Opinion - The Nation

The Nation -- Sarah Palin is an able liar, as her acceptance speech showed. She may be a coward, too, at least when it comes to facing down the reporters she blasted from the comfort of that solitary podium in St. Paul.

The Nation -- Now that the Republican National Convention is done, there is much speculation about how Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will respond to questions from the media that she so pointedly attacked in his Wednesday night speech to delegates who cheered her "here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators" announcement that "I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion -- I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.

The Nation -- Last night, John McCain went on at length about his imprisonment in Vietnamese POW camps, and indeed his time as a captive in Vietnam has been the spark to his political career since the 1970s. But both McCain -- and the video that introduced him -- glosses over an earlier event that might have shaped his approach to military affairs: the disastrous 1967 fire aboard the USS Forrestal.

The Nation -- It was not the best speech John McCain's ever given. And it wasn't the worst. In fact, it was pretty similar to a lot of speeches McCain has given throughout this campaign.

The Nation -- McCain's speech last night was so mind-deadening and his delivery so boring that you were probably sound asleep when he got to the part about foreign aid. Here's what he said:

The Nation -- Wednesday night I did a CBS Webcast with Katie Couric and sparred with Republican strategist Barbara Comstock over Sarah Palin -- what she represents and where she would lead the country. Old-fashioned as I may be, I argued that "this is a big election about big issues. And while Palin's story is compelling... at the same time on the core issues so central to millions of women in this country -- Sarah Palin talked about 'every woman should have the opportunity to go through every door' -- well, you don't if you adopt the agenda of John McCain and Sarah Palin." You can watch the entire webcast here:

The Nation -- John McCain's nomination speech was so flat, so disjointed, so utterly devoid of any vision or affirmative plan for the U.S. -- it's hard to say much about it, other than it sucked. That's basically what CNN's Jeffrey Toobin was driving at when he panned it in historic proportions on Thursday, declaring it the "worst speech by a nominee" since 1980.

The Nation -- ST. PAUL -- The numbers are in for Sarah Palin's Republican National Convention speech, and they're pretty remarkable.

The Nation -- ST. PAUL -- Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin ridiculed Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer twice in her address to her party's national convention. "Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown," the former local official sneered. "And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involved.

The Nation -- The Couch Potato Vote

The Nation -- Everyone is trying to get the measure of Sarah Palin, the woman who was rocketed from small-state obscurity to the national stage when John McCain selected her as his running-mate on the 2008 Republican ticket.

The Nation -- Palin Distracts from the Real Problems

The Nation -- You know what's fun? Sitting in a room with thousands of people who run the country and listening to them unleash their full fury at how unfairly they're been treated. It's like listening to Caligula whine.

The Nation -- ST. PAUL -- Ralph Nader would like it to be noted that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, is not merely less qualified than Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, who has served 35 years in the Senate and currently chairs the chamber's foreign relations committee.

The Nation -- As the much-anticipated debut of The Sarah Palin Show crept closer in the Xcel Center last night, the overwhelmingly white and well-heeled Republicans rose to their feet, cheering, to dance and sing along to the infectious strains of Sly Stone's Everyday People--demonstrating not only a giddy lack of self-awareness (or irony), but also showing that the folks in the hall had gotten the alerts from GOP Message Central:

The Nation -- Sarah Palin gave a riveting and devastating nomination speech on Wednesday night.

The Nation -- I predict that Sarah Palin will give one hell of a speech tonight. The McCain campaign is betting on it and the Obama campaign is prepared for it.

The Nation -- You know how if you repeat a word long and often enough it begins to become a different word: the sounds break off from each other and thin out and you achieve some sort of altered state in which you can't even reclaim the original sound of the word or its meaning. (If you don't know what I'm taking about, try it. Use, say, ketchup.)

The Nation -- Governor Jon Huntsman of Utah said Sarah Palin was "going through a little challenge right now."