Eric, I'll risk sounding redundant here by pointing out again that the McCain campaign released details before any major news outlet ever touched on it. And since Obama's call to leave the families out of it the story has largely died.
It is only the Republicans and their mouthpieces that continue to keep it out there by playing victims of the big bad left and evil media.
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If I'm an advocate of gun control, I'd think my rifle collection would be a relevant news story.
Would your daughter's rifle collection, hidden from your view, be a relevant news story?
I don't share many of Palin's views on social issues, but she can't control her daughter's every behaviour. If you see this as evidence that abstinence education is a poor strategy, then I could accept that since I don't think it works either. But you seem to be suggesting that she's ultimately responsible for her daughter's decision, and I don't think you're getting much agreement on that matter.
Would your daughter's rifle collection, hidden from your view, be a relevant news story?
I don't share many of Palin's views on social issues, but she can't control her daughter's every behaviour. If you see this as evidence that abstinence education is a poor strategy, then I could accept that since I don't think it works either. But you seem to be suggesting that she's ultimately responsible for her daughter's decision, and I don't think you're getting much agreement on that matter.
Oh that's not even remotely the point, but thanks for the strawman.
When you campaign as the Family Values Candidate, your Family Values are going to be placed under scrutiny, point blank.
I'm not talking about the fact that her daughter is pregnant.
I'm talking about:
1) The fact that she's moaning about how she's Traditional Family whilst out campaigning, parading her child in front of the media, and then telling everyone it's none of their business. When your platform is my family, what you do with your family is my business.
Which leads us to:
2) She's telling everyone she's Traditional Family Mom whilst leaving her soon-to-be-a-mother daughter to fend for herself.
Why do teenage single-moms usually get by? Because they've got grandma and grandpa to help with the new baby.
Now Traditional Family Values Mom is placing her career above her family, to get into national office. The values she espouses would have her forego the career to put her family first.
The abstinence-only issue is just icing on that particular cake; it illustrates her adherence to failed policy, so it's relevant, but it's only tangential to this particular issue.
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Oh that's not even remotely the point, but thanks for the strawman.
It was not a strawman based on the statement which you made when taken in the context of the posts which preceded it (which addresse the rumours regarding Palin's youngest child not being her own as well as her daughter's pregnancy, not the bigger issue of whether she's trying to reach the nation's second highest office and be supermon at the same time). Your expanded post brings up some legitimate points for discussion.
2) She's telling everyone she's Traditional Family Mom whilst leaving her soon-to-be-a-mother daughter to fend for herself.
Why do teenage single-moms usually get by? Because they've got grandma and grandpa to help with the new baby.
Now Traditional Family Values Mom is placing her career above her family, to get into national office. The values she espouses would have her forego the career to put her family first.
Sexist much?
Can you explain how you come to the conclusion that she is leaving her daughter to fend for herself?
And also how you figure she is placing her career above her family? She's gone from hockey mom to governor and her family is still there. I think they will still be there when she is vice president.
This is all coming from not having a child yourself. You figure out how il all works as you go along.
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Or are you denying that traditional family values = mom stays at home with the kids?
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Can you explain how you come to the conclusion that she is leaving her daughter to fend for herself?
Can you explain how she's going to live up to her professed values to take care of 1) her own child and 2) help her daughter with her child while running for and possibly serving as VP of the US?
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And also how you figure she is placing her career above her family? She's gone from hockey mom to governor and her family is still there. I think they will still be there when she is vice president.
See above. It's her values that are the issue, not mine or yours.
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This is all coming from not having a child yourself. You figure out how il all works as you go along.
Thank you for the strawman. But I'm not expressing my values as being those of "the traditional American family".
She is, and is using those as a selling point.
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Or are you denying that traditional family values = mom stays at home with the kids?
Wow, still caught in the time warp. Family values have changed. Please try to come out of the 50's.
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Can you explain how she's going to live up to her professed values to take care of 1) her own child and 2) help her daughter with her child while running for and possibly serving as VP of the US?
Answering a question with a question is always a good way to avoid the issue. I'm a single dad raising three boys for the last 12 years alone and having a career. I've know plenty of women who can take care of their families and their careers at the same time.
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Thank you for the strawman. But I'm not expressing my values as being those of "the traditional American family".
Anytime someone doesn't agree with you they are throwing in a "strawman". That in itself is a "strawman".
