Sarah Palin: Of Hockey Moms and Hockey Pucks
There’s one big difference between Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. The latter is a hockey mom. The former was a hockey puck. Not that Quayle’s inert condition ever really got in the way of his political fortunes.
I remember very clearly the night Quayle was named Veep. Via a crackling Grundig short-wave radio I heard the news while sitting on a Mexican vacation beach on a breezy, balmy night. I immediately turned to my wife and sagely remarked: “Poor, George Bush. He just lost the election.” Rim shot!
In the intervening two decades I hope to have sharpened my analytical skills. So with some greater degree of acquired confidence I will now say: “Poor John McCain. He just lost the election.”
There’s going to be a very brief bubble during which many will strain to take this stunt seriously but soon enough this is going to burst as loudly as one of those Colt M4’s that Palin posed with while visiting the troops in Kuwait. Palin’s going to get the snot beat out of her by Joe Biden, the press is literally going to feast on her podunk record as former mayor of a town of 9,000, her image as a “reformer” is going to be quickly supplanted by the reality of her shilling for oil and gas interests, and after a solid year of Bill and Hillary Clinton and now John McCain making “experience” a central campaign issue, both Palin and McCain are going to become laughing stocks.
So, Sarah, enjoy the media honeymoon – which I predict will crash about the same time Hurricane Gustav makes landfall.
Following Palin’s surprise selection, on the heels of her staged debut appearance Friday morning on national TV, flustered cable anchors scrambled for something positive and “balanced” to say about someone who was –rather obviously—an aberrant and absurd choice. MSNBC’S resident airhead, Mika Brezinski gushed how as a fellow Working Mom she was so, so impressed about how Palin went back to work just a few days after delivering her fifth child. That bottomless font of conventional wisdom, Andrea Mitchell babbled on about McCain’s choice being a possible game-changer, and how Palin could easily cut into that segment of disaffected female Hillary supporters who are looking for reasons to vote McCain.
I see it slightly differently. Game changer for sure. How about Game Over? Giving the nod to Palin is an absolute guarantee that Hillary’s die-hards will now turn away from -- not toward—McCain. These are Democratic women who feel victimized for their feminist positions and while they might have been tempted to close their eyes to McCain’s right-wing record and convince themselves that the Arizona Senator was in fact a moderate, non-threatening maverick., they are not about to support a younger version of Phyllis Schlafly. Palin is a fierce, strident anti-choice activist who plays directly to the bible-thumper wing of the GOP. When she’s not out defending the rights of zygotes, she's out stumping for Big Oil and for the NRA. This is gonna work with Hillary supporters?
When she appeared before the cameras Friday morn, I confess I had hardly recall who the hell she was. I sat and listened --sort of amazed-- to her painfully amateurish maiden performance and said to myself that she sorta sounded like a finalist in a beauty contest. Which is exactly what she turns out to be! Fantastic.
Barack Obama’s address before a crowd of 85,000 the night before Palin’s selection was so stunning that even Pat Buchanan – after declaring it the best campaign speech in modern history-- insisted on reading aloud his favorite passages to a national TV audience. Obama eloquently elevated the stakes of the race, boldly challenging John McCain on every front the Senator has opened up in the last few weeks: on experience, on judgment, on policy, on temperament, on fitness to be commander-in-chief, on the future course of America. The Democratic nominee threw down the gauntlet, making it crystal clear that from now till November 4th, every opportunistic low-blow, every distortion, every nefarious attempt to open cultural and racial wedges would be met with full resistance. Anybody expected Obama to blithely windsurf through the shit storm coming his way better tune into a different channel.
Most importantly, Obama declared that given the sobering array of crises and challenges we now face, this is hardly the time to “make a big election about small things.” McCain has now gone out of his way to make the smallest of choices for his running mate. It’s a cute trick – one worth a day or two of media drooling. But the price he will pay will be enormous.
That’s good for the rest of us.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I smell panic.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Marc, do you really believe that Mitt Romney would have been a better choice?
August 29th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Her position on the “Bridge to Nowhere” is a flip-flop:
So she was for it before she was against it.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
“These are Democratic women who feel victimized for their feminist positions…”
Marc -
Do you think all the Hillary die-hards stuck with her out of passion for her (or their) feminist positions? That may describe most, but I think a bunch just identified wth her as woman, and, especially at the end, as a woman scorned. They might not be Emily’s List types and could be moved by Palin.
This is the 3rd or 4th time you’ve declared that some particular event has rendered this game over. Are you sure that you’ve improved as a prognosticator? Who’s to say you weren’t at your peak years ago, sitting on that Mexican beach, listening to your short-wave.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Well this is interesting. I really don’t see this helping unless the Great and the Good in the Media (Digby’s “village”) give it a pass. But I don’t see that happening. How McCain can argue experience when he picked a person with just a year and a half of experience as governor of the 47th largest state is laughable. And don’t forget she is under investigation for corruption by her (GOP) legislature. I think of the troubles Geraldine Ferraro had and this should be squared.
Watching Woody and his ilk defend this will be fun. But then they’re Republicans and, like the Red Queen, have to believe many impossible things before breakfast.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
So why not Kay Baily Hutchison if he wanted a woman?
What a pander.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
It’s not enough that Ms. Palin brings pretty much zero to the campaign–she also completely destroys the notion that Obama too young or too inexperienced. Now, all McCain has is patriotism and military experience to unabashedly bring up in every sentence [In short, he just lost his second of two talking points]. She emphasizes McCain’s age, and the fact that he can very well (god forbid) pass on during his first term, which makes her selection as his replacement that much more absurd.
Since she has none of the experience or political savvy of Hillary Clinton, she will be viewed as the pretty young woman that got the job instead of the older, more qualified one [However, all of the women who are going to vote McCain now would have anyway, and ditto for Obama]. By the way, a black man on the top of the ticket with an old white guy beats a woman at the bottom of one with an old white guy when it comes to history-making-ness.
This move can only be seen as a hail mary. With any candidate other than Hillary Clinton on his ticket, McCain never really had a chance. His only move was to do something extreme and shocking. To bring in a newbie to offset Obama’s now-tiring newness. To bring a woman to offset Obama’s [perceived] anti-woman-ness. Of course, the bigger genius behind a hail mary is that they are exciting and you always want to see that eighty yard pass make it. That *may* entice voters over to McCain [though probably not].
August 29th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Referring to good people as a hockey puck and a hockey mom is a bunch of bull hockey. Go sit in the penalty box.
So, the Dems prove that they don’t consider women to be really women, blacks to be really black, and the inexperienced to be experienced unless the subjects think female and black and say noble words.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
You’re all going to really eat your words when she takes off her glasses and reveals that she’s none other than Sally Fields.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
If one of the main topics in this election is to be about judgment, then lets just compare the judgment the two candidates displayed in their VP decision.
Obama: Knows that his weakness is in the experience & foreign relations depts, so he nominates an experienced Sr member of the senate, who just happened to be chair of the foreign relations committee.
McCain: Knows that one of his main problems is being out of touch (does he know this, or is he too out of touch to know that he is out of touch?) and old. Nominates a young outsider, with less experience than Obama, but who really doesn’t fill many gaps in his resume. Perhaps she will appeal to right-wing women, eskimos, and the abominable snowman, but those demographics are probably ones that McCain already had in his corner.
To me, this shows an utter lack of judgment for McCain. For a 73 year old cancer survivor from the sunny deserts of Arizona to pick someone with absolutely no experience whatsoever to be in the second most powerful position in the world is the height of irresponsibility and hypocrisy.
Obama could have pandered by choosing Hillary and would have sealed the presidency for sure. McCain made a giant pander, and one that is potentially dangerous if he is elected president.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Palin refers to herself as a “hockey mom,” so I agree: she should go to the penalty box. She should also go for lying about her position on the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
August 29th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I wondered about those American flags passed out by the Democrats. After using them as props, were they later set on fire outside? Well, the question has been answered. The Democrats trashed the flags. That illustrates their definition of patriotism.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Randy, Palin isn’t a real woman because she doesn’t think like the Democrats think a woman should think, so she shouldn’t really describe herself in feminine terms–unlike that typical Democratic woman, Helen Thomas.
Maybe the Democrats should force her back into the kitchen.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Lets see. I just knew that Woody would find Palin acceptable and that about tells you all you want to know. See that speech last night Woodster? Of course you did! And now you’re going right back to the distractions and trivialities that have been killing this country. Obama laid down a marker last nigh – “ENOUGH!”
Enjoy your squerming.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
“I wondered about those American flags passed out by the Democrats. After using them as props, were they later set on fire outside? Well, the question has been answered. The Democrats trashed the flags. That illustrates their definition of patriotism.”
Lol. The fate of the sacred plastic flags. Should we paint the homeless people up like American flags to get the Republicans interested? Maybe paint a giant American flag over ANWR?
August 29th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Could she be a placeholder who will suddenly learn that her mother is dying and withdraw at the convention in favor of, say, Carly Fiorina?
August 29th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
CNN just claimed that Palin “took on oil & gas interests” and that her “experience” with big oil could be “an asset”. The Obama campaign and friends will have to be fierce in challenging the corporate media spin machine.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Woodrow Sinclair said: [something incredibly stupid]
What a surprise.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Well the media is the key here. I assume FOX will find her just dandy as will Rush and Neal and all the other trogs. But any serious look at the (former) beauty queen finds a person so shallow that she is really an insult to women everywhere.
Still, given Ron Fornier and AP and the impossible MoDo who knows?
Here’s one bright spot to cheer Woody up. Last night’s acceptance speech by Obama was seen by 38 million households. Thats more than watched the opening of the Olympics or the final of this year’s “American Idol.”
Want to guess at the ratings for Minn?
August 29th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
From Talk Left
And, of course, we see that double standard here.
Palin’s speech was well received by many in the media, and among conservatives that I know, most of whom were going to vote 3rd party, are now on the McCain bandwagon. Including Me. Palin has, among many, been considered an excellent choice for VP. She took on special interests in Alaska and viewed cleaning up pork and the Alaskan Republican Party as a major goal. What’s more, she did it.
She has taken on two corrupt repubs Don Young and Ted Stevens. Young may loose his seat in an extremely close primary (less than 200 votes I think) and Stevens is headed for prison if there is any justice at all.
Mock Palin all you want … but just as some assholes were saying that the only way Obama could lose would be because of “racism” I would guess that some on this side of the divide can calim that since Palin’s husband is an Eskimo, to vote Against McCain-Palin would be racist. It’s not, but neither is a vote against Obama.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I’m guessing that all the votes she has gotten in her life: Miss Wasilla + Miss Alaska + Wasilla PTA Pres. + Mayor of Wasilla + Gov of Alaska add up to fewer than Obama got in his first election to Illinios State Senate.
You know the right is going to love her. I’m guessing McCain just wants to survive the convention and hope for a break. (Not a hip, I mean, some good fortune….)
August 29th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Btw, my first thought when I saw her name as VP candidate was (also) “Dan Quayle.”
August 29th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Hmm, Hockey mom…
More like a political choice straight out of the squirt leagues.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
MC:
What a stupid comparison. That is strictly a function of population of which neither candidate could influence. A better one might be what has each accomplished since 2006 – Palin wins, hands down.
Face it guys, no matter how you slice it; all the promises of Obama are just emphasizing how empty his suit really is. Live with it.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Exactly. Let’s just pull 2006 out of the air as a point of comparison and pretend that the staggering achievements of Gov. Palin are the baseline for what this election is all about. That’s convincing.
Not.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
As I said over at WITNESSLA the justifications for Palin that we are getting from our rightie friends remind me a lot of the old Gus Hall CPUSA and its Stalinoid gyrations in defending whatever line Moscow was peddling that week.
Good luck guys. You’ll need it!
August 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Fair point, GM. And, there are others on the Left who would agree with the admonishment to handle Palin’s selection with a respectful courtesy, if nothing else. Jane Hamsher being one such individual. However, I don’t expect Hillary Clinton’s hard core supporters to be comfortable with
This:
Or, this:
Apologies in advance for scrambled tags. Firefox 3 behaves a little differently with URLs than I’m used to.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
You sound a little edgy, GM. I wasn’t making an argument that the paucity of votes that got her where she is necessarily disqualifies her. It is interesting, though. McCain may be right. She may follow in the footsteps of other successful Alaskan governors, like, um….GM?
