Following up on my initial point-by-point response to various kind replies:

1. AnnieW, I agree with you and take back my prior whine regarding the media and Ayres/Wright/Rezko. I thought frankly they were going to have a cow over the troopergate report, and didn't. So, it's hard to tell sometimes what moves the media. As I wrote once before, my hide is still burning 20 years later over the feeding frenzy which ensued over Dan Quayle's National Guard service back in 1988, and the false implication that anyone came back from Vietnam in a body bag in his place, by virtue of preferential placement. And it's burning again today, after the media's treatment of Bristol Palin. Here again, I must say a fine word though about Obama. His empathetic statement for Palin's daughter, and (vain) request for the media to back off her, was probably his finest moment of the campaign.

2. FaulknerJr, I really was not trying to suggest that conversations with friends are indicative of any great national trends. But, when I talk today to marginally informed undecided voters - especially ones who does not have cable TV, and do not read news web sites, it is really quite interesting to see their reaction. Incidentally - and here I go on another media whine - the marginally informed voter is quite likely to believe that Sarah Palin burns books, impresses governmental officials into prayer services against their will, and is, to put it bluntly, a very mean spirited person, on a personal level. Even as, that same person has little or no idea who Ayres/Wright/Rezko even are. Let's put aside AWR, given my retraction above and just explore a further point on Palin.

As I wrote before, some of my criticism extends to programs like Larry King. During the RNC, folks like James Carville came on and said, in substance, "I don't know if this is true, Larry, but I have heard that Sarah Palin (fill in the blank)" - a lot of stuff that turned out to be untrue or wildly exaggerated. MSNBC did simliar things. I recall Chris Matthews responding, at one point, to a guest riff by saying - um, what a second, do you have a source for any of that? It was said, for example, that Palin proposed to rip Darwin out of the school books and replace it with the six day creation. That simply is not true. The most critical construction you could place on her gubanatorial campaign questionnarie was that she wanted some sort of *equal time* for intelligent design, or some such thing. Whatever else you think of ID, or equal time, it is not the same thing as *replacing* evolution with bald 6-day creation teaching. And, another short anecdote. Tina Fey's first impersonation of Palin included a reference to dinosaurs, which in turn was a joke on an internet rumor that Palin refers to dinosaurs as "satan's lizards." Really, if the information is unfounded, how does it make its way into main stream network satire?

So, back to my point about "liberal friends." A lot of them think they *know* trashy facts about Palin based on stuff they deduced somehow from news, or Top Ten lists on Letterman, yet know nothing bad or potentially bad about Obama. I think the Larry King's of the world are partially to blame for that. So, I'm not requesting more trash on Obama. I'm requesting less on Palin.

This is a further follow-up to several inquiries directed to me.

A brief word about Sarah Palin and my oft-stated fondness for her.

Not sure if I covered this in a prior post, but I actually understand how you people feel. I came of age thinking I was a Democrat until my teenage years, but then columns in the local paper by George Will, Joseph Sobran, and William F. Buckley made me *realize* I was a pure conservative. Throw off the yoke of government, stand tall, be self-sufficient, and all of that. When I would watch a debate and the moderator (as they used to do) would ask the candidates to say something nice about each other at the end, I would shout to myself, "No, don't do it!." The other side is trying to communize us, I would think. Don't even concede they are human!

Well, age and experience, along with law school and a generally inquisitive mind, helped change that. I learned to stop worrying and tolerate big government. The Cold War ended. A lot of things changed.

Most of you seem to be good, pure liberals. I understand your policy opposition to Palin, and understand further why your purity of purpose makes you unwilling to see anything other than a horrible, horrible person. But folks, I hate to break it to you, I don't think that's what she is. The evidence does not support it. I asked in a prior post for readers to at least stipulate that she is a decent human being, before debating policy further, and one poster responded by saying she is the equivalent of Charles Manson. Like I said, I guess I felt the same way about the Democrats when I thought they were going to surrender our country to Moscow. :)

I'll get back to Palin's policies in a subsequent post, as well as some more thoughts on her image.