Categorical Aperitif

C&L has the transcript of Governor Mooseburger's speech last night and has already obligingly nailed three of the false claims repeated in it: that she rejected earmarks, that she opposed the notorious "Bridge to Nowhere," and that she heroically gave oil company profits back to the people of Alaska. (Why is this normal in Alaska but COMMUNISM! everywhere else?) Reading through her speech, I wasn't struck by those so much as by these remarks:

It was just a year ago when all the experts in Washington counted out our nominee because he refused to hedge his commitment to the security of the country he loves.

With their usual certitude, they told us that all was lost—there was no hope for this candidate who said that he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war.

??? It's odd that she (or whoever actually wrote the speech) blames "the experts in Washington" for discounting McCain's chances early on—and tries to tie this to antiwar traitorism, no less. Take a look at polls from early in the race, and you'll be reminded that McCain was finishing well behind Huckabee and Giuliani in many of them. Hell, less than two weeks ago, 42% of registered Republicans were saying that they would rather have somebody else as their nominee. It wasn't "the experts in Washington" who were counting McCain out early on—let alone challenging the war to which he's shackled himself!—it was those esteemed heartland voters that Palin claims to respect so much.

Creeping Agnewism seems to be in these people's genes, I swear.