August 29th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Also, GM, I admonish you (and myself) that anecdote does not equal data. <Andrew Sullivan cites this email from one of his readers:
Sully notes;
It occurs to me that if McCain (or, his handlers at the GOP) chose Palin as some kind of gimmick, or Hail Mary pass, and McCain is trounced in November, the GOP/McCain has perpetrated a horrible joke – and a, potentially, devastating joke – on an up-and-coming Republican.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
*sigh* FF3 is going to take some getting used to.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
There is a clip of Palin a couple of weeks ago from a Kudlow interview asking about her prospects for VP [sorry, I'm deficient in posting links and other intermediate skills]. She responds that she needs to hear more about what the VP does every day, because she is used to being busy. She also said she needed reassurance that her work as VP would advance the work they are trying to get done in Alaska. She wasn’t kidding, I don’t believe.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Did anyone notice how MSNBC’s coverage last night parroted ESPN’s College Game Day broadcasts?
Way too on-location, complete with giant foam hand wearing drunks drowning out the announcers — with Pat Buchanan playing beloved crank Beano Cook.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Michael Crosby, I’m not having the best luck with tags today, but maybe I can get the link in the thread for you.
Palin wonders “what is it exactly that the VP does every day?”
August 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
“the justifications for Palin that we are getting from our rightie friends remind me a lot of the old Gus Hall CPUSA and its Stalinoid gyrations in defending whatever line Moscow was peddling that week.”
These guys have – finally – hit bottom. They’re good for a last laugh and that’s about it.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Randy, Palin isn’t a real woman because she doesn’t think like the Democrats think a woman should think, so she shouldn’t really describe herself in feminine terms–unlike that typical Democratic woman, Helen Thomas.
That is one of your more bizarre non-sequiturs as it was Marc you were castigating for using the term “Hockey Mom,” when in fact it was Palin referring to herself that way.
GM,
If you’re going to accuse people of being empty suits, Palin wins hands down. She hasn’t even articulated a public position on twelve important issues including foreign policy.
I note that neither you nor Woody have addressed her lie about the bridge to nowhere..
Listener,
I have the answer for her: the responsibilites of the vp are be president of the senate and be on hand in case the president dies or is otherwise incapacitated.
August 29th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
From the make lemonade chronicles.
Fox news host actually suggests that Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia!
Yeah, and I am a financial guru because I live near Wall Street.
belowthebeltway.com/2008/08/29/most-absurd-comment-ever/
August 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Marc’s post, and all these negative comments, make me wonder if this isn’t all a little preemptive nervous fear, conscience or otherwise, of what this bold game-changing move could mean to a party with a ‘gender’ problem still on its hands. Your making even one of your supporters here, Evets, a little concerned.
Haven’t you guys learned anything from very recent history. If you don’t think women folk won’t vote purely on gender to put the first women into office, or that black folk won’t be voting for your party purely to put the first black in office, you’d be wrong ……again.
This lady is no air-head. She’s tough. After listening to her speech today, she was not the least bit nervous, highly confident, and personable. Unlike Hillary, Palin’s success cannot be criticised for riding her husband’s success into office. A better role model for young women.
So go ahead, wack this women at your own risk. Make the same mistake twice. Why do I try to help you guys anyway? (walks away shaking head)
August 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
No one’s mocking her because of her gender, Jim R. There’s no there there.
August 29th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
“Palin’s speech was well received by many in the media, and among conservatives that I know, most of whom were going to vote 3rd party, are now on the McCain bandwagon.”
I don’t usually accuse GM of being disingenuous, just wrong, but come on. Do you really expect anyone to believe that you were going to follow your phony pledge never to vote for John McCain until he hired the 1/2 term governor from Alaska that you’d never heard of? This morning. And you and your conservative buddies all had a powwow. Please. You and Woody are die hard Republicans and that’s the simple fact of it. No reason to be ashamed (well, I guess there’s plenty of reason to be ashamed). Just admit it – you’re supporting John McCain because you support Republicans. Or because you don’t like Democrats.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
GM, Sarah Palin is an empty snowsuit.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Jim R, trusting that women would vote for a ticket with a woman VP did well for President Mondale, don’t you think?
August 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I gave up on MSNBC early on Tuesday. I liked CSpan because it had more of the great musical interludes. The only talking head that moved up in my estimation was Field Marshall Blitzer, who actually seemed like a human being.
Speaking of music, the John Legend/will.i.am performance of will.i.am’s “Yes I Can” song/video was riveting. So much better than the u-tube video.
Was the music during the fireworks Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”?
August 29th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
When mocking a member of a class you don’t belong in Randy, your intent automatically becomes suspect.
This is less of a problem when mocking Palin, because she is not a member of your political class, as Hillary was in the Primary,. But she is still a member of Hillary’s gender class, a more important class than a political one to many women.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Ferraro wasn’t running against Mondale in a bitter Primary MC, and of course I am speaking in general terms. It is a factor, that’s all.
Why am I helping you guys beyond any duty called for?
I’m done….dumb.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
There’s an Orwellian “Newspeak” quality to the conservative commenters here. I don’t want to pick on Jim R, because he’s saner than most, but I will – partly because the Gruesome Twosome are just too idiotic to even bother with: Jim R claims the Democrats have a “gender problem” with Obama leading McCain among women voters by nearly 20 points according to the latest WaPo/ABC polls. 20 points! And that’s pretty consistent in terms of a huge lead among women in all of the polls I’ve paid attention to. Yet the Dems have a “gender problem.” If the Dems have a “gender problem” the GOPers have a “gender crisis of monumental proportions that can’t be remedied – or even camouflaged – by such a blatant, unimpressive token. I think Sarah Palin is an impressive pol at the level of medium-sized city mayor and she seems like a genuine and decent person. If she had spent the past 19 months putting herself on the national stage as a determined candidate for President, gone through the grueling process, overseen the complexities of a national campaign organization, been vetted in dozens of debates and interviews, had all of her strengths and warts as a politician and a leader examined up-close and personal throught the primary process and had closed near John McCain’s numbers, I’d consider her an unlikely but formidable candidate who folks on the conservative side could legitimately compare to Barack Obama. That scenario is pretty bizarre, considering she’d have started the process having been governor of Alaska for about a month, but this is a great country with some remarkable people.
As it stands, the stretches comparing Palin’s readiness to fill the Commander in Chief’s shoes to Obama’s are ludicrous. With all due respect to a decent woman, McCain has proved himself the most craven of opportunists. Apparently Roper is now on the bandwagon – which is evidence to me of just how low McCain has sunk. The old John McCain was reviled by fatuous creeps from Wingnutville – the new John McCain, with an anti-abortion absolutist (no exceptions for rape or incest, in Paliin’s book) and an anthropogenic global warming denier at his side, looks good “through the looking glass.” Totally bizarre. But we’re dealing with pathologies in this sector of our body politic and little more. Richard’s comparison of them to Stalinists of yore is absolutely on the money – they are masters of pretzel logic and they march in lockstep with the Malkin, Limbaugh gang. I’m pretty sure they’re on the verge of proving themselves marginal and the latest version of political dinosaurs clinging to bankrupt ideology that normal folk see as little more than crank screeds and venomous prejudice. This latest twist and the utterly disingenous arguments on display here certainly seem like last gasps. But, like Marc, I’ve underestimated the Barnum factor in American politics before.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Sarah Palin is being characterized as a “Hail Mary” pass by certain pundits. I’m wondering if Marc might give us his take on what Sarah Palin would look like as a poker hand.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I’m with the “Talk Left” analysis here.
Palin’s inexperience cuts both ways. If McCain can no longer point to Obama’s inexperience, Obama can no longer argue that generational change and new thinking is more important than experience.
The initial response from Obama-Biden was respectful and upbeat. I hope they keep it that way throughout.
I’d even take it a step further and say the way to play this one is to laud the woman as a vast improvement over Romney or Huckabee or, indeed, McCain himself. (And from what little I know about her, she does sound like a vast improvement over these guys.)
What better way to substantiate the part of Obama’s campaign that says he’s post-partisan.
Try this on:
Palin represents hope for the Republican Party. She’s no Dick Cheney nor, even, a Dan Quayle and, best of all, no John McCain. Bravo for her. Too bad she’s not running for president, or, even, the Senate in a populous mainland state.
Let lower-level pundits and left wingnuts tear apart her snake-handler religious background, lack of experience.
But let the Obama-Biden campaign cruise well above the fray by pointing out that Palin is a far and away better choice for PRESIDENT than any major national GOP office holder.
Let the right-wing noise machine — which is already hinting they like Palin better than McCain — respond to that!
August 29th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
“Palin is a far and away better choice for PRESIDENT than any major national GOP office hold”
Really ? Better than Dick Lugar, for starters ? Chuck Hagel ? Olympia Snowe ? Susan Collins ? Or Arnold Schwartznegger, for that matter (I consider him “national” as a Big State Gov.)
August 29th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Good point, reg.
I let the theme carry me away and I really don’t know that much about Palin.
Still, what I do know is that it seems plausible to say she wouldn’t be a lot worse than Lugar or Hagel or Snowe. And Arnold has the constitution.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
meant to say: Arnold has the Constitution between him and the Presidency.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Bunker, not bad stuff. And kudos for keeping it classy.
Reg, you asked about poker hands. If I may, I’d say that IMHO, Obama/Biden are (for a myriad of reasons) a pair of Jacks: a pretty good hand no doubt, and a “made” hand– i.e., one that can win the pot in hold’em without help from the Board. But beatable.
McCain-Palin OTOH are Ace-10 suited. An okay hand; McCain gets the ‘Ace’ designation solely by virtue of his significantly longer experience and stature in the Senate. But… they definitely need help from the Board (i.e., upcoming events between now and the election).
In other words, Obama-Biden aren’t perfect… but they’re quite good. Again IMHO, the flop has yet to play out, and should most likely start showing up not long after the debates. But the hand (election) is Obama-Biden’s to lose.
Of course and and always, your mileage may vary.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
McCain has met Sarah Palin once…
August 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Arnold has the constitution because he’s been working out like a motherfucker for decades and….oh….nevermind!
August 29th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
When mocking a member of a class you don’t belong in Randy, your intent automatically becomes suspect.
Oh please.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Randy, forgive me for not addressing every stupid comment that you make. It’s not worth my time.
One thing that I do like about Palin is that she has run a small business. She learned what it takes to make a payroll, deal with burdensome government regulations, pay the taxes, control expenses, and make a profit. That experience puts her head and shoulders above Obama.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
You “guys” crack me up!
Listener. Fair point but I suspect that for every person you find who would say I won’t vote rep because of Palin, I can find one who will.
Mavis, that would seem to be correct in that I am a full blown, die hard conservative, but I’ve been a Palin supporter for VP since McCain won the nomination. Her or Thompson who frankly, didn’t do much and didn’t seem to have any fire in his belly for the job of Prez let alone VP. Had McCain picked Huckabee, Romney or anyone even close to his brand of republicanism I would have stayed home. The reason behind THAT statement is that in 92 I voted for Clinton and regretted that, will never do that again. I supported JFK (not old enough to vote) and I voted for Humphrey (and damned proud of that vote). Nope, you are wrong my friend, Palin brought me in. McCain was about to keep me out. (In fact, somewhere on my sidebar you will find a blogroll tag “Blogs for McCains Opponent!)
Randy, if you don’t think she is being bashed because of her gender, you are not as smart as I’ve always thought you were. Go read the Kossacks and MyDD and Huffpo… they are going nuts. It seems that the Party of FDR has become the real misogynistic party after all.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
One other thing folks, the VAST MAJORITY of the conservative blogosphere is ecstatic about Palin. McCain has brought the base back to his ticket. Deride that at your own risk. You would serve yourselves better by acknowledging that Obama should be way ahead right now. He isn’t and you guys just may be in for a hell of a fight. I’ve listened to Palin and Biden… Biden has no idea what he is up against.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Hey Jim, thanks for stopping by and gracing us with your considerable wisdom.
