Remember that this is only your opinion, and not exactly supported by everyone. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many people have a misinformed view of Sarah Palin and her record, including you, since you so freely cast aspersions without presenting a shred of proof to back them up.

You have asked “why is anyone listening to this person” (Sarah Palin). The better question would be, why should anyone listen to you?

Since, Jesse Cornish has failed to answer the question put forth by the author I will attempt to do so. Why does anyone listen to Sarah Palin? I have several theories:

1) She speaks in loud, broad, flamboyant terms which appeal to a portion of the public raised on television

2) She is a socialist. One who admits herself that not using tax dollars to support individuals like her son Trig (even though she can afford it) is “evil.” —> “so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” Many people who support her on are some form of “socialist” assistance of some kind (disability, welfare, medicare, medicaid etc) and feel guilty about it. Palin gives them an “out.”

3) She is pro-abortion and feels guilty about it. In an attempt to cover her own guilt she attacks others on this issue. She contemplated “choice” at one time and even admitted as much. “There, just for a fleeting moment, I thought, I knew, ‘Nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know.’” Supporters of Palin have probably been in situations just as similar and feel guilty about it.

4) She speaks publically about being a “pit bull with lipstick” and then quits her job when it gets tough. Palin supporters (as many of us) have probably found ourselves in similar situations.

In summary therefore, why do people listen to her? Because people see themselves in Sarah Palin— an unhappy narcissist, rife with guilt over past actions and deeply flawed. Attacking her is attacking them. You only need to read Jesse Cornish fiercely defensive response to see that its probably true.

MB’s comments are naive and the article by Curtis is fruitless. SP is listened to mainly because the media covers her comments. Attempts to come up with some logical rationale about why people get covered by the media would be much more meaningful.

Sarah Palin is a direct product of our society’s growing facination with celebrity and the media. She is reality TV at it’s best as she undoubtedly has “star quality”. Her soap opera life and outlandish behavior creates its own kind of theatre that almost everybody, whether you love her or hate her, finds compelling. Much like a car accident, it’s hard to look away from the Sarah Palin show.

Sarah Palin is the most ignorant, narcissistic vicious political figure since Dick Chaney. “None are so blind as those who will not see.”

Why would YOU worry about being called a sexist? If I dare voice an opinion about our new commander in chief I get labeled a racist. If I voice opinion against the failed bailout, I’m called a bigot. And if I dare voice an opinion regarding OBAMA’s recession, HIS 9 trillion dollar deficit, and HIS Marxist/Socialist Big Government agenda, I am called un-American (which by the way is the most insulting). What happened to Hillary’s screaming at the top of her democratic lungs, that we have a right to debate and voice opposition? I could careless about Sarah Palin’s political view points, or where she decides to share them. If you are offended by the likes of Sarah Palin, then don’t read, listen, or pay any attention to her. The problem is, like most liberals, YOU are afraid of the ones that ARE reading her words, listening to her speak, and paying attention to her. Folks, we are in a battle for survival of this country’s financial future and our Constitution. I don’t care which side you on, but get informed, get involved and make a difference. But don’t come out with the kind of OPINION that is not supported by any facts. Lets get and keep it real.

@Slowhike
“MB’s comments are naive and the article by Curtis is fruitless. SP is listened to mainly because the media covers her comments. Attempts to come up with some logical rationale about why people get covered by the media would be much more meaningful.”

The media doesn’t cover MANY individuals like Palin and people still follow them—Why? Because as a species we gravitate towards others like ourselves. Palin is defended viciously because in all her guilt over her past choices, xenophobia and willing ignorance, she represents a large part of her base. It’s that simple. Why else would a welfare recipient vote for someone who constantly refers to that lifestyle as “socialism.”

Why does the media cover her? Because many people enjoy “spectacles” and she is one. If you didn’t know the answer to this- then I have to ask why YOU never questioned the publics fascination for Judge Judy,Jerry Springer and Reality shows. The “Palin Spectacle” is no different.

lol,, lol.. I just love how Sarah Palin has all you libs worked up. Keep up the good work Sarah!!! It’s working.

I’d have to agree with LW’s comment that “Sarah Palin is a direct product of our society’s growing facination with celebrity and the media.” We’ve been groomed for that for many years. At one time I worked in the adverstising industry, and believe me, it’s much easier to lead people to a particular conclusion than they would like to believe. Particularly uninformed people who prefer to stay that way.

As far as Thomas’ assertion that this is “OBAMA’s recession.” A recession takes years to create. It was the result of continuous greed, governmental neglect in enforcing SEC laws, and deliberate policies that pretty much gave a blank check to the financial industry. Saying it’s “OBAMA’s recession” is a little like blaming the obstetrician who delivers an illegitimate baby.

It should more accurately be called the “REPUBLICAN PARTY’s recession” since they had control of the country for the previous 8 years. Obama, and the American people, have inherited Bush/Cheney’s mess. When Clinton left office we had a surplus, not a deficit.

As far as Hillary’s “democratic” lungs. I know he was referring to the political party, but as written, it denounces democracy- which a very un-American attitude.

RE: “OPINION that is not supported by any facts.” I fail to see any facts presented in Thomas’ argument. So much for the pot calling the kettle black.

the article is spot on, it left off the dysfunctiality of her family. It left off her education of 5 colleges only to graduate from the 6th. the list just goes on and on. I am a republican and feel that mccain was willing at all costs to get elected and used Palin in that vain. I certainly want some one smarter than myself to run for office. Her personal life and political life have been a dismal failure

roflmfao, you libs need some new talking points. try picking some that have at least some truth behind them. if obama ever takes a sharp corner, you’ll have get your necks broken.
dennisintn

Sarah Palin is merely the latest in a long line of attempts by the Republican Party to appeal to the “everyman”. Since we’re talking about a party run by trust-fund elitists, they have absolutely no idea what the “average American” is like, and so they instead go with their perception of what “average” means; i.e. unengaged, uninformed, and just downright stupid.

The trend started with Spiro Agnew in ’68, who lost his credibility as the “everyman”, not for going to prison, but for using polysyllabic word to describe his personal dislike of the White House Press Corps (“nattering nabobs of negativity”). The trend continued with Dan Quayle, who is responsible for such wonderful quotes as, “I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made,” and, of course, famously tried to teach a room full of school children the incorrect spelling to the word “potato”. Many of us hoped that it had culminated with George W. Bush, who, while not a great thinker, at least tried to do the job, even going so far as to enrage Vice President Cheney by realizing in the second term which one of them was the Chief Executive.

Sarah Palin is the latest incarnation of this trend, and was a serious miscalculation on the part of the GOP; Curtis’ theory about why she was chosen is spot on, and is, indeed, exactly what I wrote to this very publication at the time she was chosen.

The problem is, of course, is that appealing to the lowest common denominator means that anyone ho disagrees with the Democratic Party doesn’t have the opportunity to engage us in reasoned debate, which we would welcome. Instead, the only option the GOP has left them with is psychotic, ill-informed, conspiracy-laden, and sometimes violent tirades with less basis in fact than any argument this country has seen in a very long time. The American people merely prove the axiom that if one gets treated like they are dumb for long enough, sooner or later, they have no other way to act.

Also, I think it’s hysterical that some of you think Brandon Curtis is a “liberal”.

As long as liberals like you keep writing and hating on her..I guess you answered your own question.

Stop writing and worrying about this “insignificant” woman if you can stop your own morbid fascination with her..remember the opposite of love is not hate..it’s indifference…you liberals are not indifferent to Palin so you obviously care about her in some way…that you can;t deny.

JC is totally on point. Palin is dangerous because she is so stupid, and only other stupid conservatives could possibly agree with her. It is difficult to hear an intelligent and well-though comment coming from her, but of course these birthers and creationists could care less. All they want to hear is that liberals are evil, and their guns remain at their sides.

Here’s a fantastic blog that tracks all things Palin related. Watching her in action during the primaries showed us how fragile our democracy is and how primed she is to drag her religious jihad to the gates of Armageddon. Scary stuff.

http://nailinpalinnow.blogspot.com/2009/07/sarah-palin-detox-post_29.html

There is more evidence that Obama is a communist/fascist/marxist…than Palin a sociopath.
So I claim the former is true…based on your level of evidence required to reach conclusions.

Unless you;re a far left loon..you can;t possibly believe Obama/Reid/Pelosi government can be good for our country…This is not your “father’s” democratic leaders..these are far left leaders that in NO WAY are representative of most Americas (right of center) positions on issues. Healthcare is just the straw that will break the camel;s back if they insist on ramming that through Congress on a democratic only vote.
These three far left zealots are the real danger to our country..not Palin

If Obama and Congress were interested in fixing what;s wrong with our HC system..they would approach it in a more targeted and limited approach to the problems that perhaps less than 5% of the popululation have in obtaining quality HC. IT would be far less expensive and very politically feasible to pass a bill of $30Billion to cover the 15MM americas that are chronically uninsured because of affordability issues (rather than just chosing not to buy or being in this country illegally)..why overhaul a system that 85% of Americas are happy with ..to fix limited problems? Unless your goal is just power accumulation to the federal government and HC is the perfect excuse…what did Rahm say..never waste a good crsis..or if there isn;t one..make up your own.

True the words “death panels” don;t appear explicitly in the bill..but if any of you read Palin;s supporting arguments..you saw she reference actual pages and sections of the bill to reach her conclusions (ie, she used facts unlike some of you who criticize her)..having a governemnt run medical board that can decide what treatments will be given to what patients based on age, condition, etc…is what this bill proposes…its in the bill..read it! I can see how the need to cut costs and maintain our human dignity in our dying or old age.. can certainly be a conflict of interest in this type of scenario…If you think the government beuracrats will act in your best interest when your sick or dying..think again..their primary directive will be cost containment in a governemnt run system..not quality nor individual choice/welfare.

Interesting, 19 comments. Perhaps some people are just scared at the thought she very well could be our next President. And i have to say being a Governor certainly makes one more qualified for the position than a Senator.

The answer is easy… Sarah Palin is Octa-mom and Micheal Jackson all rolled into one. Where else can you get so much “spectacle” bang for the buck?

She’s a shiny trinket being used by the RNC to put out stuff that no one who valued their credibility would dare publish. Once it’s out there, they can talk about what “she” wrote and play it up to the hilt.

My guess is that Fox News has an intern writing her Facebook page and it is a tribute to how you can justify just about anyting if you don’t value Journalism (or even academic) credibility. The BIG QUESTION will be if she ever speaks in public again (without a pre-written speach)… that will be when the REAL Palin is evident.

Like her or not Mrs. Palin has brought up at least two real issues in the Health Care discussion that no one else did.

1) Will some Government Official get to determine who get’s health care and who doesn’t?

2) Why isn’t Tort Reform a part of the discussion since frivilous law suits have driven up the price of health quite significantly and could be stopped with serious legislation.

Mrs. Palin is constantly called stupid by her opponents. She has proven to me that she is not at stupid and I appreciate her stirring the pot on this issue.

“True the words “death panels” don;t appear explicitly in the bill..but if any of you read Palin;s supporting arguments..”

I have—> On April 16th 2008, then Gov. Sarah Palin ENDORSED some of the same end of life counseling she now decries as a form of euthanasia. In a proclamation announcing “Healthcare Decisions Day,” Palin urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed options…

http://gov.state.ak.us/archive.php?id=1094&type=6of such

Now explain to me again how the author is wrong?

These statements about “if you don’t like it don’t listen” and “we all are entitled to a voice” are completely correct. They’re also completely off-base. The terms of this health care bill relating to the claim of Death Panels had to do with the ability of the elderly to be compensated for the coordination and planning of their health care at the end of their lives. For those of you who don’t realize it, the human mortality rate is 100% over time. We are all going to die, and this provision allowed those people logically the closest to death to be able to have a conversation with their doctor about it in order to make their wishes known.

It’s been clearly and soundly proven that those people who are able to afford such measures as this have an invariably improved level of overall health than those who do not. Why in the name of God would anyone then oppose that? Well it can only be one of two things, either she is too stupid to understand the provision and its intended result, or else she is simply so selfish and driven that she is willing to sacrifice the health and well being of our nation’s elderly in order to drive forward a patently untrue claim to advance her personal agenda.

Either way, that’s pretty sad and the real ‘victims’ are the elderly.

Oh and by the way… I have voted in each and every election at the local, state and federal level since I have been of age to do so. I have, fairly consistently, voted Republican because overall I believe in smaller government, fewer laws and a morally based system. Every President that I have voted for has been Republican… Until this election. I could not, in good conscience, vote for someone so clearly unintelligent, unqualified and incompetent as Sarah Palin. The fact is, if I have a more complete understanding of issues, with the minute amount of time I have available to dedicate to the understanding of such things, than she does; and that’s her JOB; then there is quite simply something fundamentally wrong with her.

If McCain had picked anyone else, he would have had my vote. I have a feeling that was probably the case for a lot of Republicans.

The people not the politicians run our life decisions. Just like there is usually a good woman behind every good man. As the saying goes- I am glad to have public voices like Sarah. I would rather 100 Palins speak up then 1 politician. I would rather the politician vote in light of the public not despite it.

I admit I find the thought of Palin as president (or VP) to be very scary. To place this arrogant, stubborn woman in charge of this great nation would be the absolute worst thing Americans could do. I prefer someone who knows and understands the constitution, who can speak clearly and comprehensibly, and who has not just knowledge of foreign policy (and foreign history and foreign geography) but who has demonstrated she/he has the wisdom to deal with crises should they arise or be handed over upon inauguration. Sarah Palin has none of those qualities. She has shown she can twist facts, omit truths, and outright lie or make things up, can incite the opposition with some emotionally charged words, and that she is capable of abusing her powers. Those may be qualities of many politicians we know, but they aren’t the qualities that we need. This author called it like it is – she’s an overgrown teenager: sullen, willful, cheerful if it suits her, and far too worried what the other kids think of her.

..being a Governor certainly makes one more qualified for the position than a Senator..

Uh yeah unless you just FN quit because it’s too hard! FAIL

Brandon Curtis has followed the formula: Begin with an ad-hominem disparagement, include some truth, muddle with half truth or less, be disingenuous, then close with an ad-hominem. Lets examine…
[Sarah Palin is] “ an overgrown teenage girl”…[who] “has the power to disrupt any rational discourse.” Brandon, if we trust teenage girls to choose an abortion why can’t they have a rational opinion about health care? Of course Palin is not a teen but an adult, a university graduate who has been elected to public offices’ including the governor’s office. She has adult experiences as an elected official, a mom with special challenges and an education that definitely give her great credibility.
Not true: “her attempt to fire the Wasilla town librarian,” nor was she responsible for a hospital billing patients for rape kits. It is true, “She dropped a dime on the state GOP chairman” a politician misusing his office. (Would NM be a better place if Democratic Party office holders did that before Richardson and his clique caused such harm to the state?)
Untrue the reason she resigned when you claimed, “…the ethics law that would later be the basis of her resignation.” The unfounded attacks on her, her family and the people of Alaska is the reason for her resignation. Not one complaint of a Democratic Party operative was found to be true, but they cost Palin and the taxpayers of Alaska millions of dollars to investigate and defend. That party hack didn’t pay a penny for the false statements, but cost Palin’s family hundred’s of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Brandon, where is your outrage of this abuse? What have you done that is different than that hack?
You then offer, “However, Palin turned out to be either a sociopath or a psychopath.” When did you perform a psych exam on her? What proof do you have to support your statement that she is mentally ill? What is your professional training that supports your diagnosis?
You go on with this untruth, [she] “put forth a campaign of lies and distortions such as Obama’s supposed ties to William Ayers, a radical anti-war activist in the Weather Underground.” Ayers hosted the fund raiser in his house that launched Obama’s campaign for state office. They dined together, worked in a left wing organization with Obama being hand picked by Ayers to be the Executive Director at a $60K salary and much more. This is public record and written about in the Chicago press. Did you not know the truth or is that statement to support your statement that she is crazy?
“Death Panels… claim has been disproven” is not true. Such panels do not exist in name BUT in principle. Read the 52 page Veterans Administration booklet, especially P20-27, to see how the govt frames the discussion of continued health care for disabled vets—men 20-40 years of age. Oregon’s assisted suicide law pays 100% of the cost of death drugs and the MD’s time to administer them, but they refuse cancer treatment that may help beat the disease or prolong life. Their letters of denial of treatment refer people to hospice care, discuss pain meds and how MD’s can help with the end of life decision. “Death Panel” no, just a bureaucratic directing people to the death meds. Don’t believe me? Just Google!
Brandon. After you Google, maybe you can write a retraction or explain how you concluded Palin is ill and how so many errors have found their way into your letter.

Since you have had the courtesy to respond to me, MB, I shall in turn do the same to you.

““1) She speaks in loud, broad, flamboyant terms which appeal to a portion of the public raised on television”“

Everyone speaks with polemics. Certain politicians and public figures are better at concealing their own views through soothing rhetoric.

“” 2) She is a socialist. One who admits herself that not using tax dollars to support individuals like her son Trig (even though she can afford it) is “evil.” —> “so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.” Many people who support her on are some form of “socialist” assistance of some kind (disability, welfare, medicare, medicaid etc) and feel guilty about it. Palin gives them an “out.” “”

No, what Sarah Palin said is that nationalized health care that would ration medical service to people like her son would be evil, and as such, she would oppose any government “reform” that would threaten our privately run medical system. How is promoting free enterprise socialist?

“” 3) She is pro-abortion and feels guilty about it. In an attempt to cover her own guilt she attacks others on this issue. She contemplated “choice” at one time and even admitted as much. “There, just for a fleeting moment, I thought, I knew, ‘Nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know.’” Supporters of Palin have probably been in situations just as similar and feel guilty about it. “”

No thinking woman could possibly deny that a fleeting thought of having an abortion has never entered her mind. However, her actions speak far louder than a single random thought. Most babies afflicted with Down syndrome are aborted. It is estimated to be around 90%. Sarah Palin is the exception. She lives out her principles through her actions.

““4) She speaks publically about being a “pit bull with lipstick” and then quits her job when it gets tough. Palin supporters (as many of us) have probably found ourselves in similar situations.”“

She resigned because she thought it was the best for the state of Alaska. What makes it even more amazing is the fact is that she actually gave up power, something so rarely done by our leaders unless afflicted by a great scandal. Sarah Palin suffers from no such scandal. She acted out of principle.

““In summary therefore, why do people listen to her? Because people see themselves in Sarah Palin— an unhappy narcissist, rife with guilt over past actions and deeply flawed. Attacking her is attacking them. You only need to read Jesse Cornish fiercely defensive response to see that its probably true.”“

The reason people listen to Sarah Palin is the reason people listen to anyone else-I attempted to get people to think about this with my original counter question-the reason being that she presents an opinion that a sizable audience wants to have knowledge of. Now while many people have opinions, only a few have such a large mass of people willing to hear it. Sarah Palin is among those people, for better or worse, but I think for the better.

