The Longest Now

She’s no nonsense, has no chip on her shoulder, has a sense of humor.  Bright and persistent though no policy fiend or wonkette.  Videos of her from before the nomination are more telling than recent appearances — not artificial, just herself.  ( Examples: sports reporting and personal history | on difficult supreme court decisions |  on citizenship and responsibility )

That’s still compatible with being humanly vindictive, devoutly unscientific, a compulsive fabricator (I’ve noticed a lot of that in both parties and at every level — this, or at least the ability to say something with total confidence regardless of its truth, must be selected for in our [societal, international] political process), unprepared for the international scene, and a terrifying potential C-in-Ch.  I hope she survives the election season with her dignity and political karma intact.

As for recent embarrassing appearances — conventional wisdom suggests any interviews or public appearances in a major election require extremely careful locution to avoid falling afoul of bad soundbites… something brought to the fore by the fallout from just a few public speeches.  The brilliant Brian Williams,  one of the few people I know who grok what it means to give a truly neutral description of something, gave a pitch-perfect description of this yesterday night in this Letterman chat.

The funny thing about that conventional wisdom is that we have so many modern counter-examples, where speaking one’s heart and mind, being open and even politically incorrect, works out in the end — including significantly for McCain himself.   But I’ve noticed that when the stakes rise, and the ‘highest-powered’ consultants step in, even risk-taking projects turn conservative.  Not because that is the best strategy, but because our rudimentary system of measuring success favors risk-averse consultants (hello, McKinsey) and risk-seeking dealmakers (hello, Wall Street).