sarah palin

• The North Carolina county that Sarah Palin described as “the real America” went for Obama by a huge margin, as did the entire state of North Carolina.
• Barack and Michelle Obama have become incredibly popular baby names in Kenya—including for a twin boy and girl.
• What’s the deal with using churches as polling places?
• Harry Reid is starting the uncomfortable task of possibly kicking Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic caucus.
• Will Sarah Palin appoint herself to replace Ted Stevens if the latter resigns from (unlikely) or is kicked out of (possibly) the Senate?

In case you haven’t seen this video yet: the title says it all. Actually, Fox News’s (!) Carl Cameron says it all to Shepard Smith. Viz., that Palin didn’t know that Africa was a continent and not a single country, didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA, refused to prep for the Katie Couric interview, etc. etc. etc. etc.

This Sunday’s interesting links:

• The Southern California Board of Rabbis, an interdenominational Jewish organization, opposes the anti-gay marriage initiative to be voted on in California this election.
• John Judis of the New Republic has a terrific sum-up of everything wrong with John McCain’s stunt of singlehandedly fixing the world before last weekend.
• In a similar vein, the Washington Post’s analysis of how McCain screwed it all up in Washington before Friday night’s debate.
• One of the best analyses of the debate and the larger question of “strategy versus tactics”—and who really understood the best way to win this debate.
• A biologist reviews an Intelligent Design textbook. (He is not impressed.)
• Tina Fey returns as Sarah Palin on SNL in an absolutely deadly spot-on “interview” with Amy Poehler as Katie Couric.
• Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria is the latest journalist to express amazement at John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin in light of his assertion that he always puts country first.
• Crypto-Muslim (formerly Muslim Hedonist) on her experiences becoming white by removing the hijab. (This is mandatory reading.)
• Finally, will lolcats be able to keep making the moneys? Only time—and great lulz—will tell.

What’s eating up your laptop’s RAM today?

I’m a little bit dismayed by all the talk setting up expectations for the debates in the American presidential election. The media and blogosphere seem to be setting up the expectations that not only will Obama wipe the floor with McCain in their debates, but that Sarah Palin will have her ass absolutely handed to her by Joe Biden. Furthermore, there’s this undercurrent of sexism feeding into this latter expectation, that Joe Biden will have to pull his punches or something, as if the fact that Sarah Palin has a vagina entitles her to special treatment in a debate context. This contrasts with the absolute lack of expectations on the Republican side: Sarah Palin, fresh off her interview with Charlie Gibson, may have stumbled a bit when asked what the Bush Doctrine was, but she didn’t completely crash and burn. So we have impossibly high expectations from the Democrats, compared with laughably low expectations from the Republicans.

As in years past, the Democrats have let themselves get pulled into a no-win situation here. If they succeed at completely trouncing the Republicans in the debates, they (especially Biden) will be painted as bullies who didn’t have the decency to go easy on a woman and a doddering old guy. If they slip slightly below expectations—one small gaffe, or even a sigh, should do it—they will be proclaimed to have “lost” the debates. And this is not unfamiliar territory for Democrats. Simply think of the media’s extremely low bar for George W. Bush in 2000, or the way they set up the dichotomy between Kerry the polished debater and George W. Bush the bumbling idiot in 2004, or the absolute evisceration of John Edwards for mentioning Dick Cheney’s gay daughter in their vice-presidential debate in 2004, and you’ll get the idea. The Democrats are set against an impossibly high standard, while the Republicans get the major benefit of the doubt.

This year it’ll be Obama the Ivy League-educated ultra-articulate orator versus Uncle McCain the lovable old scoundrel, and Biden the 38-year tough-guy debate veteran versus Palin the newbie, fragile but feisty but go-easy-on-her-because-she’s-a-woman. Sure, Obama and Biden will shine during the debates in 2008, but there is no way for these candidates to emerge victorious. All McCain and Palin have to do is show up, and let the media’s expectations of Obama and Biden do the work.