On a sidenote, how do you know Sarah Palin is unhappy narcissist? How can you possibly make this assertion?

I am not sure what Phillip Howell is refering to in the Veteran Administration booklet. Here is the url for the pdf file

http://www1.va.gov/opa/vadocs/fedben.pdf

Where are the “death panels” here “in principle” ?
And while this was printed for 2009, when where these rules put in place ? Could it have been under a Republican administration ?

by MB
“True the words “death panels” don;t appear explicitly in the bill..but if any of you read Palin;s supporting arguments..”

I have—> On April 16th 2008, then Gov. Sarah Palin ENDORSED some of the same end of life counseling she now decries as a form of euthanasia. In a proclamation announcing “Healthcare Decisions Day,” Palin urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed options…

http://gov.state.ak.us/archive.php?id=1094&type=6of such

Now explain to me again how the author is wrong?

Answer: Surely you don;t equate this type of public service announcement to urge citizens to consider alternatives (NOT INCENT Drs to push them in one direction or another)..the same as what is in the HC bill that Congress drafted? The HC Bill Institutionalizes advance directives advice sessions (they are not purely voluntary when your Dr. is given a monetary incentive to initiate discussions and… unless you believe in the tooth fairy..eventually given incentives to curtail costs as much as possible in giving you that advice). You cant equate a public service announcement or program to actual legislation that can create conflicts of interests between patients and Drs..dangerous indeed. I would think that Drs would see this danger and oppose this type of legislation…in fact..why do Drs require incentives (payment from the government) to have end of life and advance directives discussions with patients??…shouldn;t this be something that is left up to the Dr and patient to decide and manage and the Dr to provide within his normal practice..why does this require special govn;t incentives to occur..or perhaps because govnt; would like to influence these discussions in some way..thats the only reason for putting this in a piece of legislation.

Palin has got you liberals frustrated! Completely under the skin! I love it!

Show the Birth Certificate!

Ha! If you think Palin is such a know-nothing then why do you go on and on about her?

Fact is, she’s a lot smarter and far more powerful in molding public opinion than you are. Worse for you, she is right – and many agree with her definition of ‘death panels’ as outlined in the legislation.

I find great humor in the stupidity of so many of the posters here.Go to sleep with your hatred for Palin or whoever. I’ve always known that there are a large number of idiots in this country, and you guys just prove me right.

The West Coast Babies are in a frightful angst over SP. Maybe some lingering “my mommy spanked me” emotions floating to the surface.

why does anyone listen to Sarah Palin? Then you go to a screed as to what you think of her, yadda, yadda, ya.

Let me put it into a quote from Jackie Robinson: “nobody boos a nobody”

And Sarah Palin is not a nobody, she tweets, Obama retreats, nuff said.

Wow, I can’t believe the fear she brings out in people. She’s not going anywhere pal, so get used to it.

Ahem…

“This (“Death Panels”) claim has been disproven, yet it proved potent enough for Congress to remove the provision that sparked the false claim in the first place…”

Hey, Brandon… the comments that Palin made were based on her reading of the House of Representatives’ health care reform bill. The provision that was “removed” in response to her comments was in the Senate bill, which still hasn’t been made public.

Our federal legislators are playing a shell game right under your nose and you don’t notice it.

As a Canadian, I have to tell you I love Sarah Palin for a number of reasons. One of them is the way she makes left wing moon bats start spewing invective like a loose fire hose. If she is either a “sociopath or a psychopath” and is so “ill-informed” how is it that people such as this chap pay such attention to her?

SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY, OBAMA IS NOT IT – VOTE PALIN FOR PRESIDENT

Leftists are showing their true colors more and more, the American people are nearly in revolt over the Marxist President.

The Left has nearly destroyed Europe with their self-loathing, Islamic immigration, and bankrupting socialism.

We are not going to let you do it to us here.

Ron and Ron – Thanks for the excellent comments. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a misinformed view of Palin as shaped by the liberal media.

Governor Palin has 17 years of public service experience. She made it with no help from anyone, didn’t ask for anything, and did all of this while raising a beautiful family. Re-reading the original post, you can just taste the fear people have. Palin is truly a threat to the establishment.

Phillip Howell,

A psychopath is a term generally used to refer to criminal
personalities that have discrimination deficiency; in English,
inability or difficulty telling apart real from perceived.
Think Norman Bates.

A sociopath is a person who can discriminate right from wrong,
real from fantasy yet is void of remorse, conscience and
emapthy; can only feel their own suffering. Think Ted Bundy.

When Palin alleged Obama palled with a terrorist, the article
she used as her basis actually was DEBUNKING that claim.

Furthermore, this claim was debunked by the non-partisan
FactCheck. Read:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/he_lied_about_bill_ayers.html

The claim about Wasilla charging victims for rape kits has
been well documented. While Palin may not have had direct
knowledge of this practice, her appointed chief was
an ardent supporter of this policy. It also shows that
these things were taking place in her shop without her
knowing. Wasilla is a town of 7,000 to 9,000. She would not
be totally insulated by red tape and bureacracies like
mayors of cities such as Dallas, Los Angeles or Chicago; cities
with MILLIONS of people!

Link:http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/21/palin.rape.exams/

Link:http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm

It was proven the Death Panel claims were false. Yet, people
like Howell (who forged that guy’s transcripts?) keep
parroting it like it is holy gospel.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/health/policy/14panel.html

Link: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/palin-vs-obama-death-panels/

Lastly, because I have to address so much in one posting, here
are Palin’s poll numbers as of the end of July:

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll show 67% of Americans do not want her as President. How does she become the President when 2/3 of Americans Just Say No?

The polling data shows 43 percent of Republicans say the same; 65% of independents (who decide elections btw) and 44% of polled voters who voted for McCain in 2008.

A GWU Battleground Poll shows her favorable numbers at 42%; unfavorable at 47%.

An ABC/Washington Post poll places her numbers at 53% unfavorable, 40% favorable. Within that same poll,51% of independents have an unfavorable view of her.

Additionally, I pointed out that 2/3 of voters 18-30 supported Obama in 2008 and that Obama polled 52% to 44% among independent or non-affilated voters.

It is the independents and moderates that elect Presidents.
Partisans vote the colors or the party 99% of time;
independents do not possess such a gang mentality. Palin
cannot win the independents or swing voters.
Her core support is narrowed to the South and the
rural Midwest/West-Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and the Plains and Mountain West state (Utah, Arizona, Idaho); she does not poll well among minorities, women, young voters or in industrial Midwest states-Ohio, Michigan, Illinois. She did insult people who live in cities/urban/suburban areas when she called small towns the Real America and the Pro America parts of the country.

Tell me again how this dipstick with lipstick will be President.

“Brandon” can kiss my white, male ass.

Sarah may have her faults, but she’s preferable to many of the anti-American communist that Obamba is appointing. His pattern of placing Minority Cronies and has-been societal disrupters into make-belive producive positions is appauling. Out with Obama and his futile attempt to re-distribute wealth and revise American culture. Obama has failed in his mission and has dared to awaken the wrath of America.

It never ceases to amaze me how the liberal world picks and chooses its arguments. Sarah Palin is “not” qualified to be in politics, yet she is MORE qualified then our current Commander in Chief. This is Bush’s recession, even though the promise of 8% cap on unemployment was B.O.’s, IF we pass the “Stimulus Plan”. Un-employment is now rapidly approaching 10%. So if we call this Bush’s recession, B.O. has really made it worse. Why are words like Freedom, Liberty, and Independence NEVER used by Liberals? But words like Security, Community, and Sacrifice are the mainstay of the fear mongering left. They will tell you what is wrong and to be afraid of it. Then tell who to blame for it. I love this country, and I love being able to openly voice an opposing view point. But if the left get their way, streams like these will be sent to Washington and those with a differing opinion will be put on THE list, and investigated for “Un-American activity”. Radio stations that dare to speak out about the government will be taxed out of operation. So go ahead and talk about your STAR fixation; the press is still getting chills running up and down there leg from B.O. The main stream press, wanting to be hip and with it, is setting up the biggest Presidential failure in history. They continue to ignore the growing deficit and never ask a simple question like “How are you going to pay for all of this?” As a citizen it is expected of me to live within my means and pay my bills. Is it really an unreasonable request that our government do the same? Republican and/or Democrat they all have mud, blood, and dirty money on their hands. All I want from a government is to continue to “hold these truths to be self-evident…”

I love Sarah Palin and this may come as a surprise, as I’m a tenured professor at a Big 10 university. I find her to be thoughtful, refreshing, and representative of the beliefs of a large segment of American society. She almost single handedly shot down Obamacare and of course, therefore, the left despises her and will use any ad hominum attack to try to bring her down.

Go Sarah!!! She is the best thing that ever happened to the DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Sarah Palin is honest, smart, attractive, down to earth, and when she speaks about government, she talks plain talk. Maybe some of you believe that unless someone uses high-brow terms, and talks like some down home preacher, and promises you a bunch of someone else’s money they aren’t very smart?, or they aren’t “in tune” with the issues? Funny, these are the same things people said about Ronald Reagan.
During the last campaign Sarah Palin got up and said what she believed, and you know what, those were the same things I believe. She tried to tell us what would happen if we elected a first term senator, who comes from dirty Chicago politics and preaches one thing to the congregation, and does something entirely different after he’s in offie. She tried to warn us that our freedoms were going to be cut back, our choices were going to get very limited, that while he preached we weren’t getting higher taxes but tax refunds, we were getting lied to.
She tried to tell us that the money he was promising to the people wasn’t coming to those of us who work for a living, but FROM us. She finally walked away from the governor’s office because of frivolous lawsuits and slander against her, her family and the office. Slander and false lawsuits that have never once proven true, and yet have cost her family hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the state of Alaska millions. So, if she wants to keep on trying to warn the rest of us, and she keeps looking into the lies and thugs of the current administration and congress, I’ll pay attention. I don’t think she’s lied to me or tried to co-opt any of my rights so far.

I find it interesting that all these statists are trying to convince us that Palin is a failed has-been and that she is of no real consequence to the future of politics.

If this were true, why then do so many left-leaning media outlets, nutcase bloggers, and talking heads continue to bring her up? If Palin is such small potatoes, shouldn’t anything she has to say be met with indifference?

The truth of the matter is that the statists on the Hill and their legions of drones are starting to realize that they no longer hold the public’s trust and that their feeble lies and stories aren’t working anymore. Americans are starting to ask the Bamster tough questions and he’s tripping. Palin is bringing attention to those little things dems don’t want people knowing about.

Let me ask Brandon a question: If there were no “death panels” in the bill, why did the democrats take it out? That is the most amazing magic trick I’ve ever seen. “Ladies and Gentlemen, here we haver NOTHING! And with a wave of my wand…its GONE!”

I will leave you with this bit of common sense. People do not get worked up over something inconsequential to them. If the agents of statism didn’t think Palin to be a credible threat, they would let her continue to make a fool of herself.

However, common sense would require one to have sense to begin with.

Palin is a PYSHCO!!! She needs to be committed and have some duct tape placed over that annoying, evil voice.

No more lies, Palin. You lost – get over it and SHUT UP!

“As Alaska governor, she signed a proclamation making April 16, 2008, Healthcare Decision Day to promote a statewide effort to provide medical patients with clear, consistent information about advance directives.”

Source:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2009659458_healthcare14.html

If I could, I would go Les Grossman on The Ghost and other
Palinistas (Google or YouTube it) but I am afraid
the Lobo’s TOS would not allow me to.

The provision in question was removed by the Senate Finance
Committee in their variation and edit of the bill; open
to reinstatement once a bill goes into the House/Senate
conference committees for a final bill.

The provision was removed because the Democrats felt that the
issue was becoming such a distraction from the core
mission and that unfortunately, misnformation spreads
like wildfire by dummies talking to other dummies; Rod
Stewart had to have his stomach or digestive tracts pumped
because he had too much of Elton John’s white matter in there.
Recall that false rumor? And that was way before the Internet.
That is how distractions and smears get started.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health-end-of-life14-2009aug14,0,4670272.story

The issue is, how and why did this issue get seized by
a woman who WILLINGLY gave up her own office with 17 months
left in her FIRST term? She was not under threat of
impeachment or investigation. Bill Clinton, while he may
have had his flaws, was under far more stress than Palin
could have a scary dream about and he did not give up.
His wife was attacked constantly and his daughter was
called the White House dog by Limbaugh; never heard
hysterics or threats of boycotts. Palin wanted to
start a war over a bad joke. How would she deal with
Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinefraud?

Ronald Reagan was a good president for the time and place he
was. However, the world in which he was president was bipolar, the Soviet Union and U.S. China had not emerged
as a player; only Japan, Germany, U.S and European
countries were major economic players and there was still
a certain level of barriers.

Also, Reagan did not believe in spreading democracy a la
Bush. He knew that the U.S supported unsavory characters
to promote and preserve the balance of power/balance of threat.
Saddam Hussein was one of Reagan’s key chess board pieces
in this equation, as were the Mujihaddin and the Salvdoran
death squads.

Economically, while there was a certain level of success from
1983 to 1990, this was masked by stagnation of wages,
savings and the S&L crisis.

Many of Reagan’s supply side economics advisors were not
economists:http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/23More.htm.

Many were journalists or congressional staffers.

Much of the growth in that period related to investment and
finance sectors and not manufacturing sectors. Also,
much of growth in 1980s was related to defense spending,
which naturally cycles to contractors like Honeywell, ARA,
and at the time, BDM.

Also factor real wages declined and there was also a decline
in personal savings; 7.9% in 1980; 4.4 in 1988:http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/6Economy.htm

The world today is multi-polar and will not be a dick
swinging contest between two studs. It won’t be about
missiles but mobility, intelligence and cooperation with
allies. In the 1980s, there were only a handful of
economic powers. Today, China has emerged as a power
and America’s numero uno creditor. India is growing
as well and CAFTA and NAFTA have allowed for businesses
to set up in Latin America and boost their job base with far
lower wage costs.

Sarah Palin simply is too simple to grasp all of these
issues. She is still thinking in a Cold War paradigm of
us and them. Well, in that time, we knew who “they” were. Today
is a mosaic of groups, states, non-state actors and
more double dealing and double crossing than all 7 seasons
of THE SOPRANOS. If she cannot even articulate intelligently
about her own running mate and what papers she reads, how
is she going to handle the cesspool called Earth?

Brandon I am sure YOU are much smarter that Sara Palin. You should maybe run for office. Talk about simple…Obama is doing a fine job of protecting his radical islam supporters by trying to prosecute CIA personnel that are trying to protect us from their attacks. Then sending $200 million in July to Hamas-Hezbola so they can build more bombs to kill our families.
You liberals fear Sara Parlin because she is a decent, real human being that believes in God and moral values and does not hide behind a smoke screen of double talk.

Howell claims my point about Palin firing the town librarian was false.

Well, here is a source:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008163431_palin070.html

“After notifying the librarian that she was fired, Palin backtracked and decided to keep her on. Palin had twice asked this librarian what she thought about banning books, to which the librarian responded it was a lousy idea, one she wouldn’t go along with. Later, Palin told the local paper that any questions she’d raised about censorship were only “rhetorical.” “

From the Anchorage Daily News, Palin’s own state/local paper:

http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/515512.html

WASILLA — Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so.

According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and had to go.

Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.

Source: Anchorage Daily News: Sept 4, 2008

Republicans used to compose of men of intelligence and
curiosity; stature and leadership: Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, Margaret Chase Smith,
and even Richard Nixon (who, btw, believed in some form
of expanding health care; supported affirmative action
in govt contracts and the Negative Income Tax).

Today’s Republicans are copmosed of self-important blowhards
who deal in soundbites, try to appeal to their
stereotype of Joe Sixpack-ill informed, consumed
with guns, racism, sexism and homophobia and anti-abortion.
The real average Americans are those that work in Ohio,
Michigan and Pennsylvania who are usually part of a union
or trade organization and worry about feeding their
families and college for their kids. The ones Palin
appeals to are similar demographically and economically
to the people who support or are part of the Taliban
insurgency: Impoverished areas which are not highly
industrialized or commercialized; low education and
tend to be close knit, almost tribal or clannish and
very religious; couch many issues in a good/bad, us/them
framework, similar to jihadis and radicals in Pakistan
and Afghanistan.

Obama is a communist..marxist…I would vote for a right of center democrat if I thought that the person loved this country and had our constitution as his guiding document/bible…Obama just wants to change (aka desroy) the US as we know it to fit his own view…Lenin/Marxist view.

Ask yourselves this, libs.
Was there ever a president that got a vote of confidence from Fidel Castro (communist dictator)…what do they say..birds of a feather..

Brandon, a decorated Marine expressed it well when he said to his congressman, ‘if Nancy Pelosi wants to see the nazi symbol all she needs to do is look at the sleeve of her blouse.’ You, using different words, like Pelosi, have described 35% of the population- republicans- as “…-ill informed, consumed with guns, racism, sexism and homophobia and anti-abortion.” and “The ones Palin appeals to are similar demographically and economically to the people who support or are part of the Taliban insurgency: Impoverished areas which are not highly industrialized or commercialized; low education and tend to be close knit, almost tribal or clannish and very religious; couch many issues in a good/bad, us/them framework, similar to jihadis and radicals in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Did you get your facts to support this bizarre attack from Pelosi or was it from Howard Dean the former DNC or is this your own view of those with who you disagree?

You liken praying Catholics, pro-life people, those who understand the 2nd Amendment to the “Taliban insurgency.” The Republican Party can explain it’s membership. But those I know, like most democrats come from every walk of life, are average people with varying levels of education. Republicans as a group have less poverty– notice that low income areas (poorer educated populations) vote democrat? May we conclude “homophobia,” means voting for traditional marriage, is exclusive to “low education” republicans- your claim? If so how do you explain California voting against gay marriage with a significant number of Blacks (97% vote D) and Latinos voting NO on gay marriage? 53% of Americans oppose abortion. Are they “jihadis and radicals?”

In response to my question “When did you perform a psych exam on her? What proof do you have to support your statement that she is mentally ill? What is your professional training that supports your diagnosis” that support your statement, “However, Palin turned out to be either a sociopath or a psychopath.” You inject Norman Bates (a fictional character) and Ted Bundy with no explanation of their link to Palin nor any proof of your education or training to offer such an educated opinion. Some may say you are guilty of character assassination Brandon.

