With the US political convention season now over, the aftershocks created by Sarah Palin's arrival on the national stage continue to dominate America's presidential election. "Early indications suggest that Palin power has turned the race upside down," writes Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post. "McCain has leaped to the lead in a new USA Today/Gallup national poll. A brand new CNN/Opinion Research Center poll released moments ago, confirmed the USA Today/Gallup results. Among registered voters, Obama and McCain were knotted at 48 per cent. "The survey shows McCain at 50 per cent and Obama at 46 per cent among registered voters - the first time since an early January USA Today/Gallup survey that the Republican was at the critical 50 per cent mark. "Among those most likely to vote the gap was even broader with McCain leading Obama 54 per cent to 44 per cent." US News and World Report said: "Last month, Sarah Palin was the obscure governor of one of America's most sparsely populated states, balancing the imperatives of Alaska's 680,000 citizens with the needs of her husband and five children and living a relatively quiet life far from the Sturm und Drang of national politics. Today, Palin is a sudden celebrity and, as the Republican vice presidential nominee, a potential game-changer who could shake up the already volatile race for the White House." While for most Americans, Ms Palin seemingly came out of nowhere, Dave Jamieson in The New Republic explains that she had already come to the attention of Washington's leading conservatives back in June 2007 when The Weekly Standard's annual summer cruise reached Alaska. "Someone from an Alaska Republican women's club arranged a social meeting, figuring [executive editor, Fred] Barnes and company would find a lot to like in the governor. 'This wasn't The Nation cruise, after all,' says Barnes. Indeed, Barnes found Palin 'quite impressive and likeable and smart and pretty.' In his piece that followed, entitled 'The Most Popular Governor,' he saluted the newbie politician's 'eye-popping integrity,' running down her impressive scorecard on bread-and-butter conservative issues, like fiscal accountability. The Weekly Standard would become one of Palin's strongest proponents leading up to the veep nomination, with editor Bill Kristol eventually stepping out in June to name her the smart choice. "Rising gas prices gave Palin the opportunity to impress another key Republican constituency: the pro-business, oil-friendly, anti-regulation wing of the party. Back in January, Palin had penned an op-ed for The New York Times arguing against the idea of protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. As governor she had been unequivocally advocating for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - a proposition that McCain had been opposing, to the dismay of many in the conservative base. But here was an attractive, plainspoken Alaskan, with a blue-collar husband in the oil business, who seemed dying to drill in her backyard. "Such credentials won Palin some highly influential admirers, most notably Larry Kudlow, the host of CNBC's 'Kudlow & Company,' and [conservative talk radio host] Rush Limbaugh. Touting her oil stance on his show in late June, Limbaugh gushed, 'Here is a female Republican who is willing to gut it up.' (Just a few months earlier, Limbaugh wasn't sure how to pronounce Palin's name, though he'd seen a photograph of her. 'She's a housewife,' he said back in February. 'Before that, she's a babe.')" Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has succeeded to a large degree in turning media coverage of the campaign into media coverage about the media. Time magazine said: "Ever since Spiro Agnew lambasted the press in 1970 as 'nattering nabobs of negativism,' Republicans have reveled in attacking the national media for its so-called liberal bias. President George HW Bush ran for re-election in 1992 with a bumper sticker that read 'Annoy the media: Re-elect Bush.' His son, President George W Bush, trotted before cameras in 2001 with a copy of Bernard Goldberg's book on the subject, Bias, conspicuously cradled in his hand. "For most of his career, Arizona Senator John McCain would jokingly refer to reporters as 'communists,' but his relationship with the press was so mutually affectionate that he and his aides happily referred to the media as their 'base.' "Those days are over. What began as the campaign's midsummer turn away from McCain's freewheeling give-and-take with the press has turned into an all-out war on the media." In The New York Times, David Carr wrote: "Before Gov Sarah Palin came flying in from the wilds of Alaska for the Republican convention in St Paul, there was a lot of sniggering in media rooms and satellite trucks about her beauty queen looks and rustic hobbies, and the suggestion that she was better suited to be a calendar model for a local auto body shop than a holder of the second-highest office in the land. "Ms Palin, unwilling to be rendered as a caribou-skinning cartoon, stepped to the microphone on Wednesday and punched back. " 'I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone,' she said. " 'But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators,' she continued. 'I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.' "When she was announced as John McCain's running mate, I told my wife that the governor had no idea what was about to hit her. By the time she was done speaking, I realized the reverse was precisely true as well."
Soaring civilian toll from airstrikes in Afghanistan
"Civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and Nato airstrikes nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, with recent deadly airstrikes exacerbating the problem and fuelling a public backlash, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The report also condemns the Taliban's use of 'human shields' in violation of the laws of war." Meanwhile, The New York Times reports: "For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen David D McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of 'emerging evidence.' " 'The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,' he said in a statement. "The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug 26, which villagers insist never occurred. "The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan."
pwoodward@thenational.ae
