The political site Daily Kos outlines the conspiracy theory (presented with a timeline, photos and video) that Sarah Palin's youngest child, Trig, is actually her daughter Bristol's baby.

Palin's camp came out swinging, but their defense today came as something of a surprise: Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin is not four-month-old Trig's mother, because Bristol is five months pregnant now.

I met this RNC delegate shortly after arriving in Minneapolis. It didn't take long before I realized...



I'm in love with an alpaca!!



But will it work out? Where does the alpaca delegation stand on the marriage issue? Are these hard right alpacas? Or Rockefeller Republican alpacas? (It was very hard to read the mood of the Alternate Alpaca, seen below.)



Have you ever fallen in love with an alpaca?!

The Young Turks will be conducting special live coverage of the Republican National Convention beginning on Monday. TYT will be hitting up Minneapolis to provide you with the following:

A live show from from 4pm to 6pm CT/6pm to 8pm ET, which can be heard on XM Satellite Radio 167.

Live interviews throughout at the day on www.theyoungturks.com.

Play-by-play analysis of all major speeches.

Remember to tune in beginning on Monday if you want a fun, animated, and edgy coverage of the convention. The show will be live from Minneapolis all week long.

I would not have thought it possible, but McCain and his advisers have made the perfect vice presidential selection in Sarah Palin. It is an ingenious, even thrilling choice, and one that is all the more remarkable in that it was completely unexpected. All the other candidates, such as Romney and Pawlenty, were boring and came with serious drawbacks. Obama has certainly added excitement to the Democratic ticket; now, with his choice of Palin, McCain has done the same for the Republicans.

Compare Obama's unimaginative selection of Joe Biden--another Washington D.C. blowhard--with McCain's choice. I suppose Biden is supposed to win over lower-middle-class white voters by the fact that he is a backslapping good old boy who likes to watch football games and eat chili dogs. What Biden offers is a proven record of mediocrity, and perhaps he can appeal to mediocre people on the basis of a shared absence of accomplisment.

I'm not saying that Palin has accomplished much either. What she has is potential. The Obama camp has already released its first commercial attacking Palin. But how ridiculous does Obama sound in faulting her for lack of experience? Palin is serving her first term as governor, but then Obama is serving his first term as senator. Palin has no foreign policy experience and has only been to Iraq once; Obama's level of foreign policy experience is exactly the same. It's worth noting, in this context, that Obama, unlike Palin, is at the top of the ticket. Palin will at least have a chance to learn on the job; Obama wants to step right into the Oval Office. So every time the Democrats use the experience charge against Palin, they remind the American people of Obama's greatest weakness.

Here's why Palin is such a good choice. She seems like an incredibly wholesome person who doesn't so much talk about family values as embody them. This is the best kind of social conservative: one whose life is an exemplar of the kind of American dream that we can all admire. In attacking her, I think her critics like Paul Begala and James Carville sound like total jerks. I'd like to see more of those carping attack dogs on TV: they can only help Palin.

With her support for a muscular foreign policy and guns and oil drilling, Palin is an across-the-board conservative, which will reinforce McCain's credentials with the right-wing base of the party. Not that those guys had anyone else to vote for, but the choice of Palin will increase the enthusiasm of GOP activists in working hard for a McCain victory. Second, unlike Bush, McCain has chosen a deputy who can be a future leader of the Republican Party. Palin is also young and thus helps to neutralize Obama's youthful advantage. As a woman, Palin will not so much win over the disenchanted Hillary supporters as pick up Hillary's argument to independent voters that it's about time America had a strong woman in its top echelons of political office. For every Obama supporter who can claim an historic first for the Democrats, Palin enthusiasts can make an equal historic claim for the Republicans.

The media will continue to lionize Obama-Biden and attack McCain-Palin. It's only a short time before we start hearing that Palin is the "wrong kind of woman." (Would anyone dare argue that Obama is the "wrong kind of black man"?) Still, the American people have gotten pretty good at seeing through the media charade. A whole summer of media genuflections hasn't produced a substantial Democratic lead. For months, McCain and Obama have remained virtually tied. Now, with Palin, the Republicans have their first chance to pull ahead.

Okay, I've had twelve hours to process the selection of Sarah Palin, the 44 year-old ball-busting bible-toting beauty queen mother of five. That's at least 4 news cycles. Granted I was asleep for two of them. Still, tempus fugit, tempus fugit. We've got to come up with a slogan for this spitfire. Here are the ones I'm toying with:

• Sarah Palin: She'll Melt Your Igloo!

