On the way to work, I heard on the radio that Time has published 6-pages refuting most of the dribble about Sarah Palin that has been mentioned in this thread and a couple of others. A lot of the posts stated the rumors as fact and a basis for either making Mrs. Palin unqualified and/or another reason to not vote Republican.
I suspect that the real motive of most of these posts is to support ones position by trashing the opponent even if it is lies...
I suspect that the real motive of most of these posts is to support ones position by trashing the opponent even if it is lies...
So pretty much everything posted about Palin so far is lies? Or just the negative stuff?
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin, 1759
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.
Britney's sister getting pregnant wasn't the only time this family has had problems. You have to remember context.
__________________
"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable."
- Christopher Reeve
If she's still a Creationist nutcase, I don't give a rat's ass about the rest.
Headed over to factcheck and they have a whole 'Sliming Palin' section. Not sure that this will make you feel better about her though...
Quote:
No Creationism in Schools
On Aug. 29, the Boston Globe reported that Palin was open to teaching creationism in public schools. That's true. She supports teaching creationism alongside evolution, though she has not actively pursued such a policy as governor.
In an Oct. 25, 2006, debate, when asked about teaching alternatives to evolution, Palin replied:
Palin, Oct. 25, 2006: Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject – creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.
A couple of days later, Palin amended that statement in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, saying:
Palin, Oct. 2006: I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum.
After her election, Palin let the matter drop. The Associated Press reported Sept 3: "Palin's children attend public schools and Palin has made no push to have creationism taught in them. ... It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans." The article was headlined, "Palin has not pushed creation science as governor." It was written by Dan Joling, who reports from Anchorage and has covered Alaska for 30 years.
I heard on the radio that Time has published 6-pages refuting most of the dribble about Sarah Palin that has been mentioned in this thread and a couple of others.
But in the first major race of her career — the 1996 campaign for mayor of her hometown, Wasilla — Palin was a far more conventional politician. In fact, according to some who were involved in that fight, Palin was a highly polarizing political figure who brought partisan politics and hot-button social issues like abortion and gun control into a mayoral race that had traditionally been contested like a friendly intramural contest among neighbors.
From the same story:
Quote:
Governing was no less contentious than campaigning, at least to begin with. Palin ended up dismissing almost all the city department heads who had been loyal to Stein, including a few who had been instrumental in getting her into politics to begin with. Some saw it as a betrayal. Stambaugh, the police chief and a member of Palin's step-aerobics class, filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, alleging that Palin terminated him in part at the behest of the National Rifle Association, because he had opposed a concealed-gun law that the NRA supported. He eventually lost the suit. The animosity spawned some talk of a recall attempt, but eventually Palin's opponents in the city council opted for a more conciliatory route.
At some point in those fractious first days, Palin told the department heads they needed her permission to talk to reporters. "She put a gag order on those people, something that you'd expect to find in the big city, not here," says Naegele. "She flew in there like a big-city gal, which she's not. It was a strange time, and [the Frontiersman] came out very harshly against her."
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
Last paragraph of that story:
Quote:
In the end, her political journey from banner-waving GOP social conservative to maverick reformer may simply be about good timing. It's what former journalist Bill McAllister, who now works for Palin's press staff, used to call "Sarah-dipity" — that uncanny gift of knowing exactly what voters are looking for at a particular moment. And, of course, the political will to give them what they want.
Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars.
Maybe there's a story in there that's more sympathetic to Palin, but the ones I've read so far range from skeptical to scathing.
Ah the chasms between am talk radio bullshit and reality - gotta love it. I was happy to hear journalists on NPR this morning refuting the many lies Palin has been telling about her record - bridge/road to nowhere, selling the jet, etc...
ANCHORAGE -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a per diem allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. Her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.
Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by the Washington Post.
The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, the documents show. Many of the trips were to and from their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away.
__________________
Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
Maybe there's a story in there that's more sympathetic to Palin, but the ones I've read so far range from skeptical to scathing.
