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Robert Draper's NYT Story on McCain

Draper on McCainFrom the yet to be published New York Times Magazine cover story on the McCain campaign, we find this nuclear nugget:
"in the hours after Palin’s stunningly self-assured acceptance speech at the G.O.P. convention": “[A]n elegant … woman sat alone at the far end of the bar. She wore beige slacks and a red sweater, and she picked at a salad while talking incessantly on her cellphone. But for the McCain/Palin button affixed to her collar and the brief moment that Palin’s new chief of staff, Tucker Eskew, spoke into her ear, she seemed acutely disconnected from the jubilation swelling around her. In fact, the woman was here for a reason. Her name was Priscilla Shanks, a New York-based stage and screen actress … who had found a lucrative second career as a voice coach. Shanks’s work with Sarah Palin was as evident as it was unseen. Gone, by the evening of her convention speech, was the squeaky register of Palin’s exclamations. Gone (at least for the moment) was the Bushian pronunciation of ‘nuclear’ as ‘nook-you-ler.’ Present for the first time was a leisurely, even playful cadence that signaled Sarah Palin’s inevitability on this grand stage.”
Via Mike Allen's Playbook.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The relevance to this blog is what? (not to mention the title and the post are rather disjointed) I am neither a republican nor a Palin supporter, (I will vote for Obama) however I do find the seeming intense desire to discredit her discouraging, and more sexist than I expected. The connection you have to this blog is so weak that I can conclude that this is nothing more than a sophomoric jab that undermines the credibility of the site.
Anonymous said…
@ Ross. My "intense desire" here is to blog about nuclear-related stories that appear in the general media and popular culture, as well as those with a more specific industry focus. No jabs, sophomoric or senior, were thrown.
Anonymous said…
Interesting that she had the voice coach before the convention. My mom and I both noticed in her convention speech that she was a very good speaker, but her pitch was still a bit too high and that she could benefit from some coaching like Sen. Clinton once had.

I voted for her (and Sen McCain by default).
Anonymous said…
Well, I agree with Ross. There is a definite bias at this blogsite against McCain / Palin and for Obama / Biden, and the ridicule it has offered Palin and McCain is undeserved. The whole mispronunciation of the word "nuclear" is an irrelevant point.

As for whom I am voting, it definitely will NOT be Obama / Biden, and probably will be Baldwin / Castle of the Constitution Party (though they have almost no chance of winning due to the news media bias against third parties). My reasons have little to do with nuclear energy (which I wholeheartedly support), and far more to do with adhering to the Constitution as a fixed contract between sovereign individuals and the government, not a living document to be re-interpreted as each new generation of liberal justices reach the bench of the Supreme Court.

But I warn all you pro-nuclear folks of this: elect Obama / Biden, and you WILL have an anti-nuke as head of the NRC and an anti-nuke as DOE Secretary, and Bush's GNEP WILL be killed. Hate McCain / Palin all you want. Hate Bush / Cheney all you want. They are definitely pro-nuclear and Obama / Biden are NOT, no matter what their mouths say.
Anonymous said…
@kb I should have written 'I do find the medias seeming intense desire', it would be hard for me to make a case that discretiting Gov. Palin is a central focus of this blog, or your posts, and that is not what I intended. With this correction I stand by my comment.
Anonymous said…
Thanks for the clarification, Ross.

@ anonymous. As Mark's follow-up post points out, no one party owns "nucular." And if you interpret our writing about support for nuclear power by Dems/Obama as bias, then there isn't much I can say to disabuse you of your opinion.

Any major policy, especially something as broad and complex as energy, requires the support of politicians and voters from both sides of the aisle/fence.
Anonymous said…
KB, Obama does NOT support nuclear energy. You will find that out should he win the election because he WILL appoint anti-nukes as the NRC Chairman and the DOE Secretary, and he WILL kill Bush's GNEP. So ingratiating yourself with the Dems won't avail you anything.
Anonymous said…
Killing GNEP would be a good thing, in my humble pro-nuclear opinion...
Anonymous said…
I'm another reader who agrees with Ross. I am disappointed to see this blog's bias against the Republican ticket. Sure, discrediting McCain/Palin is by no means the central focus of this blog, but articles like this one, which ridicule McCain/Palin have no place on NEI Nuclear Notes.

I always thought of NNN as the most legitimate blog from which I could read fair, impartial, nonpartisan news about developments in nuclear technologies, the nuclear industry, the public policy/government aspects of nuclear, etc. However, this post denigrates the legitimacy of NNN as an *unbiased* news source. This post makes NNN just another place for its contributors to make their political ideologies heard.

KB, you can say all you wish about wanting to blog about all nuclear-related stories in the media... But this is *not* a nuclear-related story--it is simply a story that uses the word "nuclear" to illustrate the folksiness and unintellectual nature of Bush and Palin. If this story you've posted counts as a nuclear-related story, then where are the blog posts about news stories that refer to the Prime Minister of Japan as the "nucleus" of Japan's government?

Since NEI is funded by nuclear utility companies, I am surprised that this obvious mockery of McCain/Palin is allowed to be published here.
Anonymous said…
ross, anon, and d.e.r.,

can you guys whine anymore? it's only one post and it's a post linkning to a mccain story. i bet if the same post were published here about obama, you probably wouldn't see people whining about it. i for one appreciate the better balance this blog is giving to both parties. nuclear has to be a bipartisan issue.

dems are going to win the house, senate and white house. get used to it.

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