• Sarah Palin: More experience than Geena Davis when she became Commander-in-Chief!

• Sarah Palin: I Don't Believe in Same-Sex Running Mates!

• Sarah Palin: An Evangelical Erin Brockovich!

• Sarah Palin: A Hockey Mom who will beat the crap out of Soccer Moms!

• Sarah Palin: If Tina Fey Played Bobbi McCaughey in a production of Annie Get Your Gun!

• Sarah Palin: Eight is Enough, My Ass!

• Sarah Palin: Who Let the Dog Sled Out?!

What's your vote? Or do you have your own suggestion? Keep 'em short and pithy, gang. (All cut-and-pasted rants will be deleted. If you want to discuss Palin, that post is here.)

***

Yesterday it was reported that the top five finalists for McCain's V.P. were Palin, Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney. Palin, of course, took home the crown. Lieberman was First Runner-Up and was named Miss Congeniality.

This blog post by hockey mom Kate Tuttle shows how McCain's choice of a self-proclaimed "hockey mom" as his running mate may not be quite the strategic coup he hopes it will be:

Sarah Palin and Joe Biden met earlier this year for a wide-ranging debate of issues. (The debate formally begins at :35.) Watch, then weigh in:

The best thing about out-of-the-blue announcements, like the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, is the breathless reaction of the cable news blowhards. Few people outside Alaska know anything about the woman. Yet Fox is already celebrating the emergence of an evangelical Erin Brockovich, while MSNBC is sneering and sniping about a bobbleheaded beauty queen.

My thoughts:

• Yes, it's a transparently political choice, meant to draw disaffected Hillary supporters. But so what? The selection of Biden by Obama is meant to reassure voters nervous about Obama's lack of foreign policy experience. Does anyone think Obama is actually going to rely - or even seek - Biden's counsel on foreign affairs? Veep choices are about perception, or picking up an extra state's electoral college votes. (Okay, Cheney ended up running the show. But for the purposes of this blog entry, let's ignore that.)
• Her personal story is extraordinary and, yes, inspiring. She's raising five kids, one of them special needs, and she's governor of a huge state. I can barely handle separating recyclables from the garbage. This is a woman of obvious grit and capability, as opposed to the vast majority of hacks on Capitol Hill.
• The Obama camp can't fault her short time in office. (Remember that whole Change vs. Experience thing?) But McCain can no longer hammer Obama's lack of experience without seeming hypocritical.
• Palin calls herself a "hockey mom." Does that mean she flies off the handle and beats the crap out of people who disagree with her? If rumors about McCain's temper are to be believed, there could be one crowded White House penalty box.
  
• Conservative's one thing. Is she scary anti-thought conservative? (Faithful reader Clif Kuplen weighs in: "Sort of a James Watt/Leni Riefenstahl hybrid with some fermented Anita Bryant squeezed in... She does have a firm grip on early nineteenth century science.")
• Since she is a former beauty queen, can we expect Mario Lopez to moderate the V.P. debate? (See Miss Teen South Carolina YouTube moment)

Alaska has twice as many caribou as people!

***

When I walked on to the field at Invesco yesterday for the Obama speech, I cringed at the "Temple" set. Would Obama appear as Apollo, god of poetry, with Oprah as Athena, goddess of wisdom, by his side? And what of Scarlett Johansson as Aphrodite? Would an animal, presumably organic grass fed, be sacrificed?!

In fairness, it looked very much like the colonnade that connects the Oval Office to the main building of the White House. (Most viewers know the colonnade as the backdrop for Rose Garden press appearances.) It was meant to evoke the executive mansion (an example of Palladian architecture, itself derived from Greek and Roman classical), to make Obama appear presidential, not god-like.

It turned out that the Obama people had little to fear. I wasn't particularly impressed by the speech but I'm told it looked great on TV, focusing on tight shots of the candidate and avoiding the impression that this was some glassy-eyed cult-fest.

As for the speech itself, my favorite line was directed to John McCain: "You make a big election about small things." Bulls-eye. McCain's only successful blow against Obama has been the "celebrity issue," a total non-issue. If the election turns on that, we are a sorry people!

Speaking of celebrity, I sat only a few rows in front of Oprah's box. The crowd around me went batty. She handled it well, with the support of Gayle, waving to the crowd before settling back. (Is there any more high pressure job than Gayle's? If you're Oprah's best friend, you're on call all the time. You can't just hit the silence button when her name flashes up on your cell. I almost want to be Gayle's best friend, if only to absorb some of the stress Gayle feels from being Oprah's best friend.)


