they need to get her on some of the lies, especially the one about saying "no thanks" to the "bridge to nowhere." she did a good job pacing herself and flinging the mud after a shaky start. but this is the recurring problem for republicans this year -- they have nothing to run on other than attacking the other candidates on non-substantive issues. and was it just me, or did parts of her speech sound downright... um, old-school democrat? all that stuff about giving power and money back to the people of alaska, taking on big oil, introducing her husband as a proud member of a steel union... very weird. her accent was also clearly ratcheted up a notch or two. nobody talks like that -- and i come from michigan.

By and large, the white donut around the mostly empty black hole of Detroit is racist. Pure and simple. Get any suburbanite of the boomer generation or earlier talking about what's wrong with the city, and it won't take them long to begin scapegoating blacks and how they "ruined" it. Never mind that there were legitimate black concerns that led to the 67 riots, that a white power structure was in place overseeing and (mis)handling the riots and their aftermath, or that the city had and continues to do a piss-poor job shifting its industrial and manufacturing might to fit the times (see: the Big Three automakers).

Black politicians since Coleman Young have taken advantage of the racial tensions to win office, and promptly abused their power such that the city winds up as little more than a dangerous playground for bad ideas and bad government. I wasn't around for the Archer era, but Young is still famous for his combativeness, his race-baiting, and poor management (the Chambers Bros. & etc. flourished under his watch).

The whites aren't coming back? The whites don't want to come back. If anything, they're moving further and further north. My relatives now live in a suburb that was farmland for miles around when we were kids. The further north they move, the further away they are from any of the urban realities, diversity, and issues that a city like Detroit raises. And the easier it is to cocoon themselves in their racist ways.

OK--

Granted that Palin delivers her lines with a comfort and wit that McCain can only dream of, and I might even grant that some of the accusations / rumors flying around about her might be exaggerated or false. But, um, how about the fact that she's a liar? Her "great speech" was so full of lies that it made my head spin. "Thanks but no thanks to the Bridge to Nowhere"? "Obama wants to raise taxes on x, y, z," etc.? Lies.

And don't tell me that all politicians lie. Of course, but the bald-faced, I-dare-you-to-call-me-on-it lie is something seemingly only perfected and practiced with such aplomb by this crop of neocons, of which Palin seems to be one. I'm surprised at you, Camille.

If that's a "powerful new feminist," you can have her.

@Gordon Lightweight

That's a nice theory, but it seems like you've been reading too much George Orwell lately.

@shootergolightly

Semantics is a mighty big word for someone of your ilk. Let's put it country simple: She lied. Is lying. Has lied. Any way you want to conjugate the verb. Now you can try to wiggle out of it or compare someone calling her on it to the bogus "Obama is Muslim" nonsense, but that dog just won't hunt.

apparently, we need to keep 'splainin this to people like you: the issue is not whether biden or obama or the easter bunny or anyone else voted for the bridge to nowhere -- it's that palin keeps claiming that she "stopped it." that's a lie. we need to call her on it and keep calling her on it.

and why? why, class? simple: it's characteristic of her, and her handlers', approach to the truth. it fits the pattern of the "weapons of mass destruction" lie that got us into the quagmire of iraq, bolstered by the retrospective lie that we actually went there to topple an oppressive regime and spread democracy.

the american people are tired of being lied to. if palin can't tell the truth about something so straightforward as this, what will a government with her in the "cheney seat" look like?