My Thoughts on Palin
Admittedly, I have mostly been driving all day, listening to L. Patrick Gray’s rebuttal to Mark Felt (and Bob Woodward), punctuated by surveys of Nebraska’s and Iowa’s excellent public radio stations (the guy from Minnesota with the Obama bumper sticker who filled up the same time as me was listening to Rush, and warned me that Rush’s comments on Palin weren’t worth the trouble). So these aren’t influenced by all the smart and witty things already said about McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin to be his new girlfriend running mate. But here are my thoughts on Palin.
- McCain believes all the BS in the press about the PUMAs–even though none of them showed to the Convention, and even though Hillary and Bill did such a good job reaching out to Hillary voters.
- McCain believes women are too stupid to understand the difference between women’s issues–and women.
- McCain saw in Palin a fellow-traveler: someone who makes loud nods to "maverickyness," even while abusing power.
- McCain just sacrificed every legitimate claim to environmental creds he had to Palin’s fight against the polar bears. I do hope the DNC does some ads pitting Palin against the polar bears, because Palin’s suit against the polar bears is her one act that affects national governance.
- McCain is sinking deeper and deeper into the oil culture that corrupted Bush and Cheney’s Administration. It’s like crack cocaine for Republicans–they can’t keep away.
- I wonder whether Paris Hilton’s ad made McCain see the wisdom of running with someone who is hot–rather than another wrinkled white dude like Lieberman.
- Apparently, Palin isn’t going to be able to help McCain with his ignorance about Wikipedia culture.
- McCain is apparently down to one campaign event a day–though, admittedly, that’s still a laudable activity level for a guy who turned 72 today. But Palin has 5 kids, the youngest a special needs kid. When exactly do these two plan to campaign? Particularly since it’ll take Palin an extra several hours to get anywhere to do any campaigning.
“McCain saw in Palin a fellow-traveler: someone who makes loud nods to “maverickyness,” even while abusing power.” — emptywheel
I agree. She’s from Idaho which has that western mavericky attitude, yet she stands with the Evangelical Southern Republicans on issues.
I think McCain picked her primarily because he did what a lot of CEOs do, which is to pick someone who reminds them of themselves.
What this means for the Democratic campaign is practically nothing. Sure, there are some questions about how Joe Biden might debate her. But the larger issues are still the same and McCain can’t run away from his record of supporting George W. Bush.
I’m not sure what Obama-Biden is doing just now, but I’d like to see them build on the energy and enthusiasm and unity of the convention by going to some other big cities and essentially recreating the big stadium speeches and atmosphere as they had in Denver. It might be difficult to do, but it could blow the doors off this campaign before McCain even gets his convention.
Short of that I’d like to see them hitting the soft spots in the South (and to a lesser extent out west) to let everyone know they’re a national campaign and McCain won’t really have any totally secure BASE.
There not a lot of time to get to lots of places, so this has to be a whirlwind attack. Get to places they haven’t seen much of Obama. Get to places that McCain will have to worry about.
Use big venues to draw more people, in the flesh, to see Obama in person. This could change the entire dynamic of the campaign and raise the game to a level McCain can’t even comprehend. How is McCain going to deal with an Obama in Miami, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Dallas, St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Charlotte and so on. These places have large populations, large football stadiums and a lot of voters who WANT to see him.
He would be seen by MORE people than would ordinarily be possible. And this might create a huge vibe which could change entire regions instead of just communities.
It is a once-in-a-lifetime situation!
Hey there EW!
What? Mr. EW is forcing you to do all the driving? Want me to have a word with him?
LOL!
Nah, I sent him him on Monday. I asked McCaffrey to drive for a while, but since he’s been partying all week, he decided he wanted to sleep the whole way instead.
I’m assuming that you’re taking US 80 east. Been there, done that. Both driving and hitch-hiking, but oh so many years ago now.
Lots of folks complain how flat and boring Nebraska is, but I found it most pleasant. I could easily see myself living there. Maybe in one of those old missile silos since anything above ground is tornado-bait.
Vell now, I can jeest see you in zee meesle silow, jeest like Dr. Strangelove!
LOL! Still one of my favorite movies.
And if Art imitates Life, the out-and-out crazies it portrays, reminds me of many real Repugs like Junya, Deadeye, Fredo and all the rest.
Folks that are more than a few cans short of a twelve-pack, hearing voices that no one else hears, seeing visions that nobody else sees. Aiiieeeeeee!
See ya’ll tomorrow.
My bro warned me that Council Bluffs to Des Moines had nothing in it–but I thought it was beautiful and now regret not camping out in the fields with the crickets.
Damn we live in a beautiful country. And yes, I found Nebraska more beautiful now that I was driving through it during the day (the last time I did this drive, we were driving in November, in a brand new SAAB the heater of which had broken, meaning we had to hand-scrape ice from the windhshield as we were driving at 80 at 3 AM).
I know that cats can drive, because I have seen Toonces the Cat That Could Drive. Can’t McCaffrey help out a little?
Ah, a hungover dog in the car. My wife complains of that often….
Add in that she is also apparently breast feeding and one wonders what these folks are thinking. (She told, no ’shared’ that info with a celebrity mag, so might be ’suspect’ info). Well, at least she will already be up at 3 a.m., not under the influence of mind altering drugs like Ambien, and will probably only have one house so no one will have to play ‘hide and go seek’ with her.
And my final thoughts tonite on McSame’s Palin choice before I hit the hay?
Twas a gimmick pick. And like most gimmicks, the shiny object will fade quite rapidly.
In a week or so, the Palin pick will begin to tarnish.
I base this on that all to human characteristic that we all share of sizing someone up when you first meet them.
Palin comes across to me as a light-weight. And rather than help McSame, Palin is going to tarnish the views of many about McSame’s judgement.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.
The accuracy of your assessment will depend on whether, and if so how often and how deeply, she inserts her foot in her mouth.
I have been thinking about what Bmaz and others have mentioned about McCains announcement since he picked Palin. How this has served the Republicans well by taking the spotlight off of the Invesco fiesta ( it was amazing to literally watch the wave of change in those stands). How this announcement has taken the spotlight off of Obama’s call for UNITY. How Democrats, Republicans (who have seen the light) and Independents need to get out and put in their time to help this CHANGE happen.
Marcy do not in any way want to hijack your post. But I hope you or BMAZ write a post on what folks will be doing in their neck of the woods to make Obama and Biden our next P and V.P. happen. WE HAVE 9 WEEKS and that will go by fast. I have been talking to friends here in Colorado (5o and 60 somethings) how the TIME IS NOW to put in their time to flip Colorado. How we do not want to wake up the day after the election and wonder what happened?
I know what I will be doing in Ohio with the Get out the Vote folks and the Dem party in Athens County, but what will other folks be doing? (maybe share ideas and effectiveness)
Leen,
Are you coming to Dublin today? I will be trying to get in. I missed out on tickets. A neighbor has tickets due to his work with the state.
No. But thanks for the reminder will let friends know. Heading into Dayton on Monday, (wlll be talking with some of those rust belt gals) back to Athens the next day.
Back in the 1950’s Northern Minnesota elected the first woman to the House of Representatives, Coya Knudson. She was out of the old Farmer-Labor side of the then recently merged DFL, and was in no way the favorite of the DFL Leadership, including Hubert and all. But she won, and then won re-election. So when it was getting along for her to run a third time, someone faked up a letter from her much below average Husband — they say they got him drunk so he would sign it — and it was a plea for Coya to come home and take care of her kids, her impossible Husband, and her kitchen and hearth. Coya lost the following election. She then divorced her Husband, got a Civil Service job in the Federal Bureaucracy, got promoted, and retired at the top of her agency. She would have been forgotten in DFL lore, except when the Feminists came around in the 1960’s and 70’s, they re-told the story in various ways, and it worked.
Maybe “Coya Come Home” could be visited on Sarah in some more up to date version. Let’s get creative.
