican Party, the Democrats have a lot to worry about.”

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“I know, it’s elitist to expect a candidate for president or vice president to speak like an adult… It’s even more elitist to expect a vice president to put together sentences that cohere into a minimally logical progression of thought. There was a time, however, when conservatives upheld adult standards—such as clarity of speech and thought—without apology, even in the face of the relentless downward pull of adolescent culture. But now, when a vice-presidential candidate talks like a teenager, mugs like an American Idol contestant, and traffics in syntactical dead-ends and non sequiturs, we are supposed to find her charming and authentic.”