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I seriously doubt that any kind of sex education would have made any difference here. The girl is 17, not 13. She is well aware of how you get pregnant, and well aware of how you avoid it. She may well have wanted to get pregnant, or at least, not been too worried about it. There are still social groups in this country where having kids and marrying young is typical. The fact that she jumped the gun by maybe a year or two may not be that unusual.
As for "abstinence only" sex ed., my understanding is the kids still get the full run down on how pregnancy occurs, including fertility cycles. So they don't teach them how to put on a condom. I suspect this is something the kids are capable of picking up themselves. If they want to.
You can teach kids all the sex ed you want. But you can't make every girl look at getting pregnant the way a prep schooler headed for the Ivy League does, who plans on putting off marriage and a family until she has completed her MBA and she has made partner at an investment firm.
There are still social groups in this country where having kids and marrying young is typical. The fact that she jumped the gun by maybe a year or two may not be that unusual.
Didn't the boyfriend say something on his MySpace page about not wanting to get married?
And it's been awhile but as I remember sex ed is more than teaching kids how to put on condoms. This rationalizing doesn't make up for the fact that the Palin girl wasn't engaged (which is fine by me) but she and her family have the freedom to choose, something that Sarah Palin does not want other young women to have.
Pure hypocrisy.
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*shrug* The reality is what it is. She and those that think like her are the ones espousing the "traditional values".
If you think said values are primitive, sexist, or whatever else, that's a problem for you to take up with the conservative base.
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Wow, still caught in the time warp. Family values have changed. Please try to come out of the 50's.
I'd suggest you drop that in the suggestion box at the Republican HQ, then.
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Answering a question with a question is always a good way to avoid the issue. I'm a single dad raising three boys for the last 12 years alone and having a career. I've know plenty of women who can take care of their families and their careers at the same time.
And I also doubt you're running around with a group that thinks a woman's place is in the kitchen and raising the babies.
But maybe you are ;)
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Anytime someone doesn't agree with you they are throwing in a "strawman". That in itself is a "strawman".
No, a strawman is when someone argues against statements I didn't make, or decides to put intent in my words that wasn't there, and then proceeds to argue with me about said statements.
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Didn't the boyfriend say something on his MySpace page about not wanting to get married?
And it's been awhile but as I remember sex ed is more than teaching kids how to put on condoms. This rationalizing doesn't make up for the fact that the Palin girl wasn't engaged (which is fine by me) but she and her family have the freedom to choose, something that Sarah Palin does not want other young women to have.
Pure hypocrisy.
I missed the point in the above, and I most certainly have missed the hypocrisy in the girl's getting pregnant while the Mom preaches abstinence.
Oh that's not even remotely the point, but thanks for the strawman.
When you campaign as the Family Values Candidate, your Family Values are going to be placed under scrutiny, point blank.
I'm not talking about the fact that her daughter is pregnant.
I'm talking about:
1) The fact that she's moaning about how she's Traditional Family whilst out campaigning, parading her child in front of the media, and then telling everyone it's none of their business. When your platform is my family, what you do with your family is my business.
Which leads us to:
2) She's telling everyone she's Traditional Family Mom whilst leaving her soon-to-be-a-mother daughter to fend for herself.
Where/when (quote?) has she claimed or moaned to be "Traditional Family?" Does pro-life and her promoting abstinence-only sex ed in schools equate to Traditional Family, condemning those who have sex before marriage or something else that I've not heard from her?
Wow, still caught in the time warp. Family values have changed. Please try to come out of the 50's.
Right. Family values have changed. That's why they're referred to as "Modern" family values, as opposed to "Traditional" family values that hark to a simpler time, when grandma put the apple pie on the window sill to cool down...
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Emphasis in bold and commentary in parenthesis is my own
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This article is not the first to note the cultural contradiction in American liberalism, but just now the point bears restating. The election may turn on it.
Democrats speak up for the less prosperous; they have well-intentioned policies to help them; they are disturbed by inequality, and want to do something about it. Their concern is real and admirable. The trouble is, they lack respect for the objects of their solicitude. Their sympathy comes mixed with disdain, and even contempt.
Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes – or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. (we've had many a thread on this haven't we? Whats the problem with Kansas etc.? ) But again and again, the Republicans tell their lies, and those stupid damned voters buy it.
It is an attitude that a good part of the US media share. The country has conservative media (Fox News, talk radio) as well as liberal media (most of the rest). Curiously, whereas the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral.
Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything. (clap clap clap) The result is the same: for much of the media, the fact that Republicans keep winning can only be due to the backwardness of much of the country.
Because it was so unexpected, Sarah Palin’s nomination for the vice-presidency jolted these attitudes to the surface. Ms Palin is a small-town American. It is said that she has only recently acquired a passport. Her husband is a fisherman and production worker. She represents a great slice of the country that the Democrats say they care about – yet her selection induced an apoplectic fit.
For days, the derision poured down from Democratic party talking heads and much of the media too. The idea that “this woman” might be vice-president or even president was literally incomprehensible. The popular liberal comedian Bill Maher, whose act is an endless sneer at the Republican party, noted that John McCain’s case for the presidency was that only he was capable of standing between the US and its enemies, but that should he die he had chosen “this stewardess” to take over. This joke was not – or not only – a complaint about lack of experience. It was also an expression of class disgust. I give Mr Maher credit for daring to say what many Democrats would only insinuate.
Little was known about Ms Palin, but it sufficed for her nomination to be regarded as a kind of insult. Even after her triumph at the Republican convention in St Paul last week, the put-downs continued. Yes, the delivery was all right, but the speech was written by somebody else – as though that is unusual, as though the speechwriter is not the junior partner in the preparation of a speech, and as though just anybody could have raised the roof with that text. Voters in small towns and suburbs, forever mocked and condescended to by metropolitan liberals, are attuned to this disdain. Every four years, many take their revenge.
The irony in 2008 is that the Democratic candidate, despite Republican claims to the contrary, is not an elitist. Barack Obama is an intellectual, but he remembers his history. He can and does connect with ordinary people. His courteous reaction to the Palin nomination was telling. Mrs Palin (and others) found it irresistible to skewer him in St Paul for “saying one thing about [working Americans] in Scranton, and another in San Francisco”. Mr Obama made a bad mistake when he talked about clinging to God and guns, but I am inclined to make allowances: he was speaking to his own political tribe in the native idiom.
The problem in my view is less Mr Obama and more the attitudes of the claque of official and unofficial supporters that surrounds him. The prevailing liberal mindset is what makes the criticisms of Mr Obama’s distance from working Americans stick.
If only the Democrats could contain their sense of entitlement to govern in a rational world, and their consequent distaste for wide swathes of the US electorate, they might gain the unshakeable grip on power they feel they deserve. Winning elections would certainly be easier – and Republicans would have to address themselves more seriously to economic insecurity. But the fathomless cultural complacency of the metropolitan liberal rules this out. The attitude that expressed itself in response to the Palin nomination is the best weapon in the Republican armoury. Rely on the Democrats to keep it primed.(this was my exact point about 10 posts ago by the way. Dems have created the Palin machine more than Republicans ever could have on their own.) You just have to laugh.
The Palin nomination could still misfire for Mr McCain, but the liberal reaction has made it a huge success so far. To avoid endlessly repeating this mistake, Democrats need to learn some respect.
It will be hard. They will have to develop some regard for the values that the middle of the country expresses when it votes Republican. Religion. Unembarrassed flag-waving patriotism. Freedom to succeed or fail through one’s own efforts. (and not to be lambasted for achieving success) Refusal to be pitied, bossed around or talked down to. And all those other laughable redneck notions that made the United States what it is.
Since I know some will look to immediately attack the author rather than message, I'll toss up the bio to save you from opening a new window and popping his name into google.
Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly, a columnist for National Journal and a commentator for the Financial Times. He was formerly on the staff of The Economist, latterly (from 1993 to 2005) as deputy editor. A graduate of Oxford and the London School of Economics, he has served as a consultant to the World Bank and worked as an official in the British Treasury. He lives in Washington, DC.
At least for now, the answer to the question in the title of this thread appears not to be "no" but "hell no."
McCain has surged ahead of Obama in national polls, and is even 10 points ahead in the USA Today/Gallup poll. I imagine things will level off as Palinmania trends downward, but I'm surprised by this much shift in voter opinion.
Rather than attack the fallacies in that article I'll just state that I agree with those saying Palin is fantastically unqualified for the job. She appears (we don't know because of course she has refused any interviews) to have little idea on economic (her gaffe today showing she has no idea what Freddie and Fannie actually do) and foreign policy issues, and her view on global warming is completely wrong according to the scientific consensus.