Death Panels…. Key advisor to the president Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, said this in The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9661, Pages 423 – 431, 31 January 2009: “We evaluate three systems: the United Network for Organ Sharing points systems, quality-adjusted life-years, and disability-adjusted life-years. We recommend an alternative system—the complete lives system—which prioritises younger people who have not yet lived a complete life, and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles.”Like comments have been published in JAMA and made in other venues. He is not alone in expressing this belief, that treatment will be withheld if a panel says so. The VA publication was used briefly during the Bush administration until President Bush ordered it withdrawn. Shortly after becoming president, Obama allowed/directed that it is to be given to VA patients. Oregon has (death) panels that review patient needs and do recommend only providing ‘hospice’ care. If not ‘death panels’ in principle, what are they when they can withhold treatment?

I acknowledge your facts RE: the Wasilla librarian. As you noted, she kept her job.

The first questions should be IF our health care system is in trouble, when did this happen, what parts are broke? The examination then looks at what events occurred that precipitated the problem. Then you can fix or undo what is wrong. If your car overheats, you find the cause… a bad pump, fan, thermostat, etc. and fix it. You do not throw away the car. Health care is the same. We Libertarians will also ask where does the Constitution allow the government to provide health care to anyone except gov employees and American Indians as provided in treaties ratified by the Senate?

“All they want to hear is that liberals are evil, and their guns remain at their sides.” And all liberals want to hear is that conservatives are stupid and the government will take care of them. Aren’t stereotypes and ad hominem attacks fun?

Howell,

GFY! Look it up, f-face!

From the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan outfit:

New Mexico $2.03
Mississippi $2.02
Alaska $1.84
Louisiana $1.78
West Virginia $1.76
North Dakota $1.68
Alabama $1.66
South Dakota $1.53
Kentucky $1.51
Virginia $1.51
Montana $1.47
Hawaii $1.44
Maine $1.41
Arkansas $1.41
Oklahoma $1.36
South Carolina $1.35
Missouri $1.32
Maryland $1.30
Tennessee $1.27
Idaho $1.21
Arizona $1.19
Kansas $1.12
Wyoming $1.11
Iowa $1.10
Nebraska $1.10
Vermont $1.08
North Carolina $1.08
Pennsylvania $1.07
Utah $1.07 29
Indiana $1.05
Ohio $1.05
Georgia $1.01
Rhode Island $1.00
Florida $0.97
Texas $0.94
Oregon $0.93
Michigan $0.92
Washington $0.88
Wisconsin $0.86
Massachusetts $0.82
Colorado $0.81
New York $0.79
California $0.78
Delaware $0.77
Illinois $0.75
Minnesota $0.72
New Hampshire $0.71
Connecticut $0.69
Nevada $0.65
New Jersey $0.61

The demographics of the South and Appalachia is similar to
the rough terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan;

West Virginia: Third lowest in per capita income;low marks in math and reading skills and 51st in college education rates:
http://www.timeswv.com/westvirginia/local_story_255230118.html

Tennessee:Ranked 41st in union for median household income

Both states went for the McCain-Palin ticket. The low income
areas Howell refers to for voting Dem tend to be in
urban areas devatsted by job loss, outsourcing and
benefits being allocated by tax code to companies that
ship jobs overseas.

Howell tries to play the red herring game by utilizing Prop 8
and by pointing out a poll that 53 precent are anti-abortion.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp., poll in April, reported 49 percent of respondents identifying as pro-choice and 45 percent as pro-life.

The Gallup Poll he cites only shows 51 percent and not 53.

I used two extreme characters, one fictional and another
who actually did exist to try and establish where
Palin is on the psychotic behavior chart. Is she like
Norman Bates, who has an inherent disconnect from
reality and her behaviors, ranging from lies-Ayers, Death
Panels, the Bridge to Nowhere, etc-to her rambling
resignation speech and attempt to start a war with Letterman
are a result of such disconnect? Or, is she like Bundy,
sinister, evil, hiding behind a cheery and charming facade?
She incited a lot of fury and continues to peddle lie after
lie. It is almost as if she moves through life void
of any sense of accountability. The question is, is she
able to know right from wrong but simply disregards such
obstacles to her individual gratification.

Furthermore, Howell keeps asking about my training and credentials. What are his? My original letter said Palin turned out to be a sociopath or psychopath, up for debate.
I was simply commenting upon her behaviors and attitudes and
did not know I had to have actually tested her to write
a letter stating what I BELIEVE based on her history,
behaviors and other variables which can lead one to that
conclusion.

Read this:Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/sarahpalin/3405336/Sarah-Palin-blamed-by-the-US-Secret-Service-for-death-threats-against-Barack-Obama.html

The Secret Service had to amplify protection for Obama after
Palin the Pinhead came on board; rallies at which people
screamed Obama was a terrorist and “kill him.” That sounds
like the Taliban to me, with just some word changes.

Character assasination: Pal, let me inform you of something.
An opinion is just that. It was in the Op/Ed section and
is based on observations. I do not assert as an irrefutable
psychological fact that she is a nutcase by any medical
or legal standards. If my piece was in the News section and
I claimed that my opinion is based on industry standards,
you may have something. Since it is just my subjective
INTERPRETATION or what I THINK describes her modus operandi,
as usual, GFY!

Howell is the typical Bushie/Palinista: Do not bother him with
facts (or nuance). He has his mind already made up.

What most articles fail to note about the librarian was that she was the girlfriend of the police chief that Palin did fire. You can find out all sorts of interesting details by looking at the Alaskan papers and what other people from Wasilla, including Palin’s enemies, have to say about her. Of course Palin’s enemies also ignore the fact that in the letter from Anne Kilkenny that they circulated widely, because she’s critical of Palin, Kilkenny bluntly says, “She’s smart.” Further, Palin did other things that liberals normally claim they support, such as squeezing more money out of the big oil companies, cooperating with Democrats in the Alaska legislature, and vetoing a bill that would have denied same-sex partners in Alaska benefits but all they heard, and all they wanted to hear was “Pro-life, Christian, Hunter” and their stereotypes blinded them to everything else.

Don’t make the assumption that because SP is not as practiced a liar with massive think-tank “popular poll” language teleprompter support as Obama; that it means she’s unintelligent. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not my selection for president but Obama is turning the tides for all middle of the road conservatives and liberals toward the Republican party. Why? It’s true what your parents taught you, lies lead to more lies, and they can become an overwhelming handicap. Because his agends is painfully obvious, everyone is now understanding that it’s not an appropriate agenda for the USA. Obama would be an appropriate leader in some 3rd world country, but not here.

Brandon, psychotic and psychopathic are not the same thing at all. If you don’t know the difference, you are unqualified to opine on either one. And that Obama’s behavior, cool demeanor, and reflexive thin skin are more indicative of a psychopath than Sarah Palin’s behavior is apparently lost on you. Here’s Robert Hare’s checklist for psychopaths, which might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

(The “aggressive narcissism” section fits Obama pretty well, though he fares better on ““socially deviant lifestyle”, but so does Palin.)

That you claim people were yelling “KIll him!” at Obama is also false. The original report (the Clearwater, Florida incident) said “Kill him!” came after mention of Bill Ayers name, not Barack Obama’s. A reporter tried to claim a similar comment in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but even the Secret Service couldn’t corroborate that one: Try this article from Newsweek:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/164512

As for the demographics of the South and Appalachia, I just love the contempt that the left has for the poor people they are supposed to help. They love the poor as long as they are ruling them like serfs. And this all begs a very important question, doesn’t it? High Federal taxes transfer wealth from liberal states to conservatives states. Whose the fool in that deal?

As for the Anchorage Daily News attacking Palin, they didn’t support her for governor. Like most mainstream newspapers, they lean left and show it in their choice of stories. You’ll notice that their article about the librarian came after Palin was nominated. I suggest you read Alaskan newspaper articles about Sarah Palin from before she was nominated as VP, when she had an 80% approval rating, and even the articles about the librarian situation and the rape kits published at the time, rather than after the fact when the mission became to destroy Sarah Palin. Little details get lost, like the fact that the librarian was the girlfriend of the Sheriff she fired or that the Sheriff who opposed the town paying for rape kits wanted the perpetrators to pay, not the victims. Little details like that, all documented in articles published at the time that you can find on the web.

But even the Anchorage Daily News couldn’t stomach the hatchet job that the Associated Press was doing to Palin and wrote this editorial critical of an Associated Press article:

http://www.adn.com/opinion/view/story/574868.html

(I invite you to read the AP article they were complaining about. It basically complains that Sarah Palin was picking on those poor little oil companies.)

I also invite you to read this article about a documentary filmmaker who followed Sarah Palin around for 3 days and she never once asked him to turn off his camera:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3591532,00.html

That article (and the footage, some of which was shown of Fox News, which means I’m sure Palin’s critics never watched it) does not suggest the behavior of a psychopath nor someone with something to hide.

I think we have all lost focus on the critical issue here with our anfractuous debate. The real issue that needs to be addressed his the hypocrisy of the un-American left. With their right hand they will glorify liberty and freedom, but with their left they seek to seize it from their fellow citizens.
Brandon Curtis, Brian (Brian Fejer?), do you declare for liberty or tyranny? You would claim through you teeth that you love liberty, but in practice you would regulate what is said and by whom. You are entitled to your opinion and have the God-given right to preach it to the masses. But I will not let you masquerade about as a freedom loving person when you bow at the alter of statism.
I hope Obama FAILS, and he is.

To answer the original question, “Why does anyone listen to Sarah Palin?” Because she’s not a Washington insider or a lawyer. No, her statements don’t have lawyer-like precision but you also don’t have to parse everything she says for lawyer-like qualifiers and misleading language. No, she doesn’t speak with precision but she gets to the point and does it effectively. That Palin’s critics are obsessed more with the aesthetics of what a person says or the names of the colleges that she attended than the simple content of what she’s saying suggests more about how warped their values are than about how worthwhile she is to listen to.

As for “Troopergate” and the other Mickey Mouse scandals used to slime Sarah Palin, listen to what Mike Gravel, former Democrat Senator from Alaska had to say about that Scandal in a Pacifica radio interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBXYcgXV8M

As for Sarah Palin feeling guilty for having pro-abortion views, why would she mention it, then? Nobody had to know she felt that way. She was being gasp honest. But because she had momentary thoughts of, “I could kill my child and get out of this and nobody has to know,” no more makes her pro-choice or secretly pro-abortion than a fleeting thought of killing someone one hates makes one pro-murder or an advocate of vigilante justice.

It’s very telling for the left to cite websites, pardon my individual thinking and feeling. They can’t think for themsevles, but need the assistance of other leftist columinist.

John,

You, like SP, read things too literally. I know psychopath
and psychotic are not the same; what I wrote was where on
the scale was SP in her behaviors; disconnected from
reality or perfectly aware of her actions and
proceeds anyway in order to advance the interests
of Sarah Palin.

You ignore the fact that the Secret Service had to step up
protection after SP joined. Is what it is and that is
that.

As far as cries of “kill him” your attempt to say it was
at the mention of Bill Ayers is just parsing. She tried
to tie Obama to Ayers in a manner that suggested they were
attached at the hip and that was proven false. She
used such incendiary rhetoric to whip the base into
a frenzy.

Read:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3174101/Barack-Obama-called-terrorist-at-Republican-rallies-as-US-election-campaign-turns-nasty.html

Furthermore, in case you missed an earlier post, she
does poorly with independents, young voters, women (who voted
56% to 43% for Obama in 2008), minorities and urban
dwellers.

The health care debate is far too critical to be tied up in
slogans and distortions, which serve no purpose other than to
stoke fear and ignorance because Palin, Gingrich, et al, lack
a plan or viable program of their own. Instead of
debating ideas and offering proposals, they simply want to
thwart anything the elected President wants to do. Note:
There was an election. Barack Obama won as did his party in
tow cosnecutive Congressional elections. To praphrase George
Carlin from his final HBO routine, it is time that
the GOP hear and heed these character building words: YOU LOST! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHtOSq0o7Ps&feature=PlayList&p=FB78610FE0C93892&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=33; 8:12. Get over it. Come up with
constructive proposals that would work in today’s world rather than competing to be the next Reagan. There was only one Reagan; one Joe Montana; one Dan Marino. Stop trying to find the next Reagan and find the best Republican that can
put forth reasonable policies.

As far as the comments about the South/Appalachia, what was
factually incorrect? All economic and educational markers
rate that region of the nation low. Plus, the history
of racism and Jim Crow, added to the low economic and
educational factors, add to a mentality not too different
from the Taliban; tribal/clannish; very devoutly religious and
very suspicious, if not outright prejudiced against “outsiders”
what they feel is foreign influence. Sarah Palin appeals to
this type of thinking; very “nativist” and fearful
of different ideas; no nuance or critical analysis; a two
dimensional worldview.

Brandon, read the article you posted as proof that threats to Obama coincided with Sarah Palin. It doesn’t cite the Secret Service as a source like the Newsweek article I posted did. It makes a lot of claims but doesn’t source or prove any of them but hints that they come not from the Secret Service but the Obama campaign and Palin’s enemies in the McCain campaign. Contrast the wording in your article with this sentence, “But even before Obama cited “reports” of the threats at the debate, the U.S. Secret Service had told media outlets, including NEWSWEEK, that it was unable to corroborate accounts of the ‘kill him’ remarks—and according to a law-enforcement official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a political matter, the Obama campaign knew as much.” In other words, you article doesn’t prove what you claim it proves, nor does the article you posted in your latest reply. Those sorts of articles are exactly why the right doesn’t trust the mainstream media.

As for “parsing” about Ayers, read the original Washington Post account:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/10/06/in_fla_palin_goes_for_the_roug.html

It leaves no doubt that the “Kill him!” comment was “proposed one man” while Palin was detailing Ayers background. I’ve seen articles that detail how this original account transformed, via left-wing blogs and talking points, into hoards of people shouting “Kill him!” at the mere mention of Obama’s name but there is no evidence that it ever happened, nor do your articles provide any evidence that hit happened (your second article’s bias is displayed by how it downplays the fact that Palin was talking about Ayers). If better evidence existed, it would have been widely circulated.

Please spare me more spin on the matter. The claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and never has. It was never directed at Obama. And after years of people wishing George W. Bush dead (from Craig Kilborn flashing a picture of Bush with the caption ‘‘Snipers Wanted’‘ to the movie “Death of a President”, there has been no shortage of such sentiments) this is simply a political ploy to link Palin to unsavory elements of the right, which is ironic coming from people simultaneously squealing about Palin linking Obama to unsavory elements on the left.

As for how Palin polls, it doesn’t surprise me that she polls badly with independents after the hatchet job the mainstream press did on her and the lies spread about her. But in case you haven’t noticed, there are three years between now and the election in 2012 and popularity can go up and down quite quickly. And since you’ve obviously missed it, young voters, women, minorities, and urban dwellers always support Democrats more than Republicans. Your point?

As for constructive healthcare proposals from the right, there are plenty. I hear them all the time on right-wing talk radio and Fox News. Try listening and watching yourself instead of believing what left-wing critics tell you they are saying. I’ve heard conservatives suggest catastrophic coverage, simply buying insurance for the significantly smaller slice of uninsured who legitimately can’t afford insurance, and so on. Nobody is saying that the poor and uninsured should be left on the curb to die. Nobody. And it doesn’t happen today except in rare cases that involve breaking the law.

As for the whole “You lost! Get over it!” argument, I love these “principles” that the left magically discovers when they are in charge. I thought dissent was patriotic. I thought protests were a sign of a healthy democracy. You talk as if these are moral principles but the selective way that they are applied suggest they are nothing more than politics. I’m not biting. In case you haven’t noticed, Obama’s approval ratings are sinking like a stone. And a Ronald Reagan is what you get after a Jimmy Carter, which is exactly what the Democrats have right now.

With respect to the South and Appalachia, you see the Taliban. I’ll consider that a wash because I look at Obama’s supporters and see the Khmer Rouge. There is a grain of truth in both of those comparisons and a lot of hyperbole. But ultimately, your comments show is that you have every bit as much contempt for about half the United States as you complain they have for others. In other words, you have your own prejudices and just as there are clear examples of religious zealotry and nationalism getting out of control, there are also many more clear examples of elitism, intellectualism, and class contempt going out of control. There is a reason why so many left-wing revolutions have ended with piles of bodies, despite the best of intentions.

I also find it hilarious that you complain about people having a two-dimentional worldview without nuance or critical analysis while displaying the same, yourself.

As for Sarah Palin being a psychopath, I’ve read quite a bit about psychopaths. I posted a link to Robert Hare’s checklist. Feel free to evaluate both Obama and Palin using it, though I doubt we’ll see eye-to-eye on such an evaluation. Further, I think your evaluation that she is “disconnected from reality” or is “perfectly aware of her actions and proceeds anyway in order to advance the interests of Sarah Palin” don’t match the facts. She’s defying conventional wisdom about what’s in her self-interests and has done quite a few things that most people would consider political suicide, yet she seems to make it work out at the end. If you want to believe that’s just the lucky of a crazy person, feel free. It’s always a plus when your enemies misunderestimate you. But maybe you should read Anne Kilkenny letter or Andrew Halcro’s article in the Christian Science Monitor about debating her or T. Boone Pickens comments about talking to Palin “like two oil and gas professionals” about energy or about how she got the best of “big oil” twice or even watch some of the footage from Elan Frank documentary.

By the way, it’s conventional wisdom among Palin’s detractors that she said nice things about Hillary Clinton during the election simply to attract her voters as calculated politics, yet if you watch Elan Frank’s footage, you’ll find her saying very complimentary things about Hillary Clinton, not that different from what she said during her campaign for VP, months before she was nominated and casually to a documentary maker.

This excerpt from Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World” contains the core of Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit”. While it’s intended to help uncover the “baloney” in debates about science and pseudo-science, the principles are also useful in political debates:

http://www.kent-hovind.com/baloney.htm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4926283.ece

The one thng about the UK and European press is that they are not enthralled with access to the WH and Washington goodies
room that they often do a better job of reporting what
goes on in U.S politics than many American outlets. This
fact is also acknowledged by Scott McClellan in his book detailing his time as WH press secretary; the media in U.S
is consumed with access to politicos and the trappings of
power they sometimes do not take a hard look.

Where is proof from objective sources of Obama’s poll
ratings siking like a stone. BTW, Reagan’s poll numbers
dipped below 40 percent in 1982 as unemployment hit 10%.

Most polls of any repute have his figures in mid 50s.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/06/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5220941.shtml

The only polls in which Obama fares poorly is in Rasmussen
Polls, which trends GOP; did polling for Bush in 2004.

The problem with today’s GOP is this: They lose and when they
do win power a la 1994, they expend energy on things like
whether or not Clinton lied about his little recreation
with cigars and his tool. While they and Clinton were
able to achieve a balanced budget, much energy went into
investigations and blue dresses because they could not
live with defeat.

My point was, the GOP lost. Get over it. Do the homework and
find out why only 20% of voters now identify as Republicans.
Instead of hoping for failure, the party needs to study
Marketing 101 and Business 101 and an intro political
campaigns class and learn it is not about downgrading
the other side but rather what you are coming to the
table with and demonstrating how your solutions are
better for the majority.