I think McCain takes more of a chance losing men voters with this than anything. All those defense oriented and veteran and military types who at least contend they vote on who would be the best commander in chief — it strikes me this might be the most vulnerable of McCain leaners and supporters. Likewise with the Corporate Crowd — ask the Question, would you hire this woman to be your Chief Operating Officer? Apparently she badly screwed up the construction and finance of a sports center in the town where she was Mayor — so would she be a good CFO?
Likewise, I think we have enough Women of the House, women Senators, and women in State Government in key states who can make the argument to screwed up low information women voters on this one, and more or less take some of the burden off Obama and Biden to make the case. I’d rather not see them doing direct attacks on her — debate her yes, but be the vehicle for making the case — no. They probably won’t allow her to be available to the press until she finishes Federal Government 101, and Constitution for Dummies, but at some point she will have to answer a question or two.
Anyhow, as his first Executive Appointment, McCain has really left himself open to a carefully thought out plan of attack that focuses on the audience for his candidacy.
Agreed wholeheartedly. And McCain isn’t overly bright, but he is plenty smart enough to know all this; in fact if he wasn’t part of this deal, he would be one of the ones you reference as being amenable to the argument. But McCain is a rote creature; his relentless ambition overwhelms all else. Always. He was put in a posture to where this was the choice he was left with and, and so he “made” it. When it is closer to the election, and if things are heading south, he will start flailing around wildly. Could be quite the show.
Biden will have to be careful how he handles Palin in their debates, lest he he give the impression that he’s dissing her because she’s a woman. He must avoid going into his ‘reaming a new one’ mode and treat her with respect while at the same time getting across the message about her lack of qualifications.
I checked the newsites midday today, and the media got punk’d yet again by Rove. The dominant news stories were all about Our Lady of Wasilla, the Vandal Princess.
The Dems just had a remarkable convention – spectacle, message, new alliances, but you wouldn’t have known it by checking the msnbc.com, NPR, CNN, NYT, CBS, etc websites. They were covered with news of Palin — and frankly, Rove wouldn’t care what she says as long as she looks good. He knows how to drown out any stupid remarks beneath an evocative music track — he’s already got her picture in our heads. And Obama’s remarkable, brilliant speech is being overwritten by inane, idiotic, trivial pseudo-questions about Palin.
Any sane, adult culture would not even entertain such bullshit.
They’d say, “hmmmmm…. Alaska’s population = <700,000. Even Idaho’s population is almost double that — whereas Obama represents over 12,000,000. Illinois, OTOH, has no oil and gas reserves; Alaska does.
My view is that Leen on the previous thread actually made some points that those of us in more affluent regions would be smart to heed. And this is also a topic on which ‘ground game’ — paying people to talk to citizens, walk neighborhoods, do things that aren’t well reflected in national polls — is going to be a make-or-break element of this election, IMHO.
I’ve seen some of the same attitudes Leen mentions; it’s rooted in decency, respect for tradition, and a lot of other fine, good things. But people become helpless captives when preyed upon by the Rovian/GOP ability to ‘control narrative’.
Dems had a stunning convention?
We’ll pull a ‘dramatic’ announcement that gets them off the front page. God forbid the nation actually have 24 or 48 hours to absorb one of the most brilliant speeches I’ve ever seen or read — no! The GOP must intrude! The GOP must get a different story –any story! — off Page One.
And if a VP announcement can’t do it, what little dustup or economic report can be released to short-circuit the MSM’s reporting on how splendidly the Dem convention met every one of its goal? Quick! GOP desparately needs an interruption! Because the coverage of the Dems is far, far too complimentary for Rove, et al, to risk allowing public attention to be focused on the stunning Dem success.
God forbid!
Quick! Create a kerfuffle!!
In my modest and limited experience, I’ve observed that both rural areas of Idaho and Alaska have small towns with two kinds of buildings: a church, and a tavern. One is attended one day a week; the other is attended nightly. For all the scorn of Idaho, it’s probably worth noting that Tammy Faye Bakker came out of Idaho — and in both Idaho and Alaska there is plenty of ‘Bible thumpin’, some of it by people (like GWBush) trying damn hard to stay sober. Traditionally, those people did not vote, until they got signed up in 1984 by the Pat Robertson wing of the GOP.
Note that it’s (some of) the evangelicals who are falling all over themselves to huzzah about the Palin annoucement. And Alaskan politics is corrupt and based on energy — if you’ve not had a chance to fly out of the Toobz Stevens International Airport in Anchorage recently, it’s hard to grasp how oil politics has shaped the state. Ellmendorf AFB and another very large military operation up in Fairbanks also have a huge impact on Alaska’s economy.
So since the GOP has no bench depth, it sure looks like the same old vile nexus of wingnut church=GOP ballotboxes + oil money keeping itself well in the background are at work here again.
They know what they’re doing.
And I’d say that in terms of moving the Dem convention off the front pages of CNN, NYT, WaPo, msnbc.com, etc… the Rovians scored again.
I don’t know what kind of stoopid pills are getting passed around at NPR, but even National Public Radio had the Mayor of Wasilla as their FIRST item on ATC today. How on earth all these MSMers allow themselves to get punk’d by the Rovians time, after time, after time, after time…. is becoming too disgusting to watch.
If the MSM had an attention span longer than that of a gnat, they’d look at the relative populations of AK vs IL and think, “Hmmmmm…. McCain had all kinds of oportunities to make this announcement. Why is he trying so damn hard to ensure that Obama and Biden are moved OFF the front pages ASAP?”
The obvious answer being that the GOP is scared shitless, and playing dirty as usual. You’d think the press would get a f*cking clue that the demographics of Denver/Obama so far outweigh the demographics of Palin that she should have been covered, but probably ‘below the fold.’ Denver is a much larger, epic story — but the MSM went for the trivia yet again.
Yeah, I actually think that we in the blogosphere helped them along this time though. The palin story should have been a few hours at best and then back to pumping the volume we reached last night.
I remember talking to long-time Alaskans about Palin; her win was the first (shocking) sign to me that even GOPers were fed up with BushCheney GOP corruption. They’d have voted for anyone who could stand upright and hold their likker, provided they talked openly about corruption.
But to have someone of Ms Palin’s background nominated for VP is, frankly, an insult to this nation. Yet again, the GOP offers Politix as Hype. This is 95% P.R. and I hope it boomerangs to bit them in the ass sooner, rather than later.
Contrast Ms. Palin with the number of retired generals and military on the Dem nominating stage last night — excuse me, but in my view her nomination is insulting to the Armed Forces. JMHO, but how is this woman even remotely qualified to be appointed — especially by McCain, who claims to have such a commitment to the Armed Forces.
I can think off the top of my head of at least 10 women I know who have five or more kids. (Two are Mormon.) NONE of them would claim their motherhood as qualification to be VP.
I can think of several mayors that I’ve known – of cities (suburban cities) with greater population, far larger budgets, and much more complex bureaucracies than Wasilla. Come to think of it, they’re mayors of cities with populations larger than the entire state of Alaska.
Frankly, speaking as a ‘mom’ (who’s put in plenty of time at PTA meetings), I find this ‘VP selection’ downright insulting. PTA is a great way to hone some skills, but it’s not sufficient training for VP.
This ’selection’ is absolutely insulting if it’s premised on Palin’s being ‘a mom’. What utter, complete, trivialized bullshit.
I don’t want to get myself sidewise of my Vandals acquaintances, but Palin is not the most distinguished U of I alum. Not by a longshot.
Palin as VP speaks volumes — disgusting, fetid volumes — of how utterly cynical, smarmy, antiquated, used-up, and brain-dead the GOP has become.
I’m a ‘mom’, and if this is the best that McCain and the GOP can offer my kids then the sooner the GOP finds themselves completely out of elected power, the better. Let’s just dispense with the fiction that the GOP has anything whatsoever to offer the next generation (let alone my own generation) and move on.