This pick helps McCain not one bit. It’s an awful decision. 1) It is an obvious attempt to get Hilary voters, especially obvious on the heels of his Hilary ad, which makes it seem disingenuous. 2) She has no experience worth mentioning which is embarrassing in it’s own right, 3) It undercuts what has thus far been McCain’s best argument–experience. It doesn’t just undercut it, instead it annihilates that whole position. Done. Over. It does not cut both ways since McCain has been the attacker on this issue. 4) It will make many people question McCain’s judgment 5) It makes McCain into a hypocrite after harping on foreign policy experience. 6) Women do not vote in blocks. You may have seen some of this with Hilary, but Palin’s severe anti-choice position will be poison to any Hilary supporters who might still be wavering. If you doubt me, that’s fine, I’ll be vindicated in November. 7) It forces conservatives to make comic arguments, like, she has been an executive, and she has run a small business.
Nice try Jim, but just like the primary, this race is indeed over and has been for some time. Obama is the one who created any doubt along the way with his crap votes on FISA, telecommunications and the string of several bad weeks he had there. What he saw as compromise came to be seen as floundering indirection. But I suspect he has learned that lesson.
Compromise is important, but there are a few things so anathema to the base, you better be careful. That’s how you guys ended up with this horrifically bad choice–playing to the right-wing base. All you have left is making fun of Greek backdrops and trying to pretend Obama is a Muslim with which you play to the last prejudice that can still be expressed in polite company. That’s a loser however you cut it.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I agee with GM – fossil.
The corporate media ( Check out CNN’s website, “left” of FOX, NBC or ABC or the WSJ) loves Palin, guns , oil companies, and hates socialism.
Biden the fossil notwithstanding, Obama will be called a “liberal” , (he’s already called names about his race) and it’ll be 1988 all over again.
I hope so, for the sake of ending the US Empire once and for all.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Randy, forgive me for not addressing every stupid comment that you make.
If I ever make a stupid comment, please feel free to ignore it.
There was nothing stupid about her flip-flop on the Bridge to Nowhere. You merely lack a coherent response to it. You can untuck your tail from between your legs now.
Randy, if you don’t think she is being bashed because of her gender, you are not as smart as I’ve always thought you were.
Please don’t patronize me. You’re assuming because I disagree with you that I’m not smart. If McCain wanted to pick a woman as his running mate, he could have picked Kaye Bailey Hutchinson, Jodi Rell, the Governor of Connecticut or Linda Lingle, the Governor of Hawaii, all of whom have substantially more experience than Palin.
19 months as governor; ten years as mayor of Wasilla, a village for all intents and purposes.
Don’t take my word for the bad decision. Consider what Republican true believer David Frum said:
Says it all.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
GM: I suspect that for every person you find who would say I won’t vote rep because of Palin, I can find one who will.
And, that’s precisely the point. One anecdote pro, the next con. On down the line to eleventy-gazillion+1. Then, what? Is it a wash? An even split? How would we measure, or know, before November? Back to the polls we go. Anecdotes aren’t data. We’ll have to see.
I would expect the blogs on the right to be nothing less than ecstatic. No one ever accused the right of lacking message discipline.
Side note: I found this interesting:
It is suspected that Elephantman may haunt Glenn Greenwald’s threads under that name. But, who knows.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
“Hey Jim, thanks for stopping by and gracing us with your considerable wisdom.”
Why, thank you Dan. It is something I was already aware of, but it is nice when others recognize it too.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
GM,
regarding the base, more from Frum:
As for her ability to discuss foreign policy, read this transcription of a podcast of her talking about Iran (the podcast itself is linked in the entry). She’s completely incoherent.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
As for her business acumen, here’s what she did as Mayor of Wasilla:
Some fiscal conservative.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Sorry for the unclosed tag . . .
August 29th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
You can’t outdo me on the tag issues today, Randy. I had to default to a much older bowser that is as ancient as I am.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Randy – thank you for those links. This stuff is really scary. I thought she was probably a decent mayor of a small town…but apparently not. Sarah Palin is giving empty suits a bad name.
I’m going to be sure to close my closet doors before I go to bed tonight because I don’t want the empty suits to sneak out and take over the government.
In closing, Randy, I have to ask the two most salient questions facing the American people in 2008: why do you liberals hate America and are you aware of the little-known fact that John McCain was a prisoner of war ?
August 29th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
God – it looks like I swore off Woody and GMR just when the fun was beginning. On the other hand, the responses to their vacuousness confirms my conclusion that this shit is just too easy and they’re just too fucking stupid.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Anyone who thinks they’re arguing with folks who have even one iota of decency or intelligence when they’re taking down the Gruesome Twosome are kidding themselves. But y’all know that – and why not rub their faces in their own bullshit. Go ahead on.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Did you notice she didn’t wear a pant suit?
Now that’s a woman who’s confident enough not to appear like a man.
Empty suits? Do you really want to go there….
August 29th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
About a year ago, Palin signed an executive order concerning climate change in Alaska. Of course, she’d have to be blind to be a climate-change denier, considering how conspicuous the change has become in Alaska. But I don’t think you can count her an absolute AGW-denier (anymore) either, not with official language like this, above her signature:
“In view of its purpose, the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet shall develop recommendations on the following: [....]
“(9) the potential benefits of Alaska participating in regional, national, and international climate policy agreements and greenhouse gas registries;
“(10) the opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Alaska sources, including the expanded use of alternative fuels, energy conservation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, land use management, and transportation planning;
“(11) aggressive efforts toward development of an Alaska natural gas pipeline to commercialize clean burning, low carbon natural gas reserves;
“(12) the opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the operations of Alaska state government;”
“(13) the opportunities for Alaska to participate in carbon-trading markets, including the offering of carbon sequestration; ….”
Whoa, I guess she just lost Woody’s vote.
Admittedly, there’s room for a wide pioneer-petrostate straddle here. If playing the carbon trading game works for Alaska, Palin would be remiss in her duties as a public servant in a small-population state to not wangle a seat at the card table. “Yeah, the game’s rigged,” she could tell AGW-denier elements in her constituency, “and the house is corrupt, but — it’s getting to be the only game in town now, and not only am I winning, but I bring my winnings home to you!”
I’ll be waiting for more clarification on her actual stance. I’m prepared to wait a while, though.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Sarah Palin’s supporters:
http://www.vpilf.com/
No shit ! “Vice President’s I’d Like to F**K” is the website of her most fervent fan-base, set up two months ago to promote her. I have a funny feeling GMR and Woody didn’t have a clue that Paliin might be nominated and barely knew who she was before they got the “message” from WingnutVille. Now they’re marching in lockstep.
I was ready for MittMentum, but I have to admit I’ve been blindsided by PalinPhilia. Shaking in my VPILFucking boots at the awesomeness of John McCain’s genius judgment. GameChanger and all that. Somebody’s toast. Wonder who that might be…
August 29th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Jim R – “do you really want to go there” is the question you need to be asking yourself. You’re not a total asshole. Don’t take the bait.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
MT – Palin claims she doesn’t belive in anthropogenic global warming. That she’s concerned about global warming is fine and good, but why would she deny the human impact ?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Big Downside to Palin for Dems – we’re in danger of losing the Jerry Springer vote:
“…Palin’s role in the firing of the state’s public safety director, who had reportedly refused to sack Palin’s estranged former brother-in-law.
“Audiotapes released last month reveal that aides to the 44-year-old governor pressured Safety Director Walter Monegan to dismiss Trooper Mike Wooten, after Wooten allegedly threatened Palin’s father during a messy child custody fight with the governor’s sister Molly.
“Monegan refused to do so and was fired on July 11 and replaced by an official who had previously been suspended for sexual harassment.”
(snips from Randy’s link)
August 29th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
From Media Matters:
(I)n a questionnaire published in the October 22, 2006, Anchorage Daily News, then-gubernatorial candidate Palin answered the question, “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?” by writing: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”
Similarly, according to an October 5, 2006, Anchorage Daily News article, Palin supported the bridge project during a 2006 gubernatorial debate:
As for the infamous “bridges to nowhere,” [debate moderator Steve] MacDonald asked if the candidates would forge ahead with the proposed Knik Arm crossing between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie and Ketchikan’s Gravina Island bridge. Each has received more than $90 million in federal funding and drew nationwide attacks as being unnecessary and expensive. He also asked if they support building an access road from Juneau toward — but not completely connecting to — Skagway and Haines.
“I do support the infrastructure projects that are on tap here in the state of Alaska that our congressional delegations worked hard for,” Palin said. She said the projects link communities and create jobs…
Further, an October 20, 2006, Associated Press article (accessed from the Nexis database), reported that “Republican Sarah Palin’s spokesman, Curtis Smith, said Palin supports the Ketchikan bridge project.”
Apparently Palin was for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it…
August 29th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
More Frum Frum:
Sarah Palin may well have concealed inner reservoirs of greatness. I hope so! But I’d guess that John McCain does not have a much better sense of who she is, what she believes, and the extent of her abilities than my enthusiastic friends over at the Corner (i.e. WingnutVille). It’s a wild gamble, undertaken by our oldest ever first-time candidate for president in hopes of changing the board of this election campaign. Maybe it will work. But maybe (and at least as likely) it will reinforce a theme that I’d be pounding home if I were the Obama campaign: that it’s John McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable governance.
Here’s I fear the worst harm that may be done by this selection. The McCain campaign’s slogan is “country first.” It’s a good slogan, and it aptly describes John McCain, one of the most self-sacrificing, gallant, and honorable men ever to seek the presidency.
But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Sarah Palin=Trophy VP
August 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
According to Bill Bradley “Rush Limbaugh has been touting Palin for weeks.”
Nuff said.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Not every rightwing crackpot is thrilled, as we get from David Frum. Here’s another, Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review on Palin:
Inexperience. Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain’s age raised the stakes on this issue.
As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama. Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins.
And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.)
Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?
August 29th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Word is that McCain approached Harriet Meiers before Palin, but she turned him down.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Ezra Klein puts the craziness of this Palin nomination – given what GOPers have been arguing about experience as regards Obama – in a nutshell, and the nuts end up looking nuts:
THE EXPERIENCE DODGE.
Watching the McCain flacks in a continual state of meltdown on CNN, it’s striking how swiftly their central defense of Palin is backfiring. When the anchors question her experience — 19 months in the Alaska statehouse, and before that the mayoralty of an 8,000 person town — they question Obama’s experience. Game, set, match? Not really. The problem for the McCain campaign, as Campbell Brown pointed out, is that Barack Obama doesn’t think four years in the US Senate and eight in the Chicago statehouse are insufficient. It’s the McCain campaign that believes Obama is inexperienced. But Palin is even less experienced. And it was the McCain campaign that chose her. The inconsistency is entirely internal to the campaign: It’s a contradiction of their message, not Obama’s.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Jesus reg. This is either a bus schedule, or a punk album:
9:51 Randy Shit ‘Bout Palin
9:53 Correct Change Only Jim R
9:55 Cut to MT
10:03 Springer Vote in Peril
10:12 Bridge Thingy
10:37 McCain off his Fooking Rocker for Pickin Palin
11:10 Rush confirms McCain bigger Turd than We Thought
11:31 Token Poken
11:45 Oh Harriet
11:56 The Truth is Out There
Dude. I’m going to finish off the Rodney Strong, dig out a Red Bull…
but before I digress, a couple other responses:
Micheal Turner: way cool for
a) incredibly useful information every citizen should understand and presented very clearly
b) reminding me that I need to get my ass in gear and finish the I.F. Stone biography
Crosby: Nice mention of C-SPAN. As everyone knows, Cooper’s posts leading up to this week’s political events are a rigorous condemnation of the corporate fat cats’ sway over our political parties and thus our republic and our democracy. One wonders if anyone here might actually boycott the commercial media and instead be organic about one’s news consumption. It’s not any more difficult to hit the channel button over to C-SPAN than carrying one’s groceries in a canvass bag. Your comments and ideas suggested you were doing this as a virtue. I’m envious. I only got my ‘news’ about the conventions via NPR (and about 6 blogs) for the first 2 days only because my cat tipped over a pile of laundry hiding the remote and I couldn’t figure out how to turn the tv on.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Just wondering:
Did you know that the Obama’s acceptance speech was watched by more US television viewers than those that watched the Opening Ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics.
http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSN2945249120080829
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/11/olympicsandthemedia.tvratings
Kinda surprised no one here has brought this up.
Question:
Pre-convention, how does one except the GOP convention to compare?
What’s the relation of these stats to the conventional wisdom of post-convention ‘bumps’ in the polls?
August 30th, 2008 at 6:17 am
“That she’s concerned about global warming is fine and good, but why would she deny the human impact?”