Oprah waves to the crowd

Soon she was joined by Forrest Whitaker, Mary J. Blige and Kanye West. Still the people at Invesco were more focused on what was happening on the stage. During Major General Scott Gration's speech, a woman in my section screamed "Kanye!" The shushes came down hard on her.

How's this for a health care plan? According to CNN, John McCain health care policy adviser John Goodman told a Dallas Morning News reporter that "nobody in the United States is technically uninsured, because everyone has access to hospital emergency rooms."

Wow, talk about clueless. And familiar. Yes, Bush said the same thing back in the summer of 2007 when he adlibbed the following: "The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

Let's all take a seventeen-minute time-out today to watch, with our kids, the full version of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which celebrates its 45-year anniversary today. (Here also is the full text.)

Is it any wonder that men and women who lived through this period became so especially overpowered watching Obama accept the nomination.

Here's the billboard The Daily Show has up to greet Republicans when they arrive at the convention: "Welcome, Rich White Oligarchs!"

Pretty cute.

As I slouch toward Obama's speech at Invesco later today (I'm too tired to even "slog"), some quick thoughts:

The McCain Disclaimer

As of Day 3, Democrats are squandering their convention - and it's their own fault. Even though it was clear that they needed to use this week to take apart John McCain's candidacy (and fill in the blanks on Barack Obama), every speaker insists on starting his/her attack on McCain with a tribute, a McCain Disclaimer...

John McCain is a good friend and a great American - perhaps the greatest living American hero - maybe even the greatest living hero dead or alive - and that includes fictional characters - and a man who has shown astonishing courage on the battlefield, in the Senate, underwater and in outer space ... but I really don't like his tax plan.

If I'm watching at home, I'm thinking "Wow, he sounds great. Even Democrats like him! I'm voting for this McCain guy. Okay, what's on CW?"

Even Bill Clinton, in an undeniably rock-star appearance, introduced the topic of McCain this way:

The Republicans in a few days will nominate a good man who has served our country heroically and who suffered terribly in a Vietnamese prison camp. He loves his country every bit as much as we do. As a senator, he has shown his independence of right-wing orthodoxy on some very important issues.

That's quite an encomium - and not one that the Republicans are likely to bestow on Obama at their convention. That's because they know how to campaign: ruthlessly

Where are the Celebrities?!

The McCain ad painting Obama as a celebrity like Paris and Britney has obviously been damaging, maybe devastating. Never has an ad so crappily produced had such impact. (Okay, the "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" ad probably cost $20 to produce and became iconic.)

Anyway, as of last month, everyone expected Denver to become an all-star salute. And yet pre-Invesco, at least, I've seen only a smattering of celebs. (Angela Bassett, Chevy Chase, Anne Hathaway...) The Kerry Convention was packed to the gills with A-listers.

My hunch is that the Obama campaign wants them to stay away - far far away. They simply don't help. So where are they hiding?

The Clintons and Obamas are not the Carringtons and Colbys

Perhaps because we're in Denver, the setting for the '80s nighttime soap Dynasty, the press has pushed the narrative of dueling families hard. Sorry, it's just not working.

I'm not sure which nighttime soap paradigm makes sense with the Obamas and Clintons, but the Carringtons and Colbys are clearly Republican. (I'm assuming that Alexis Colby, Joan Collins' character, was naturalized at one point, if only for tax purposes.)

Help me out here: Is it my imagination or wasn't there an episode of Dynasty where Alexis hosted a party (at La Mirage, I think) and Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford made real-life cameo appearances? If the RNC had been held in Denver, that's what it would have looked like.

Chelsea's Turn

Speaking of dynasties, Chelsea Clinton made a splash this week with her introduction of her mother. She was poised, attractive and warm. (Many Americans still had never heard her speak. Others who thought they had were hearing Marnie Nixon, who for years dubbed her own voice in for a shy Chelsea.)

Look, Hillary and Bill both delivered great speeches this week, though Hillary's was a tad Mad Lib-ish in its endorsement of Obama. (Come on, you could have plugged Mike Gravel's name in there. It was that unpersonalized.)

But it's time for a new Clinton:


The Temple of Obama

If Obama can make a balloon drop happen in an open-air stadium, then he really is a messiah.