Because I’m just not up to maintaining the pretense that the GOP is offering any serious choice in 2008.
God bless Susan Eisenhower. I think maybe I’ll go locate an online clip of her speech last night, just to help me calm down by remembering that there are serious, thoughtful adults in the U.S. I had chills just listening to her; I felt she spoke for me.
I may be the only one feeling insulted by this move of McCain’s, but as I’ve had time to think about this evening, the more I’m startled and indignant at how absolutely cynical, manipulative, superficial, and insulting it is for the GOP to even pretend that a woman of Palin’s background is qualified to be VP. Hell, I’d have voted for Tammy Fae Bakker before I’d vote for Sarah Palin (!).
There are half a dozen responses here, probably more, but I think yours is the best join with the Ms E Wheel’s post. But I’m not sure it’s so much that the Palin pick itself is a panic pick; rather, I see it as the saying something about how the GOP machine’s approach to this election contrasts with the Obama campaign’s approach.
Note I didn’t refer to the former as “the McCain campaign”, because to do so might imply too much control in the candidate. Nor did I refer to the Democratic machine, because, as we know, Democrats don’t have anything remotely comparable to the GOP machine.
There are lots of dimensions to that, but one shows up while Gustav blows in towards Louisiana.
The impression left by all sane observors is that the DNC exceeded expectations, bearing in mind the circumstances of, well, just about everything, but primarily two problems: the problem of Obama’s ‘unknown-ness’ express in DNC terms [”Who is this guy & why is it we’re supposed to accept him as our leader?”] & the problem of the successors to the Kennedy’s as the first family of the Dems, and not at all incidentally the most unstable political powerhouse in U.S. political history, Billary Inc. National conventions are absolutely necessary to the Dem model, and this one, despite being wrapped up technically in February, as much as any and maybe moreso.
Meanwhile, the GOOP is still leaving open the option of canceling or foreshortening the RNC, depending if Gustav turns out as bad or worse than Katrina [If it does, I’d expect the GOP machine to dispatch Bush & McBush to meet up & join rings or something.] That they didn’t cancel it already isn’t due to good news on Gustav- its because they’ve received such favorable internal reviews & media treatment they think they can go to Plan B in St Paul & retool from “He’s Inexperienced- He’s a Communist- He’s (Maybe) Muslim- He’s BLAAAAACK – He’s a DEMOCRAT” into something less blood red and more pink, the Carly-Kay Baily-Liddy et al show, a big stage Wingnut View.
They could do that- or they could call the whole thing off & play a self-pity card. They really don’t need a convention, probably ever, but certainly not for this nominee. The Wingers are all related to the same authoritarian ant queen, and they operate just fine on pheromones.
Meanwhile the Dem party is a loose coalition of a many interest groups, each expressed differently in style and power in each of five Fuzzies:
Fuzzy 1: the Northeast: Yankeeland & Red Sox nation into the Beltway and down the East coast;
Fuzzy 2: the South: west across the Gold Coast highway, to some extent expressed in states adjacent to the first & as well to the Great Lakes;
Fuzzy 3: Great Lakes & Canuckistan: bordering the Great Lakes, radiating out from the Midwest to the east in an arc that joins up with the Canuckistanian border states to the west all the way to the Pacific: Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana & Washington state;
Fuzzy 4: the Missouri Dustbowl south into Texas, fuzzied up against 2 & 3
Fuzzy 5: the Cacti- bmaz territory, fuzzied up against 3 & 4
Fuzzy 5: Califoregon.
[Okay I left out the last two; but Cokie Roberts says they don’t really count, and to the extent they do its mainly to produce candidates.]
We don’t really have a queen, but we let our leader act the part [thus drama queen? but only so long as there is victory in battle with the GOOPer. The GOP machine long ago figured out our method is capable of producing some mighty drama queens, so might they might even rule unto death; thus Step One in the GOP machine strategy, the 22nd Amendment, the product of the mightiness of FDR, his death, a big Republican majority in Congress [Remember checks & balances? I miss those days.] & a great deal of determination.
Meanwhile our method is capable of producing some awfully beatable champions as well, because to win at the DNC we feel our drama queen has to use all her weapons but also show off all her weak points, and the GOP machine watches & studies & analyzes. It takes an unusually mighty drama queen to overcome that exposure [again: the two term limit]. FDR – the Kennedy clan – Billary: all mighty drama queens.
It’s important not to over-state comparisons, but the dynamics of this cycle remind me an awful lot of 1976. I think it’s pretty easy to dismiss our past failed champions, but they all show pluck [Kerry, Gore] and while it was understandable the rest were relegated to minor roles, it doesn’t serve us to forget how Carter won [the pluckiest of the bunch], and as importantly how, and why, he lost.
Carter as we know was an improbable peanut farmer- for a nuclear scientist [Even he- especially he- worked very assiduously to understand his pre-gubernatorial experience.]. But he, like Kerry, Gore, and the rest of our vanquished champions, was no mighty drama queen.
The GOP machine is concerned that this Obama fella may very well be such a mighty drama queen. And having gone through Steps 2 [getting rid of the Special Prosecutor statute] 3 [the 60 vote Senate threshold] & 4 [letting most of the air out of the impeachment clause], the GOP machine has left the office in president with, at least legally, an awful lot more power than FDR ever had. That’s the kind of power that a drama queen would know how to use to avoid what happened to Carter in 1980. And I think Billary Inc. was- is- very aware of that.
Thus, the GOP machine, though as many here are wont to mention [rightly] is anxious to retain the White House not just for the spoils, but to continue the process of burying bodies, it actually feels some level of comfort in taking chances- as we learned today.
But I don’t think it’s so much a product of panic as it is that a lot of its typical paths to victory are closed down for repairs. I think today confirms that, as the machine did in picking McCain, then finding he was so talentless they’ve found themselves with a Night of the Living Dead “Pod McCain”, the GOP machine is winging it.
This was a short term fix, to step on DNC-Obama moment- not Obama mind you- they haven’t figured out a way to deal with him; but they’re working on it- & to get some Adderall into the RNC. They saw last night they needed a way not just to step on that moment, but to find a way to spin their little office into something 38 million, or close to it as possible, might tune into.
After next week, Governor Palin too will be Pod-replaced. However, I expect Pod Palin will prove more acceptable to the hard outside edges of Zombie Nation than McCain has. If Pastor Warren can ask Obama & McCain “Does evil exist?” & get a thoughtful nuanced response from Obama & a “Yup” from McOblivous, and McPatriot is generally conceded that kabuki, the bar just isn’t very high. And if we are counting on the Brooks’ & Broders & Wills et al to trash her for us, as Eric Alterman’s column reads, think again.
But I do join with you in this: Since the GOP machine is playing to keep this close with Wonderbra Woman Week, to allow for a late breaking victory based on …something, as far back as I can remember the machine has not shown all that much confidence in deux ex machina.
Actually, I must insist on a correction of you ROTL. Tammy was born in International Falls, Minnesota.
No one takes our Tammy from us. LOL!
Meep, meep! MadDog in St. Paul. *g*
Number of people attending the Democratic nominee’s speech last night in the Mile High Stadium in Denver: 80,000.
Number of people in Wasilla, AK: 9,000.
Ratio of Wasilla population to those who heard Obama’s speech in person — 1:9
Ratio of news content about Our Lady of the Vandals, as opposed to analysis of Obama’s speech? About 9:1.
The MSM got punk’d.
I can scarcely express my contempt for the MSM for being such suckers.
They’ll blame it on the Dems, of course; so much easier than squirming under the self-knowledge that you’ve been played (yet again) for idiotic fools.
Asinine.
What people remember about TV news clips is usually the video, not the content. Palin is a good looking woman, and that’s what the electorate will remember. The Republicans aren’t about good governance, they’re about getting elected, and getting free airtime, shutting down the discussion of Obama’s nomination and speech, will be to the benefit of the Republicans if Palin manages to survive this part of the process.
