Rove, via Stewart, via Baković

Eric Baković has a post on Language Log that expands a piece from The Daily Show exploring former Republican strategist Karl Rove's defense of Sarah Palin, and his very similar critique of Tim Kaine. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, is a first-term governor and former mayor; Kaine, who was thought to be a potential Democratic vice-presidential candidate, is also a first-term governor and former mayor. Rove frames his description of the two similar resumés to make contradictory points. (My own past discussions of framing in politics are here, here, and here.)

Also interesting are the comments on the post, in which there is debate over whether language and politics is an appropriate topic for a blog treating linguistics. Note that Language Log does not explicitly address itself to anthropology or sociocultural linguistics. One might say that it treats "linguistics" in the common, post-Bloomfield / post-Chomsky sense of "the scientific description of grammar."