Dissent is patriotic yet people like Sean Hannity said
it was not when people questioned George W. Bush and
his rationale for the Iraq invasion and occupation.

However, today, much of the dissent at town halls has been
manufactured; coming from out of towners and sponsored
by lobbyists such as Freedom Works.
http://wcbstv.com/cbs2crew/health.care.reform.2.1126623.html

“One reason may be a memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the Freedom Works web site Tea Party Patriots, which advises demonstrators, telling them:

“You need to rock the boat early in the (congressman’s) presentation. The goal is to rattle him.” “

My point about minorities, urbanites and women trending Dem
was that the nation is changing fast. People like Palin
only appeal to a limited and fast decreasing constituency.
Plus, most indepdendents are moderates, not wingnuts.
They tend to be conservative on some issues and
liberal on others.

It also is a nice reality check that the base is
only 20% to 30% of voters and that the rural, white male
demographic is not the road to the WH; it is the swing voters
and crossover voters.

I am nor a Dem or Rep. I am an independent who looks at people
who cannot even name their own local paper as a source of
information and they want me to vote for them on faith.
A person who openly tells a debate moderator she won’t
answer questions as she is asked; meaning she has not
done the work. A known liar who supported the Bridge
before opposing it; fires a cop who was city employee
of the year before she became mayor and, while there
is spin on this one, hires a chief who supports making
victims pay for rape kits.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/523708.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/12/nation/na-rapekits12

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/21/palin.rape.exams/

If this was not a big deal, why did it require an act of
the state legislature and Governor Knowles to pass and
sign a law banning the practice?

ANCHORAGE — When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed sexual assault victims and their insurance companies for the cost of rape kits and forensic examinations.

Palin had been in office for four years when the practice got the attention of state lawmakers in 2000. They passed a bill to stop it.

Former Democratic Rep. Eric Croft, who sponsored the bill, said he was disappointed that simply asking the Wasilla Police Department to stop hadn’t worked.

The bill passed despite the objections of Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon, who said it would require the city to come up with more money to cover the costs of buying the rape kits and conducting the exams.

Lawmakers became involved in 2000 after reports began coming in that police departments were charging sexual assault victims for the kits and exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 at the time. The kit, a package of sample containers, swabs and other medical supplies, is used to collect evidence from women after they are attacked.

Then-Gov. Tony Knowles said Thursday that Wasilla was unique in the state in charging rape victims for costs incurred by law enforcement in trying to solve the crime.

Source: Los Angeles Times: 9-12-2008

Time will tell on Obama. One thing is dead certain. The
only way Sarah Palin gets to the White House is with
a visitor pass.

And that’s that.

I like it that SP doesn’t associate with far left activists, didn’t attend an Anti-American and Anti-Caucasian Church for 20 years, isn’t trying to kiss up to the muslim religious leaders, doesn’t associate with ACORN, ACLU, RAINBOW PUSH, or any of the other racist fanatics that Obama is channeling into office as fast as he can. If a position doesn’t exist, and there’s a far left radical he knows-hell he just creates a new office. The guys clearly has a personal agenda AND IT’S NOT PRO-AMERICAN. Watching what people do is far more informative and telling than trying to make heads or tails out of the media’s slanted take on national and political affairs. The media is pretty much tanked toward the right or left. Factcheck.org attempts to print the truth and CNN also attempts to jump in the middle. But if you step back and watch what PO does, the picture becomes rather clear.

Brandon, carefully read the articles you are posting. It’s not about being enthralled. It’s about identifying sources so their veracity can be evaluated. For example, consider this sentence, “Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honourable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character – and likely to lose him the election.” It “is understood”? By who? The article doesn’t say. They talk as if the information is magically floating out there on it’s own but never give any information about sources. Roles? Number? Basically, these are gossip column articles that don’t prove anything and poor journalism.

WIth respect to polls, look at any of them. Yes, Reagan’s numbers went low. Most Presidents have low poll numbers at some point. It’s not about how low they are but how fast they’ve fallen. And do you really believe that Obama’s trajectory and things like Cap and Trade or the Heathcare bill plus the trillions in deficit spending that are making the debt increasingly difficult to fund (someone has to lend the money that’s being borrowed) is going to improve the unemployment rate or fix the economy? Or is the hope that he’ll be saved by a natural upswing in the business cycle?

Your analysis of the GOP is also lacking. You complain the GOP “expended energy” going after Clinton, yet they retained control of Congress for another 6 years after Clinton, something they hadn’t had in the House for 40 years prior, and lost it as much because they lost their base through spending as anything else. You make it sound as if Clinton, alone, achieved a balanced budget yet ignore the role Republican deficit hawks in Congress, as well as a booming economy, played in that, as well as the fact that we currently have full Democrat control of Congress and are looking at more deficit spending in one year than during Bush’s entire Presidency.

As for polls, the point you miss is that polls are just a snapshot in time and they don’t simply move in one direction. For example, Rasmussen released a poll earlier this August showing that 42% planned to vote Republican in their Congressional election while only 38% planned on voting Democrat.

Further, you are missing the point that Bush’s low approval ratings as well as the low polling of Republicans is also due to conservative alienation with the Republicans. Those conservatives who do not identify themselves as Republican are not going to vote Democrat. Yes, the Republicans have messed a lot of things up, but that only helps the Democrats if they don’t do the same thing and mess up, too, but that’s what they are doing. They’re wasting political capital on health care and Cap and Trade while most people are worried about unemployment and the recession.

You complain that the town hall activism is manufactured by lobbyists (you’ll notice your article identifies the Freedom Works person as a “volunteer”) yet you ignore the fact that plenty of left-wing “grass roots” activisim is far more professionally organized and funded. I’ve worked for a PIRG group years ago and there have been listings on Craig’s List for paid activists for left wing lobby groups. What evidence do you have that any of the town hall protesters are being paid or are even benefitting from things like busses paid for by others which, again, is what the left does.

“My point about minorities, urbanites and women trending Dem
was that the nation is changing fast.” And the only solution for Republicans is to become more like Democrats? The real solution is for Republicans to show the voters that what the Democrats are selling doesn’t work. The Democrats are doing a wonderful job of illustrating how they do things when they have full control over the government.

Brandon, you claim “I am nor a Dem or Rep. I am an independent who looks at people who cannot even name their own local paper as a source of information and they want me to vote for them on faith.” That every one of your points just happens to be a fringe left-wing talking point just happens to be a coincidence, right? You claim that Palin can’t name a local paper, for example, but that’s not what Couric asked. If you aren’t a left-wing propagandist or shill and really want to know the truth, really look at that interview, what was asked, and how Palin responded. Look at Palin’s demeanor and where they are standing for the question before and then that one and tell me why Palin went from a smile to a sour look. What are we missing in between?

Also, Palin did answer the question. She said “all of them”. You may think that’s an absurd answer yet in the biography of her written before she was nominated for VP and before Couric ever asked that question, Palin’s sister said she’d read every paper she could get her hands on cover to cover. Her parents were teachers.

The reality is that Couric’s question was a “gotcha” question that any Democrat like Obama could answer to Couric’s approval because urban Democrats all have a big name urban paper they can name that the mainstream media will approve of (e.g. Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune). Suppose Palin had mentioned the Anchorage Daily News, what would have happened? Instead of complaining she doesn’t read papers, you’d be complaining that she only reads provincial local papers and doesn’t understand the lower 48. She was smart enough to see a trap and didn’t bite, so the left spun it to mean she didn’t read papers at all.

Your interpretation of Palin is simply a matter of trying to paint her in the worst light possible. She told the moderator she wouldn’t answer questions if she didn’t want to because moderators ask loaded questions and the reality is that most candidates evade questions they don’t want to answer. She was simply being honest about it. Did she spin her role on the Bridge to Nowhere? Sure. But it that really any worse than the spin from any other politician on matters like that? I suggest you look into why she fired the police chief (hint: he thought she couldn’t fire him and was loyal to the previous administration) and about the rape kits, not articles from after she was nominated but those published at the time. You can find them online. Here is an article on the rape kits from 2000 for you to compare and contrast:

http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2000/05/23/news.txt

What your ADN article, and most of the left-wing propaganda on the rape kits, leave out are quotes like this:

“Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.”

“The forensic exam is just one part of the equation. Id like to see the courts make these people pay restitution for these things, Fannon said.”

“Fannon said he intends to include the cost of exams required to collect evidence in a restitution request as a part of a criminals sentencing.”

Yes, you can argue that Fannon and ultimately Palin were insensitive on the subject for a variety of reasons but those quotes are a very long way from the idea, spread by Palin’s enemies trying to smear her, that she was somehow trying to punish rape victims or discourage them from getting abortions.

The facts are there, Brandon. Try looking past the DailyKos and Huffington Post and do some investigation of your own. And wherever possible, try to find the primary sources instead of relying on interpretations, which is what most of the articles you’ve posted as sources do. If you are taking classes in journalism or history, they should be stressing the importance of primary sources to you and if they aren’t, they are doing you a disservice.

Well, there is 1 thing that I respect about Sarah Palin: she practices what she preaches. For instance, she has never had an abortion even though her baby had Down’s Syndrome, which is consistent with her anti-abortion stance. And none of those so-called “ethic violations” were sustained against her…according to Palin’s lawyer none of the 15 ethics violations were plausible. She quit as the Alaskan governor because they were costing her about $500K. Anyone under her situation would do the same.

Palin did not promote a “campaign of lies” when she spoke about Obama’s association to Bill Ayers. Dick Morris, former adviser to President Clinton, claimed in a Bill O’Reilly interview that Ayers hired Obama to distribute about $50M to radical groups during his days as a college student. They were not just 2 people who happened to live in the same neighborhood, as Obama so nonchalantly claimed during his Presidential campaign last year.

And now as the President of the USA, Barack Hussein Obama has made so many mistakes already in his 1st 8 months. For instance, his healthcare plan will create swelling deficits and higher taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, his plan will create $9.3 TRILLION in federal budget deficits over the next 10 years. And everyone STILL complains about GW Bush to this day…give me a break. $1.3T pales in comparison to $9.3T.

John,

How is FactCheck, AP and CNN left wing talking points. Did you see HuffPo, TPM or Daily Kos ANYWHERE in my writings?! Either
step to or step off, boy!

I cited reputable sources and points, not any site such as
Daily Kos or Free Republic, both of which have axes to grind.

How is USA Today and CNN left wing propaganda?

Read these articles from FactCheck.org:

http://factcheck.org/2008/10/mccain-palin-and-rape-kits/

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_sarah_palin_make_rape_victims_pay.html

While Palin’s own position is unclear on the matter, what is
clear is that it required an act of the state to redress
the issue, meaning if she was not clear on practices
within her own shop in a small town that has less
people than Albuquerque’s South Valley, she should not
be VP or President.

Furthermore, how is Couric’s question “gotcha” journalism?
Even if Palin simply said the ADN, it would have been
natural, as that is her area and her focus, Alaska. She
could have said she reads Time Magazaine or Newsweek.
How is that simple of a question “gotcha?” Either you
know what you read or you do not. Saying all of them
is not sufficient if you cannot provide at least one
specific example.

Also, how is a debate question “loaded?” That is a load.
What loaded questions do moderators ask? Give me
names, dates and specific examples of loaded questions.
She was asked the same questions and issues as Biden. Each
got an equal allocation of time to answer and got the
same or similar questions. Saying openly you will
not answer questions as asked equals either evasion of
ignorance; one or the other.

You fall back on the same tired blame game: Couric was
out to get her; moderators ask loaded questions, she
should not have to say what specific papers she reads.
She went to sour real fast because she was being asked
a substantive question and did not know how to respond.
Someone was asking her specific questions requiring specific
answers, not glib generalities about being a pitbull with
lipstick and she could not step to. Simple as that.

Furthermore, saying one can see Russia from land in
AK is not FP experience. Furthermore, if Putin was to
fly into U.S space, it would likely be over the poles.
If he flew over Pacific, he would likely stop in Japan or
China and then to LAX, San Francisco or other airport
large enough to accomodate a foreign leader’s visit.

Lastly, she could not identify ONE item or law McCain
had sponsored or motivated as an example of reform.

Rasmussen is partisan to Republicans. They always show
Obama and Dems slipping. Gallup has him at 51%.
Other reputable polls have him at 51 to 53 percent, roughly
his election numbers.

Also recall Palin criticized Hillary in Spring 2008:

NEWSWEEK: “Sarah Palin, you are a Republican and a conservative one at that. It’s unlikely that you and Hillary would agree on too many issues. But, yet, as a woman, chief executive—someone who’s been through the grinder—when you look at the coverage and you listen to the conversations, what do you see? “

Sarah Palin: “Fair or unfair—and I do think that it’s a more concentrated criticism that Hillary gets on so many fronts; I think that’s unfortunate. But fair or unfair, I think she does herself a disservice to even mention it, really. You have to plow through that and know what you’re getting into. I say this with all due respect to Hillary Clinton and to her experience and to her passion for changing the status quo. But when I hear a statement like that coming from a women candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or a sharper microscope put on her, I think, man, that doesn’t do us any good. Women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country, I don’t think it bodes well for her, a statement like that. Because, again, fair or not fair it is there. I think it’s reality and it’s a given, people just accept that she’s going to be under a sharper microscope. So be it. Work harder, prove to yourself to an even greater degree that you’re capable, that you’re going to be the best candidate. That’s what she wants us to believe at this point. So it bothers me a little bit to hear her bring that attention to herself on that level.”

March 2008: Women and Leadership

So, her praise for Hillary Clinton was purely a cold, calculated attempt, probably driven by her handlers within
McCain’s camp to try and peel Hillary voters away from
Obama. News flash: That flight was cancelled on Nov 4.

I conclude with borrwing from Barney Frank a tad: I do not
know which planet you bide most of your time. Dealing with
you is like arguing with a table. Or, jerking off with
a cheese grater; slightly amusing but mostly painful. Go
amuse yourself with your SP posters.

So, either step to or step off!

Mateo states (Aug 27 8:59 AM) : “She finally walked away from the governor’s office because of frivolous lawsuits and slander against her, her family and the office. Slander and false lawsuits that have never once proven true, and yet have cost her family hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the state of Alaska millions.”
Would she do the same if she were in The White House ?

Was she going to be there…? More confusion…http://www.adn.com/palin/story/912369.html

With respect to sources, the credibility of an article lies in what it says and the facts that back it up, not the source. You ask, for example, how the AP is left-wing talking points despite the fact that I already gave you an article from the ADN detailing exactly how to AP authors did a hatchet job on Palin during the election. That was simply one of the more overt examples. I’ve also given you the original Washington Post source of the “Kill him!” accusation and pointed out how the Telegraph article you offered tries to downplay what’s obvious in the original article, that the comment was directed at Ayers if (as the Newsweek article I also posted, which does give sources, points out) the comment really was “Kill him!” rather than “Tell them!” The facts don’t support the charges.
And let’s go a step further with the Telegraph article. It goes on to claim, about Ayers, “The two men sat together on educational committees but have rarely been in contact for six years.” How do they know that for a fact? They don’t, really. Are they are simply repeating what Barack Obama claimed as if it’s an unassailable fact. We don’t know because they do not provide any sources for their assertions.
My main point there is that the “sources” you’ve provided as evidence don’t, themselves, identify their sources. They are gossip columns. Heck, even that National Enquirer always identifies two sources to avoid being sued. The articles you posted don’t even do that. The source is irrelevant because the quality of the information is suspect. There is a reason why they don’t allow hearsay evidence in courts.
As for citing TPM, DailyKos, or The Huffington Post, my point is that your arguments and sources mirror those commonly found on those cites. Perhaps that’s just a coincidence and perhaps you independently investigated Sarah Palin and just happened to come up with the same arguments and spin that they did. Excuse me for being skeptical.
You also ask me to trust FactCheck.org, telling me to read this article:
http://factcheck.org/2008/10/mccain-palin-and-rape-kits/
OK. let’s look at that spin and omissions in that one. It mentions, “complaints about rape kit charges in Wasilla and other rural areas drove then-Gov. Tony Knowles to pass legislation requiring police departments to pay for the testing.” The evidence offered in 2000 in support of the law cited an example from that “rural” part of Alaska known as Juneau, the state capital. Second, were there actually complaints from Wasilla, itself, driving the law? If so, why hasn’t anyone provided any details of such complaint? Perhaps because the complaints weren’t actually from Wasilla, but then it wouldn’t be possible to smear Sarah Palin with it?
The “non-biased” FactCheck.org correctly states that Fallon didn’t think taxpayers should pay for the kits but conveniently leaves out the details found on the article I posted a link to earlier, that Fallon felt that the perpetrator should pay for the kits. Without that detail, one is left with the conclusion that Fallon heartlessly felt that the rape victims should pay for the kits. Further complicating matters is the fact that they were also billing insurance companies, who often did pay. Part of the complaint there that drove thel aw was that it was traumatic for women to even see the charges on their hospital bills, not necessarily that they had to pay.
While I think that’s a sound argument and agree Fallon’s position was insensitive, this is all a long way from the perception left by the omission of those details is that Sarah Palin and her police chief cruelly wanted rape victims to pay for their rape kits or that women had to pay, yet no example of a woman forced to pay for a rape kit in Wasilla has surface and I don’t think that’s because nobody tried to find an example. Nor does it support the claims by some of her detractors that this was some sort of crypto-anti-abortion stand to prevent women from discovering they had become pregnant from a rape.
And finally, at the end of a paragraph, FactCheck.org allows, “As for Palin’s role in the whole thing, it was unclear whether she ever supported the practice.” That’s right, we don’t even know what Sarah Palin knew or said about the issue at the time. All we have are a lot of assumptions and more gossip.
How about your other FactCheck.org link about the rape kids? It quotes from the Frontiersman article I posted earlier but, again, selectively quotes, leaving out the several lines that make Fallon’s position look far more reasonable and far less malicious than what they quoted. Another curious detail is that the FactCheck.org page provides links to every source on the page except that Frontiersman article. I’m supposed to believe that those omissions that all just happen to be innocent?
You claim that a lack of clarity by Palin on the issue disqualifies her from being VP as if the entire state of Alaska revolved around that single law. The length of the article and that it’s the only source of any quotes from anyone in the Wasilla government on the topic at the time suggests that this was hardly a burning issue in Wasilla at the time.
Back to Couric, I explained why her question was a “gotcha” question. There was no answer she could give that would be acceptable to Couric or the urban media. If she said the ADN, it would have been held up as an example of her provincialism and she could have walked into a follow-up question asking her about specific articles or authors in an attempt to trip her up. Further, the ADN didn’t endorse her, which could have opened up another line of “gotcha” comments or questions. It was clear by her demeanor and the tone of her question that she’d had enough of Couric. And Palin has said that she took Couric’s question as a nasty query about whether she actually reads, an explanation that fits well with both the tone and content of her reply, even if you don’t think she was being fair to Couric.
But let me ask you this. Do you seriously believe that (A) Sarah Palin did not know the name of a single newspaper, Alaskan or otherwise, (B) that Sarah Palin has never read a newspaper (ignoring the fact that her sister said she consumed newspapers with a passion since elementary school and that she has a degree in journalism), and © that she couldn’t have just named a paper if she really wanted to answer Couric’s question and wasn’t concerned about a gotcha follow-up? Really? You really believe Sarah Palin doesn’t read?
And why isn’t, “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years,” a sufficient answer? That’s pretty much what her sister said to her biographer before she was nominated to run as VP. Was this an interview or an episode of Jeopardy? Maybe she would have looked better if she was asked softball questions like, “What did the Obama team do in the course of this campaign that made you the angriest?”
As for loaded questions, they are not a “load”. You demand, “What loaded questions do moderators ask? Give me names, dates and specific examples of loaded questions.” OK, I’ll give you an example of a loaded question directed at Barack Obama to prove you are wrong, that loaded questions do exist in debates, without getting into a nit-picking fight with you over what is or isn’t loaded when directed at someone you clearly don’t like. From the Democratic Primary debate in Philadelphia, April 16, 2008. The questioner is Charlie Gibson, who asks Barack Obama:
“All right. You have however said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, ‘I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28 percent.’ It’s now 15 percent. That’s almost a doubling if you went to 28 percent. But actually Bill Clinton in 1997 signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent. [Barack Obama replies, ‘Right.’] And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. [Barack Obama again replies, ‘Right.’] And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”
Why is this a gotcha question? Because the questioner throws out a series of rapid-fire figures at the candidate and to establish a particular narrative, which ends with a question designed to force the candidate to either defend the absurd (the choice Obama took) or to disagree with their past positions on the fly. It’s also a loaded question because it makes claims about capital gains taxes and revenue that some would dispute. Do you disagree that Gibson was asking a loaded question or was looking for a gotcha reaction to it? In fact, other members of the press attacked Gibson and Stephanopoulos (for asking another loaded question about Bill Ayers) after that debate because both of those questions made Barack Obama look bad (and his response to the Ayers question, that Ayers was simply “a guy who lives in my neighborhood” was, at best evasive and, at worst, a lie).
My point, above, is to establish that loaded questions can and do get asked in debates. That said, I don’t think Gwen Ifill’s questions were loaded and think she did an excellent job moderating the debate between Palin and Biden. I said, “She told the moderator she wouldn’t answer questions if she didn’t want to because moderators ask loaded questions and the reality is that most candidates evade questions they don’t want to answer. She was simply being honest about it.” I didn’t say that Ifill actually asked loaded questions. There were legitimate reasons to assume she might (she was writing a book that included Obama as a subject at the time) but I think she did an excellent job.
You claim, “Saying openly you will not answer questions as asked equals either evasion of ignorance; one or the other.” That’s what’s called a False Dilemma fallacy. Not answering the question, “When did you stop beating your wife?” is neither evasive nor ignorant. It’s refusing the accept the premise of a loaded question that can’t be reasonably answered. As for being evasive or ignorant, most candidates effectively ignore questions they don’t want to answer or simply lie. Do you consider it a fatal character flaw when Barack Obama gives an evasive answer or is it just politics?
As for the “tired blame game”, what’s your alternative? That Sarah Palin doesn’t read despite evidence to the contrary? That she couldn’t name a single Alaskan newspaper just to get Couric off of her back? Here is the transcript of the exchange (I’ll highlight some of the “gotcha” elements):
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