Apart from LabDancer’s brilliance at 24, this just wows me:
The GOP, true to their roots in marketing, are ‘about’ looking good.
But — and it makes me so angry that I’m here on a Saturday a.m. ranting — this was a ‘brilliant’ move by Rove/GOP in the sense that it knocked a remarkable, moving, phenomenal Democratic message off the front news cycle.
It was manipulative.
It was cynical.
It was heartless – IF you care about governing.
But if your main focus is about controlling the regulatory structures so that you don’t restrict the gambling on Wall Street, and you don’t restrict pollluters, and you don’t regulate international moneylaundering then it was ‘the right thing to do’ because it met your objectives — to deflect any and all attention from the remarkable achievements of the Dems in Denver.
This isn’t about governing.
It’s about using politics and political parties as the facade of a globalized, mercenary, amoral power structure that EW has termed ‘neofeudalism’.
On that level, it worked.
But in Denver, the Dems fed and nurtured the human spirit.
It reeks volumes to recognize how desparate the GOP fundy-corporatist-lobbyist authoritarians are to demolish that same human spirit. After all, it’s the biggest threat they face.
Reproductive choices, and personal facts of family reproduction usually treated with some delicacy by most, will be getting a great deal of attention, especially with pictures being posted of Palin late in her last alleged pregnancy, and with questions being raised about her daughter’s long absence from school. There will be tragic and disturbing aspects of the scrutiny and conjecture—even though some of it will be defensible or even necessary, and not scurrilous—that will occur. I don’t see how Palin will remain in candidacy for long if she is even the Republican nominee.
It’s clear that Republicans aren’t interested in the ‘best and the brightest’. They plug people into spots not based on merit, but on what functions they can perform for the machine.
Need to knock the Dems off the front page? Throw out a beauty queen. No talent, no experience, who cares? We don’t do governing!
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs…..eally.aspx
Interesting observations of Palin in The New Republic via The Anonymous Liberal.
I’ve polled a few of my hardcore blinders-on Republican friends and they are either gripping the side of the toilet puking, or wandering aimlessly as cars honk for them please step out of the roadway.
They are all going WTF? Who is this? Where in the F did this come from.
In short, the GOP flushed the election today. This is either the greatest miscalculation in political history, or a deliberate punt. I think the latter. I can’t wait to hear how the “liberal” press tries to whitewash this one.
It really makes me wonder if they were ever serious about electing McCain. Could it be that early on they knew they were just plain hosed, and let McCain finally have his run, figuring WTF?
I certainly get the, “pick up Hillaries embittered catladies” idea, but really, Elaine from Seinfeld?
Just when you think you know the meaning of the word “dumb” then this comes along. Wow. I mean, Wow.
Oh, it’s going to be a fun fall. Coming attractions, the train wreck you just can’t look away from. Then we’re going to find out how many people in this country really would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Democrat.
I have to say that the Palin pick is both shocking and not shocking at the same time.
It’s shocking because I don’t see what she brings to the ticket, unless he really thinks she’ll bring home the fundie voters.
And it’s not shocking because men like him just don’t get women unless to screw them.
I am shocked as a mother that such a “hockey mom” would consider such a job appropriate with a family like hers. But I guess considering she doesn’t really understand what a vice president does, perhaps Rove et al are grooming her to be another puppet pres.
I’m not a family values voter, nor even American, but you just want to say, governing a place like Alaska is way different from being one step away from the position of Leader of the Free World. How could she do that to her kids?
And I’ll bet a lot of women who are family values voters will ask that kind of question.
What would Laura Schlessenger say?
And additional time for hair & make-up. She looks fairly high maintenance in that department.
I agree with ReaderOfTeadLeaves that this move is a success in that it crowded the story of Obama’s miraculous speech, and the wonderful convention, off the “front page,” thus preventing hour after hour of talking heads repeating what a stroke of genius it was, how great Obama looked & sounded, etc. It really fries me that the media are so stupid.
OTOH, I hope some will soon be pointing out that Sarah Palin is the Clarence Thomas of the Republicans’ idea of the “women’s movement:” someone totally unqualified who’s put forth solely on the basis of one identifiable quality. There’s been enough experience with Thomas that it shouldn’t be too hard for folks to see the analogy.
Finally, I hope Hillary and every Democratic woman will go out and hit this HARD. This choice is insulting to women. It’s like the creepy boss giving the high-paying position to his mistress, even though she can’t type. I think most women can relate to that: the failure to recognize qualified women, going instead for the “pretty face.” It turns feminism on its head.
Woke up to let the dog out.
What a strange dream.
This family from Alaska showed up in the middle of a Republican/Rove Spectacle with cheerleaders and John McCain stepped to the microphone to say that the mother was going to run for Vice President!
So one of the kids was holding the baby which made the mother free to actually get up and accept the offer and talk about how good a thing it was that Hillary had made eighteen million cracks in the highest hardest glass ceiling and now this woman was going to go through it. Isn’t that special?
Whoa. Jeez.
Need a little more sleep.
OT but important: Looks like BushCo is trying to pull a fast one while no one is looking.
Thanks. When Mukasey points out that we have had a “lull” from an attack, why it it that we are never reminded that the 9/11 attack took place after the Bush administration had ignored numerous warnings from Richard Clarke and others that the threat of a terroist attack should be taken seriously.
How many warnings did Bush & Company ignore?
Bruce Fein has been deeply concerned about the “barnacle” branch being out of control for some time now.
Depending how snugly my tinfoil hat is fitting, I worry that this is prelude to some further power grab…having to do with the absolute lameness of the Repug ticket and not wanting to relinquish power.
On April 18, 2008 it was announced that Sarah Palin gave birth to a 6 lb 2 oz baby boy.
http://gov.state.ak.us/archive-41626.html
On March 6, 2008 Sarah Palin announced to her staff that she was pregnant. None of them even suspected.
http://www.adn.com/front/story/336402.html
There have been rumors circulating that she did not give birth to this child, but that her daughter gave birth to the child.
http://themoderatevoice.com/po…..nt-1925257
Whoever vetted her knew about these rumors.
They also knew that the trooper firing and subsequent mess in the Public Safety Division was far from settled.
So I wonder what’s going on?
perris might be on to something.
McCain needed to break with the last “face” of the Republican Party, Katherine Harris. At least we don’t have to look at her ugly mug.
Seriously, is there any chance that he does a Harriet Miers and withdraws this choice?
This is a very late add on to this thread but, I think George is on to something. I think the GOP ran her out to shutdown the press coverage of the DNC/Obama speech. That definitely happened. The second thing is to get democrat sound bytes of the Rahm Emanuel’s of the world insulting her for lack of experience. Save a little library of them. Then after she quits to go spend time with the family, start playing them back with Obamas face in the back ground.
lots of interesting comments, reader of tea leaves, boston, etc. I’ll just add Palin is a true blue fundy christianist (see digby’s tristero’s posts on this group), these are dangerous people and many are already in government. the press needs to do its job and not hold back, after all if elected we not only would have a hot headed flyboy ready to push the button for his psycho reasons but ready to step into his shoes is someone who believes that we are living in the end times and already at war with the armies of satan and in pushing the button brings her god back to judge us all. history won’t matter she and other believers will be raptured and the rest of us will roast. global warming? that’s just god gettin’ ready. they’re nuts and the MSM knows it and are complicit in their rise to power.
There will be dozens of women paraded before various nooz interviewers voicing support for Gov.
BrittneyQuaylinPalin.These dozens represent the several hundred women that actually exist who will vote for McCain just because of a female VP. The numbers he and the media keep blabbering about and pandering to are a fantasy.
So as not to capitalize on ANY sexist theme that would add validity to the irrational reason that women are not promoted or paid equal pay…
Let me say this…Palin running a heated, campaign at this point in her life with a downs syndrome child feels similar to my feelings about Edwards running while his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Did I avoid sexism? Here’s the deal, sometimes your family needs you, whether you are a man or woman. The sickness in this society is that we should somehow be able to do it all. And it’s not real. It’s not valid.