I should have looked and confirmed what I heard on the radio. Can't believe 100% of AM talk radio nor can you believe 100% of NPR neither. I am beginning to find that a lot of the really nasty stuff about Sarah is being debunked and maybe some of the other political decisions that others find controversial are true.
I just think that deep down McCain, Palin, Obama, and I suppose Reid as well, are decent people and that they have different ideas. Each political side of the camp looks at things differently and it sure seems that a lot of crap is generated to shut down the opponent regardless of veracity. Whatever happened to sticking to the issues? I suppose that that is the age we live in. I am just surprised that so much of it has been propagated here rather than just in the fringe blogs (liberal and conservative).
BTW, the most recent posts in this thread do seem to lean more towards the issues so I was speaking more about some earlier posts.
deep down McCain, Palin, Obama, and I suppose Reid as well, are decent people and that they have different ideas
I agree 100%.
I often feel that I could get into a room with any major politician and within minutes find lots of things we agree on. I'd enjoy every minute of the time I spent with that person, even if I'd never actually vote for that person.
As a reporter, I did spend some time here and there with politicians, and I can only remember one time when I was completely repelled. An alderwoman in St. Louis was explaining why people in her position should be allowed to take bribes from cable TV companies. (This was the very early '80s, when a city would award a cable contract to a single company, and companies often gave away ownership shares to key politicians to get them to vote for the company as the city's sole cable provider.) You can understand my discomfort!
It seems to me that the problems start when campaigns become convinced they can't win on the issues. That's what happens when you know 45 percent of voters, no matter what they tell pollsters now, are going to vote for your candidate on election day, and 45 percent are going to vote for the other guy or gal.
The 10 percent in the middle are mostly low-interest, low-information voters who tend to vote for the candidate they like best or against the one they dislike most. That's why creating narratives about the other candidate is so important, even if the narratives are largely fictional:
* "John Kerry faked his way through Vietnam"
* "John McCain is exactly the same as George W. Bush"
* "Barack Obama is an empty suit"
* "Sarah Palin wants to ban books and force schools to teach creationism"
* "Joe Biden's experience doesn't matter because he's never been a small-town mayor"
It's all kind of a game at this level, a race to see who can define the opponent before the opponent defines him- or herself.
Both sides are struggling this election cycle, I think, because voters don't really want to believe the narratives.
McCain still has his "maverick" cred from the early '00s.
Obama comes off as a serious, studious, and sincere guy.
People basically like Palin, and don't believe she's a mean-spirited culture warrior.
And nobody's ever cared enough about Joe Biden to get worked up one way or the other.
The polls are moving around now (as they always do around the conventions), but on November 4, I think it will all come down to which of the two candidates looks most like a president in the eyes of the low-information voters.
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Lou "The polls are moving around now (as they always do around the conventions), but on November 4, I think it will all come down to which of the two candidates looks most like a president in the eyes of the low-information voters."
Come on Lou - you're making us all feel bad - and being right may have everything to do with it!
Apparently we have to pray for that Oil Money, and the Iraq War is a task from God.
I can't say I'm comfortable with that kind of person in a position of executive power. It's not just the Creationism in classrooms, or the book-burning, or in fact any single symptom. It's the entire thought process that worries me.
__________________
Articles | Blog | Pirate my book. "Yeah, but you did your post grad thesis on trolling, so you don't count."
-JP, endorsing how awesome I am
The Palin Lie Watch is kinda funny, but sadly true.
__________________
Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?
So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.
And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
He capitulated and enshrined torture as the policy of the United States, by allowing the CIA to use techniques as bad as and worse than the torture inflicted on him in Vietnam. He gave the war criminals in the White House retroactive immunity against the prosecution they so richly deserve. The enormity of this moral betrayal, this betrayal of his country's honor, has yet to sink in. But for my part, it now makes much more sense. He is not the man I thought he was.
And when he had the chance to engage in a real and substantive debate against the most talented politician of the next generation in a fall campaign where vital issues are at stake, what did McCain do? He began his general campaign with a series of grotesque, trivial and absurd MTV-style attacks on Obama's virtues and implied disgusting things about his opponent's patriotism.
