Blumner emerges from glass house, bearing stones for throwing

Ah, I love the vapidity of editorial columns by Robyn Blumner.

Blumner went on the attack against Sarah Palin this week.  I suppose the joy of bashing George W. Bush has faded now that he has been out of office for over a year.

Let's root for those pearls of Blumnerian wisdom:

Since Sarah Palin won't rule out running for the presidency in 2012, her performance recently at the Tea Party convention in Nashville deserves more scrutiny. Voters may have to soon evaluate her as a future leader of our nation and defender of the free world. Which makes her strikingly vapid answers to the softball questions thrown her way all the more frightening.

Newsflash, Ms. Blumner:  Joe Biden is our vice president.  That is the here and now.

Blumner:

Sitting in comfy armchairs she answered questions put to her by the adoring Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation.

Palin was asked: "We hear about the Obama plan. What's the Palin plan?" Her answer on her national defense plan — the entirety of it — was this: "And when it comes to national security, as I ratchet down the message on national security, it's easy to just kind of sum it up by repeating Ronald Reagan when he talked about the Cold War. And we can apply this now to our war on terrorism, you know. Bottom line, we win, they lose. We do all that we can to win."

Compare that bit of nearly indecipherable triumphalism with the answer President Barack Obama gave at a news conference Tuesday when asked about Iran's decision to further enrich uranium, which is too long to reprint verbatim.

 Apples and oranges comparisons are where it's at, apparently.

Palin was asked a very general question, and so gave a very general answer.  President Obama was at his press conference for a particular reason, with a big part of that the purpose of describing the policy on Iran.  If he had been asked to describe his plan for national defense then it probably would have been very general.  Palin has no reason to develop a detailed foreign policy strategy at present.  The next presidential election isn't for almost three years.  In contrast, Obama has every reason to have a detailed approach to foreign policy as he is currently serving as president.  The comparison of the these two speeches could hardly be less apt.

The rest of Blumner's piece is a similar criticism of another of Palin's answers during the brief Q&A session following her keynote address.  The point, I suppose, is that Obama is much smarter than Palin and speaks better as well.  But even if that is the case, who really cares?  It ultimately comes down to which one has the better policy, and Blumner doesn't delve into that.  Her column counts mostly as a personal attack against Palin, showing yet more evidence that the Palin obsession may be even greater on the left than on the right.

All in all, a boring and unimportant column.

Compare Palin (Q&A at about the 45 minute mark) and Obama for yourself.

Obama, of course, went for months without giving a press conference.  This one offers some evidence that his attempts to improve his teleprompterless speaking are paying off.  He's stuttering less and using fewer "ummm's." But there are still quite a few during his answer on Iran.  Look for it at about the 21 minute mark.

I wonder if Blumner heard about Obama's recent "corpsemen" gaffe?