Uh, I dunno. ‘Cuz she’s … a politician or something? While we’re furrowing our brows over that, let’s ask, Why would a relatively intelligent man like Sen. James Inhofe (he really is no dummy) go so far as to call AGW a “hoax”? I mean, that’s not just pooh-poohing the research, or saying it’s not certain enough yet. He’s claiming that the overwhelming majority of climate researchers are flatly conspiring against us all. Because that’s what a hoax is: a kind of conspiracy. As Zippy the Pinhead might say: Yow!
So why haven’t Oklahoma voters thrown him out as an embarrassing lunatic? Answer: lotta oil in Oklahoma, still. And not much basis for that state being economically healthier than New Mexico, except by drilling and pumping. With prices (and global market jitters) the way they’ve been, that oil’s getting pumped. An Oklahoman friend of mine who was in Tokyo last year told me her younger brother had dug himself completely out of deep debt, and had gotten ahead of the game, working oilfields in Oklahoma over the last couple years — a job he’d qualified for by virtue of his extensive prior experience in, uh, driving a pizza delivery truck or something? Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country has been in relative wage stagnation.
Compared to Inhofe’s pandering on this issue, Palin is pretty mild and equivocal.
For all we know (and if her actual recent behavior as governor is any indication — see above), Palin might have privately signed up for AGW a long time ago. But even if so, she would know better than to cave into federal policy pressure on this issue any sooner than absolutely required, given her constituency. Tying up with McCain would of course accelerate acceptance by Alaskans of any shift in her position, while also decoupling her from that constituency if she and McCain happen to get elected. But as she said about becoming Veep: it better be a job that keeps her busy, and it better bring home some bacon for Alaskans. Going along to get along on AGW might seem a reasonable price to pay, both to her and her state. Also, after (perhaps) two terms of McCain, there will probably be even less basis for denial than there is right now, a period of relatively flat global temperatures, likely to turn up again in a few years if the latest models are right. If you were her, you’d probably want to wait for that, but make preparations, too.
Does she say what she really believes? What do politicians really believe, anyway? If you can tell me that, I’d like go with you on a walking tour of Wall Street. With your telepathic skills and my brains, we could go far, and get very rich indeed. At least, until your antennae burned out.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:43 am
I guess Palin’s notion that creationism should be taught side-by-side with evolutionary theory in science classes is something along the same lines on the give-the-goobers-what-they-wanna-hear front…but I’m not going to try to parse that further ‘cuz I don’t want my antennae to burn out.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Ezra Klein: “It’s the McCain campaign that believes Obama is inexperienced. But Palin is even less experienced. And it was the McCain campaign that chose her. The inconsistency is entirely internal to the campaign: It’s a contradiction of their message, not Obama’s.”
Poor Ezra. He thinks it’s about logic and accurate quantification. In fact, if McCain & Palin squeak in somehow, they might privately genuflect toward the grave of whoever decided that Mercator projection maps should be standard in American geography textbooks. You know, the ones that make Alaska look even bigger than it is?
It will also be due in part to the mythologizing of the frontier in American history teaching and in popular culture. Breathes there an (American) soul so dead as to not have fantasized about being one of those rugged, hardy … Alaskans?
Let’s also not forget the store set by actual executive experience. Dubya was a governor. Clinton was a governor. Reagan was a governor. Carter was a governor. You can talk all you want about how Alaska’s population is hardly larger than that of some New York boroughs, but sheer size DOES matter for certain administrative purposes, and so does having been where the buck stops. Americans worship both.
Sure, reality is more complicated. But we’re talking about voters who like it simple. And that’s a complication you can’t safely ignore. I’ll believe she was a bad pick for the GOP if I see damage to McCain in the polls over the next couple weeks, not traceable to any other cause. Until then, I’m with those who say this move might be just crazy enough to work.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:59 am
I have to say it would be easier to figure out what Palin believes on climate change if the governors website wasn’t being scrubbed. That link you offered is now, officially, The Link to Nowhere. Nada. Nuthin on the page. After getting zilch from your link I googled “Palin” and “climate change executive order” and came up with this: http://tinyurl.com/5fxvah
But that’s a tinyurl of the cached version of the document. The page no longer exists on the Alaska .gov website.
My antennae tell me that Palin, who “excites” certain of our denier friends here as representatives of Wingnuts Across America, is currently more concerned about cleaning up her image in appealing to Limbaugh Republicans than in cleaning up the environment.
I find it very…what? Odd ? Telling ? …that as we’re exchanging comments on Palin’s climate change position, her governor’s website is being scrubbed to make it more difficult to document her positions.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:05 am
“this move might be just crazy enough to work”
In fact it worked brilliantly…assuming that the McCain campaign was so desperate to win the one-day news cycle after Obama’s powerful speech they were willing to squander their vice-presidential pick – and credibility on “experience” and “national security” – on that goal.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hate to take your words out of context, MT, but “this move might be just crazy…”
From an AP report in 1999:
“Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan’s strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks. … Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage.”
August 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
More from the Great Man himself on Sarah Palin as Buchananite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9rZkJfKoEU
This thing is fraught with problems for McCain.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Pat’s verdict on Pitchfork Palin: “I think this is the biggest political gamble, just about, in all of American history.”
August 30th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Palin admits its a gimmick: “I recognize that any of the buzz surrounds the fact that I happen to fit a demographic that is appealing to the ticket right now. That’s the reality. Again, I happen to fit a demographic at a time that the Republican Party needs to get with it…” (Anchorage Daily News 3/08)
August 30th, 2008 at 7:42 am
My god reg. You really are obsessed by this women.
If she’s such a light-weight, and unknown, a big problem for McCain, why are you spending so much valuable time one her?
And if light-weights, unknowns, an inexperience bothers you so much, why have you spend so much valuable time supporting one yourself.
Your guy is the king of enigmas…..and strange associations.
Give it up, hypocrite. Jeezus, your scaring us.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Jim R – I’m posting this stuff because the web is full of stuff debunking and clarifying the ridiculousness of the Palin pick.
I’m putting this up, if anything, to help it spread. Bad news for you.
For you to call me a hypocrite is the height of hypocrisy. The zilch experience meme re: Obama was your crowd’s mantra. You own it. Can’t drop it like yesterday’s news and point the finger at us for noting that Palin as VP is more than passing strange – other than as a gimmick.
I’m not scaring you . You’re scared, buddy. Down deep. This is , more than a reflection on an obviously talented and earnest woman with at least modest political skills, a reflection on the judgement and seriousness of John McCain. Every line he’s used against Obama – including “country first” – is backfiring on him in the minds of anyone not already in the tank.
You really hate reading this shit, don’t you ? Reason enough to post it…
August 30th, 2008 at 7:55 am
“That she’s concerned about global warming is fine and good, but why would she deny the human impact?” …Uh, I dunno. ‘Cuz she’s … a politician or something?
Maybe it’s because the scientific evidence for that, once subjected to review, doesn’t hold up.
Why don’t you do like everything else that Obama wants…take the money to address claimed “global warming” and divvy it up among his supporters?
August 30th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Maybe it’s because the scientific evidence for that, once subjected to review, doesn’t hold up.
Lying moron.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:36 am
“… her governor’s website is being scrubbed ….”
I wouldn’t go that far. She can’t scrub the archives of newspapers that reported the executive order. She can’t exactly afford to be seen “scrubbing” such information, not with the other liabilities mentioned here. And she must be smart enough to know that. I don’t even see how (in view of McCain’s AGW stance) such a thing would be a candidate for “scrubbing” anyway.
When I first got to her site, I was a little surprised at how disorganized it was. Then I remembered: Juneau is a small town, with no paved roads to anywhere but its own suburbs (such as they are). Not exactly a magnet for sophisticated webbies.
The site is being reorganized — the homepage already looks different. The old site is linked as if still available, but even the link I supplied was from a local Googlecache. I wouldn’t attribute to deception what can be more easily explained by a mad scramble to do a makeover and reorg in time for the GOP convention.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Hey, reg. Don’t forget to pounce on this latest left-wing hit piece. Palin’s faked “pregnancy”? Covering for teen daughter? Real class.
- – -
Oh, passing through, I expected so much better from you. If you want evidence, google “Gore Lied” and “IPCC Lied.” Have fun going to each site calling each author a liar.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:57 am
10 Reasons Sarah Palin Freaks Out Democrats
August 30th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Jim R -
Enigma? Someone said “who is this guy?” and all of you repeat it again and again, and put a cherry on top and call it a sundae. Claiming he is an enigma is not an argument.
You want to know something about him? Try putting a cork in the prattle and read some of this: barackobama.com/issues/ there are twenty-some separate issues detailed there.
Also, he’s written two books. By himself.
There is plenty of opportunity for you to get to know him if you choose to take the time. I suspect, though, that bleating out enigma! enigma! like you were in a spy movie is more your style.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Searching “IPCC Lied” is great fun, Woody. IPCC lied about sea level rise, is the first claim I notice. This claim was made by one Dr. Nils-Axel Morner. About whom, I discover the following, in short order:
“Morner has written a number of works claiming to provide theoretical support for dowsing, also known as water witching. [2] James Randi, the famous debunker of pseudo-science offered Morner his $1,000,000 prize if he could successfully demonstrate water-witching which Morner has advocated as scientific. As of early 2008 Morner had not accepted The Amazing Randi’s Challenge.”
I found that on Wikipedia, which of course according to you, Woodbrain, has been taken over by radical leftists, and publishes nothing but lies about AGW debunkers. So I have to apply the Sniff Test: when did Dr. Morner ever win $1 million off Randi? Wouldn’t that be big news, so why haven’t we heard? I search. It appears that either Google News Archive has been hijacked and scrubbed by That Liberal Media, or Dr. Morner is so far above wordly concerns that $1 million isn’t very interesting to him. But couldn’t he at least have won the money so it could go to a good cause, like debunking AGW theory?
It couldn’t be that he’s a good scientist gone into Alzheimers, or insanity. No sir, no way.
(Oh, why do I bother? It’s just shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it?)
August 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am
How many posts will the resident obsessive anal expulsive splay about Sarah Palin? 87? 2,812? 3 million? IF this old guy represents a voting group of Democrats, they are toast.
The obscene volume of hyper-response typing suggests picking Sarah Palin by McCain is a stroke of genius…
…or maybe “reg” has nothing better to do.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:35 am
as Obama might say,
“Enough!”
August 30th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Glad to see Sergio has learned to type more than one letter, as in his nasally expulsive previous comment – “ZZZZZZZZZ.” Aging hiptards deserve this more distinctive voice.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:57 am
MT – Palin is “red meat” for the crackpots. As you note, they’re obviously reorganizing her website for purposes of image. Ya think that, given the hard-on the crazies have for her coming out of the gate, they’re gonna put stuff about global warming up front among her concerns ? Obviously her website is being scrubbed – or in your terms being given a “makeover” for the GOP faithful. Do you doubt there’ll be an “issue prioritization” to enhance her appeal to the apparently enthusiastic “base.”
August 30th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I dunno Sergio. I too think ol’ reg gets a little carried away sometimes, but not in this case. There’s a lot to be learned about who this Governor really is. I’m enjoying trying to learn as much about her from the ‘tracks’ she’s left on actually policy documents (see Turner above) to where a lot of good thinking people thought they know or knew her. IMHO, this is a very useful excercise. Now seems to be a good time to get to know her before those ‘tracks’ start shifting. Such as:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/29/21034/4861/159/579549
August 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Sorry to burst all your bubbles guys but the Harriet Mierization (or is that the Geraldine Ferraroization?) of the VPILF aka as the “Beauty Queen” has already begun/ Todays WaPo has a lengthy article on the “Troopergate” matter and its the type of cheezy – but tabloid fascinating story – that the media will glom onto. There is also a report that the Mccain people have sent folks to Juneau to look into this. It seems very little vetting was done. And speaking of Geralidine – there is apparently a lot of interest in Sarah’s hubby and his oik deals. Remember what happened to Geraldines ever lovin’ husband (as Damon Runyon would put it)?
John Mccain showed a rashness of judgement and bull headiness that is not presidential but does suggest that Thad Cochran and Harry Reid were both right in saying he lacks the temperment for the job.
Best line I have heard so far. All this sudden GOP affection for Hillary Clinton – “I know Senator Clinton, Senator Clinton is a friend of mine, and you’re no Hillary Clinton!”