[Here Couric telescopes the motive behind her question. She wants to judge the publications Palin reads under the assumption that they are responsible for her worldview and how she understands the world.]

Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

[This agrees with what her biography, written before she was nominated as VP, says about her.]

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

[Again, this agrees with what her sister said to her biographer.]

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

[This is not the response of a person who can’t answer the question. It’s the response of a person annoyed with the tone of the question and the assumed motives behind it. Palin says here exactly what she’s said since, that she interpreted the question as Couric condescendingly asking her, “Do you read?”]

Andrew Halcro, a walking encyclopedia who ran against Sarah Palin for governor, describes his experiences debating Palin in The Christian Science Monitor here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1001/p09s01-coop.html

He said of her, “Palin is a master of the nonanswer.” She wasn’t trying to evade Couric’s question. She was offended by the tone of it. And maybe she was being unfair to Couric but then I come back to the video of the interview, that she’s smiling for the question shown just before this yet is clearly annoyed when Couric starts to ask her this question. What are we missing? We don’t know because CBS never released the unedited interview to my knowledge. I’d love to see it if they did.

Yes, it’s fair to criticize Palin for non-answers and evasion but that’s not a good example of it. A better example is her evasiveness around the Bridge to Nowhere. That’s a legitimate complaint.

With respect to her foreign policy experience, I find it hilarious how literally Palin’s enemies take her words. Her point was not that being able to see Russia from Alaska was foreign policy experience nor that the Russians would choose to enter US territory in that particular place. She was reminding people, who apparently need to be reminded of it, that Alaska is next to Russia. She was also wasn’t talking about “Putin” literally but it’s so clever to pretend she was, isn’t it?

As for being able to talk to McCain’s legislative history, why would you expect her to? She was governor of Alaska, not a McCain congressional aide and she didn’t spend years running for President like McCain, Biden, and Obama had. And?

As for polling, you call Rasmussen partisan yet polls that show what you want them to show reputable. It’s always fun to look at the samples. Let’s just say that when the poll’s internals don’t resemble what’s known about the demographics of the electorate that “reputable” is not a word that I’d use for the poll. I also find the games played with “people”, “registered voters”, and “likely voters” cast doubts upon the credibility of certain “reputable” polling organizations.

But what’s particularly funny here is that Gallup’s numbers are essentially the same as Rasmussen, both showing Obama at around 50%. But the question is where was Obama 6-8 months ago? He started out near 70%. So what direction does the following line from Gallup look like it’s trending in to you?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/gallup-daily-obama-job-approval.aspx

As for those remarks about Hillary, you can watch her statement herehttp://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/did-palin-call.html:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/did-palin-call.html
Notice the part where she says, “I say this with all due respect to Hillary Clinton and to her experience and to her passion for changing the status quo.” This is a spoken more as friendly criticism than damnation and that agrees with what she said to Elan Frank. You want to spin it as insincerity but that’s not what the evidence shows.
Finally, I have no idea what jerking off with a cheese grater feels like so I’ll defer to your expertise with that experience. Here’s a free clue. I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind because I doubt you ever will. I’m posting my points here so that other people who stumble into this article will see the evidence from the other side and make up their own mind. If you learn something in the process, that’s fine, but it’s not my main objective here.
I’ve stepped up. Repeadedly. My sources provide full quotes and identify sources rather than selectively summarizing information found elsewhere. I’m still waiting for you to post a “source” that doesn’t conveniently edit quotes to make Palin look bad or one that actually identifies its sources for the rumors that Palin is evil incarnate. At least you’ve backed down on your silly claims that she’s a psychopath.

“Would she do the same if she were in The White House ?”

That depends. If she felt it was better for the United States that she step down and let her VP take over, wouldn’t it be better for her to do that than put herself before her country? Several members of Obama’s cabinets resigned their offices to join Obama’s cabinet. Guess what? Life goes on without them.

“Was she going to be there…? More confusion…”

And, again, sources are not named. Who are these people telling people that Palin is going to show up. If they’d name names, then maybe it would be possible to figure out who is misleading who.

And for contrast, how about Barack Obama’s choice for VP:

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/biden-fdr-and-the-invention-of-television/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIT3jUrNTX0

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/24/eveningnews/main4890564.shtml

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/05/15/shining-light-on-cheney-s-hideaway.aspx

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1909140,00.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/09/23/2008-09-23_barack_obama_tells_running_mate_joe_bide.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html

Unlike Palin, Biden has actually run for President and spent decades in the Senate, so what’s his excuse? And, if the press isn’t biased, why hasn’t Biden been subjected to the full Dan Quayle treatment in the media that he so clearly deserves?

(Yes, I know. Dan Quayle was an idiot. George W. Bush was an idiot, despite having grades roughly equivalent to John Kerry’s. Ronald Reagan was an idiot. Sarah Palin is an idiot. Must be frustrating to lose to idiots. Yet John McCain, the model of the moderate “get along” Republican that other Republicans are supposed to become more like couldn’t win. Funny that.

John keeps harping on the issue of how poor Palin was
picked on by saying that moderators ask questions that
set up a false dilemma.

He also claims SP did not criticize Clinton even
though the video and transcript say otherwise.
He tries to use her “with all due respect” line as CYA
language. Fact is, and Mr. Holmes will second this, as this
is his BUSINESS, that Palin criticized Mrs. Clinton
and then praised her when it was politically necessary.
The two could not be more different:

Hillary Clinton:
BA: Wellsley
JD: Yale
U.S. Senator: NY: 2000-2008
U.S. Secretary of State

Sarah Palin
BA: Journalism: U of Idaho (after 5 other colleges)
City Council: Wasilla
Mayor: Wasilla: 1996-2002
AK Gas and Oil Conservation Council: 2003-2004
AK Governor: Dec 4, 2006-July 26, 2009

Clinton is pro choice while Palin is not. Clinton
supports some form of universal health care. How McCain
believed this woman could help him get Hillary supporters
to his camp is the Gordian Knot of campaign choices.

The point is, Fallon claimed he wanted to force restitution but never elaborated on how. Would victims pay and then
claim a credit later, after the long arrest, arraignment and
trial process? How was this to be implemented?

I stand by my statement Palin is a sociopath (or psychopath).
While John tries to say the shouts of “kill him” were at
Ayers, Palin is the one who made the connection and
therefore created the dynamic. And, he ignores the
fact Secret Service had to increase their efforts after
she joined ticket. She seems to move through life void
of any sense of emapthy, remorse or condequence;
mimicing emotions that are to her advantage at the moment;
only feeling her own suffering. She quit because they
were “picking on her.” Why did she not make efforts to
close the loophole in the ethics law? She vetoed stimulus
funds that even Republicans claimed only she could see
strings attached to.

She either is delusional, disconnected from reality or she
is a sociopath, along the lines of Bundy (except the man could
actually express in clear English and was articulate and
intelligent. He also was a Republican, btw); knowing she is
lying about healthcare, lied about Ayers (read the FactCheck
piece on Ayers-Obama again and even the article that the
witch of Wasilla in NY Times claimed Ayers and Obama were anal
buddies but that article actually DISPELLED that myth); lied
about the Bridge to Nowhere; lied or at least dissembled
about Letterman joke, trying to create outrage over a bad
joke (hint: he was referring to the flip flop who did get
knocked up; the one who first said abstinence was unrealistic then became a spokesperson for abstinence).

She is a joke, pure and simple. 2/3 of Americans do not
want her as President. She cannot answer simple questions.
Here, I’ll tell you straight up what papers I read:
Albuquerque Journal; New Mexico Business Weekly; USA Today;
Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and
Chicago Tribune. How hard is that. John says no answer would
have been good enough for Couric and relies on Palin’s sister (gee, real neutral source there) and makes excuses that
the ADN did not support Palin, so therefore she would not
answer question. Saying “um. All of them” is a non answer.
It means “oh f—k, I have not done my homework. What do I do?”
She could have simply said “The Anchorage Daily News and
Juneau Empire of course but I read the L.A Times or
WSJ online.” She did not and that is the impression
people have; a person who cannot even identify the papers
and magazines they read.

The reason McCain could not win is not because he is a moderate. Rather, it was because he promised to carry on with
many of Bush’s policies, which simply were not popular. End of story and that is that. People did not want a third term
of George Bush, especially after the economy tanked
and the memory of Katrina still in in the minds of many
voters.

Lastly, you lost! You’re a loser! Heed those character building words. Instead of hoping for failure, offer
constructive counter-proposals. At the risk of annoying
Mr. Fejer, it is reputed that Arafat did not make a
counter-offer at Camp David in 2000 and decided that
another course of action was necessary.

The GOP right now is acting exactly like Arafat is reported
to have done at that negotiation. No counter-offers, just
noise and accusations of socialism, radicalism, etc.
No explanation with facts, numbers, etc of how a GOP
plan is better for the MAJORITY and not just Wall Street
or the rich. How small government for the economy is
great but let us have a minsitry of vice and virtue for
the bedroom.

As for why America elects idiots, I refer you to the articles
of Richard Berthold, former professor of classical
history, written in the early part of this decade: Americans
want their leaders to appear strong, affirmative and to tell
them what they want to hear.

Brandon, your reading comprehension is lacking.
“He also claims SP did not criticize Clinton even though the video and transcript say otherwise.”
I claimed that Palin said complimentary things about Clinton and that the complimentary things she said after being nominated were not simply a cynical attempt to win Clinton voters.
Make up your mind about Sarah Palin. Is she a political genius who carefully considers the political advantage of everything she says, even when talking to a documentary filmmaker months before being nominated as VP and before Hillary Clinton lost the primaries or is she an idiot who doesn’t read newspapers? Which is it? I know the people who hate Bush resolved this cognitive dissonance by saying that Karl Rove was Bush’s brain but Sarah Palin has no Rove.
“He tries to use her ‘with all due respect’ line as CYA language. Fact is, and Mr. Holmes will second this, as this is his BUSINESS, that Palin criticized Mrs. Clinton and then praised her when it was politically necessary.”
No, I suggested people watch the video of her speaking her comments. Again, that interview was long before she was nominated as VP so what was the political necessity behind her criticism? Do you believe she can predict the future, too?

“The two could not be more different:”
It depends on what you want to focus on.
You are letting your elitism show again. We have a government full of lawyers with Yale and Harvard educations and how is that working out? William F. Buckley said that he’d rather be governed by the first two thousand poeple in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University for a reason.
As for Fallon and the rape kits, I don’t agree with his position and acknowledged it was insensitive but there is a big gulf between being insensitive and being malicious. Fallon answered your question in the Frontiersman article. He said, “In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible.”
“I stand by my statement Palin is a sociopath (or psychopath).”
Yet you fail to back it up with any concrete evidence. I’ve posted a link to the Hare checklist for psychopaths to help you out. What evidence do you have, for example, that she fits any of the traits listed under “socially deviant lifestyle”, for example? The reality is that are unqualified to diagnose the psychology of a person you’ve never met and would be, even if you were a trained psychologist. No, you don’t quote the DailyKos and Huffington Post. You simply echo their talking points.
“While John tries to say the shouts of ‘kill him’ were at Ayers, Palin is the one who made the connection and therefore created the dynamic.”
I’m not trying to say it. I posted the original Washington Post report that makes it quite clear to anyone not blinded by Palin Derangement Syndrome. And as I also pointed out, George Stephanopoulos asked Barack Obama about Bill Ayers months before Palin was nominated and the Obama campaign had been working overtime blocking ads by political action groups pointing out the connection.
“And, he ignores thefact Secret Service had to increase their efforts after
she joined ticket.”
No, I ignored an article that claimed the Secret Service increased their efforts that cites no sources and strongly suggests the source was the Obama campaign which, of course, had absolutely no reason to lie or exaggerate about such things, right? I posted a Newsweek article that not only actually does cite the Secret Service as a source says that their investigation of the “Kill him!” remarks didn’t turn up anything worth worrying about but also quotes an n Obama campaign spokesman saying, “whether or not the [Secret Service] is investigating that particular comment is irrelevant. What is true is that the tone of the rhetoric at McCain-Palin campaign events has gotten out of hand.” In other words, you are confusing Obama campaign political talking points designed to smear McCain and Palin with facts. Learn the difference. Facts have sources. That your articles conspicuously lack any sources is telling.
“She seems to move through life void of any sense of emapthy, remorse or condequence; mimicing emotions that are to her advantage at the moment;
only feeling her own suffering.” And you know this how, exactly? You’ve followed her around? You’ve interviewed her? You’ve been her neighbor? You’ve talked to plenty of people, friends as well as enemies, in Wasilla?
“She quit because they were ‘picking on her.’”
She quit because as long as she was a governor, she was both a lightning rod and straitjacketed. They were using the ethics laws to immobilize her so she decided to exit the trap. It was a smart move. She’s also not independently wealthy and can’t afford a half-million dollars in legal bills. Could you? Are we becoming a country where only millionaires can afford to run for office?
“Why did she not make efforts to close the loophole in the ethics law?”
Because then you would be complaining that doing so was self-serving and unethical. Isn’t that how a trap works?
“She vetoed stimulus funds that even Republicans claimed only she could see strings attached to.”
She was hardly the only governor to see strings attached to the stimulus funds. And if you haven’t noticed, she wasn’t the most popular person in the world with Alaska’s Republicans. Alaskan Democrats used to like her quite a bit, too, before she became a threat to the national party.
“She either is delusional, disconnected from reality or she
is a sociopath, along the lines of Bundy (except the man could
actually express in clear English and was articulate and
intelligent. He also was a Republican, btw);”
Back to the false dilemma? I posted that link to Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit for a reason.
“knowing she is lying about healthcare,”
Really? Maybe you just didn’t get her point.
http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrosenbaum/2009/08/28/how-sarah-palin-rope-a-doped-all-too-many-liberals/
“lied about Ayers (read the FactCheck piece on Ayers-Obama again and even the article that the witch of Wasilla in NY Times claimed Ayers and Obama were anal buddies but that article actually DISPELLED that myth);”
Gee, an Annenberg Political Factcheck article claims to debunk claims critical of two members of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and it’s all perfectly non-biased, right. Do you actually read those FactCheck articles? This one basically says that because they couldn’t find proof that Obama and Ayers knew each other well (while, of course, leaving out evidence that they did know each other better than they are letting on) and that Obama claims they weren’t close so claims that they were are lies. It gives Obama a pass, on the other hand, for claiming that Ayers was just a guy in his neighborhood in the Philadelphia debate.
Of course one can just look at the FactCheck staff and see how non-partisan they are:
http://www.factcheck.org/about/
Their token David Gergen “Republican” worked on Wesley Clark’s campaign.
“a lied about the Bridge to Nowhere;”
I think that’s she was certainly misleading on this.
“lied or at least dissembled about Letterman joke, trying to create outrage over a bad joke (hint: he was referring to the flip flop who did get
knocked up; the one who first said abstinence was unrealistic then became a spokesperson for abstinence).”
You mean the one that all of the evidence suggests actually went to standard sex education classes and knew about birth control but got pregnant, anyway? Why do I doubt that will be counted as a failure of school sex education programs? Letterman’s joke was in bad taste regardless of which daughter he was talking about. I doubt he’d think it was funny to have his own wife and child talked about that way.
“She is a joke, pure and simple. 2/3 of Americans do not
want her as President. She cannot answer simple questions.”
She’s such a “joke” that she turned the healthcare debate upside-down and CNN was writing articles wondering when she’s Tweet again. That a sizable number of Americans don’t want her as President in 2009 is irrelevant to 2012 and is to be expected after the attacks she was subjected to. She answers plenty of questions to people who aren’t out to get her.
“Here, I’ll tell you straight up what papers I read:
Albuquerque Journal; New Mexico Business Weekly; USA Today;
Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and
Chicago Tribune. How hard is that.”
And what does your answer tell me? Not much. I still have no idea what you read in those papers.
“John says no answer would have been good enough for Couric and relies on Palin’s sister (gee, real neutral source there) and makes excuses that the ADN did not support Palin, so therefore she would not answer question.”
A nice straw man that misses the point. The point of the biography and quote by Palin’s sister is that (A) it was given long before the Couric question and controversy and (B) has sufficient detail that it would be bizarre for her to simply make that up. My point was that there were many ways Couric could turn any answer Palin gave into a gotcha and it’s clear that Palin felt that Couric was being antagonistic at that point. Here’s the video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6y4ts_930-sarah-palin-katie-couric-full-i_news
Watch from about 2:30 and note that her expression goes from a smile to the camera in her face and a frown and the woman who was standing next to her is gone just before the newspaper question. What was between that camera cut that changed her attitude? We don’t get to see that.
“‘Saying ‘um. All of them’ is a non answer. It means ‘oh f—k, I have not done my homework. What do I do?’”
So not only are you qualified to psychoanalyze a person you’ve never met but you can read her mind, too? Watch the whole answer.
“She could have simply said ‘The Anchorage Daily News and Juneau Empire of course but I read the L.A Times or WSJ online.‘”
And why didn’t she? Your explanation doesn’t make sense. Are you seriously claiming she didn’t know any of those names?
“She did not and that is the impression people have; a person who cannot even identify the papers and magazines they read.”
And why do people have that impression? Because that’s how people spin her answer.
“The reason McCain could not win is not because he is a moderate. Rather, it was because he promised to carry on with many of Bush’s policies, which simply were not popular. End of story and that is that. People did not want a third term of George Bush, especially after the economy tanked and the memory of Katrina still in in the minds of many voters.”
Oh, baloney. McCain lost because (A) Barack Obama was outspending him by at least 4:1, (B) he was in the same party as Bush who had a 23% popularity rating, regardless of how many of Bush’s policies he was going to continue, and © he badly handled his response to the economic crisis and looked like he didn’t know what he was doing.
“Lastly, you lost! You’re a loser! Heed those character building words. Instead of hoping for failure, offer constructive counter-proposals.”
I’m old enough to remember the Carter presidency. Are you?
As I’ve pointed out, conservatives and members of the GOP have made plenty of counter-offers and proposals. But they don’t control the government, the Democrats do. In fact, the Democrats have such large majorities in both houses of Congress that they don’t need Republicans to pass their agenda. So let me ask you this. If the Democrats won and conservatives lost, why can’t they implement their agenda?
“How small government for the economy is great but let us have a minsitry of vice and virtue for the bedroom.”
Yes, I understand it’s really all about abortion and that’s why Sarah Palin must be destroyed. She had the chutzpah to actually have a baby with Down’s Syndrome.
“As for why America elects idiots, I refer you to the articles of Richard Berthold, former professor of classical history, written in the early part of this decade: Americans want their leaders to appear strong, affirmative and to tell
them what they want to hear.”
Is that the same Richard Berthold that told his class, ““anyone who bombs the Pentagon gets an A in my book.”? That’s exactly the sort of attitude that will always return the left to the fringes.
An article to consider:
http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrosenbaum/2009/08/28/how-sarah-palin-rope-a-doped-all-too-many-liberals/

