The Palin speech

From the bits I've seen (video here), she seems a little green, but her ordinariness is part of her appeal, and the way she introduced her family was quite touching. As for the content of the speech (full transcript, as delivered, here), it certainly did lack policy content, but given how unknown she is to most Americans, the emphasis on personal story was surely justified.

Slightly surprising was the partisanship of the speech, and this seems to have been a theme of the night. Rudy Guliani apparently layed it on pretty thick, and check out this video of Mitt Romney, which is almost unhinged in its criticism of 'liberals' (that's American for left-wing). The topper is his claim that granting rights to Guantanamo 'terrorists' is a liberal cause. Not 'alleged terrorists', mind you, just terrorists. And growth in the size of government? That's the liberals' fault too, despite the fact that Bush has held many of the purse strings for seven years. Breathtaking.

Interesting too, that the GOP should be pushing this culture war agenda again (they're elitist cosmopolitans, we're real Americans). It's probably how Bush won, but that constituency has surely eroded now.