All this and Gustav too!
Enjoy Minnesota guys!
August 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Rob, sadly, I just finished reading the 8 millionth post on Dailykos about:
Obama?
Biden?
Issues?
Nope, about Sarah Palin.
There is nothing to be learned by this Palin bloviation. US Empire- upholding voters don’t learn. Palin is a symptom of the decrepit US Empire, not the problem.
And sad old permaflaccid “reg” is devoid of any solutions or action, only more typing blather for the US Empire. It’s clear now: this tripe is his porn.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:48 am
When you’ve taken responsibilty for covering a primary precinct on the phone and on foot, registered dozens of new voters, and made hundreds of phone calls out-of-state on behalf of Obama, get back to me, little guy.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Wait, Sergio.
You just read 8 million posts on Palin and this is reg’s porn? Come again?
August 30th, 2008 at 11:53 am
“I just finished reading the 8 millionth post on Dailykos”
“maybe _____ has nothing better to do.”
August 30th, 2008 at 11:54 am
“reg”, you’re a miniscule tool of same ol same ol that’s never his room since you discovered this site.
The proof is in the endless pudding of your impotent rants.
Enough!
August 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am
ooops – you beat me to that low hanging piece of fruit.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Surge – I said get back to me when you’ve got more than your angry, irrelevant twit projection. At this point, I’d even give you credit for getting off your ass once more and doing “politics” applauding from the audience of the Bill Maher show. I thought that was so cool. The Empire is quaking in it’s boots with guys like you at the barricades.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Sergio:
So, everything just collapses into the larger sinister narrative of US Empire? Kinda hard to compete with that conclusion. Do you recommend we all just put our head in a sack and wait for the rapture?
August 30th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
You’re crazy, creepy ignorant old man,
Enjoy your angry and irrelevant day.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Rob, you’ll figure it out.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Well, thank for your faith in me, I think.
I’m going out to register people to vote for the day.
Good day to you, sir.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Charles Krauthammer showing how a broken clock is right twice a day.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
When does the pool begin on how long before Harriet, er Sarah drops out?
August 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I absolutely love this event. Good Grief!!! —what a waste of time to for any of us to even spend 5 seconds on taking any of this seriously!
This will go down in history as no doubt the most insane choice any one candidate has ever made. The reality of this current event —-that he – McCain—- pulled out a two headed horse, dragged it into the main show ring of the circus for instant, and no more than 24 hours woth of attention ——– proving to me at the very least that this man has not a cogent or realistic thought of the long term campaign among the vast array of his other failings -
—– thanks McCain – I thank you on behalf of ALL the Obama supporters. You just made life a whole lot easier for us and shot yourself both in the foot and your own heart.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Well, on the good side, she definitely likes to tax the oil companies.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Hey, reg. Don’t forget to pounce on this latest left-wing hit piece. Palin’s faked “pregnancy”? Covering for teen daughter? Real class.
It’s already been pounced on, asshole, by plenty of people at DailyKos, calling for the diary’s deletion. The only people taking it seriously are scum like you.
Oh, passing through, I expected so much better from you.
I don’t give a fuck what a stinking pile of shit like you expects.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Oh, why do I bother?
Indeed. Wood-liarstinkholeshitforbrainsandmorality-row said “Maybe it’s because the scientific evidence for that, once subjected to review, doesn’t hold up” — and his “review” of the scientific evidence for AGW is to tell people to google “IPCC lies”??? I don’t understand why Marc and others here show so much tolerance for this sorry excuse for a human being.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
And sagely remarked, ???!!!
“In the intervening two decades I hope to have sharpened my analytical skills”.
Oh well, . . . You know Marc, a little humility can go a long way.
And PLEASE!!! no more “my brilliant daughter.” Hasn’t she told you how ridiculous it is??
August 30th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
This is interesting from a Rasmussen poll – and sort of defies the notion that this will be a successful pander:
Is Palin ready to be President?
Men, 35% yes, 41% no, 25% don’t know.
Women: 25% yes, 48% no, 29% don’t know.
Women apparently see through this gimmick pick more clearly than men.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Greg Jacks: I’m sure Marc can answer for himself and if you are unlucky he will. But it is entering extremely perilous territory to admonish a father for showing pride in his daughter. Somebody do that to me and I might be tempted to kick a 2X4 up his nether parts. Anyway, from the links I’ve read here to her work, his daughter seems pretty brilliant. Be a little more thoughtful in what you say to a man or risk the consequences.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
MT, you’re as gullible as they come. If you want to select the worst of the skeptics, then you should also select the worst of the global warming alarmists. Start with “oceans rising twenty feet Gore!”
If it’s so easy arguing this with me, it’s only because you can’t see the global warming alarms for the political scam and manipulations that they represent.
EVERYBODY PANIC! ONLY GOVERNMENT CAN SAVE YOU!
August 30th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Michelle Obama said her husband supported abortion, which “embraces the sacred responsibility of parenthood.” You people are so twisted to support a candidate who can relate killing a child to parenthood.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Hey, reg, I’d take Palin’s experience in business and government over Obama’s in academics and a mostly absent record in government. Obama will be thrown into the office immediately if he is elected, and his running mate said that Obama is not qualified. At least Palin is a back-up quarterback that may never have to come in. You’re on such weak ground, that you have no room to talk.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
McGeritol and Wack-Job Sarah. I’ve never been more scared of a veep-nominee in my life – her claim to fame is she’s lowered property taxes and wants to drill our way out of energy hell? Holy Bat-America-Sinking-Beneath-the-Waves, Batman! Abortion is a private, personal issue.
Are we actually going to elect a President, with the polar ice-caps melting, and food and energy in short supply worldwide, and Russia resurgent, who waves the abortion flag?
In our affluence, we’re getting more collectively mentally ill by the hour…
August 30th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Tale of the Tape: Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama
August 30th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Hey Woody – I put you on a 4 word limit. Here’s hoping that “Hey reg, I’d take…” was followed by “…my sorry ass to a psychiatrist if I knew what was good for me but I’m too fucking mired in my hopeless pathologies to reach out for the help I need.” That would be a sign of progress – but since I refuse to read more than four words of the mindless crap you post, I’ll never know.
Palin is a gamechanger all right:
Rasmussen poll: Among undecideds, the Palin pick made only 6 percent more likely to vote for McCain; and it made 31 percent less likely to vote for him. 49 percent said it would have no impact, and 15 percent remained unsure. More to the point: among undecideds, 59 percent said Palin was unready to be president. Only 6 percent said she was.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Top Alaska Republicans on Palin:
“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?” said Lyda Green, the president of the State Senate, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. “Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”
Another top Republican, John Harris, the speaker of the House, when asked about her qualifications for Veep, replied with this: “She’s old enough. She’s a U.S. citizen.”
August 30th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
And what about Cindy?
Given McCain’s record, she’s got to be concerned he’ll be hitting on Palin…
August 30th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
This is just sad, really – Palin last year on strategy in Iraq:
Alaska Business Monthly: We’ve lost a lot of Alaska’s military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?
Palin: “I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe.”
The biggest problem here isn’t Sarah Palin’s shallowness as a candidate who must be prepared to fill the President’s shoes. The problem is that John McCain has dropped all pretense of seriousness as a decisionmaker and Commander in Chief.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Reg, in quoting Lyda Green, you conveniently omit the very next couple of paragraphs. Or perhaps you copied from a source that conveniently omitted those paragraphs and other context, in which you can even find Alaskan Republicans with whom Palin been on the outs with, in the past, endorsing her strongly. Yes, endorsed despite a moderate stance on oil and gas issues that appears to the basis for Green’s beef with Palin:
“Green, who has feuded with Palin repeatedly over the past two years, brought up the big oil tax increase Palin pushed through last year. She also pointed to the award of a $500 million state subsidy to a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline that is far from guaranteed.
“Democrats helped give Palin her victories on oil taxes and the natural gas pipeline deal, over the opposition of many of Palin’s fellow Republicans in the Legislature.”
So what do we have here in Lyda Green? Maybe just a Republican far more in the pocket of Big Oil, far more on the AGW denialist fringe camp, than Palin could ever be? I don’t know, I haven’t deeply researched Green, but that’s my guess. (Southern Baptist, I see — so very likely even more Cultural Conservative than Palin as well.)
Or maybe Green’s just a flat-out fruitcake? In Alaska, you can’t exactly rule that out.
Yes, let’s keep in mind that Alaska has got some seriously cuckoo Republican party politics, as you might expect from a state where both Libertarians and paleocons would enjoy more than just a splinter vote — in 1996, Bob Dole wasn’t just third after Forbes and Buchanan, he was a <a href=”http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE6DE1739F932A05752C0A960958260″distant third. And let’s think about what that might mean.
My favorite example: Wally Hickel, Nixon’s SecInterior and somewhat to the left of Nixon, went onto the 1990 ticket of Alaska’s rather strange and fringy separatist party, after he couldn’t get the Alaskan Republican Party endorsement. He won anyway. He wasn’t a separatist, he never was. He was just a member of that endangered species, the moderate Republican, at a time when (I suppose) the state’s Republican party wasn’t having any of that pinko moderation, fuck you very much. Apparently, most Alaskan voters thought different. So there it is: Alaska is a state where a hugely experienced, seasoned, rational, intelligent moderate Republican like Hickel might have to run on a secessionist ticket just get past the nuttiness that plagues his own state party at times.
Now, you could argue that Alaska, being not only a small-population state but one with a substantial fringe-politics demographic, leaves Palin that much less prepared for the national stage. But you can work it the other way too: Palin’s surviving (nay, surmounting) the idiocy, craziness, corruption and brutality not just in the Alaska body politic as a whole, but even within her own party in her home state, has gotta be worth a couple more years of experience than her resume shows, compared the same amount of calendar time in any statehouse in some less wild and woolly small-population state in the U.S.
I would say: underestimate Palin at your peril. If she debates Biden with anything like the style, reflexes and cold verve it takes to co-manage an Alaska fishing boat (that’s on her resume too), he’s gonna be bleeding all over the stage by the time she’s done with him.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Keep digging yourself a little deeper reg. You wouldn’t be the first, and you won’t be the last, Palin has kicked the dirt over.
Palin isn’t called the ‘shark’ or the ‘barracuda’ or the ‘velvet hammer’ for nothing. While she’s been running things and running corruption out of her own party machine in Anchorage, your boy’s been running his mouth and cooperating with his party machine in Chicago.
He didn’t ‘change’ diddly-squat in Chicago, or the pork-laden Senate. Axelrod’s hand is still run up his ass operating his mouth. He is the quintessential status-quo good-ol-boy pol puppet. Just the kind Palin is been eating for snacks in Alaska for years.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
reg writes: “Among undecideds, the Palin pick made only 6 percent more likely to vote for McCain; and it made 31 percent less likely to vote for him.” [etc., etc., to the same effect.]
You’re absolutely right, reg. Those statistics are conclusive. And if you’ll permit an analogy: This is why businesses don’t waste time holding interviews, but simply hire people sight unseen. I mean, after you’ve read the resume, what else do you need to know?
Clear your head, dude: She’s been on the national stage for mere days, long enough for some guys to go “hey, kinda hot”, and for their wives and/or girlfriends to frown and snap their fingers at their guys.
Yeah, Palin’s numbers among the “undecideds” are bad. But a lot of her other numbers are already pretty good. See http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003844485. (Oddly, this is the second time on this thread I’ve had to provide your source, with context conflicting with your portrait of the situation. Not, uh, “scrubbing” those inconvenient URLs, are ya, reg? Oh, you resent that insinuation? Huh.)
Here’s how I see it: Anyone in the “undecided” column now is probably a lot less likely to vote, period. And one of McCain’s biggest problems in the “decided” column has been that he doesn’t command the enthusiasm there Obama has enjoyed. I’ll bet that’s changing, fast. For every one “undecided” now in the Obama camp because of Palin, there might be approximately 1.2 good ol’ boys marking election day on their calendar, scrawling”don’t get too drunk ha ha” in that square, and checking to see if their voter registration is up to date. It’s by such hairs-width fractions that presidential elections are won these days.
