Sarah Barracuda Strikes

Sarah Palin made her party proud last night in a speech that delivered her to star status. It took twenty-four years to catch up, but the Republican Party finally nominated someone nationally who isn’t a white guy. Congratulations on joining the 20th century.

She just should have delivered it without the condescension, sarcasm and snide remarks. Then there was the small town vs. civic pride, which always seems to raise that divide when Republicans are involved. Palin mocking Obama’s community organizing activist roots. Does Sarah have a clue what community organizers do in cities across this country? Especially in inner city neighborhoods, whose people can’t survive without them? That was just the beginning of Sarah’s snidely smackdowns.

Then there was the, well, let’s just call it cutting hyperbole. The AP began compiling what is likely to be a long list:

PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.”

FACT: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

But there was good news too. Republican elites can relax, while the conservative base basks in the babe who takes the senior out of the senator. McCain’s hail Mary Palin can deliver a speech. No, strike that. She can deliver two speeches. The beginning was a brisk tour of things surrounding her life, which unfolded quickly. Then came the other part of the speech, which was concocted by some Bush speechwriter for some unknown vice presidential nominee who would stand in and deliver. She sounded like Patrick J. Buchanan in a dress.. er skirt. Great for the rank and file, which needed a shot and got it. Not so good for everyone else. Especially voters who sent a message during the primary season that they’re not exactly in the mood for partisan sarcasm, even when delivered with a smile.

Now for the bad news.

It’s no wonder Sarah targeted the press, because since McCain sprung her on the public we’ve been scurrying for facts. Oh, and digging up the truth, even as the McCain campaign plans on hiding Sarah from any hard interview scrutiny. Because the facts don’t help Mrs. Palin, which is likely why she stayed away from them last night, offering some easily rebutted rhetoric.

Reformer is just a label Palin picked up for political purposes. McCain targeted Sarah Palin’s “objectionable” earmarks long before he ever tapped her for veep.

“So while Sen. McCain was going after cutting earmarks in Washington,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Gov. Palin was going after getting earmarks.”

Palin even boasted about her earmarks, saying “We did well!!!” Oh, and “FYI This does not include our nearly one million Dollars from the Feds for our Airport Paving Project,” Sarah continued.

On another note, as McClatchy reported last Friday, trying to prove she can handle the job of presidency, Palin pushed her National Guard leadership role. It was pure fantasy, which was driven home by Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell who is in charge out there:

“Can you tell me one decision that she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard?” CNN journalist Campbell Brown asked Monday while interviewing McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. “Just one?”

Bounds couldn’t, because Palin has never personally ordered the state guard to do anything.

…the governor has no command authority overseas or anywhere in the United States other than Alaska, said Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, the service commander of the Alaska National Guard.

Then there’s that “Bridge to Nowhere” fabrication, which she offered up again last night, but was first hoisted on an unsuspecting public last Friday:

“I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ on that bridge to nowhere,” Palin said Friday in Ohio, using the critics’ dismissive name of the project. “‘If our state wanted a bridge,’ I said, ‘we’d build it ourselves.'”

Not quite.

While running for governor in 2006, though, Palin backed federal funding for the infamous bridge, which McCain helped make a symbol of pork barrel excess.

Palin might just redefine “reformer.”

But none of this matters to Republicans. They have their Republican Red Bull, as Rev. Richard Land said. They’ve also got Sarah Palin religion.

It remains to be seen whether the throwback snidely sarcasm of Sarah’s speech last night will reach beyond the Republican base, which is the only way McCain can win.

The good news on that front is that Palin is very attractive and can perform with the best of them and she’s becoming a political rock star the GOP hasn’t had in a very long time. She’ll draw thousands across the country. She’s now the one everyone will want to see.