Sometimes we have to…because we need healthcare and a job to support our family, but when these choices are made out with this idea that “I am the ONLY ONE who could fulfill this job description” then this is just invalid. It’s not the truth. A Down’s syndrome child requires extra demands from parents. Add that to a family of four and it’s obvious that this is not a wise mind decision on her part. It has nothing to do with her sex. I would feel the same way if it were the father being picked for the job.
As to Biden. Once his wife and child were dead…and there was no “living with it” to be done but to grieve…that’s different. People do need to move on and it does not appear that he abandoned his other children in the midst of his grief by taking on a “bigger challenge” at that time.
’sometimes your family needs you” I was wondering about the demands of their new child and hoped that those demands are not placed on those other kids (not my business really).
“moving on” is different for every individual. Biden is sure comfortable making lots of contact with those grand kids really beautiful to watch. The riding home every night to Delaware is impressive.
But more than that I have always enjoyed the way Biden rips into an issue with that cheshire cat smile. At the Bolton nomination hearing I thought Biden was going to jump over a table and try to kick Bolton’s ass. Biden had had it with Boltons arrogance and smug answers
Biden was great with Mukasey, too. “You seem to float somewhere up above in the ether.” For once, Mumbles’ answers weren’t mumbled — he was baring his teeth as he answered; Biden really got to him. Biden smiled all the way through. Lotta joie de vivre in that man. I say let ‘im loose.
There were about 150 Pumas in front of the MSNBC stage on Monday. They had signs and were a age diverse group. We all know how the last two selections have been based on slicing and dicing the American electorate. This one will not be much different.
That is unless all of the only cell phone folks counter balance those white rust belt votes for McCain. The other number I don’t think the Rove machine are able to count are the Republicans who have jumped ship
Ian is reporting next door that the GOP has sent folks to Alaska to do some vetting…hard to believe.
Obama/Biden ought to spend one day next week in Anchorage.
Does anyone know the exact date in March of 2008 when this interview occurred?
It’s the Newsweek Women & Leadership Event held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The LA Convention Center site has been down for me all morning. The Newsweek site does not give dates or give any answer to a search.
Here’s the interview:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/156190
I can’t find anything other than ‘March’ online. The thing might not have been at the convention center – even if it was, they can have multiple events going on, and their calendar doesn’t show past months – and I also can’t find anything anywhere else that says where or exactly when.
(It could have been at the Bonaventure, for all I know. The only way most of us notice these things is by all the shuttle buses around the big hotels; the convention center area does not, as yet, have rooms that conventions would want to put people in.)
Thanks for trying.
I’ve worked for hours to find the exact date.
I finally watched the video with Ed Gray that you link to above, EW — fascinating. That line — let Pat Gray twist slowly in the wind — I wonder how many times some version of that mobstertalk has been uttered in the Oval Office.
At least one person, over at Making Light, has pointed out that she’s the only GOP woman who’s ‘pro-life’ and even halfway prominent. As far as they could determine, all of the better-known GOP women are pro-choice or elderly (or both).
He chose her to make the wingnuts happy.
Okay, they say a major aspect of deciding on the best candidate is to assess their judgment and leadership capabilities. Obama and his team put together a powerful convention, chose a VP candidate who fills in the primary shortcoming on Obama’s scorecard and then topped it off with a spectacle that topped the Chinese version that vastly outspent them.
McCain followed with the most pitiful VP candidate ever and announced her in a small venue that was only 2/3 full and where the “crowd” was “warmed up” with high school (or were they middle school?) cheerleaders. Horrible start.
But now McCain and his team are staring into the abyss and he must, at the age of 72, make the first command decision of his life. Gustav is already a category 3 and still is headed for landfall within 75 miles of New Orleans. The levees absolutely cannot withstand what is projected to be a storm surge of as high as 30 feet.
Will he cancel the convention? Will he postpone it? Will he hold a much shortened version during the day on Monday and then disperse?
McCain has never been in charge of anything. Today he is in charge of his party and his convention. He faces a situation that has no obvious winning strategy. I am watching carefully, but I seriously doubt that McCain will step into his role today. He will probably try to “muddle through” and expect Gustav to go away and the convention to go on as it should.
New Orleans could well be Grover Norquist’s bathtub. What Grover didn’t realize is that it is the Republican party and its approach to governing that will be drowned. The replacement is waiting in the wings and looks ready to take over.
I had a video to share with you, but it seems to have been taken down.
Sarah Palin says that she doesn’t know what the Vice President does. She says that it may not be a productive job. The interviewer says that he used to work at the White House under Reagan, and he can assure her that it is a very big job.
I think this is twhat you’re after:
Do we really need four years of someone who thinks that the VP position should be ‘fruitful’, especially for Alaskans? Especially after the last eight years of a ‘fruitful’ VP?
I say the video of that exchange.
Priceless.
I held onto the site so that I could post the clip.
When I checked the site before I posted it, the clip had been taken down.
Someone’s out there working to close this stuff down as fast as we’re finding it.
I am also amazed that I can’t come up with the exact date of the event in LA where she did a long sitdown interview with Newsweek.
Newsweek says it happened in March, 2008,
Sarah Palin had made no mention of being pregnant,
Nor did the the woman interviewing her recognize her as being pregnant,
And a “few weeks later” it says she gave birth prematurely.
6 lbs 2 oz is not a sign of a premature baby.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/156190
If you watch the interviews, does she seem like she was about to have a baby in a “few weeks”? That is why I am trying to find the exact date of that interview at the LA Convention Center.
I’m making my way down thread from #44 but the “What does a VP do?” video is still up here as of the time of this comment. My apologies for the redundancy if anyone has linked it prior to this comment.
I’d add a couple more points to the list EW created:
– Somebody wanted a “Monica Goodling” in the veep slot
Palin doesn’t strike me as a maverick except as marketing spin; she strikes me as a true believer, one who’ll govern based on her own religiously-biased attributes, eye-for-an-eye kind of thought process. Her handlers know she’s easily manipulated in this respect, just as Goodling was. (This almost looks like a Cheney move to me.)
– They are desperate, not only to change the subject, but to retain their base. McCain’s people were told nearly two weeks ago by Christian fundies here in Michigan that they would not vote for McCain unless Huckabee was the veep, or Huckabee had a major speech during the RNC convention. This was both a concession and a fuck-you at the same time, a desperate move to keep the religious base and retain control of the ticket.
– They don’t get the internet. AT ALL. We did more vetting in 2 hours preceding the announcement than the campaign team did in selecting Palin, or they’d not have picked someone with a growing tidal wave of issues.
Romney and Pawlenty must be furious, particularly since they don’t have a fraction of the issues Palin has; I can’t help but wonder if this is a head fake, that will eventually lead to Romney or Pawlenty getting on the ticket.
How so, you might ask? There’s a special needs baby and a deployed soldier in Iraq; either of these offer a potential exit. If, for example, the special needs baby was to need surgery (and it likely will, since heart conditions are common with Down’s, speaking from family experience), Palin might step aside. The monied base might offer a collective sigh of relief and even the religious base couldn’t complain any longer about one of the former potential candidates being selected to step up.
Lastly, it’s all about the desperation: the McCain team may genuinely believe they have not a chance in hell of winning, and they decided cynically to insert someone who will make the best case for domestic drilling over the next 60+ days, so that when this race is done they can still stand a chance making some money off this situation. They are desperate to cash in while they still can.
this is interesting and only time will tell. Are the Republicans trying to cover all of their bases?
Was wondering what Palin’s record was with the Native Alaskans. Not finding much
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…..12KR7Q.DTL
“Her husband, a native Yup’ik Eskimo, is a part-time oil worker on Alaska’s North Slope and a four-time winner of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race.”