Brandon, are all progressives compelled to shout and cuss when asked hard questions? You repeatedly say “GFY…f-face” state (not offer as opinion) “ However, Palin turned out to be either a sociopath or a psychopath” while ignoring the established criteria for such a diagnoses. (My credentials are irrelevant as I have made no such claims; it is you who have.) When challenged you then state you were offering your “opinion” and want to know what are the professional credentials of someone who asks you to support your position. In response to John you state, “You, like SP, read things too literally. I know psychopath and psychotic are not the same; what I wrote was where on the scale was SP in her behaviors; disconnected from reality or perfectly aware of her actions and proceeds anyway in order to advance the interests of Sarah Palin.” Answer your own question “where on the scale” with reference to the accepted norms of observation and testing by a person qualified to do such is Palin?

Your reading materials provide the parroting of the left wing and radial movements. Time & Newsweek are not news journals but opinion magazines and like the New York and LA Times, Boston Herald and many others have lost significant numbers of readers; just as CNN, NBC & it’s affiliates and CBS news programs have lost viewers. The only explanation is independents and moderate democrats refuse to read or listen to their drivel, the biased opinions that pretend to be hard news. FOX has gained the viewers lost by the others. Glenn Beck on cable has 3.2 million viewers at 5PM ET. His week long series explaining who are the people in this administration, who are the people who wrote the health care proposals– members of congress did not– is journalism, not the stuff of the Chicago Tribune. It is painful to watch MSNBC and CNN, to see their distortions such as the picture of the man in the white shirt carrying a gun as they transition into a discussion of white people with guns at an Obama rally. They cropped the picture so you do not see that the man is Black. This is not a source of news but a dishonesty to make a lie a truth.

Clinton’s impeachment was not about his sexcapades, dangerous as they were, but his lying in court. For this he was impeached and lost his law license. The court in Arkansas found him guilty of lying, another fact you did not get right.

You deny the relationship between Ayers and Obama even though the fund raiser hosted by Ayers in his house for Obama really did happen; even though Ayers did control the $50/m grant and hired Obama to be the executive director of the organization that distributed the money. Hmm is it sociopath or a psychopath to continue to deny a truth? I am not qualified to diagnose anyone, that is just a question for all who deny this relationship written about in the Chicago press.

You and your supporters fail to question why any person should be allowed to make the unfounded complaints that have been made about Palin, that have cost her near $1/m to defend and the taxpayers of Alaska more than a million$ without being forced to pay those costs. I do believe if the govt brings you to trial or you are sueded and win, the loser should pay. Your silence says it is OK to harm Palin.

This discussion has gone far away from the discussion of provisions in the House bill that will change health care. The existing programs—VA, Oregon and others– have denial of care provisions. A committee decides if you receive treatment or hospice care or an invitation to a suicide cocktail. Calling this committee a “death panel” or compassionate care panel is irrelevant; the outcome is the same: NO treatment, you will die. AIDS patients should be very concerned as it now costs about $600,000 for treatment from onset until death. That is a 40% increase of projections made 10 years ago. Remember the words of Dr. Emmanuel (an Obama advisor) about spending health care dollars on those who will die and not be contributors to society!

Waiting times for MD appointments at every level: primary care, specialists, surgeon in Canada are very long, just look at Canadian government health care websites. We wait 1-3 days for an MRI, in Canada it is months. The same is true in England, France and other countries that have already adopted Obama—NO, democratic party non-health care. Every state in this country that has adopted state run health care has quickly discovered the costs are far greater than anticipated. So why is it that the Democratic Party controlled states of Mass, Calif, Oregon can not get it right, but the U.S. Congress and govt will? This is the govt that cannot get a car rebate program right and then sucker punches the people by telling them they will pay income tax on the rebate– the return of their tax dollars!

Other have indicated you are an ideologue of the left based upon your framing of responses and the sources you use, therefore it is impossible for you to accept the truth that govt run anything is a sure bet of how to screw it up. Funny how Obama pointed out that UPS & Fed Ex do a better job than the Post Office. 150 years ago the Pony Express rider did a better job than the Post Office. What have we learned from history? What have you?

It’s good that the DL provides a forum for venting disagrements, it’s a healthy exchange. On the other hand, it may be ideal if some people just agree that they disagree. Clearly, quoting and citing media literature proves neither sides legitimacy or prevalance. What we all can see and agree on at this point is that Obama is shoving money out to his constituents that we don’t have in an effort to guarantee their future support and votes. This is clear, and only little wit would excuse any arguement to the contrary. Stimulus, bailout, or printing and borrowing money to funnel to favorite supporters by any other name is only too obvious. What ever your political views are I maintain that the majority of people are economically prudent, even though they may have made a few personal financial mistakes. As a result the majority of Americans do not approve of borrowing and spending money – this has never been proven to be a fiscally sound national strategy.

“The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.”

The agents who spoke did so off the record. Maybe blowhards
like John have never heard of this timeless journalistic
tradition but many people speak off the record, for
various personal or professional reasons.

John cites Glenn Beck as an objective and credible source
as well as Fox. Like all Palinistas, FactCheck is a
lefty academic outfit and says because it is a part
of Annenberg, there must be some insidious tie in:

Read this, from their own site:

FactCheck.org and the “Annenberg Challenge”

Contrary to suggestions we’ve seen in some conservative blogs, there is no connection between the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and FactCheck.org, save for the fact that both received funding from the Annenberg Foundation. The foundation supports a wide variety of charitable causes – a total of 5,200 grants during its first 15 years of operation. It was founded in 1989 by Walter H. Annenberg, a newspaper and magazine publisher who died in 2002.

FactCheck.org is funded by, and is a project of, the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which was established by the Annenberg Foundation with a $20 million endowment in 1993. The Annenberg Foundation also made additional grants to support our work. We also receive funding from the Flora Family Foundation to help support our educational offshoot, FactCheckED.org. We receive no other outside funding.

FactCheck.org came into being in late 2003. Director Brooks Jackson states: “Our mission is to be as neutral and nonpartisan as humanly possible. Annenberg supports that, and nobody at the Annenberg Foundation has ever tried to influence anything we’ve written.”

For the record, the Annenberg Foundation’s president and chairman is Leonore Annenberg, the founder’s widow. Public records show she’s given $2,300 to the McCain campaign, which announced on Oct. 8, that she has endorsed him for president.

Yet, because the site is not a worship site and has
caught Palin in lie after lie, people like John cry
“leftists, Annenberg, Chicago, bring out the wambulance.”

BTW, where is Gergen on the website? I checked and searched
and found nothing there. Maybe like Sarah Palin, he
is a FactCheck phantom, just like her “strings attached.”

The claim that the state was losing resources was contradicted
by a spokesperson for the Governor’s office in July:

“But David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints.

In response to our questions, the Governor’s office provided us with a detailed breakdown of the millions Palin has claimed has gone to defending against ethics complaints. It does list roughly $1.9 million in expenditures.

But Murrow, the spokesperson, acknowledged to our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that this total was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints — based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor’s office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing. The complaints are “just distracting them from other duties,” Murrow said.”

As for changing the law being self serving, I would not
argue that if there was an argument that the law was
being abused the proof to do so.

Also, according to Bloomber’s Margaret Carlson, there is
some debate about whether she paid directly out of
pocket legal bills or if they were paid out of a fund
set up by John Coale, husband of Greta Van Susteren.

Berthold was no fringe leftist. If anyone actually took
a class with the man or read his articles, he tended
to be a libertarian, with a slight conservative view
on issues like Western Civilization, affirmative
action, diversity committees and speech codes, which
he railed against the left for. His views were left of
center on things like abortion, drugs and personal matters.
I advise you to read more than just the one dumb
comment and what he actually said there was anyone who can
hit the Pentagon has his vote. Once again, dumb joke
blown way out of proportion and the University lost
a great scholar.

Isn’t it comforting to know that people can read and then parrot the different website rhetoric. NOT! We all have access to the internet, and in fact it’s as close as we’ve come to artificial intelligence due to that very fact. Pointing that out ad nauseum is neither impressive nor convincing. What is amusing is how much some people like to read their own writing.

Phillip Howell on Aug 29 7:01 AM “The existing programs—VA, Oregon and others– have denial of care provisions. A committee decides if you receive treatment or hospice care or an invitation to a suicide cocktail.” The VA gives an ‘invitation’ to a suicide cocktail ?? Can you give a reference to this ? As far as I know only 3 states have a limited physician-assisted suicide provision. Anywhere else would in probably result in homicide/manslaughter charges. Could you expand on this? This seems to be inflammatory language with no basis.

Another bit of confusion….“It is painful to watch MSNBC and CNN, to see their distortions such as the picture of the man in the white shirt carrying a gun as they transition into a discussion of white people with guns at an Obama rally. They cropped the picture so you do not see that the man is Black. This from the same post by Phillip Howell. If this video is what he is refering to, the man appears to be white to me. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/protester-with-gun-found_n_256614.html

http://www.foxbusiness.com/search-results/m/25952317/right-to-protest-with-a-gun.htm Maybe this is the one refered to. Not sure if he’s Black or just tanned……. Anyone know him ?

“The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.”

“The agents who spoke did so off the record. Maybe blowhards like John have never heard of this timeless journalistic tradition but many people speak off the record, for various personal or professional reasons.”

No, Brandon, I’ve heard about speaking off the record. The Newsweek article I posted identifies their sources as law enforcement officials speaking off the record. What’s missing from your article is that it never claims that the source if it’s information was from anyone in the Secret Service, which they would have done were the source the Secret Service. Where is the phrase like, “according to a Secret Service agent speaking on conditions of anonymity”? It’s not there because the article never says the source was the Secret Service, which means the source wasn’t anyone in the Secret Service. The odds are very good that their source as the Obama campaign. Sure, you can read whatever you want into a void, Brandon, and that’s probably what the author intended you to do, if the source was anyone in the Secret Service, don’t you think the author would have mentioned that to strengthen the veracity of their article? This is one of those cases where the dog that doesn’t bark is telling. When a reporter doesn’t even mention the nature of their sources, they’ve got something to hide.

“John cites Glenn Beck as an objective and credible source as well as Fox.”

Resorting to outright lying now, Brandon? Where did I mention Glenn Beck, Brandon? And where did I claim that Fox News was objective? I mentioned Fox News as a source of right-wing alternatives to Obama’s plans because you apparently believe that because you can’t find any right-wing opinions in the places that you look that they don’t exist. If I was trying to claim that Fox News was objective source, why would I have mentioned them as a source of partisan right-wing opinions?

As for credibility, as I’ve repeatedly said, it doesn’t come from the name of the source but the quality of their reporting. I don’t believe an article because of which organization or author wrote it. You’ll notice that several logical fallacies revolve around spending more time talking about the messenger than the message, including ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority. Read what the stories actually say. You can do that, can’t you?

The stories that you hold up as “proof” that Barack Obama required increased security because of Sarah Palin’s rhetoric never says where the information comes from. You want to believe it came from the Secret Service but if that was the case, then why didn’t they at least characterize the source as someone in the Secret Service, government, or law enforcement, as the Newsweek article I posted did? Your belief that the source was the Secret Service is a leap of faith in something you very much want to believe but the article never identifies the source as the Secret Service. Never. And the only explanation for that that makes any sense, since I posted a Newsweek article that shows how easy it is for an author to characterize the nature of an anonymous source without revealing them, is that the author didn’t get their information from the Secret Service but from the Obama campaign, which, as a quote I posted from a spokesman illustrated, had a vested interest in selling a narrative that Palin’s rhetoric was dangerous. That’s politics and propaganda, not proof.

“Read this, from their own site:”

This is hilarious. Of course FactCheck.org is going to argue that they are not biased. No kidding. Sarah Palin says that she’s innocent of all of the ethics charges against her. Are you willing to take her word for it and, if not, why not? I’ve already pointed out places where FactCheck.org presented the facts in a biased or misleading way. That’s evidence enough that they are not automatically reliable as the final word on anything.

“BTW, where is Gergen on the website? I checked and searched and found nothing there. Maybe like Sarah Palin, he is a FactCheck phantom, just like her ‘strings attached.’”

I wasn’t saying that David Gergen works at FactCheck.org. I was claiming that the one person on their staff with any overt Republican background went to work for a Democrat on his campaign. That’s what a “David Gergen Republican” is. It’s a “Republican” that’s not really a Republican. AKA, a RINO.

“The claim that the state was losing resources was contradicted by a spokesperson for the Governor’s office in July:”

I notice you didn’t give a source link for this quote. Why is that?

Also, I suspect unlike you, I’ve actually worked for a state division of law and was involved in state attorney time billing. While it’s nice to dismiss the lawyers time as money the state would spend, anyway, it means that those lawyers aren’t working on other business for the state. It’s not as if they’d be sitting idly at their desks if it weren’t for those ethics complaints. Further, that claim is akin to staying that a state working, running their own business on state government time and while drawing a salary, isn’t actually doing anything wrong nor wasting or stealing taxpayer money because they’d be drawing a salary, anyway, even if they weren’t running their own business on state time. It doesn’t work that way, but nice try.

“As for changing the law being self serving, I would not argue that if there was an argument that the law was being abused the proof to do so.”

And how exactly would one “prove” the law was being abused? Isn’t the fact that every ethic complaint against her has been dismissed evidence enough?

“Also, according to Bloomber’s Margaret Carlson, there is some debate about whether she paid directly out of pocket legal bills or if they were paid out of a fund set up by John Coale, husband of Greta Van Susteren.”

Sure (though I suppose I should point out that Margaret Carlson is hardly non-partisan) and there are other people who claim that Republican officials told her that they’d reimburse her for lawyer fees but never did, leaving her with the bill and her enemies in Alaska were filing ethics complaints that she had a legal defense fund, even though this one was set up exactly like every other legal defense fund set up for every other politician that’s had one. I hope the legal defense fund pays her bills but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of ethics complaints against her were never credible and have been a tremendous waste of time and money.

“Berthold was no fringe leftist. If anyone actually took a class with the man or read his articles, he tended to be a libertarian, with a slight conservative view
on issues like Western Civilization, affirmative action, diversity committees and speech codes, which he railed against the left for. His views were left of center on things like abortion, drugs and personal matters.”

I’ve read a little more of his writing, including a defense of his statement, and I’m not impressed. It’s not a matter of whether he’s left or right but whether his opinions make sense. There are people on the left who I think make a great deal of sense, just as there are criticisms of Sarah Palin that I think are legitimate (e.g., I agree that her spin on the Bridge to Nowhere was misleading at best). It’s not about the source but about the quality of what they are saying. The problem is that you keep relying on the authority of the sources you quote rather than on the quality of the quotes.

Just out of curiosity, I attempted to do your work for you and spent some time to see if I could find a single article that actually cites a Secret Service source for the claims that threats against Obama increased or that Sarah Palin was the cause of it. I found five interesting things.