If the "liberal" media somehow succeeds in asking her a few real questions on the issues I hope we'll get some answers.
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As stated, she wasn't a candidate that appealed to me and hasn't won me over so far. I read on another political blog something that you can be hopeful for, Kuri. To paraphrase, "the higher a monkey climbs a tree, the more you can see its ass"
All kinds of stuff in the media about Palin being the candidate in 2012. First thing I thought of was that Cheap Trick was going to be the next Beatles. That was right before the wheels came off the wagon.
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Is Palin's Opposition to the 'Bridge' a Lie?
Posted by BLAKE DVORAK | E-Mail This | Permalink | Email Author
FactCheck.org puts the case this way:
Quote:
Palin may have said "Thanks, but no thanks" on the Bridge to Nowhere, though not until Congress had pretty much killed it already. But that was a sharp turnaround from the position she took during her gubernatorial campaign, and the town where she was mayor received lots of earmarks during her tenure.
Which means that Palin didn't always oppose the Bridge to Nowhere, but she did oppose it. And it means the Obama campaign isn't quite right in calling it a lie, though it is right to make the point about a flip-flop.
Still FactCheck concludes:
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Palin accepted non-earmarked money from Congress that could have been used for the bridge if she so desired. That she opted to use it for other state transportation purposes doesn't qualify as standing up to Congress.
So Palin's exaggerating her record. This tends to happen in politics.
I'm looking forward to interviews!
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This guy seems to be operating on some Golden Mean where everyone is supposed to accept her Creationism, her backwards ideas on sex-ed, censorship, and other worrying qualities simply because she's representing "the working class".
I'm not of the mindset that every viewpoint is worth consideration, especially when some viewpoints can objectively cause more harm than others.
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At least for now, the answer to the question in the title of this thread appears not to be "no" but "hell no."
McCain has surged ahead of Obama in national polls, and is even 10 points ahead in the USA Today/Gallup poll. I imagine things will level off as Palinmania trends downward, but I'm surprised by this much shift in voter opinion.
I disagree totally. As soon as she was nominated, places like Daily Kos had tons of posts on whether Sarah is actually the mother of Trig. At that point, no one knew her daughter was pregnant. Therefore, within the first day, and for NO reason, people started involving her kids.
Nick, do you remember:
Any coverage of John Edwards daughters? Ever? Especially the first day on a lie?
John Kerry's daughters?
Obama's daughters?
Al Gore's daughters?
Liberman's?
Hell, Jack Kemp's kids (does he have kids?)
Every one of them had their kids on stage, said they loved their kids, etc.
I read a fair amount of political articles and I can NEVER recall an article about any of them. If you can't think of any articles, can you explain why "sarah is at fault for her kid's downs syndrome, Sarah secretly hid her daughters pregnancy and Trig isn't hers"...why was that the storyline few hours after nomination?
The first GOP female is elected and it is "scandal" the very first day that someone Sarah wasn't Trig's mom. And while you aren't the MSM, you also didn't invent the story up. I watched television, I SAW it on television. A LOT in that first day. Do you really not see the point I'm making or do you just not agree with the point?
This isn't going to be very linear. I'll apologize upfront. (I also think it is important to note that the story came about--to my knowledge--on a blog hosted on the Kos but not by the Kos itself.)
While blogging was a big thing in 2004, it wasn't nearly the phenomenon and the normality that we see today. I don't think anyone will argue that blog usage has increased dramatically in the time since the last election.
Thus, things have a tendency to spread rather quickly. (DUH!) Through the blogosphere, this story gained legs and gained those legs rather quickly. Thus, it was inevitable that the MSM would have to at some point address it. They addressed the Obama muslim rumors, so this was obvious.
Now, that's not excusing the start of the rumor. As we've seen, the rumor did have some basis in truth, but we didn't know it at the time. But just because the nut was a walnut and not an acorn doesn't mean it's right either. All it took as some readers, someone willing to print the rumor (I have a tendency to believe that some in the media, both as bloggers and journalists tend to use anonymous sources as a crutch for unverified information or in some cases, making up the information off of a hunch themselves. That's another day)
Add in that readership was probably dying for a counteraction to the Obama is a terrorist stuff, and it took off.
The job obviously on the surface of the MSM is to separate fact from rumor and it had gotten big enough that it merited an address in the mainstream, fair or not.