And then, because he could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama. That's all that is happening right now: a massive bump in the enthusiasm of the Christianist base. This is pure Rove.
Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.
McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.
My feeling is that National Security is important. Which candidate thinks it's important? Just look at their picks for VP.
__________________
***
Today's mighty oak was once just some nut who held his ground!
The Biden pick makes perfect sense as a priority in national security. We do not have the resources to ensure national security through military force alone. It will take the old and "weak" methods of diplomacy and cooperation and a perspective that all nations have some common interests. This is where his experience is leap years beyond the other VP candidate.
I've never understood why people think national security automatically means military know-how and strong-arm presence, like Bush's cowboy swagger. It's a world of briefcase bombs now -- the rules have changed. True security is an illusion. The fact remains that over the past 8 years, about 4,000 Americans have died in acts of terrorism. In that time 150,000 Americans have died at the hands of a fellow citizen here at home. 150,000 more were killed by drunk drivers. More than 200,000 have taken their own lives. 300,000 died due to medical mistakes or lack of basic healthcare. Cancer and heart disease have taken millions, each.
I certainly feel that if/when we come up against a group who has the resources and motive to kill Americans, we should eliminate it. But at some point we have to wonder if it makes sense to spend $3 trillion fighting an idea, while the very act of war creates more potential terrorists as citizens and children watch their homeland torn apart. In the meantime our massive military spending has had very real impacts on healthcare and education in our own country. And that costs lives too.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
The Biden pick makes perfect sense as a priority in national security. ... This is where his experience is leap years beyond the other VP candidate
.
I thought we liked the president to be in charge and don't like it when the VP **cough**cheney**cough** has too much foreign policy influence with the president ?
I see no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. While I'm appalled at how it's worked out in the current administration, that's merely because of the specific methods Cheney has used, and what his goals have been. I still don't have a problem with the concept of a VP taking the ball on diplomacy.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
I thought we liked the president to be in charge and don't like it when the VP **cough**cheney**cough** has too much foreign policy influence with the president ?
I think a good VP plays a strong advisory role. Not **cough**decider**cough** or policy maker. A strong president surrounds him/her self with smart, capable people but doesn't hand the reins over to them.
__________________
***
Today's mighty oak was once just some nut who held his ground!
It is interesting that when crunch came both Treasury and Fed heads were chosen for competence over ideology. Actually both current picks share Bush's ideology, but both are aware that ideology is a philosophy of economics and not reality. In the real world you do not slavishly follow your economic philosophy blindly.
Ah the chasms between am talk radio bullshit and reality - gotta love it. I was happy to hear journalists on NPR this morning refuting the many lies Palin has been telling about her record - bridge/road to nowhere, selling the jet, etc...
That article (I read the full version yesterday) was ridiculous. Some of the stuff makes sense, but... charging a per diem as "Lodging - Home" strikes me as unfuckingbelievably stupid.
__________________
Renegade HR: Recruit great people. Inspire them to do amazing things. | http://renegadehr.net
charging a per diem as "Lodging - Home" strikes me as unfuckingbelievably stupid.
This is a point I often make, more in private than here, about how you can tell when a candidate has prepared for the presidency, and for how long.
You get the sense that guys like Gore, Kerry, and Obama started preparing for the presidency from kindergarten (evidenced by an essay Obama wrote in kindergarten about why he wanted to be president).
That explains why Gore and Kerry served in Vietnam when they didn't have to, and it helps explain why Obama put in three years as a community organizer after he graduated from Columbia, and why he focused on being a conciliatory leader at Harvard Law School. He was the guy in between the partisans on the left and right, which is how he ended up getting elected president of the Law Review.
If you look at Hillary Clinton's biography, you can probably figure out when she began focusing on her own electoral ambitions during Bill's second term. I can't say exactly when it happened, but at some point in the late '90s I noticed that she'd stopped being a polarizing figure and started acting like a politician in search of future votes.
On the Republican side, you can see that kind of trajectory with George H.W. Bush, a guy with ambitions that continually surprised even his friends and admirers.