First, I found out that most articles simply repeat the claims made in the Telegraph story or quote it, often saying (as the Telegraph headline did) that the Secret Service was the source of these claims yet never actually quoting a secret service source. That’s the echo chamber that occurs when people don’t try to find the source of a claim.

Second, I found what is probably the source of the Telegraph claim, a Newsweek article found here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167950/output/print

This article says, “The campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October.” Given the structure of that sentence and the surrounding sentences, it’s almost certain the source was the Obama campaign, which was trying to make the case at the time that Palin was a threat to Obama. At that point, a good reporter would have asked the Secret Service for corroboration. That none of these articles contains any such corroborating statement suggests either negligent reporters or that they asked and the Secret Service didn’t provide the answer they wanted, which lead me to…

Third, I found some other articles claiming that the Secret Service was working with Palin to thwart reporters having access to crowds such as this one:

http://journalism.about.com/b/2008/10/17/post-columnist-says-secret-service-is-obstructing-reporters-at-palin-rallies.htm

…and several other articles pointing out that the Secret Service investigated the alleged “Kill him!” remarks in both Florida and Pennsylvania and found no credible evidence of a threat. Indeed, the Secret Service even cast doubts that either incident actually happened as reported.

So now we are left with reporters claiming, on the one hand, that the Secret Service considers Sarah Palin’s comments a dire threat to Obama’s life while on the other hand, they are claiming the Secret Service was working with the Palin campaign in an inappropriate way as well as reports that they didn’t consider the remarks at the Palin rally to represent legitimate threats. So which one of those claims has the best sourcing?

Fourth, I did find conservative author Ron Kessler, who has recently written a book on the Secret Service, says that the Secret Service says threats against Barak Obama have increased several hundred percent over Bush after Obama took office and also that the Secret Service has cut corners protecting Obama, which may be endangering him. That’s odd behavior if they are taking the increased threats against Barack Obama seriously as an organization. But at least it’s evidence that says it’s from the Secret Service, itself.
Finally, fifth, the Secret Service gate Barack Obama protection starting in the spring, earlier than any other candidate in the past. That suggests that whatever increase in threats there were against Barack Obama started long before Sarah Palin was nominated by John McCain.

Marc, here is an extended clip of the man carrying the gun, including an interview with him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syx26QtQIM

Still think he just looks like a tanned white guy?

John,

GFY! I’m done with you, you simpleton. You say FactCheck is
misleading yet your “proof” is not quite there. Many
of their items have also beens econded by PolitiFact. Your
only claim against FactCheck is Annenberg and guess what,
that is only right wing propaganda. Your “proof” is
a Frontiersman article that they did not include
in their citations. That’s it? One quote and
one article? After all, the chief never elaborated
upon how he would execute restitution and the FactCheck
articles were simply dealing with his opposition to
the law signed by Knowles.

You may not be impressed with Richard Berthold but guess what?
He had more intelligence in his index finger than you do
in your entire cranium.

You say SP has gotten a hand around the healthcare debate. Well, that is a curiosity and to quote Bill Maher, if the
Democrats allow themselves to be pushed by a chick on
Facebook, they are wimps. Maureen Dowd said as much as
well in the NY Times recently.

The reason the Dems cannot seem to get their agenda is partly because of Blue Dogs, who seem to want a watered down version
of health care.

Quit bringing up the Carter presidency. Republicans constantly
harp on a presidency that ended 28 years ago and are
almost still blaming peanut boy for current problems. Here is
a clue: Today is August 29, 2009. 1980 is gone. Live in
today, not the past.

Lastly, even though the Dems cannot seem to get the single
voice discipline on healthcare, you are still a LOSER!
You lost! Sarah Palin lost. She is a loser and a QUITTER.
Deal with it! Like George Carlin said, you seem to
embrace that you are the “last winner” paradigm rather than
the reality of YOU ARE A LOSER! That is all you are, all
you will ever be and you support losers like Sarah Palin;
birds of the feather flock together.

At least I have the balls to sign my full and real name
to my work. Care to grow some, John and tell everyone
who you really are? Or, are you too much of a coward for
that?

“GFY! I’m done with you, you simpleton.”

Ah, the name calling again. At least you didn’t call me a psychopath.

“You say FactCheck is misleading yet your ‘proof’ is not quite there.”

No, it’s there. You just don’t get it.

“Many of their items have also beens econded by PolitiFact.”

I don’t care if they were quoted favorably by the Pope. It has zero relevance to their credibility.

“Your only claim against FactCheck is Annenberg and guess what, that is only right wing propaganda.”

That was no my first claim about FactCheck.org. The problem is that their “proof” often doesn’t prove what they claim it proves. For example, how can you definitively claim that Barack Obama didn’t have strong ties to Bill Ayers when the full extent of their contacts is unknown. If you’d bother to read Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, you might realize that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. This is basic logical fallacy stuff. You do understand why a logical fallacy is called a “logical fallacy”, right?

You assume that if FactCheck.org says something, it must be true. It doesn’t work that way. To quote Sagan, “Arguments from authority carry little weight — ‘authorities’ have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future.”

“Your ‘proof’ is a Frontiersman article that they did not include
in their citations. That’s it? One quote and one article?”

My proof of the bias of those two articles is that they selectively quoted the Frontiersman article in such as way that left a misleading impression of Fallon’s motives and then didn’t provide a link to the original source that had the longer quote, even though they provided a link to every other source mentioned in the article with the extended quote. Given that providing links to the original sources is supposed to be part of their philosophy, yes I find that quite suspicious. That was hardly the only problem with the sources you cited from FactCheck.org, none of which you’ve responded to in any detail. For example, they claim that Wasilla in particular was a motivation for the law being passed yet don’t source that claim at all with an source contemporary to the passing of the law.

“After all, the chief never elaborated upon how he would execute restitution and the FactCheck articles were simply dealing with his opposition to the law signed by Knowles.”

Why Fallon opposed the law is a significant elements of the story, especially since many of Palin’s detractors were arguing that Palin’s motives were to punish rape victims. And, no, we don’t know how Fallon would have executed restitution except that, where possible, he’d charge their insurance but the fact that no woman has come forward to claim that she was charged for a rape kit by the Palin administration is telling. We don’t know if a woman ever would have really been charged for a rape kit because we have no example of it ever having happened in Wasilla under Palin.

In fact, FactCheck.org also takes further liberties with the truth in the article quoting Fallon in the Frontiersman. It claims, “he had billed women and their insurance companies for these tests rather than placing a ‘burden’ on taxpayers,” when in the following quote, Fallon says, “In the past we’ve charged the cost of exams to the victim’s insurance company when possible,” but never says that he sent a bill to a woman. Given that the title of the article is, “Did Sarah Palin make rape victims pay for their own rape kits?” it’s clear that the author is grasping for some way to claim that the charge is true, even though they admit there is no evidence that Sarah Palin had anything to do with it and have to take liberties with what the police chief said to claim the charge is true. That’s spin and bias.

“He had more intelligence in his index finger than you do in your entire cranium.”

You know less about me than you know about Sarah Palin. Is your self-esteem really that low that you have to put down someone who you must know is kicking your butt in an online discussion? Playing with that cheese grater again?

“You say SP has gotten a hand around the healthcare debate. Well, that is a curiosity and to quote Bill Maher, if the Democrats allow themselves to be pushed by a chick on Facebook, they are wimps. Maureen Dowd said as much as well in the NY Times recently.”

And Bill Maher and Maureen Down are paragons of moderation and unbiased truth, right?

“The reason the Dems cannot seem to get their agenda is partly because of Blue Dogs, who seem to want a watered down version of health care.”

Which means that they don’t even have support in their own party for their agenda. Why is that?

“Quit bringing up the Carter presidency. Republicans constantly harp on a presidency that ended 28 years ago and are almost still blaming peanut boy for current problems. Here is a clue: Today is August 29, 2009. 1980 is gone. Live in today, not the past.”

No, things that happened 28 years ago couldn’t possibly be relevant today because we all know that Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, and people like Daniel Ortega and what were once called the Mujahideen have absolutely no bearing on what’s happening in 2009, right?

But the real point of bringing up Carter is this. “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” — George Santayana

Clearly you have no interest in learning from history. Few on the left seem to.

“Lastly, even though the Dems cannot seem to get the single voice discipline on healthcare, you are still a LOSER! You lost! Sarah Palin lost. She is a loser and a QUITTER.”

On to all caps now, are we? Meds wearing off?

“Deal with it! Like George Carlin said, you seem to embrace that you are the “last winner” paradigm rather than the reality of YOU ARE A LOSER! That is all you are, all you will ever be and you support losers like Sarah Palin; birds of the feather flock together.”

Sadly, Brandon, this isn’t about me or you losing but about America losing. Neither Democrats nor Republicans lost with Carter. America was the big loser there. And America is going to be the big loser with Obama, too.

“At least I have the balls to sign my full and real name to my work. Care to grow some, John and tell everyone who you really are? Or, are you too much of a coward for that?”

Why? So you can stalk me and ruin my life like people did with Sarah Palin? No thanks. As I said, my name and your name are irrelevant. What matters is the quality of what we say. Given the amount of childish name-calling, bullying, and so on that you engage in, maybe you should be embarrassed about having your full name on your work.

Like I said, I don’t really care what you think or think about me, Brandon. Get over it. I’m here to give the other side for other people who may still be reading this discussion. Thank you for playing, Brandon.

Here are two articles about the biases at FactCheck.org. Yes they are biased sources and authors but their claims are detailed and well laid out:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/17663

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,437201,00.html

By the way, here is one of the “red flags” that FactCheck.org mentions as a reason to doubt the truthfulness of a claim:

“The author gives no source for any of these supposed statistics. The reader isn’t told where they are coming from and has no way to check them out independently.”

Sound familiar? Again, it’s about the quality of the information, sources, and argument, not about who is making it. The truth is about facts and logic, not personalities and name-calling.

Sarah Palin: In her own words. To anyone with a brain cell
reading, I think they can see John falls back on the tired
GOP talking points.

So, here she is in her own words. After reading these
quotes, which are from the woman herself, ask yourself
the following questions:

1: Is this the person I would trust with the security and
well being of the United States of America?

2: Should this person be given any credence upon critical
issues such as healthcare?

Lastly, John keeps referring to Carl Sagan’s book, which
has nothing to do with the issues surrounding Sarah Palin or
her ambiguous relationship with facts.

The article Palin used to tie Obama to Ayers is the Oct 4, 2008
edition of the New York Times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html

It says the connection between the men was nominal at best.
Where is the evidence that says otherwise? The $50 million was
a grant by Annenberg, not Ayers personally, to match local private capital for schools.http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/

The only one who made it sound sinister is Dick Morris,
disgraced Bill Clinton aide turned right wing hatchet man.

John falls back on same Rep talking points anout media bias;
a trick as old as time itself (or at least as old as
Barack Obama; a tactic Nixon embellished and relished but
I think today, Tricky Dick would be a Democrat or indpendent).

Without further delay, in her own words: Sarah Palin

1. “As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.” —Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS’s Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008

2. “I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out.” —Sarah Palin, referring to a department that does not exist while attempting to explain why as president she wouldn’t be subjected to the same ethics investigations that compelled her to resign as governor of Alaska, ABC News interview, July 7, 2009

3. “We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. … We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.” —Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in Greensoboro, N.C., Oct. 16, 2008

4. “Ohh, good, thank you, yes.” —Sarah Palin, after a notorious Canadian prank caller complimented her on the documentary about her life, Hustler’s “Nailin Paylin,” Nov. 1, 2008

5. “Well, let’s see. There’s ― of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ―” —Sarah Palin, unable to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe vs. Wade, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

6. “All of ‘em, any of ‘em that have been in front of me over all these years.” —Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

7. “They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.” —Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2008

8. “[T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.” —Sarah Palin, getting the vice president’s constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does, interview with NBC affiliate KUSA in Colorado, Oct. 21, 2008

9. “I told the Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ on that Bridge to Nowhere.” –Sarah Palin, who was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it

10. “I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.’” —Sarah Palin, as quoted by former City Council Member Nick Carney, after he raised objections about the $50,000 she spent renovating the mayor’s office without approval of the city council: Read this article in Salon
about her time as mayor:http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/17/palin_mayor/

I will let her own words be her rope of which she pulls
a David Carradine (metaphorically speaking, not literally;
don’t want to be accused of encouraging people to strangle
themselves while eroticizng themselves).

PS: The cheese grater line is from the 1990 movie THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE with Andrew Dice Clay; his
thoughts on dealing with a particular character in the
film named ZuZu Petals.

Let me start with this, since it doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the reply:

“Lastly, John keeps referring to Carl Sagan’s book, which has nothing to do with the issues surrounding Sarah Palin or her ambiguous relationship with facts.”

I keep referring to a book by Carl Sagan because it has to do with how to recognize good arguments and bad arguments and how to separate the facts from the baloney. The same logical fallacies are described on numerous other web sites. What it all means, since you seem to be missing the point, is that certain rhetorical tricks used in arguments to prove a point often don’t prove the point at all because they rely on logical fallacies. That is, the argument doesn’t logically support the point being made. You could learn something from it. Or not.

“So, here she is in her own words. After reading these quotes, which are from the woman herself, ask yourself the following questions: 1: Is this the person I would trust with the security and well being of the United States of America? 2: Should this person be given any credence upon critical issues such as healthcare?”

Good, Brandon, you are finally dealing with evidence. Let’s take a look at what you got and when you are done, read the links I provided earlier in the thread to quotes from Joe Biden where he makes racist comments about Indians and Barack Obama, talks about FDR appearing on television when the Stock Market crashed despite the fact that FDR wasn’t president and people didn’t have televisions in their homes at that time, made gaffes that contradicted Obama administration policy and may have had an impact on oil prices, spilled the beans on the top secret bunker in the VP mansion, and slandered the man who accidentally killed his wife by calling him a drunk as well as an article about his history of plagiarism. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. And don’t forget that Sarah Palin was chosen for the exact same spot by McCain that Biden now occupies.

Now let’s look at your quotes:

“The article Palin used to tie Obama to Ayers is the Oct 4, 2008
edition of the New York Times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html”

There are plenty of other sources concerning the ties between Obama and Ayers, including plenty of circumstantial evidence that that their ties were much closer, including one blogger who makes the case, based on the writing and timing, that Ayers ghost wrote Dreams of My Father for Obama. While you have every right to be skeptical of partisan sources and to doubt their evidence, it is not reasonable to assume that Sarah Palin’s source was only that New York Times article.

“It says the connection between the men was nominal at best. Where is the evidence that says otherwise? The $50 million was a grant by Annenberg, not Ayers personally, to match local private capital for schools.http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/obama.ayers/”

So the connection was “nominal at best”. Yet after the election, Ayers mentions in a new section of his book “Fugitive Days” that Obama and he:

“[…]had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.”

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1278532,bill-ayers-barack-obama-book-111308.article

By the way, Canada still thinks Bill Ayers is shady enough that they recently denied him entry into the country:

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/jan/20/local/chi-ayers-20-jan20

“The only one who made it sound sinister is Dick Morris, disgraced Bill Clinton aide turned right wing hatchet man.”

No, Brandon, plenty of people considered the connections shady if not sinister. The Obama campaign understood this, which is why they expended significant effort fighting any attempt to bring it up, including blocking political ads and trying to block guests on radio shows.

“John falls back on same Rep talking points anout media bias; a trick as old as time itself (or at least as old as Barack Obama; a tactic Nixon embellished and relished but I think today, Tricky Dick would be a Democrat or indpendent).”

I thought we weren’t supposed to live in the past, Brandon? Nixon was, what, 35 years ago? I’m sure that I’m not going to convince you that the media is biased but it’s clear to anyone who is paying attention and has attended events that the media reports on and conservative sources routinely detail examples of bias by showing what’s been edited out or distorted. Just as the behavior of Communists in the 1950s turned Ronald Reagan into an anti-communist conservative, the bias in the mainstream media is what’s driving the popularity of Fox News and talk radio and it’s why polls show that trust in media reporting is so low. Here is an excellent example of the sort of bias that’s routine in the mainstream media, uncovered largely because people were able to see unedited footage of the event themselves or on C-SPAN and could see how the mainstream reporting bore little resemblance to the reality:

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=1613

There are plenty of examples like that from left-wing political protests, where photos are conveniently cropped to cut off the name of socialist or communist groups or particularly nasty anti-American slogans. They do the opposite at right wing, rallies, and go out of their way to find the freaks and ignore the much larger number of normal people.

Here’s an excellent example of CNN’s “unbiased” coverage of the Tea Party protesters showing both what CNN reported and what they didn’t report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd2tg8gxCDU

This stuff is routine, Brandon. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The way I prove media bias to people is to ask them to watch events on C-SPAN or attend them in person and then watch how they are reported. It’s so overt and obvious it would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.

So let’s go to your quotes:

“1. ‘As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.’ —Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS’s Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008”

She’s clearly saying that when Russians make incursions into air space monitored and controlled by the United States that Alaska is where they do it.. It happened during the Cold War and it’s happened more recently. What’s wrong with the statement? Funny, in 1992 I remember the press backing up Bill Clinton when he claimed mobilizing the Arkansas National Guard as military command experience yet they laughed at Sarah Palin for the same claim. Why is that, Brandon? And why was a lack of foreign policy experience a show-stopper for Palin but not for Clinton or Carter who were also governors?

“2. ‘I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out.’ —Sarah Palin, referring to a department that does not exist while attempting to explain why as president she wouldn’t be subjected to the same ethics investigations that compelled her to resign as governor of Alaska, ABC News interview, July 7, 2009”

The Department of Law is the state government equivalent of the Department of Justice. She’s a governor that hadn’t spent years, if not decades, in Washington. What she meant was clear.

In response to a question by an Austrian reporter, Barack Obama responded, “There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics.” One can think Obama is an idiot for not knowing that Austrians speak German, but it’s clear what he meant. One can find these sorts of gaffes for any politician and right-wing sites have quite a few Obama gaffes that make him look stupid including one very widely played clip of Obama stuttering like an idiot when his teleprompter went out during a town hall meeting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxxxGUeZtno

So how does he look in that video?

“3. ‘We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. … We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.’ —Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in Greensoboro, N.C., Oct. 16, 2008”

I have no problem with this statement. It’s certainly no more troubling troubling than Barack Obama saying, “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Why is it OK for Obama to talk down to rural America and suggest they are racists but disqualifying for Sarah Palin to talk down to urban America? It had nothing to do with crypto-racism. She was simply appealing to her base, just as Obama was appealing to his.