Has anyone found anything about Palin’s stance on equal pay for women, day care on site, and maternity leave. We know she is pro fetus, pro-life is another issue
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/…..ms-alaska/
Could she really fill Dick Cheney’s shoes?
He’s 1/8 Yu’pik, according to what I’ve seen.
—
Also, word is that the youngest child really is hers, according to people in AK. (’Not showing’ is not a reliable guide; I’ve seen women who were 7 months along and not showing.)
Still seems fishy to me.
I didn’t show until 5 months with my first child, but with my second I showed at 3 months. Most of my friends had the same experience, and a number of us had children later rather than earlier. My aunt had 6 kids, remember her showing very early for later pregnancies.
The breast feeding with a Down’s baby may be different, mom may be pumping rather than actually nursing if the child doesn’t have strong suck reflex or is in the hospital for other Down’s related issues. But breast feeding puts on a LOT of extra tissue around the bust line whether pumping or nursing, as does late pregnancy. I’m just not seeing that reflected in any photos.
The whole situation is just plain weird.
Well, here’s a picture:
http://www.people.com/people/a….._2,00.html
Interesting that the oldest daughter has chosen an empire-waisted dress…
Then he has access to Native Claims money, to say nothing of employment preference.
Any ideas about Palin’s views on affirmative action…? Cause she AND her kids are beneficiaries.
Not by the time you are having the fifth kid
(This almost looks like a Cheney move to me.)
my bet is liz cheney will soon appear on scene in some to-be-determined role in gov. palin’s campaign, completing her campaign trifecta of thompson to mittens to palin.
We can only hope she brings her reverse-Midas touch, eh?
Interesting new ad from Obama in response to the Palin choice. Well done.
I hope the OBama campaign uses that image that HIllary shared at her Pepsi center speech. The Republican convention is in the twin cities because you can not tell the difference between McCain and Bush…THE TWINS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NLX-YwTWQk
John McCain and the GOP defender of feminist values.
Remember this great moment in the primary.
Voter: How do we beat the bitch?
John McCain: That’s a good question.
-G
The interview was with CNBC,s Larry Kudlow.
http://www.politico.com/news/s…..12969.html
Hope you can find it.
Alaskan Governor’s child may be her daughter’s?
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-69834
1. Bristol Palin left school for an extended period of time, due to mononucleosis according to her family for the last 4-5 months of Trig’s pregnancy. Some classmates claimed later that they had seen Bristol Palin pregnant.
2. Sarah Palin did not reveal to anyone outside her family that she was pregnant until 8 months into her pregnancy. Even then, she showed no signs of pregnancy. Alaskan news outlets commented on this, but did not go further. There are pictures of her at Super Tuesday (just a month before the baby was born).
Just to get this correct.
If that photograph was from Super Tuesday
and the Anchorage Daily News ran the picture stating it was,
http://www.adn.com/politics/story/339576.html
then it was from February 5, 2008.
The baby was born April 18, 2008 weighing 6 lbs 2 oz.
Two months, thirteen days later.
Joe Lieberman. So far crickets…
Apparently he will be on “Face the Nation”. But look at that lineup! I don’t see the questions I want to ask him coming from that crew.
Tee hee. I’m trying to start a rumor that Joe is so mad at being passed over for Veep that he will trash his script Monday when addressing the convention and endorse Obama. It would be great to get that rumor started well enough that they yank him from the schedule.
Shhhh…EW?
I know I wasn’t supposed to talk about it, but this deepest, darkest secret is gonna drive me crazy.
Those poor ol’ Repugs coming here to my lil’ ol’ St. Paul.
Coming home, so to speak.
The non-residents are staring at me EW. What is this deepest, darkest secret about St. Paul that is so desperate to come out?
Hint, hint: The Repugs are coming home!
I’m so sorry EW, I can’t help myself. I’ve got to tell them the truth.
Repugs, listen up! I know you think you are coming to St. Paul.
I know you expect a welcome as if you were a family member or long-lost friend coming home
But St. Paul wasn’t really the name we were born with.
Nope, twasn’t St. Paul at all!
The original name of the city that ya’ll are coming home to…it is really appropriate for you Repugs…that name is:
Pig’s Eye Landing
Sooie!!! Welcome Home!
ROTFL!
Sooiee ! Or should that be Sooooweeeet! Hey MadDog, now that you got all of them femnistas coming to town because of Cookie Palin, you better secure the women’s restrooms at the airport too. Ain’t like Jimmy Choo’s and Manolo Blahniks can’t tap too you know!
Gonna have to run to the store and get more popcorn.
This is gonna be fun! *g*
You’ve heard about the raids, then? Per my counterpart in Minneapolis this morning:
“There have been a series of raids last night and this morning on activists groups, mainly targeting the RNC Welcoming Committee (anarchist group) and Food Not Bombs. One warrant was searching for everything from incendiary devices to razor wire to “urine and feces.”"
Can you say “brownshirts”?
I hadn’t seen that yet. Brownshirts are right!
In case you non-Minnesota folks haven’t seen it yet, here’s how we’re welcoming the conventioneers to our fine state, with the help of Comedy Central.
Palin’s teen daughter is a child. She’s-a-bad-girl judgments should not distract from that fact. She’ll be researched, scrutinized, followed, and discussed with feeding-frenzy intensity. Her name will be repeated in public, as we see @ 58 above.
Family members of all new candidates for high office receive more attention than they received before the candidacy, but harmful attention to a child is tragic. I hope that all who report or comment on the Palin family, along with Sarah Palin, John McCain, and Republican Party delegates and leadership, will think of what the girl is experiencing and will experience.
That’s exactly why I don’t run for office, although I’ve been asked any number of times why I don’t. I respect my kids’ need for a normal childhood, and I won’t run for office if I ever choose to do so until my youngest is in college.
Not everybody feels that way; if they have a calling to serve, they will run whether their kids are exposed to scrutiny or no. But in doing so, the parent(s) make a conscious choice about their kids’ childhood.
Malia and Sasha Obama will be just as scrutinized as every other candidate’s/president’s/vice president’s child has been before them, like the Kennedys, the Johnsons, the Nixons, Amy Carter, Chelsea Clinton, the Bush twins.
Ditto for the Palins — they made that choice when they said yes.
And for a family that’s supposedly big on family values, they shouldn’t have anything to hide if they’ve consented to this scrutiny, yes?
I believe that laying off the children, which is harder to get everyone to do when any type of family notoriety develops, should not be done in greater or lesser degree due to opinions of a parent or parent.
The Palin family situation is going to be an especially tough one to treat, even for those who aspire to the highest ethics and who try to protect children as much as possible. A candidate’s truthfulness must be examined to the greatest reasonable and ethical extent, even in family matters. The issue of being able to campaign, and serve if elected, when one has an infant with pressing medical needs and a teen child in highly stressful circumstances must be addressed. Meanwhile, it would be irresponsible not to think of the potential effects of the publicity on non-adult members of the candidate’s family. Undertaking all the necessary examination and discussion while exercising discretion won’t be easy.
Edit: The first paragraph should end with “a parent or parents.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, and I agree in spirit with your comment. I really do.
But the term ‘childhood‘ is a relative term, and some claim a fairly ‘Western’ term that really took off in the Victorian era and soared in the consumer culture of the 1950s and 1960s.
Let’s hope that more scientific research into brain development will help people everywhere recognize that kids are fragile and need supportive, nurturing communities. Because biologically, childhood and adolescence extend into the very late teens and early 20s.
I am recalling a very bright, tough little girl that I encountered in a Native Alaskan village. After talking with her for awhile, I realized that the person she referred to as her ’sister’ was –biologically – her mother. The person she referred to as her ‘mother’ was — biologically — her grandmother. The person she referred to as her ’sister’ was a half-sibling; her ‘brother’ was a biological cousin.
If Palin’s husband is Yupik, the idea that her grandson is her ’son’ would not be all that surprising to me.
This is true not only in Alaskan villages, but other cultures as well.