Okay, I'm off to Invesco. That this is happening on the 45th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is worthy of reflection - and unworthy of snark. I'm very very lucky to be here. Thanks for reading.


Above: At 4:47pm MST Hillary Clinton casts New York's votes for Obama and moves that he be nominated by acclamation. I took this pic from a platform a few feet away. Pretty cool.

Who could not be moved at the sight of a major political party naming Barack Obama, an African American, as its presidential candidate? To me, there could not be a better sign that America has left behind its racist past. We are now approaching what may be termed "the end of racism." The End of Racism was the title of my 1995 bestseller, hugely controversial when it was published, but now it seems to have been a decade ahead of its time. If we appreciate the significance of our current moment, we are driven to an ironic but rational conclusion: perhaps the best way to recognize Obama's historic achievement is to vote for John McCain this November.

Consider this: for the past several years we have been hearing liberal Democrats emphasize how racism still defines America, how things haven't really changed all that much, how racism has gone underground and is now more covert and more dangerous than ever. It may seem strange that a racist country would adopt legal policies that discriminate against the majority and in favor of minorities. Even so, liberal activists and civil rights activists continue to browbeat white America in the schools, in the universities, in politics and in the media if there is the slightest dissent from civil rights orthodoxy.

Well, I don't know how many people have been drinking the liberal Kool-Aid, but these people must be utterly shocked at the success of Barack Obama. Here is a guy who could not possibly have made it as far as he has with only black votes. He has attracted not only white votes but the votes of some of the most affluent and successful segments of the white community. Obama, not Hillary, is the pillar of the white establishment. Moreover, Obama's own campaign is based on the premise that America is no longer racist. Far from making race-based appeals, to blacks on the basis of solidarity, and to whites on the basis of guilt, Obama campaigns on the expectation that whites share his economic values and foreign policy positions and view of America. In other words, Obama's public message is that race doesn't matter and that transracial alliances should be built on shared political and cultural values. It's a good message, and how it must dismay professional civil rights activists to hear it. I wouldn't be surprised if Jesse Jackson is telling family members, "If race relations keep improving like this, I may have to get a real job."

Clearly there are many in the liberal Democratic camp who are made profoundly uncomfortable by the recognition that racism is no more a defining feature of American life or even African American life. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that racism does not exist. This is a big country, and surely one can find several examples of it. But racism, which used to be systematic, is now only episodic. In fact, when I ask young blacks on the campus today whether America is racist, many say yes. But if I ask them to give me examples of how that racism affects their lives, they are hard pressed to give a single one. The best they can do is to mention "Rodney King" or provide some well-known, recycled horror story. Recently someone told me that McCain is still winning the white vote by a substantial majority and that shows "we have a long way to go" in overcoming white bigotry. By this logic, blacks are have even longer way to go in overcoming their bigotry since Obama is winning almost 98 percent of the black vote. When your logic leads to an absurd conclusion, go back and re-examine the premise.

Even though Obama's candidacy signals that America is overcoming its racial past, neither Obama nor his wife recognize that. Their personal statements, as seen for example in Obama's books, are suffused with race-consciousness, race-obsession and even racial resentment. The more privileges they have received on the basis of race, the more embittered they seem to become. The source of these pathologies is the very liberalism that the Obamas have embraced: a liberalism that declares them equal while treating them as inferiors who need preferential treatment. (Liberals hate to have this pointed out; hence the irrational invective of the early responses to this post.) The solutions are obvious. If you want to get rid of racial obsession, stop talking and thinking about race so much. If you want to remove race as the basis of decision-making in America, let's eliminate America's policies that make race the basis of decision-making. And if you want a party that stands for color-blindess and equal opportunity, you might consider voting for the Republicans.

Delegates Molly Jurusik and Abby Betts, myself and the Blue Hen Chicken

Ever since Joseph Robinette Biden was tapped by Barack Obama as his running mate, everyone has been clucking about what a boon this will be to Biden's home state of Delaware. After all, what else is Delaware known for?

Turns out, a lot. Just listen to these proud as Blue Hen Chicken delegates. More after the video...




There is of course a downside to Delaware: Bob Marley was so unhappy during his brief time in the state that he fled home to Jamaica.

On another note, Biden's middle name is Robinette? No, not Basinette. Not Raisinette. Robinette.

Did Obama tap him just to get people to stop bitching about his own middle name? Puh-leeze, the Senator from Delaware should wish he were named Joseph Hussein Biden.