Judging by conservative blogs, and, anecdotally, from chatting with the (few) Cultural Conservatives friends I have, people over in that wing of the American body politic seem elated over this pick. So, I figure now (I hadn’t before, because I don’t pretend to omniscience in these matters) that Palin had to be part of the McCain odds calculation: improving turnout among Republican voters — who admittedly are generally better at turning out than Dem voters, but still not perfect.
You want this to be a dumb choice, reg. You seem to need this to be a dumb choice. It doesn’t occur to you that it could actually be a dumb choice only (or primarily) in terms of criteria that some decisive number of voters might not give a rat’s ass about. After all, this is the party of Reagan and Dubya we’re talking about here. Dumb Choices R Us has ridden to glorious victory before, in defiance of our educated liberal intuitions. And they probaby did it quite scientifically, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if, somewhere in the murky depths of the Palin decision, you could find old Richard Viguerie’s hand, somewhere.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
“This is just sad, really – Palin last year on strategy in Iraq ….”
Yeah? That quote just sounds like what much of the GOP was saying to Dubya around the same time, including some very smart, moderate Republicans. Obama’s numbers are actually pretty good in Alaska, considering the usual Redness of the state, and I have little doubt that Iraq is a factor. Palin certainly must have been aware of this. So she made the kind of cautious statement you’d expect.
But, why is it that whatever comes out her mouth can never be the product of shrewd political calculation but only something some airhead beauty queen would say? Please, let’s not mistake politically calculated vacuity for the other kind.
And yet, people will, won’t they? At least for a while. Hm … So I guess I have to add yet another factor that hadn’t occured to me before: the McCain camp might have already calculated that a period of having the opposition underestimate this (admittedly-not-too-estimable) VP pick could actually work for them, especially as the light eventually dawned and mild panic set it. Remember, that electoral college indicator needle was designed to peg one way or the other. Not saying that’ll happen, but if it does, the mild panic we’ve seen in polls narrowing up to the present post-Dem-convention bounce might be as nothing …..
August 31st, 2008 at 12:24 am
“MT, you’re as gullible as they come.”
Yeah? I believe you. (Now THAT’s gullible!)
“If you want to select the worst of the skeptics, ….”
Woodbrain, you selected the worst of the skeptics FOR me, by directing me to search on “IPCC lied.” Now, with “IPPC report flawed”, or variations thereof, I might have turned up some skeptics worth the trouble of rebutting, maybe even a few with some good points to make. But “IPCC lied” is only going to turn up conspiracy theorists — people who think that whole swathes of the global scientific community are somehow keeping a secret their nefarious plan to throttle the global economy, forever. Old Nils was simply the first name I picked out of the first few Google results. I hardly had to cherrypick him, with you handing me a whole basket of cherries the way you did. Don’t get me wrong — it was very cute of you, in a way. It’s one of the things I like about you, actually.
“… then you should also select the worst of the global warming alarmists.”
But we’re talking about what you called a review of the science, and how easily that would show that AGW is all a buncha horse pucky. Or is that so long ago you don’t remember? Al Gore isn’t a scientist. In fact, I’ve slammed him in Marc’s comment section as a sloppy exaggerator.
“Start with “oceans rising twenty feet Gore!” ”
That appears to be possible, it’s just not going to happen in our lifetimes, or even in our grandchildrens’, if it ever does. (Last estimate I saw from reliable sources: 500 to 1000 years of ice cap melting and general warming.)
August 31st, 2008 at 1:46 am
Yet more evidence that Palin doesn’t fit nice neat cookie-cutter ideological categories. Avidly (and obviously, committedly) pro-life, and an NRA member from way back, she nevertheless says that Alaska turning from Red to Purple should help clear away an extreme partisanship she clearly finds pretty stupid and annoying.
It’s not clear whether these comments were made before or after she got picked. The date on the New Yorker issue is “Sep 8″, and the article uses quotes from weeks ago, then from (how helpful) “now.”
Her son will be deployed to Iraq in September, and she sounds distinctly nervous and skeptical about the war. With McCain a war veteran still living with his wounds, and Palin a mother with a son over there, “chickenhawk” will obviously no longer stick to whatever the GOP plank will be on that subject. (And what will it be, I wonder, with Maliki sounding more like Obama than like Bush?)
August 31st, 2008 at 2:58 am
MT -
Those are interesting points to consider, but I wonder why your interpretation should be regarded as any more plausible than reg’s.
There are two issues mainly at play here, 1) Was the choice shrewd or stupid, and 2) Palin’s qualifications, which obviously affects the evaluation of the first issue.
Not being in the McCain circle, the best we can do is speculate and try to read the available sources. There is no doubt this was calculated on McCain’s part. I think it’s obvious that he made this pick to appeal to disaffected Hillary voters, in part, and to his fundy base for the other part. There are a few other ways to slice it (outsider, etc.), but these two are the main ones.
On Palin’s appeal to Hillary voters, he is dreaming. I’ve just finished reading someone who claims that she opposes the use of birth control even among married couples. If these sorts of things are true, then McCain is incapable of reading the political landscape. Palin on these issues will shock any feminist waverers back into Obama land, and fast. And the obvious nature of the pander makes it insulting as well as scary. Again, his stethoscope is on the fritz.
If it is a calculated risk, it is unlikely to pay off. It is a chihuahua deciding to take on a Doberman–that’s the kind of gamble he’s playing here.
And I’m not sure that more time in the national spotlight is going to improve her image, which seems to be part of your speculation. I suspect it will go in the opposite direction, but time will tell.
She definitely appeals to his right-wing base, and he seems to have hit a home run there. That’s probably where the better part of his calculation ran. The question there is, will enough of the disaffected Republicans be drawn back in by a VP pick? It’s not clear to me how to answer that, but in a year when it’s bad to be a Republican, it may not matter at all.
On her qualifications. Inexperience is not prima facie evidence for being unfit to be the President, but it doesn’t help. It seems to me that there is some minimum threshold of experience, under which a choice can pretty safely be considered not serious. I recognize that this is a gray standard, and there are problems with it and exceptions, but it’s not irrelevant.
I’m not convinced that this is a stealth pick that nervous liberals will later kick themselves for underestimating. On what basis is she going to prove to be so effective a choice? And why are we projecting such Kreskin-like prescience on the McCain campaign? They haven’t demonstrated it so far.
Both teams picked a VP that they felt would help shore up weaknesses. Biden is fairly uninspiring, but he does paper over some of Obama’s problems. Palin is perhaps more interesting as a choice, and also helps with some of McCain’s problems on the right. But his pick is vastly more risky, and threatens to blow up on him in a way that another pick would not. Finally, as I said before, it also inexplicably takes his most effective argument off the table. That’s what I don’t understand.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:25 am
Dan O. “Finally, as I said before, it also inexplicably takes his most effective argument off the table. That’s what I don’t understand.”
There may be some truth to what you are saying as it affects the fence sitters. It won’t affect the McCainyites or the Obamabots. But the truth of the matter is that it is relative inexperience going to be the VP and relative inexperience going to be the prez. McCain is old, but there is no sign he is going to kick off anytime soon. If Obama is elected, it won’t be the VP that is relatively inexperienced, it will be the PRESIDENT HIMSELF… whole different ball game.
Good response by the way!
August 31st, 2008 at 6:38 am
Yes, McCain is taking a big risk here. Obviously. But that’s what you have to do when you’re behind, and when you can’t gain much more by simply offering more of the same. (Have you heard? That McCain’s this really old dude who’s been in the Senate forever? Did you know he was a POW before that? Oh, you heard. OK.)
This isn’t the Olympics — there are no silver and bronze medals in a presidental race. Time was, being second meant being VP. Now, being #2 is still losing, no matter how close you got to #1. So it can be worth risking losing by a landslide if the same risky move is also your best shot at winning.
Palin’s relative lack of experience does NOT take McCain’s most effective argument off the table. It cuts into that “experience” argument, but it doesn’t cancel it out entirely. Maybe McCain has gotten as much as he can out of having been around the block, and can even sacrifice a little of that if it gives him a shot at more appeal in some other department. Until I see him flatlined, or being lowered into a pit in the ground at Arlington (or diagnosed with Alzheimer’s) his “experience” argument is still sitting right there on the table, any table where he’s still sitting upright, looking fairly alert.
I don’t buy that this was a significant play for the PUMAs. There’s a parallel demographic of interest that’s not quite PUMA: Republican women who seriously considered voting for Clinton because they liked that figure of toughness that Hillary could cut. Perhaps many of them will be similarly attracted to Palin, or more attracted, and will turn out in much greater numbers for Palin in the VP slot than they would for Hillary in the top job.
Still, what McCain mainly gets out of this is the enthusiasm of that wavery Cultural Conservative vote, so many of whom were calling him RINO for so long, and who accepted him only grudgingly. You might remember some major fundie figures talking about rousing a protest vote for Hillary if McCain was the nominee? I bet that grudge is pretty much over, as of Palin. McCain might have stoked his base with this “maverick” pick just as Obama’s amazing machine has started running out of steam.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:14 am
reg, …your sorry ass to a psychiatrist….
But, that’s what you miss by reading only the first four words. reg, if anyone here is a psycho, you lead the list.
reg: When you’ve taken responsibilty for covering a primary precinct on the phone and on foot, registered dozens of new voters, and made hundreds of phone calls out-of-state on behalf of Obama….
If reg came to my door or phoned me, it wouldn’t take long to decide to call the police. Can you imagine the insane rants, threats, and profane language that he would spew in your direction if you disagreed with him? And, if you hung up on him, he would just keep ringing back and at 3:00 AM, when his candidate is sound asleep.
reg, a link specially for you…reg’s contact list. Go visit these businesses with your left-wing, psycho ranting. They won’t kick you out. In fact, they likely will welcome you for a long stay and repeat visits.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:30 am
“You want this to be a dumb choice, reg. You seem to need this to be a dumb choice. ”
Michael – clear your head, dude. It IS a dumb choice. You’re right that I got those quotes from a source – which blog I forget, maybe TPM – that didn’t use more extensive quotes from the Alaska newspapers they appeared in and I did being pretty sure that these were Republicans she was on the outs with for possibly dubious reasons. Still, those are top people in HER party and her approval ratings have been going steadily down ini Alaska. She’s facing an investigation into abuse of office and firing of a popular state official in which she is already known to have lied about her role and for which there is no apparent reason for the firing other than her personal vendetta after he refused to override procedures at her behest to fire here ex-brother-in-law. The results of this investiagaion are coming up on…October 31.
And your rationalization of Palin’s comments on Iraq are just plain dumb – almost as dumb as her comments themselves. You’re in one of your hypothetical stretch modes. Of course the reaction of undecideds is to the first blush but let’s face it – there’s not much more there with Palin. Except for an embarrassing scandal. At the announcement her presence and speaking skills were slightly better than average – amplified by the good looks. The only way she can fend off Biden in a debate is to, frankly, scare him with her utter vacuousness into acting like a gentleman who doesn’t want to embarrass a lady before millions of viewers and look like a jerk. (Good move, “Country First” crowd. You’ve moved the national security debate onto the CandyLand board.) I don’t think Biden’s going to be so utterly unprepared that he gets blindsided by being up against someone who is utterly clueless and just started reading up on foreign – and domestic – policy a couple of weeks prior. Incidentally, Palin’s vaunted “executive experieince” governing Alaska has little relevance to the national scene because she’s been rebating money from windfall oil revenues to her taxpayers. Kind of like the Sultan of Brunei. I wish Arnold had those problems…
Also “McCain might have stoked his base with this “maverick” pick just as Obama’s amazing machine has started running out of steam” would be a neat bit of speculation if there were an iota of evidence to support the second half.
Believe me – I’ll take my chances on this one. You’re the one who’s going way out on a limb – I’ve mostly put info out there that has some factual or empirical basis, albeit first day or two in that stuff is still scattershot. Other than reveal what I had a hunch about – i.e. the GOP leaders who don’t like her (which didn’t include Ted Stevens when she was elected and promising to finish the “Bridge to Whatever”, presumably to get Stevens endorsement) are probably a pretty motley crew themselves. Still it’s telling and there were plenty of quotes I could have pulled from Alaska Dems, but I thought the GOPers were more interesting.
