Re-posted 8/31/2008, 11:30 p.m.

Original post: 8/29/2008, 1:29 p.m.: I don’t mean to harp, but it took him only moments to make fun of Sarah Palin’s kids’ names.

What’s the over-under on how long it takes him to use her Down’s baby against her? Perhaps something along the lines of, What kind of family values lead a new mother to abandon her disabled baby in order to pursue her political future?

Maybe three weeks? Maybe less?

Updated from the comments: Whoever had 8 hours as the over wins.

Time for the next bet: How long until Sullivan suggests that Palin only had her Down’s baby for political advantage? I’ll give 3 weeks again. Seems like a sucker’s line, though.

Second Update: Well, we have another winner! Sullivan passes on a rumor that Palin didn’t actually even have the baby. And that the baby is fair game because, “This baby was a centerpiece of the public case for Palin made by the Republicans. They made it an issue – and therefore it is legitimate to ask questions about it.”

At what point does David Bradley have a responsibility to protect his other writers and editors from association with Sullivan? If I were Jeff Goldberg or Ross Douthat or Jim Fallows or Mark Bowden–or any of the other very serious, very smart people at that great magazine–I’d be awfully uncomfortable having Sullivan as a colleague.

Sullivan is undermining the magazine’s entire intellectual enterprise and laying waste to a brand that took a century to build. I hope someone over there is paying attention.

Third Update: Sullivan now says that there’s a photo that “looks like it confirms” Palin’s pregnancy. But of course, that’s not enough either. He now demands “Just a simple confirmation from the doctor who was present at the birth.”

Watching Palin’s introduction it became immediately clear that she looks uncannily like a young Laura Roslin.* This can only bode well for Palin. But the parallels don’t stop at her looks. Like Roslin, Palin was basically a private citizen (Roslin was a teacher, Palin was a reporter) before being pulled into politics. Neither seems to have had any larger ambition, until events pulled them into prominence. And both were immediately discounted by outside observers as being unequal to the demands of their new positions.

But wait! There’s more!

If Palin is Roslin, isn’t McCain very much a Bill Adama? Both are Navy men. Both seemed destined to be passed over by a younger generation of hotshots, until a perfect storm elevated them to command. Both are tough old dogs with little patience for politics. Heck, Adama’s staff even call him the Old Man.

Like Adama and Roslin, McCain and Palin should complement each other well. I eagerly await the moment in the VP debate when Palin is asked what she would do with Osama bin Laden if he were captured. One assumes her answer will be some variation of, “Put that thing out the airlock.”

* Galley Wife S.L. observed this within seconds of Palin stepping on stage.

Update: Several astute commenters make the point that it’s really more of a Tigh-Roslin ticket. I can buy that for a couple reasons: (1) The uncanny physical resemblance of McCain and Tigh; (2) Both McCain and Tigh were POWs; (3) McCain is reputed to have a temper somewhat approaching the Irish of Saul Tigh.

All of that said, in defense of seeing McCain as Adama, I’d argue that (1) Tigh is fundamentally, Adama’s guy; McCain is his own man, for better or for worse; (2) Both McCain and Adama were hot-shot fighter jocks; (3) Most strikingly, Adama’s Maverick-StreakTM long ago forced him to give up higher command ambitions. It’s only by accident that he becomes head of the fleet. I think you could see very much the same thing in McCain’s career. It’s only a bizarre, perfect-storm of events–9/11, Huckabee, Rudy’s crazy Florida strategy, Fred! siphoning votes in SC, Petraeus’s brilliance in Iraq–which lead him to this moment. In a more ordinary time, McCain’s constant tweaking of the base would have doomed him to the sidelines.

Also, McCain wouldn’t resent Kara Thrace; he’d totally dig her.

You’ll recall that I tried to preemptively top the praise of Obama’s speech by doing a mock analysis of it earlier in the week. Other readers sent in their own attempts at parody. Below I’m going to reproduce a bunch of the parodies interspersed with the “real analysis” by various bloggers, commentators, etc from the last 12 hours. I defy you to tell which is which.

(A) Stunning. Simply stunning. This is the speech that changed America, that restored her to her erstwhile glory. Tears flood the eyes–and I am not someone who cries easily.

One forgets the native beauty of our founding commitment, and then one is reminded in words so powerful, so simple, so true. Mark my words: decades hence, we shall all look back on this speech and remember the brief shining moment when we were, truly, one nation, under God.

(B) This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.

Know hope.

(C) Indisputably the greatest political moment we have witnessed in many generations. Behold, America. You have been offered redemption. Seize the opportunity. Remind the world of the better angels of your nature. Now is the time. This is the place. Yes we can.

(D) But the dark moments pass, and this is why. There is still goodness in the land. It lives and walks among us, calling us back to our better selves. With this speech, Barack has brought light to the hinterland. No honest person, no decent person, could vote against him.

Know hope.

(E) It was as if the first three days were the Democratic Party’s convention, when the usual lineup of pols and dignitaries got rewarded for their service, and the final night was Obama’s convention, where Obama, all on his lonesome, defined the contours of the campaign and laid out what he meant liberalism to look like on his watch.

(F) In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony. It was a masterpiece.

Go ahead. Three of these are parodies and three are from various commenters. I’ll even give you a hint by telling you who they are: Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, and David Gergen. Tou tell me which is which.

I’m in Denver so that you don’t have to be. In times of immense boredom, I’ve taken to writing news accounts of upcoming speeches, with the idea of putting them up against actual analysis after the fact. So far, I’ve done pretty well, I think. Here, for example, was my pre-fab analysis of Michelle Obama’s Monday night speech, which I wrote earlier in the afternoon:

Can you imagine a better speech? A better First Lady? A better woman? If Barack is the savior of our world, Michelle is the savior of our soul. The way she bared her family for all of America to see, inviting us in, to join them. The strength and courage in her every word. Like Barack, America is lucky to have her.

And here’s the account Andrew Sullivan gave afterward:

One of the best, most moving, intimate, rousing, humble, and beautiful speeches I’ve heard from a convention platform. Maybe she should be running for president. You don’t need any commentary from me. This was a home-run. And sincere. Thank God that in the end, the truth struggles out there. Just look at her mother’s face.

Pretty close, no? So now it’s time to turn toward the main event. How will the press react to tomorrow night’s Obama revelation? Here’s one idea. Feel free to come up with your own.

The bar was impossibly high. This man has already given the three most seminal speeches in modern American politics. He has already changed our perceptions of the possible. And yet there he stood on this sacred day, the columns behind him reminding us of Martin. Of Lincoln. Of our best selves. And he told us the truth: That we are one nation. That we do not need to fear each other. That strength and bluster are not one in the same. America will be a different place when this man is president.

Because of him, it is a different place already.

Too over the top, maybe? We’ll see if Sullivan or others can’t top it . . .

Without comment:

DENVER–Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker’s neck, then twisted the producers arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel. . . .

Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.

The sheriff’s officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.

It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.

During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, “You’re lucky I didn’t knock the f..k out of you.”

I’m sure there’s a perfectly legitimate explanation.

“The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It’s almost a feeling of a kind of high.”

–Joe Eszterhas, who recently wrote Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith as well as Basic Instinct, Sliver, and Showgirls.

According to the Toledo Blade, Joe isn’t faking. But if he converts, who’s next? Tom Sizemore?

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