Journalism has always had pretty straightforward rules--for the most part--and the glory days of All the President's Men will never be replicated. Because of the rise in blogs, the game is changing, and journalism is on it's heels, wondering what the fuck is going on, and wondering how the hell they should fight back.
The first instinct has been to report first and ask questions later. After all, why would NBC want to be beat out by some anonymous blogger? They don't. So in reacting, they've put themselves in a situation to worry about being first foremost, instead of being correct. Take for example Chris Mortenson of ESPN, he's broken about eight stories that have been top stories at one time or another on ESPN's website that have proven to be inaccurate.
Can it be considered that Bristol is a case of wrong place wrong time? I think so. She's a pregnant teen who was suddenly shoved into the spotlight as her mom was thrusted upon the continental US (for lack of a better term) and the pregnancy was bound to come out, no matter how hard that the Palin family tried to cover it up. It wasn't the way that it was supposed to be revealed obviously, but as judged by the response put out by the campaign and the family, it wasn't intended to be revealed, which therefore would have made for a nasty situation anyway.
She was put in the spotlight in a transitioning media world, where her story was bound to come out. The other children have not been pregnant, nor with the exception of the Obama children, were not in the spotlight during this "era" (even though Al Gore invented the internet!) and thus it's probably not fair to compare the coverage of them as compared to Bristol. As I said earlier, she's the subject of all of this scrutiny because she is a novelty of sorts, which is good enough for these times.
It would have been handled differently had this been the 1970s, but also, in the 1970s, this might have been a circumstance that would have taken down Sarah Palin completely as soon as it was broken. However, since those rules of the game are changing, we have no idea what those rules are, and as long as anyone has access to a blogging platform, things like these will continue.
Will we ever have a new set of rules? I think so, to a degree, and I think there is going to be a lot of carryover from the old set of rules. (and when I talk about rules, they are all variations on two themes: is it right? and does it matter?)
But bloggers, those anonymous and known, who do not have anything at stake but a screen name or a reputation that really doen't matter, the game may never have any rules. Stories like this will continue to be thought of by whomever has a creative brain. Many times, they don't gain enough traction. But there are certain times, like this one, when they do, and that's the nature of the beast.
Bristol Palin, I'm sorry that it came to this (I have no idea why I am apologizing, but I am) but it was inevitable.
“On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.
“Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves,”
And:
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Caller: Would you tend to think that a family in this position, though, wouldn’t you think that there would be a more watchful eye as a parent to be watching over these kids so this doesn’t happen to them?
Limbaugh: I would certainly hope so, but it’s long past time for this to happen. The parents here are the culprits!
Note that this is because Spears is a "celebrity", in the case of Palin it's just the evil left-wing media attack machine at work.
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KOS removed the item mentioned. Marshall's talking points only mentioned it AFTER the McCain press people released it. Obama said lay off. It was McCain, the butt head who told really reprehensible stories about Chelsea Clinton. Oh, I forgot, that is OK to lie about and ridicule Democrats.
On the way home from work tonight, I was listening to some conservative talk radio guy... don't know who. I never know what I may hear on these shows. Last week, on another show, Obama was a Marxist. Tonight, the guy was going on and on about how conservatives can't put McCain campaign signs in their yards, because crazed liberal mobs will tear them down.
One female caller he spoke with just kept gushing over Palin. "I hear she may be the nominee for President next time. And... OH!... Wouldn't that just be WONDERFUL!"
WTF?!?! We know NOTHING about this woman except that she was the mayor of some podunk little town in Alaska and ascended to the governorship for a little over a year. And she didn't abort her Down's Syndrome child. How does this make her a WONDERFUL choice for President?
I thought all of the Obamamania was pretty insane, but the Republicans have turned around and gone off the deep end even more. I don't know whether people are just getting crazier and crazier or what, but it sure seems that way.
WTF?!?! We know NOTHING about this woman except that she was the mayor of some podunk little town in Alaska and ascended to the governorship for a little over a year. And she didn't abort her Down's Syndrome child. How does this make her a WONDERFUL choice for President?
I thought all of the Obamamania was pretty insane, but the Republicans have turned around and gone off the deep end even more. I don't know whether people are just getting crazier and crazier or what, but it sure seems that way.
I hear you! Pretty much sums it up. But then, I long ago stopped thinking that most people think just like I do, LOL, at least on most political topics. And to the extent I start to forget it, something like this comes along regularly to show me I am full of it.
Linear Mode