I’m usually impressed with your twists and turns, MT. This time not so much.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:34 am
“Keep digging yourself a little deeper reg”
LOL, Jim. L-the-fuck-OL. I’m mostly putting information about your gal on the table. You don’t want it there or to deal with it in your own mind. I’m not just digging – I’m piling it on Palen. More will be coming as this plays out with the press. Lot’s more. Be prepared…
August 31st, 2008 at 7:36 am
Woody – since I see scrolling down that you’ve addressed another comment to me, get it in your numbskull – I’m not reading or responding to your posts.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:43 am
“Palin’s relative lack of experience does NOT take McCain’s most effective argument off the table. It cuts into that “experience” argument, but it doesn’t cancel it out entirely.”
It makes it impossible for them to make it overtly and it makes them look foolish for having made a big issue of it in the past. Frankly, that was McCain’s strongest suit against Obama for folks who weren’t already sold on the ideology and to whom he needed to appeal. That this was a stupid choice is, IMHO, proven in that this was Rove and Limbaugh’s choice. Which means they want to play the 2004 “base” game all over again. I can assure you, knowing more than a little bit about the Obama campaign from inside and from watching their game nationally, this ain’t the 2004 Democrats – nor is the GOP what it was – and the ground game isn’t going to be on Rove’s 2004 terms.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:49 am
You already did, reg – twice! Maybe you don’t get that in your numbskull.
But, that’s okay, because other people read it and agree with my analysis of your mind, or lack of it.
- – -
Why Palin will make a good V.P. – - she can fire a weapon without hitting anyone around her.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:49 am
“I wonder why your interpretation should be regarded as any more plausible than reg’s.”
Most of my “interpretation” was actually information of various sorts – quotes, early polling, etc – that carried implications. That’s a bit different from pure speculation.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:57 am
“Not, uh, “scrubbing” those inconvenient URLs, are ya, reg? Oh, you resent that insinuation? Huh.”
Oh Michael, get off your hobbyhorse. It’s one thing to extend context or complain that I haven’t provided URL for a source – or even “insinuate” I might be “scrubbing” (I wasn’t) and quite another to add “Oh, you resent that insinuation ?” At that point, yes I do resent your ascribing resentment. Not a lot – but you do sound like some guy in a saloon in a B western trying to start a fight. You’re sounding a bit off the hook here.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:06 am
Hey, Michael Turner. Name a fiction writer greater than the IPCC.
The ‘consensus’ on climate change is a catastrophe in itself. (Selections)
Keep believing, but spend your own money on it–not mine.
Oh, Obama is really worried about global warming. Be sure to vote for him if you accept that fiction and love wasting money.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:09 am
“And why are we projecting such Kreskin-like prescience on the McCain campaign? ”
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere (although I’m conveniently scrubbing the URL) that Kreskin was consulted by the McCain campaign on this pick. It’s my understanding they reached out to him via Nancy Reagan.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:15 am
Palin is toast – On the morning blab shows, Lindsey Graham and Tim Pawlenty are responding to press-generated questions about Palin’s readiness by attacking Obama’s “lack of experience.” Bad, bad move.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:32 am
Get ready to hear “Commander in Chief of the Alaskan National Guard” over and over and over again. Unfortunately, that just drives home the stupidity.
And Lindsey Graham has characterized the Alaskan Republican Party and Ted Stevens as WORSE than the Russians, i.e. “if she can take on Ted Stevens, et. al., she can take on the Russians.” Again, this is getting scary stupid. I can’t stand Lindsey Graham, but I thought he was a bit more of a serious man.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:01 am
However some idiot wants to discount Palin’s experience, it’s still better than Obama’s–the Democratic nominee for President, not the backup.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:01 am
MT and Reg,
There is clearly bad blood between Palin and Lyda Green. Here’s Palin laughing on the radio when a commentator called Green a “cancer” (Green is a cancer survivor) and a “bitch.”
Classy lady.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:26 am
I want to make two points about Palin in response to some shit you’re going to be hearing from the idiot faction of the press, fed by the McCain campaign (I just heard that economic genius Maria Bartaromo – who has made a career of repeating talking points – say some of this): One is that Palin’s going to be promoted as someone with the “energy expertise” we need to deal with the current problems. Palin’s “energy expertise” consists of knowledge about the Alaskan oil industry, the ANWR issue, etc.. Anyone who thinks Alaskan oil is the solution to the energy crisis is beyond stupid. We need energy expertise for the future, not of the past, in order to cope and overcome. Palin isn’t even close to the kind of thinking we need on energy issues, whether one thinks we should drill offshore or in ANWAR or whatever. (Personally, I could care less if we drill in ANWAR – it’s just that it’s not even close to a longterm solution. If it’s the price of getting really stupid people to sign on to the really smart things we’re going to need to be doing to develop innovation in both alternatives and efficiency, fine. Screw the polar bears. Just don’t blather that all we need is to drill and spill off my state’s coast because you’re too stupid or lazy to get off the couch and help move us into the future.)
Second, Palin’s in a unique position as a state executive: they’ve got money from oil filling state coffers to the extent that she got to give state taxpayers sizeable rebates. This means that Palin doesn’t face the kind of real budget management issues that exist on every other state and the national level. When it comes to tax and budget issues her slim experience also happens to be unique.
Get ready for this “energy expertise” and “executive experience as a tough reformer” stuff in the Selling of Palin. It’s bullshit.
As for taking on Ted Stevens – who’s more formidable than the Russkies with nukes according to Lindsay Graham (and some moronic GOP hack has already made the point that Alaska is very close to Russian, therefore…????), Palin didn’t take him on when she wanted to get elected. She sucked up to him and promised to finish his famous bridge. So she was for Ted Stevens and his Bridge to Wherever before she was against them.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:13 am
Obama is the love child of a mixed-race homosexual couple. VIDEO
August 31st, 2008 at 10:30 am
The desperation, opportunism and manifest poor judgement of John McCain knows no bounds. This from Josh Marshall:
“I find it disturbing that McCain and Palin have decided to go down to Mississippi this week. A trip like this is worse than opportunism. Let us not forget that McCain doesn’t travel alone; he brings along staff and Secret Service agents, all of whom require the time and attention of local officials. The situation is reminiscent of Rumsfeld’s infamous 9/11 response to rush outside the Pentagon and give orders: the images on TV inspire confidence, at least until one remembers that our leaders are neglecting the responsibilities that are truly meant to keep us safe.
“Neither McCain nor Palin offer any unique advantage to New Orleans with their presence — they are not Southern politicians, they don’t have any particularly useful contacts in the area and they aren’t emergency responders. (Meanwhile, Obama will not travel to the region but has said he will use his fundraiser lists to coordinate volunteers once damage is assessed.) However, McCain could be particularly helpful from his Senate position, if he so chose.
“And if visiting a possible emergency site to ‘check on preparations’ (as the campaign refers to it) doesn’t bother you particularly, consider this line from Politico yesterday:
” ‘McCain was scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday but now may do so from the devastation zone if the storm hits the U.S. coast with the ferocity feared by forecasters. ‘ ”
These are, it must be said, very bad people, mining potential tragedy for campaign backdrops and photo ops.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Notice in that the difference in potential impact – not to mention which century he knows he’s in – of Obama using his extensive grass-roots network, via instantaneous hi-tech, to bring helpful hands and feet to the emergency, while McCain/Palin add to the burden on local officials and first-responders with their top-heavy entourage and photo-op preps.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:35 am
You guys seem more worried about how McCain runs his campaign than how Obama runs his. I don’t think that McCain needs any of you or other leftist groups directing his campaign. Everyone saw your results with Gore and Kerry.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:00 am
How the Democrats convert normal people into Obamabots.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:05 am
Jim R – I just want to say, in general and as a cautionary about digging holes for oneself – as you so generously expressed your concern for me – the fact that Palin has primarily excited the Limbaugh, Malkin wing of the GOP is something that you should look long and hard at before you cheer this pick.
George Will, usually smarter than this, showed the incoherence and schizophrenia in much of the PalinMania: On the one hand he extolled Palin as a great pick for exciting the hard-core base and on the other hand he extolled her equally for reinforicing McCain’s “maverickyness.” The truth is that the GOP base and McCain’s reputation as a maverick have been at sharp odds – witness Roper’s bloviations on this blog. The base – having listened to Limbaugh extol Paliin for weeks – know what an extremist Palin is on key issues like no-abortion-even-with-a-rape-or-incest-exception (and I applaud Palin’s personal ethics on this, but not her desire to impose them on all other women). But when the kinds of folks who like McCain’s maverick image of the past get to know Palin’s ultra positions on certain key issues better, she’s going to be seen for what she is – McCain abandoning any posture of following his heart and really challenging the extremists in his party, as would a Lieberman or Ridge pick have been (while making this a rock-solid “national security” ticket for guys like our Jim R and hawkish Democrats). It shows McCain’s a guy throwing a long ball…and throwing it to the creepiest of the creeps in his party – Limbaugh, Rove, et. al. who pushed for Palin.
Anything can happen and Palin could become for America what CBS hoped Katy Couric would be – but failed: Our Sweetheart (aka VPILF). She could make Biden look like a bully in her debate because he, uh, has actually been engaged with the issues for years. Race could be more of a hidden factor among swing voters than I believe it is (it’s not hidden at all among the GOP “base” who are floating those crazy emails and want to ride Wright into the fall, but those people weren’t on Obama’s potential radar screen anyway.) But frankly, if I were a Republican – at least the kind of Republican I hope I would be, that is the same the way I’m a Democrat, i.e. critical, honest about party failings and not more issue -oriented in evaluating personalities on the political scene) I’d be even more embarrassed by my party today than I would have been a week ago. But who knows – P.T. Barnum wasn’t simply an anomaly, nor was he stupid….
August 31st, 2008 at 11:08 am
Actually, in a half-correction, I applaud Palin’s personal ethics and “walking her talk” as it relates to the issue of abortion and her developmentally-challenged child (which she’d discovered in utero). I would not applaud her personal ethics if she forced or pressured one of her daughters to carry a child to term that had been conceived in the context of rape or incest. I think that would be vile.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:14 am
That famous McCain judgement and seriousness regarding natioinal security issues isn’t limited to John. Cindy shows her chops:
http://tinyurl.com/5dt59y
Oh, please God. More Republicans repeating this…
August 31st, 2008 at 11:15 am
Vile to stop someone from killing another human? The kid didn’t have a choice, but it is alive and it is human.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:22 am
Oh, please. More Democrats repeating this, because it’s almost all of them…
Michelle Obama unguarded
August 31st, 2008 at 11:41 am
I don’t want to make this sound like a Palin Hatefest because I don’t hate the woman at all. I find her quite attractive as a regional candidate, although I don’t agree with her on much. One thing I want to applaud Palin for though, is her decision to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies. It was a boon to the “normal taxpayers” in her state and exempted her from having to struggle with the kind of real world budget-balancing and tax proposals that most governors, and of course the President, have to contend with and that is at the core of their success or failure in so many cases.
If Palin can convince John McCain and the GOP “base” that this is a good idea, more power to her. I look forward to her fighting for this key aspect of her approach to managing oil interests in her state to be included in the GOP platform this coming week. And if McCain accepts it, I’ll believe all of the “maverickyness” of this pick. And I’ll also likely watch the “base” crazies who’ve been cheering the anti-abortion fundamentalism, the “creationism = evolution as scientific theory” and the “don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming” nonsense walk away in disgust.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I dont dislike Woody. On the contrary, I kinda like him. That said, I con’t even begin to take his political views seriously, What I fail to understand is why the rest of you do? To even argue the seriousness of Palin’s selection is to debate what sort of cheese the moon is made of. Giving her the Veep position was a transparent gimmick, one that is already failing miserbaly among undecided voters and that in the end will only further polarize, creating an even wider electoral margin for Obama. Why dont the rest of you take something to lower your blood pressure and find something else to do except blame woody for the fal of western civ. Show the guy some sympthay– he’s in for a rough 8 years.
P.S. I refer you all to MoDo’s column today. I think she more or less strikes the right tone on this matter.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Marc – I could give a shit about Woody, as well. But your comments section is full of lots of good info on Palin. Sorry you consider collecting that beneath you.l
August 31st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I’ve just finished reading someone who claims that she opposes the use of birth control even among married couples. If these sorts of things are true
They aren’t … which reinforces MT’s point: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1837523_1837531_1837538,00.html
“She is Christian and pro-life, but also a supporter of birth control: she’s a member of Feminists For Life (FFL), an anti-abortion, pro-contraception organization.”
Reg, MT, you’re both smart and informed guys with good points; it’s silly for you to attack each other personally.