But with George W. Bush, you can see that he lived most of his adult life with no thought of running for office. I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, but it seems likely that friends of his went to considerable trouble to destroy his National Guard records. Even if you assume there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for the fact no one remembers him showing up for duty for the final years of his gig, you have to admit his actions weren't those of a guy who'd one day run for president.
(You can also say the same thing about Bill Clinton's dodging of the draft in Arkansas -- not the action of a guy thinking about his political future, even though in every other way he seems like a cradle-to-grave political animal.)
With McCain and Biden, you can see egregious mistakes early in their careers -- Keating Five for McCain, plagiarism for Biden -- that were never repeated. They paid for their mistakes, and got their acts together as legislators and senatorial leaders.
That brings me to Palin. Given a few more years in office, she probably would've figured out her potential as a national leader and started acting like one. You can tell nobody's been whispering in her ear about how some of her actions would look really bad in the glare of a presidential campaign. ("Sarah, ixnay on the other-in-lawbray!")
McCain clearly gambled that the shock of a new, young, female, charismatic, evangelical VP candidate would outweigh the potential for embarrassment when her short political history was examined. And so far, it's worked out a lot better for him than I guessed it would. (In fact, I think I was completely wrong with every prediction I made about Palin in those first few days -- I thought she'd go down in flames and be seen as a colossal blunder.)
The hell of it is, voters tend to like the latecomers to politics at least as much as they like the ones who spent their lives preparing to run.
McCain clearly gambled that the shock of a new, young, female, charismatic, evangelical VP candidate would outweigh the potential for embarrassment when her short political history was examined. And so far, it's worked out a lot better for him than I guessed it would. (In fact, I think I was completely wrong with every prediction I made about Palin in those first few days -- I thought she'd go down in flames and be seen as a colossal blunder.)
I'll hold my judgment on the "going down in flames" until I hear/see her in a real live interview or the debate.
__________________
***
Today's mighty oak was once just some nut who held his ground!
I'll hold my judgment on the "going down in flames" until I hear/see her in a real live interview or the debate.
I honestly don't think it will matter. What we hear in the debates is inevitably and powerfully shaped by what we already thought of the candidates coming in. People who love Palin will continue to love her even if she punches Biden in the face and bites off his surgically-altered nose. People who hate Palin will continue to hate her even if she holds her own and ends every answer by healing a sick child.
I sort of dislike both sides of the debate at this point, so for myself the television event will be an exercise in masochism.
__________________ Megaloi -- My Blog
"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."
- Mignon McLaughlin
And that takes us back to Joe's point about cult of personality. I might think Biden or Barack is an asshole and Palin just a wonderful mom, but I don't give a shit about that - I want to assess their judgement on important issues.
I don't think we need to rehash the argument over whether we get screwed because alot of people vote on whether the candidate is like them, or someone they'd like a have a beer with - we know the answer to that one.
I want to assess how intelligently they respond to questions about seriously complex issues such as the current economic troubles and geopolitical strife in the Middle East/ energy independency. And based on what I've heard all the candidates say thus far it isn't even close.
Drill baby drill and unending war is the political equivalent of a short yellow bus.
__________________
Working "hard," or the perception of working hard, doesn't really mean anything. Sweating, vomiting, and breathing hard could be a good workout or a tropical disease kicking in.-Dan John
I honestly don't think it will matter. What we hear in the debates is inevitably and powerfully shaped by what we already thought of the candidates coming in. People who love Palin will continue to love her even if she punches Biden in the face and bites off his surgically-altered nose. People who hate Palin will continue to hate her even if she holds her own and ends every answer by healing a sick child.
I sort of dislike both sides of the debate at this point, so for myself the television event will be an exercise in masochism.
If she can heal the sick, I'm touching the TV during the debate and we need to tell Deserve to do this as well!
Excellent story. I think we still have a lot to learn about what she doesn't know or understand. Her preparation for public office was working as a sportscaster in Alaska. I think Lou has sufficiently addressed that.
__________________
***
Today's mighty oak was once just some nut who held his ground!
Linear Mode