FWIW, I have been often struck that Obama’s mother was an anthropologist. FWIW, I think that’s where much of his compassion, tolerance, humor, and commitment to mending social damage stems from – he’d have a deep grasp of the fact that all humans need supportive social structures if any of us are to be healthy.
As to the Palin child/grandchild… what matters is that Palin be honest.
I’m still insulted that the GOP would propose her as VP.
Totally with Rayne on this one: I think she was a punt to get the stunning Dem confab off the front pages of the news media, as well as a sign of GOP desparation. Anyone want to place bets on how soon she’ll be replaced? And by whom?
Silly me, I thought airport washrooms were the gop’s crack cocaine.
I’ve done a little homework. First, Biden is likely to have his hands full with Palin. She’s got little experience in governing, but real experience in fighting dirty and publically. Part of the reason for her selection is to try to counter Obama’s speaking skills, I think.
But this is good. It means that she’ll be able to give good enough in a debate or on the road that the “Bad men are picking on me” theme we’ve worried about won’t work.
And IMO we should lay off her family. If her daughter had a child, that’s irrevelent to the election. They may want us to go there, in fact. Try this on for size: She confesses on Fox that she DID try to cover for her daughters reputation that “adopting” the child was the proper pro-life thing to do. And that us DFH’s refused to let her keep her daughters life private. Then she asks why Chelsea got her privacy while her parents were in the WH, and her daughter is denied? Then she brings up Checkers…..
Boxturtle (Keep the election on the issues and we’ll win. Do not stray into tabloid trash….)
Here’s some more details on the raids:
http://www.minnesotaindependen…..rday-raids
http://www.minnesotaindependen…..ence-space
http://www.minnesotaindependen…..razor-wire
Latest from the kool-aid drinkers – “Well, she is the only one to have actually run a government.”
I’m sure they’re hearing that whitewash on daytime radio. Boy, you’ve really got to want to believe, don’t you?
Well, here’s part of the complete and utter bullshit behind that line of spin: the government of the State of Alaska is s-w-i-m-m-i-n-g in money. I was talking to someone a few months back who commented about a government division that they had ’so much money they can’t spend it all this year’ and I gather that it rests upon the fact that — like Russia, Iran, and the Saudi’s — the higher the price of oil, the more money flows into the coffers.
Shorter: Palin’s maybe been Gov for two years, but she’s never confronted the serious, wrenching decisions made by mayors in the Lower 48 who have foreclosed properties generating zero operating revenue, at the same time they have more people needing subsidized housing.
The Dems need to really, REALLY expose as a crock of filth the notion that Palin has had to make tough budget decisions since 2006. And that ought to be a story that Biden can have us laughing our asses off over.
If her daughter had a child and Sarah has lied to the world about it, it is not a reflection on Sarah’s daughter, it is a direct reflection on Sarah. This is NOT about her 16 year old daughter. It’s about an adult teaching her entire family to lie…and about lying to you and me, as a candidate for Vice President.
If she’s known to be a liar, that fact is central to her worthiness to run the country.
Since Palin claims to be breastfeeding Trig, there should be fairly reliable evidence to prove that over time.
absolutely, it’s about the lying.
which is altogether too consistent with her lying about troopergate.
it’s relevant. and so sad.
I don’t consider her lying to cover for her daughters any worse than Clinton lying to cover up his other women. If she does it under oath, that’s different.
I’m thinking that there are a lot of folks who would feel the same way and that hammering on that issue is a loser for us.
Boxturtle (Let’s hammer troopergate instead)
…It’s about an adult teaching her entire family to lie…
It’s also about the approach of fundies like Palin to teenage sexuality in general. They absolutely insist on keeping teenagers ignorant about sexuality, birth control, STDs, etc. etc., and then are usually the first to excoriate single mothers for their problems (unless, of course, the single mother is in their own family, in which case they go to great lengths to cover for them). It’s an approach that greatly damages teenagers in multiple ways, especially teenage girls. While I have the greatest sympathy for Palin’s daughter, if she is in fact the mother of the baby, I have none for Palin herself.
Others thoughts on Palin:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/27679049.html
In Alaska
“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”
Sen. Lyda Green, president of the state Senate and a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla
“Sarah Palin’s chief qualification for being elected governor was that she was not Frank Murkowski. She was not elected because she was a conservative. She was not elected because of her grasp of issues or because of her track record …”
Dermot Cole, a longtime columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Then he has access to Native Claims money, to say nothing of employment preference.
Any ideas about Palin’s views on affirmative action…? Cause she AND her kids are beneficiaries.
And this quote from der11 @84:
Sarah Palin’s chief qualification for being elected governor was that she was not Frank Murkowski.
Ding! Ding! DING! We have a winnah!
If someone hasn’t already said so, someone will: A delivering mother’s choosing to take a long trip by air after amniotic fluid has begun to leak and labor has begun calls into question her intentions toward the health of the child; that is especially so if the expectant mother has been apprised that prenatal testing has indicated that the fetus has Down’s syndrome or another significant physical condition.
Convincing evidence that Sarah Palin delivered as she states should not make her appear more upright and responsible than she would appear if the allegation of her falsely claiming to have delivered were to be proven—if she if fact flew back to Alaska from Texas in full knowledge that delivery had begun.
Where’s Dr. Kirk?
Edit, last sentence from the dash should be, “—if she in fact flew back to Alaska from Texas in full knowledge that delivery had begun.”
One approach to raising doubts about the baby parentage matter, might be to compose a Country-Western song about this kind of saga, a Ballad with a good narrative, and see whether we can use this here new fangled toobz media to push the song up the charts. It would have the added benefit of perhaps targeting the right audience.
Nuther subject…
Last night when I turned the Computer off, and mulled over things, it struck me that Putting Palin in the VP office might be a means to continue the Barnacle Office in the WH. What if, for instance, she just reappointed Addington and all of Cheney’s folks to continue in office while she nurses and studies up on American Government and Politics, 101. She could even appoint Cheney as Counsel and advisor — nothing to stop her, and McCain could then go off and inventory his houses, and everything would remain exactly the same. I wouldn’t put it past the mind of Rove.
I am serious about this thought — wondering if others see the possibility, and wonder how to approach letting lower information folk see the possibility, and comprehend what it would mean.
Appointing a week VP can be a means or bait for stopping impeachments. During Watergate it was a huge issue until Agnew’s bribery surfaced, he got dumped, and an acceptable and qualified Jerry Ford was in place. Cheney has more or less served this role for GWBush, and in a way, Quayle did for GHWBush. In contrast, Democrats select highly qualified VP’s — Carter picked Mondale, Clinton picked Gore, and Obama has picked Biden — and back when JFK picked LBJ. All these in terms of knowing their way around the Federal Government were as Qualified as the Presidential Nominee. Can we do something with this picture?
Sara, I think that is a very justified fear. They did not put her on the ticket for governing acumen; they put her there as a shiny object during the election heat and cut out in case they actually won. Your point is absolutely correct. Like the C&W idea too. Heh heh.
And that’s only one of the reasons I’m seething.
I do suspect, however, that if she’s anything like the people I know she’ll give her Handlers a run for their money.
But they’ll win in the end. They have more at stake.
Self-evidently, the GOP handlers’ choice of Palin is not about the presidency – competently executing the responsibilities of the office of the president. It is about running for office, about substituting Rovian practices for executive competence and for public choices, logically argued and politically persuasive and accountable.
Palin is not McCain’s choice. He met her once and doesn’t know her. Like Bush, he reads little, so he, too, is accepting what his “gut” (and his antacids) and his passle of pundits tells him. So who are they, this plethora of lobbyists working for “free”, and why should we let them run another White House?
NEW POST ALERT
Bush Re-Ups War, Obstructs Accountability As Nation Twitters Over Palin
Mr. McCain tells us he’s a Maverick. I assume that means he’s a cheap gambler running from the law, his women and his liquor, but hasn’t James Garner’s charisma, looks, or sense of humor, just brother Bart’s penchant for getting into trouble. But what does the choice of Palin say about who’s running his team and about actor John McCain who let’s them.