To even argue the seriousness of Palin’s selection
No one here with any brains is debating its seriousness, Marc, they are debating its consequences — just you you just did, while pretending that your views are unarguable.
blame woody for the fal of western civ
You would be more respected if you didn’t engage in such silly strawman posturing.
August 31st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
passing through:
I hedged on that for that very reason, and because I got burned on a blog source a couple of weeks ago. The more outlandish claim about birth control is not true, but her extreme pro-life position is. So how does that reinforce Turner’s point?
August 31st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
reg: I really appreciated all the deep diving and snorkeling research you and MT did. The stuff you guys have laid out on the beach is very cool. At the end of the day, Marc is probably right that debating Palin’s selection on the ticket is to place a bet on moon cheese. Americans will, no doubt, end up voting on the top of the ticket… Nonetheless, I’m copying and pasting big chucks of this thread onto a clipboard to help me keep track of where things stood as the selection was made.
Thanks.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
The more outlandish claim about birth control is not true, but her extreme pro-life position is. So how does that reinforce Turner’s point?
His point I was referring to was “Palin doesn’t fit nice neat cookie-cutter ideological categories”. You wrote “If these sorts of things are true, then McCain is incapable of reading the political landscape” … well, the antecedent is false, at least for the example you gave, so you’ll have to rework that. Actually, even if the antecedent were true, it’s not clear that the inference is valid, for reasons Turner gave, e.g., Still, what McCain mainly gets out of this is the enthusiasm of that wavery Cultural Conservative vote, so many of whom were calling him RINO for so long, and who accepted him only grudgingly. You might remember some major fundie figures talking about rousing a protest vote for Hillary if McCain was the nominee? I bet that grudge is pretty much over, as of Palin. McCain might have stoked his base with this “maverick” pick just as Obama’s amazing machine has started running out of steam.
I disagree with the last bit … Obama’s machine is stoked after the convention, the ground game is in full swing, ads and sharp campaigning are coming, and I’ve seen a lot of Clintonphilic women saying that, while they were on board with Obama after the Clintons pleaded with them, they were still unenthused until McCain insulted them with his pick. But McCain’s pick has definitely stoked the “wavery Cultural Conservative vote”, with many of them declaring that they are now on board with McCain, are sending money, will work on the campaign. Given that Obama’s enthusiasm factor was about 2:1 over McCain, this seems to be a net gain for McCain. Whether that’s enough is another matter; no one should take it for granted either way. In terms of my own views, Palin seems like a ridiculous pick, but MT’s pragmatic political analysis reminds me that it can be a mistake to view these things from my own perspective.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Americans will, no doubt, end up voting on the top of the ticket
This misses all the relevant subtleties. With the electorate sharply divided and many Americans not voting, elections are won on the margins; enthusiasm and turnout are key, and the VP picks are by no means irrelevant. I doubt that any Palin-produced boost in cultural conservatives for McCain can make up for Obama’s huge ground game advantage this late in the game, but my beliefs don’t determine reality, and overconfidence can lead to ruin.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
P.S. I refer you all to MoDo’s column today. I think she more or less strikes the right tone on this matter.
Ah, yes, the tone that it’s so ridiculous it couldn’t possibly happen … just like GWB, I suppose.
Here’s someone who gets it right about Dowd:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh082708.shtml
Readers, the inanity of this upper-class cohort can’t be stressed enough. Dowd is wealthy—and deeply inane. And when you have a wealthy, upper-class press corps, inanity will strike them as genius.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh082808.shtml
Dowd has been a screaming nut-case for very long time. Her Clinton-hatred has been all-surpassing—but she also spent lots of time bashing “the Breck Girl” and bashing Gore, who was “so feminized he’s practically lactating.” She started the trashing of Michelle Obama last year, and she has endlessly denigrated her “debutante” husband, the “starlet” who is “legally blonde.” But so what? The Times doesn’t care! Dowd is face-down on the carpet today, listening again to the voices.
August 31st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Sorry if I quibble, but I don’t think MT did sufficiently make the point. We’re both conjecturing at this point, but the Hillary pander seems fairly obvious to me. Exhibit A in that defense is the “Passed Over” ad you can find on Youtube: An obvious attempt to put a wedge between Obama and Hilary supporters. I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary, although I do admit, and did write, that the base-shoring he is attempting with the right may well be the larger concern for him.
In any case, while I think MT is a consistently good contributor, I happen to disagree with him on this one. This pick, I predict (and I’m not going too far out on the limb here), will crash with a clatter.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:31 pm
pt – I wasn’t attacking MT personally. I don’t think he was attacking me personally either. But I was responding to his tone – that at least in one case went beyond what was called for in response to my comments IMHO – and I was mirroring some of his language. No biggie.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Not that anybody could possibly give a shit but…
“reg Says: August 31st, 2008 at 11:05 am” reads, near the end, “not more issue oriented” when it should have been simply “more issue oriented.”
August 31st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
“blame woody for the fal of western civ.” – you got that one exactly backward, Marc. That’s what he’s blaming on us. I’m not gonna get in any more wrangles with Woody because, after going to embarrassing lengths to counter his nonsense, the fact that it’s pointless arguing with such a dishonest person has become more compelling than any sport in squishing gnats, but on the “sympathy” front, I think the question of respect is more to the point than sympathy and I assume your commenters will show Woody the same respect he shows for others, for serious discussion and, ultimately, for himself when he signs his name to some reams of idiotic crap.
August 31st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
scratch that “some” – incomplete deletion.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Sorry if I quibble
You’re the wrong one to quibble … if he had sufficiently made the point, it wouldn’t need reinforcing. But if you’re going to argue that “McCain is incapable of reading the political landscape” on the basis of a false claim about Palin’s views about birth control — which is what you did — that lends support to the notion that you’re looking at the shape of the cookie cutter rather than that of the actual cookie.
We’re both conjecturing at this point, but the Hillary pander seems fairly obvious to me.
I agree, and disagree with MT, who put it too narrowly in terms of PUMAs, but, um, that’s not the point you and I were discussing.
This pick, I predict (and I’m not going too far out on the limb here), will crash with a clatter.
Again, just as long as we don’t take out own predictions as facts, or dismiss the Palin pick as politically ridiculous just because she’s ridiculous as VP material.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I assume your commenters will show Woody the same respect he shows for others, for serious discussion and, ultimately, for himself when he signs his name to some reams of idiotic crap.
That’s exactly what I did … I showed him the respect that someone who acts in such extensive bad faith deserves.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
But I was responding to his tone
I understand. I thought his “clear your head, dude” and “You want this to be a dumb choice, reg. You seem to need this to be a dumb choice. It doesn’t occur to you …” was uncalled for and lessened the effectiveness of his thoughtful analysis.
No biggie.
I s’pose not.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Actually this is getting annoying. So I’ll say no more about it after this. I said “if these sorts of things are true,” and implicit in that was the whole spectrum of pro-life views that she carries with her. I got one fact wrong (which I hedged on), but that was not the entire basis of my claim. I failed in being as clear as I could be on that point, but I try to keep my posts relatively short, and that was about as long as I like to go on Marc’s blog. If I had been more expansive I would have said “pro-life, blah blah as well as possibly so far as to oppose contraceptives.” I didn’t. That was my fault.
So I’m not lending support to whatever baking metaphor you’re using. If anything, you’re, if I may, acting in bad faith by assuming the narrower rather than the broader interpretation.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I agree, and disagree with MT, who put it too narrowly in terms of PUMAs
Actually, rereading him, he didn’t exactly do that:
I don’t buy that this was a significant play for the PUMAs. There’s a parallel demographic of interest that’s not quite PUMA: Republican women who seriously considered voting for Clinton because they liked that figure of toughness that Hillary could cut.
I would say that McCain is very obviously pandering to women. Then we’re just quibbling about which women. But he’s surely pandering to whatever women it might work on, whether they are PUMAs, or Republicans, or whoever has a problem with Obama. How successfully is another question, especially when many of the more liberal/feminist women who identified with Hillary and were stung by her defeat are apparently insulted by McCain’s choice and are coming to their senses as a result.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Actually this is getting annoying.
Yes, you are.
If anything, you’re, if I may, acting in bad faith
No I’m not and fuck you.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I promised to say no more, but I never expected you to shit yourself like a child. Well played.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
If anything, you’re, if I may, acting in bad faith by assuming the narrower rather than the broader interpretation.
What I did was interpret you charitably. There isn’t any question at all that Palin is adamantly “pro-life”, so your “If these sorts of things are true” is nonsensical if it includes that. I assumed that you were distinguishing between the Palin having the sort of pro-life view that Harry Reid has, and a much more radical view of wanting to criminalize birth control. So, because of your admittedly faulty communication, I misunderstood your intent. But, like some giant ahole, you took your being annoyed by my response as meaning I’m acting in bad faith. That’s a rather serious character flaw on your part that you should attend to.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I promised to say no more
You said more immediately after you said you would say no more … that was enough to make you a petty liar.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:04 pm
pt – stop.
Posts like that to Dan O are completely out of bounds.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Posts like that to Dan O are completely out of bounds.
Quite a double standard you have there, when he accused me of bad faith and of shitting myself like a child. My responses were quite within the bounds he created.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:11 pm
The adult thing would be to let this drop, and not let this insipid personal flare up continue on Marc’s blog, but I’m pissed now, and feeling less restraint than I ought to. So I’ll tell you that I have been participating here for several years and you’re the first person that’s said “fuck you” to me. Where, exactly, lies the character flaw?
August 31st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
The adult thing would be to let this drop
Yes, it would.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:21 pm
you’re the first person that’s said “fuck you” to me.
How many of them have you groundlessly accused of acting in bad faith? Again … fuck you for that.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Somebody wrote to me earlier:
“you’re both smart and informed guys with good points; it’s silly for you to attack each other personally.”
Haven’t followed all the bouncing balls in this exchange, but that wasn’t bad advice.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Haven’t followed all the bouncing balls in this exchange, but that wasn’t bad advice.
In the middle of a sincere but critical exchange Dan O wrongly accused me of acting in bad faith. In response I gave him a deserved “fuck you”, and then explained exactly what my reasoning had been and how I had misunderstood his intent. Misunderstanding is not bad faith. That should be the end of it, but Dan O is “pissed”, poor thing, and is apparently incapable doing, as he put it, the adult thing, or of reading and comprehending my explanation of his character flaw, which he has since magnified.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
You want to continue this offline? I’m happy to clear it up, I’ll even be conciliatory since it seems there may be two misunderstandings here.
Feel free to email me: ikoe@hotmail.com but let’s drop this from the boards here.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
PT -
Sorry it took so long for me to to chime in, chalk it up to the warm feeling I get in my pants from reading your lucid, insightful and well reasoned discourse. Now take your ball and go home, asshole.
Forever yours,
SAW
August 31st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I’ll even be conciliatory since it seems there may be two misunderstandings here.
That statement is enough for me. Thank you and have a good evening.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:38 pm
“you’re both smart and informed guys with good points; it’s silly for you to attack each other personally.”
Your being way to kind to PT there reg. He’s clearly having trouble passing through adolescence. As my mother used to say to me at that age, “You’d argue with a signpost”
August 31st, 2008 at 7:38 pm
“Staying a while” = troll.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Jim R = troll also, trying to stir up shit. I admire reg’s contributions, Michael Turner’s contributions, even Dan O’s contributions … can’t say the same for Jim R.
August 31st, 2008 at 7:57 pm
All we know right now is the news cycle has really changed, all but Chris Mathews show could not stop talking about Ms. Palin today. She and Bobby J maybe the andidote to your tired visionless party–check out China–we need some hopeful reformists to save us from you burnout cynics.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:10 pm
[...] three days ago I predicted that Governor What’s Her Name would spell doom for McCain. I wrote: So, Sarah, enjoy the media honeymoon – which I predict will crash about the same time Hurricane [...]
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Well, Marc… You are full of it. You write with authority, but your opinions are pure drivel.
For instance, do you really think Biden would come out on top in debate with Governor Palin? If so, you must not have read the background on her achievments that are freely available.
She has accomplished more in her professional political career than the entire inventory of the Obama / Biden collective.
She will kick Joe’s ass in the debates.
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Found your blog on Yahoo
May 17th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
I’m so glad that BP is now beginning to get the spill under control.