Would McCain do Bush one better, not by allowing his Veep to run his administration, but by allowing his and her handlers to do it, proving the old saw that the stage may be an actor’s medium, but television and films are all controlled by the Director?
Conveniently the McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter has been air-brushed from The Family.
How white.
-G
One of the exciting details about Palin is she is Pentecostal. One of the areas of cleavage between Pentecostals and the broader Evangelical movement has to do with the rejection of the dogma of women’s subservience strongly rooted in most of Fundamentalist Christianity. I welcome Palin’s appearance on the national stage, she will keep women’s issues on the front page. Perhaps as a consequence Evangelical Christians will look with questions upon their fundamental beliefs.
enough with the easy analysis
all you need to know about palin is summed up in one sentence
worse than eagleton
now try answerin a harder question
what’s goin on in the Big House ???
Utah 22 – Michigan 10 ???
Utah ???
btb, I think palin is gonna turn out to be a bigger trainwreck than we ever suspected, anybody still think 67 Senate seats is still all that crazy ???
freepatriot Michigan is not gonna be good this year no QB and they don’t know rod’s new offense at all.
emptywheel (specifically),
i realize you said you were on the road, and i realize the excitement of an event like the one you have just witnessed lingers on for some time.
that said, let me introduce you to another analyst who, like you, i have come to regard highly:
anglachel-basic instinct
this strikes me as very thoughtful and sound analysis.
for the progressive weblog world in general, a warning:
pride goeth before a fall, or something like that.
in the era of television, personality is more important than policy, not least because it is more immediately perceived and far easier for voters to “comprehend”.*
*see the ancient saga of gore and bush, circa 2000 a.d.
my gosh,
sister sara, glad to see you’re back among the living.
what a pleasure to read your thoughts here again.
perhaps you might care to comment on anglachel’s analysis, given your long involvement in (dem, farmer-labor, minnesota) politics.
Dept. of Schtick: Blake-Fish has just gotten started.
ok, this is just totally weird.
talking to my daughter about the palin baby rumor, and she googles it. the top listing sends her to a site with video, she clicks on the video, and her computer was COMPLETELY taken over by an avc invasion. ran through her entire C drive, and would not allow her to access the internet. she shut down and rebooted, but now the avc icon appears to be permanently situated in the bottom right corner of the screen, and when she tries to get on the internet, she is directed not to her homepage but to bingpage. com. everything is working much slower, it will not allow her to delete the icon, and she is unable to access her school account. she is pretty freaked out, wondering if her passwords are now exposed, etc. and why did this happen when she visited that on that website about palin??
now, she has a pc and i am a wise mac person, so i am of little help to her here. though i have seen that avc icon on some pc’s i’ve had the great misfortune to suffer in recent months, i have no clue what it all means. i see this thread is about dead, but if anyone out there has any clues on this, please share.
thanks.
EW’s point about the fight against the polar bears was excellent.
I am now reading the thread. Part of the brilliance of the announcement was that they selected somebody who was not well known, so the news consumers would want to know all about her and the broadcasters would feel they were doing a public service. ATC made sure to mention the polar bears after their profile of her. As my dad listened, he said, “This woman is a Republican.” So it may have backfired. On paper, this woman has very little appeal to independents.
Daily papers are wonderful because ideally you do get 24 hours to reflect on each story.
My one big thought on Palin?
Biden has to debate her as Cheney’s successor. More to the point, he has to debate Cheney, Cheney’s legacy, and the Cheney OVP.
That strikes me as a very good big thought.
lllphd — AVC is a trojan downloader, according to Secunia. It’s been around awhile so a more recent version of antivirus should tackle it.
Shut down the network at your house, assuming it’s the only one your daughter’s machine can access and she’s on WiFi (if she’s using ethernet, unplug her machine from the network). Use your machine to download a copy of AVG antivirus (the free version) from Download.com onto a thumb drive and then copy that to her machine. Run it, then try reattaching the machine to the internet and then running an online antivirus like Trend Micro Housecall.
Be prepared to work at this for a while. Good luck!
I’ve been visiting sites where religious people are commenting about this topic. What I am finding is that for some of them, it doesn’t seem to matter which is true. If Governor Palin faked a pregnancy to protect her daughter, they say it has been done routinely in the past and will be done routinely in the future.
They have made the point that this is a way to handle things when a child sins – and parents through the ages have children who choose to sin – and most importantly, it does not require the government to take care of anything. The parents take care of it. No embarrassment for the daughter, no shotgun wedding for the boy, and the child is raised in its birth family.
Many seem convinced that the evil KOS has made this smear up rather than looking at the Anchorage Daily News which supplied article after article expressing varying levels of surprise over the 7th (and what turned out to be the 8th) month pregnancy announcement and the 8 or up to 12 hour plane ride with leaking amniotic fluid, bypassing reputable hospitals with a NICU to get to a hospital/clinic near their small town without a NICU. (These last statements about the quality of healthcare bypassed in order to get to lesser quality healthcare without a neonatal intensive care unit are not ones I’ve personally followed up on, but I will.)
From a religious standpoint, it seems that Sarah Palin is being victimized no matter which way this turns out. The left is evil. The left is pathetic. The left has no shame. The left doesn’t understand the wisdom of working things out in the family. They would rather “suck the brains of a grandchild out, etc.”
I found this story in the Anchoage Daily News. In effect, the story found me when I went to a logical source to find out more about a complete unknown. It was their headlines, expressing the complete surprise of her own staff which I brought to your attention. Their headlines as of the moment include “Troopergate Inquiry Hangs Over Campaign” – “Palin Touts Stance on ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ Doesn’t Note Flip-Flop” – “Evangelicals Rave Over Choice of Palin for VP”.
http://www.adn.com/
Both papers of note in Alaska are questioning Sarah Palin’s fitness to govern the United States of America.
This mess was known by whomever vetted her. This was in the NYT of Alaska. Of course we would “find” it.
So I think it is wise to ask what the Republican party has to gain from thrusting this mess onto the US and world stage. Why would they do this?
I am obviously not Sara, but I think a more egregious example of personality over policy in the left blogosphere was Paul Hackett vs. Sherrod Brown. I remember an old post of Anglachel’s where she is talking about Obama’s “inability to discuss policy”. That is economic policy. I think we have a good idea where he is on foreign policy. On health care mandates people can legitimately disagree, and people who would prefer single-payer such as nyceve and eugene vociferously rejected them. Otherwise John Edwards himself was unable to say that Hillary’s policies were better, so the people who supported him based on policy can’t have been expected to. But there were few policy differences between the two candidates over which to make a choice. That Hillary was seen as the candidate of the Democratic establishment which has made too many compromises and is continuing to make them isn’t a personality issue. It is a longing for a pure figure who will come in and make everything all right.
I think I have said enough nasty things about Hillary supporters in enough places that I would not be welcome at Anglachel’s. Also, even when I was at a fancy university, I had one course in comparative politics and dropped it, and am now very sorry. Most courses in diversity in the United States are things that I would run from.
I may be the only one left here, but I want to record a point that Josh Marshall has made in Why Troopergate Matters. The firing of Monegan, the Commissioner of Public Safety has been widely published in the context of Palin’s alleged abuse of power.
In his article is this:
(In an interesting sidelight, that may end up telling us a lot, Monegan says no one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him in the vetting process.)
snip
To follow up the question I asked at #119, I’ll ask it about this situation. What does the Republican party have to gain from thrusting this mess – this time it’s the widely known Troopergate – on the US and world stage?
If TPM was writing about it on August 13th, those that vetted Palin certainly knew about it.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..firing.php
I thought a moment of Fred Thompson’s early cancelled candidacy finding in an Ethiopian article some aggregated images of the governor.