“4. ‘Ohh, good, thank you, yes.’ —Sarah Palin, after a notorious Canadian prank caller complimented her on the documentary about her life, Hustler’s ‘Nailin Paylin,’ Nov. 1, 2008”

She was punked and people always look foolish when they are punked. She was simply trying to be polite to what she thought was a world leader and through that bad accent, I’m not sure she understood everything he was saying to her. Why didn’t she notice she was being punked? Because a staffer told her she was speaking to a world leader and she trusted that “crack” McCain staffer. Given the quality of McCain’s campaign staff, I wonder if it was done to her on purpose.l

“5. ‘Well, let’s see. There’s ― of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ―’ —Sarah Palin, unable to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe vs. Wade, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008”

No problem with that response. Obama is a lawyer. Biden is a lawyer. Clinton is a lawyer. Edwards is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Lawyers live and breath questions like that. Non-lawyer governors do not Because of all these lawyers in the Obama administration, they won’t touch tort reform as a way to reduce healthcare costs. I’ve also worked in state government and see how the cozy relationship between law firms and lawmakers is used by corporations and rich individuals to evade the law. I consider Palin not being a lawyer a feature, not a bug.

“6. ‘All of ‘em, any of ‘em that have been in front of me over all these years.’ —Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008”

Already covered earlier in this discussion. Her biography, written before she was nominated for the VP slot, corroborates that she did, in fact, read any and all of the newspapers put in front of her. When she answered the question, she was already peeved at Couric for some reason and took the question as a put-down and responded accordingly.

“7. ‘They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.’ —Sarah Palin, speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Oct. 5, 2008”

Here is Barack Obama talking about visiting 57 states:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws

I have no reason to believe that Sarah Palin doesn’t know that Afghanistan isn’t next to the United States just as I have no reason to believe that Barack Obama doesn’t know that the United States has 50, not 60 states. People make slips of the tongue all the time and it’s up to the press whether they get reported or not and that can be used, like the producers of reality TV shows regularly do, to create a character. It seems pretty clear to me that by “neighboring” she meant “friendly” just as it’s pretty clear that Obama’s brain had shifted to thinking he was in the 40s even though he said 50.

“8. ‘[T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.’ —Sarah Palin, getting the vice president’s constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does, interview with NBC affiliate KUSA in Colorado, Oct. 21, 2008:

The US Constitution states, “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.” and “The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.” Normally, Senate procedures are run by the President pro tempore because the Vice President doesn’t bother with the role, but a Vice President is constitutionally authorized to act as President of the Senate and manage Senate procedures and she could have taken that role if she wanted to.

“9. ‘I told the Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ on that Bridge to Nowhere.’ –Sarah Palin, who was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it”

Yup, this one is a legitimate problem. That other politicians do the same thing makes it difficult for you to argue that this is a disqualifying act but it doesn’t excuse it. That’s not to say that she didn’t play a legitimate role in the defunding of the bridge, but the way she spun it was certainly misleading and I think that may have been the thing that soured some in the McCain campaign to Palin.

“10. ‘I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.’’ —Sarah Palin, as quoted by former City Council Member Nick Carney, after he raised objections about the $50,000 she spent renovating the mayor’s office without approval of the city council: Read this article in Salon
about her time as mayor:http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/17/palin_mayor/”

An article from Salon that relies on a Palin enemy as the source? I spent some time digging into Palin’s time as mayor and reading the quotes from both sides and it’s pretty clear that there were personal conflicts between the various players, the details of which need to be found within the bias of both sides. For example, yes Palin fired a police chief and tried to fire a librarian. The context is that the police chief was hired by the previous administration and felt he couldn’t be fired (that’s why he brought a lawsuit against Palin) and the suggestion that he was insubordinate fits in with that attitude.

So there are two questions here. Is the quote legitimate (Is there a record of it in the meeting transcripts on file or another witness that corroborates it?) and, if so, what was she thinking and what was the context when she said it?

I’ll take your work for it about Ford Fairlane. You’re the one who introduced the topic into the discussion.

The postings of John seem to be correct, about Factcheck.org, although the writers do put a lot of effort into trying to be accurate. Often they are quoting what some one said as proof of a point’s accuracy or inaccuracy.

Emotionalism in postings appear not to support a position unless it’s a passion for some movement or substantial theme, stubborness, anger and frustration do not equal passion.

There’s little point to refuting the association of PO with known anti-capitalist anti-American anti-patriotic individuals. While there is something admirable about the rebel spirit, the child like attitude and perception that people like Wright and Ayers embrace is like the old saying “Throw the baby out with the bath water”. They have collected their complaints about the USA and interpreted them to indicate that the entire country is bad (except for their strict followers). This is the liberal phenomenon that is so frustrating and maddening to conservatives.

What’s important is to try to get a sense of the future, even though many details may be incorrect. Looking at technological, demographic, cultural and military forces in their broadest sense, as opposed to minute detail about what one person said or didn’t say on a certain date at a certain time that is on a certain website interpreted by a certain group or individual.

People are legitimately concerned that PO does not value traditional American values, his actions and associations stoke this concern. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that SP does place a high value on traditional values. These are the two main issues. Discussion abou what was spent on renovation of an office or a presidential trip to Paris is triva that the media feasts on because they live in a day-to-day mind set. They are not interested in the big picture because it steps over all the small pieces of information that the media reports, which sustains their existence.

Apparently, the notorious bed-wetting liberals are promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, “The Death Panel”) deny medical treatment. This wasn’t a popular idea with most Americans. This is one of the facts that Factcheck.org incorrectly reported. These Factcheck guys apparently beleive that just because the 1000 page document does not specifically say “We will ration health care [or] we will let you die when you get old and sick; that the very real potential to do just that is very prevalent.

So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs … without ever denying a single medical treatment! Are they magic or what? I think it’s more like Obama’s promise to treat all states equally and not engage in partisan politics. You know “The Great Black Hope” that he spewed during his campaign.

It doesn’t really bug that PO lied in his campaign, all politicians do. What bugs are people who cling to him and anything he says like he was something special. He’s not, that’s for sure and for certain. He’s intelligent, knows how to speak in public with teleprompters, and he can spend money faster than anyone in our nation’s history. So he does have some skills.

He’s smart enough to know that he’s impotent internationally, other than to bow and play nice with the Muslims. That’s why he selected the old guard to run the military. But he does fancy himself as the all powerful community organizer/Chicago Crook. That’s bugs too.

slowhike “Apparently, the notorious bed-wetting liberals are promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, “The Death Panel”) deny medical treatment. This wasn’t a popular idea with most Americans. This is one of the facts that Factcheck.org incorrectly reported. These Factcheck guys apparently beleive that just because the 1000 page document does not specifically say “We will ration health care [or] we will let you die when you get old and sick; that the very real potential to do just that is very prevalent.” Guess you cold also say that Bush planned to use the warrantless wiretaps to target Democrats to
assassinate……. after all….he didn’t “specifically say” that he wouldn’t…….That seems to use the same type of logic…..

John….thank you for that clip….I stand corrected.
It’s nice to see that there are people on here who do research what they say.

Guess you cold also say that Bush planned to use the warrantless wiretaps to target Democrats to
assassinate……. after all….he didn’t “specifically say” that he wouldn’t…….That seems to use the same type of logic…..
Atually Mark that’s not logic, it’s health-care insurance language. If you review your health insurance policy it will not mention rationing, it will however, provide you with a list of covered services. Same thing.

slowhike…rationing….My private Blue Cross policy already does that….if I don’t use their “preferred or participating network provider” my choices are limited or more costly. They have their own criteria as to what will or will not be covered. I think you will find this true with any private company…not too surprising that a government sponsored one would have some of the same language. Also have a separate cancer policy with another company that has many restrictions. I am fortunate that I can afford my medical coverages….not everyone is that lucky.

Marc! You are correct indeed. That’s my very point, Obama is claiming his plan wont ration health care. That’s an absurd claim.

If I have some sort of “rationing” with my private insurance policy, is it unreasonable to have the same thing in a government-sponsored one ? Not everyone can afford to pay for private policies right now the way I can….such as the 14.5 million unemployed in July (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf)
In the next half year our area will be losing an additional 1100 manufacturing jobs…that did have insurance.

Rationing does happen with private insurance, also Medicare is very big on rationing, hence the Medicare Beneficiary Notification regulation stating that the provider of health care must notifiy the patient prior to providing services which will be reimbursed by Medicare and which will not. The question then could be does one prefer private or public rationing.

Health care reform is not as simple as that. Insuring everyone is a nice thought, however there’s nothing so unfair as treating unequal people equally. For example, it would make sense to give everyone maternity health care only if the chronic unemployed and drug users were subject to sterilization after one or two pregnancies. To financially support and encourage the birth of more welfare recipients is a regressive policy.

Another example would be motorcycle riders who refuse to wear helmets. If you decide to ride without protective gear you should be responsible to pay for your own injuries. Another example would be obese smokers, if people spend money, time, effort and self discipline on staying fit and healthy they should be compensated by not paying as much for health care as a couch potatoe who does not. There are many many examples of why saying “lets insure everyone” is a difficult proposition to support. Besides looking at the system in Canada and France and England does not encourage following that path. Those systems work, but not better than the US system.

There appears to be a marked inability to distinguish the difference between facts and opinions in this discussion.

How else could “Willful ignorance” become “independent thinking?”

Some things never change. People who want to believe a particular ideology will do so, regardless of the facts or consequences. Unless we as human beings figure out a better metaphor than scrapping in the schoolyard and shouting “neiner, neiner” at each other, we’ll repeat the same destructive patterns ad infinitum. Santaya was right.

Make that Santayana. Wish they allowed “edit comment.”

Ezekiel Emanuel is upset. The president’s health care czar sees the growing resistance to his vision, to his brave new world of government-run “communitarian” health care in which politicians and bureaucrats control one-sixth of the economy and 100% of our bodies. He doesn’t quite understand how it all came apart on him, but he does know who started the unraveling: Sarah Palin.

Where does she get off attacking him? Sarah Palin, it seems forever Sarah Palin. And he wonders, as have so many others, what it takes to put a stake through her heart? People should listen to him, not Sarah Palin. He is the philosopher king of Democrat health care. And he went to Harvard, you know.

One day he was vacationing in the Italian Alps, a top-level government bureaucrat and Democrat insider enjoying the fruits of his labors on behalf of the common good. Government health care was cruising and Zeke was the guy Time magazine predicted will build the most “equitable and ethical” health care system north of Cuba. Marty Peretz, his friend and publisher of The New Republic, described him as quintessential Harvard, “very impressive” and stuffed with “gravitas.”

And then he got the call: Sarah Palin had done the unthinkable. She had read the health care bill. Mainstream journalists hadn’t read the bill. Congress hadn’t read its own bill. But Sarah Palin did. Sarah Palin! He has a medical degree and doctorate in political philosophy from Harvard. The only Harvard she’s knows is the chunk of ice off Prince William Sound, Harvard Glacier.

Then she writes something on Facebook — Facebook, for Obama’s sake! — and suddenly the president, congress, the media, and everyone who is anyone inside the beltway is scurrying for cover. Palin wrote that she wanted nothing to do with Obama’s “death panel,” the collection of bureaucrats who Zeke was so proudly putting together to assess the “level of productivity” that would determine individual access to medical care

They went after her, but…it was over. Everyone was talking death panels. Sarah Palin had let people know: if you’re old, if you’re sick, if you’re disabled, they’re targeting you. It became Mrs. Mom vs. Dr. Death, the governor vs. the terminator.

She cut through the rhetoric, the academic jargon, and adoring press to the truth: Ezekiel Emanuel and Barack Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are putting in place a health care system that will control the lives — and deaths — of citizens to an extent never seen in this republic. Her reaction:“we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

And Zeke is upset. A slam-dunk had been transformed into an epic battle and, as an American Thinker commentator put it, ObamaCare turned into a “sick joke.” That’s not how it’s supposed to be — he went to Harvard, you know.

Ezekiel Emanuel “abhors” what she’s done. She read his articles, which “even well-educated people” would have a difficult time understanding. And she’s certainly not well educated. She’s a graduate of the University of Idaho, where they probably write doctoral dissertations in crayon. And she only has a bachelor’s degree — in communications, for Obama’s sake!?

It’s as if the waitress at the Harvard Faculty Club had, instead of a check, taken out a baseball bat and cold-cocked him. Or the ball girl at the tennis event sponsored by the Harvard Club of Washington DC had reared back and smacked a Dunlop A-Player right into his groin. This is not supposed to happen — he went to Harvard, you know.

This is crazy! People are packing town halls in protest. They are listening to Sarah Palin and not Zeke, who has been a fellow at Oxford — the one in England, not the suburb of Fairbanks. And he has written nine books, almost a dozen chapters in other books, and more than 225 other pieces on bioethics and morality. And certified as a genius by The New York Times, which hired him as a book reviewer for its Sunday newspaper

And yet, this, this… this Facebook writer described his thinking as “downright evil.” And demanded that he explain why he’s trying to put in place centralized health care that “would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential.”

Evil!? Sarah Palin called him evil!? She said “death panels,” he didn’t. Hey, some lives are worth more to society than others. Therefore, health services cannot be guaranteed for individuals like Trig, Palin’s baby with Down Syndrome, who are “irreversibly prevented” from contributing to the public good. There is a subtle difference.

Sarah Palin simply does not understand. No nuance. She did not go to Harvard, nor is she a board member of Princeton University’s Center for Human Values, where Zeke provides support for philosopher Peter Singer. Singer is best known for the view that fetuses and many disabled have less of a right to live than, say, fully functioning humans and “adult gorillas and chimpanzees.” No, Zeke believes that those who know better, who understand morality, should make decisions for those less able to do so.

Like Sarah Palin. Like Trig. Like your grandma. And this is because he cares. Just ask him: “I hope at the end of the day I can make things better for people, especially vulnerable people.” As an original member of the academic “communitarian” movement, he has pledged to establish “just” health care by means that are “nondemocratic or practice discrimination.” A just society doesn’t simply happen, he explains. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs… so to speak.

So when Sarah Palin says she doesn’t want her “baby with Down Syndrome” to stand in front of his medical panels… that shows just how unsophisticated her thinking really is. She has already made the anti-social choice of giving birth to a child with a severe disability, who will never be able to live the “complete life” outlined by Zeke on behalf of the government.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of a health care system that operates in the public good to deny Trig — or grandma, for that matter — health services that are better used elsewhere. Sarah Palin, not the government, is to blame. She chose to have Trig. She forced a situation that provides her with, as Zeke puts it, “bleak choices.”

And so government, for the sake of the common good, may deny Trig medical care. And may do the same with the elderly, the severely disabled, and others who fall low on the “complete life” value scale. It is the best way, the moral way, the smart way.

And Zeke knows smart — he went to Harvard, you know.

Any way you look at it, it’s us vs. them.

The media elite hate Sarah Palin with a passion — the same passion they have used for decades to rant about us. We are the “primitive strain,” the “booboisie,” or, as The New York Times put it, the “Philistines.” We are a people, according to Times columnist Maureen Dowd, that displays a “reptilian American desire “for prosperity and an innate disrespect for culture and our betters, who are the political and media elite that “must nurse us through our affluenza.”

Welcome to Mainstream Media World, where Sarah Palin is…us.

Call it Palin Envy, Palin Derangement Syndrome or even Palin Jealous. But the irrational hatred pouring from a thousand well-fed mouths, dripping from manicured fingers, from the talkers and squawkers of mainstream media, is fueled by the increasingly angry certainty that we — and Gov. Sarah Palin — simply don’t know our place.

Witness rabid Palin-hater Kathleen Parker, the Washington Post and National Review columnist who has scored regular guest status on MSNBC for finding more than a hundred ways to say Palin is dumber than a chimpanzee… which, Parker opines, shows how much “deadwood” “Miss Alaska” has between her “low-brow” ears. After all, her “oogedy-boogedy” Christianity doesn’t recognize the primacy of the primate in human affairs, putting her “Clearly Out of Her League” amongst cultured folks.

You don’t need the brains of a chimpanzee to recognize the gulf between the world inhabited by Palin and that of Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal, National Review), and David Brooks (The New York Times and National Public Radio) to name a few of the leading conservative lights of Mainstream Media World. To them, Sarah Palin represents the average U.S. citizen, who inhabits the American version of Bizarro World, the alternate Earth of Superman comics that was pledged to hate beauty and love ugliness; Bizarro inhabitants could achieve nothing without help from their betters.

Brooks says Palin is “a fatal cancer,” representative of average America. And Brooks knows average America, which he describes from his perch in Midtown Manhattan as having a “trashy consumer culture” filled with those who live in the “vacuous realm of unreality.” The denizens of Palin World — us — need to live a life of “contemplation” and be less “materialistic,” he scolds. He expressed his disdain for the Alaska governor, “who scorn(s) ideas entirely,” while dining at New York’s Le Cirque restaurant (luncheon portion of spaghetti with tomato sauce, $28 — no meatballs, too common; however, he was there for dinner and a larger portion, which begins at $98), which has “wined and dined high society in New York for half a century” and, praises the Times, makes its “regular customers feel pampered and important.”

Time magazine all but giggled when Palin was interviewed after her resignation “while plucking salmon from the family fishing nets aboard a boat” on the ocean. And the giggles came from both left and right: On Fox, Dana Perino, who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary and now works for an A-list beltway lobbying firm, expressed dismay that a serious political player would handle fish… other than the kind that is smoked, nestled on cream cheese over toast points, and dotted with capers. Real players take the time to stage interviews, she pronounced, her blonde locks swinging and giggle dripping with gravitas.

They don’t get it: Sarah Palin is not a real player, just as we’re not real players. Like us, she’s a real person. And real persons don’t do staged. We simply live life, doing what we can to “pursue happiness” and help others. Service counts: Gov. Palin, for example, had programs to help Eskimos struggling with winter food shortages.

That doesn’t say food shortages are not a concern to Brooks, Parker, et al. Parker, who won journalism’s prestigious H.L. Mencken Award for “attacking (the) ignorance and stupidity” of Palin America, recognized that Washington Post readers need to understand “the concerns of everyday people” in this economy. So she travelled to New York City (from her home in South Carolina, or her home in Washington, or her vacation place in Florida — as Parker says, she lives an “ordinary life” among “ordinary people”) to observe the unemployed commiserating over lunch at Sarabeth’s, where “extraordinary cuisine and casual elegance” cheer the Manhattan equivalent of Eskimos laid low by the economy.

Winter food shortages are in full swing on this snowy day in January in Manhattan. “Pasta and champagne dinners” are no longer the “norm,” Parker laments, as she sadly watches America’s unfortunates do subsistence (choking down Cobb Salads, $26 a pop, or making do with hardly-a-mouthful Guacamole and Chips at Central Park South pricing of $13.50),while sitting in faux-Zebra covered chairs overlooking the park a few doors down from the storied Plaza Hotel.

But cheer up: Parker’s niece, newly unemployed, points out that the women of the great north (above trendy Soho in lower Manhattan) are bearing up well, experiencing destitution with style, cheerfully concluding “if you gotta be broke, you may as well be cool about it.” And, of course, when the going gets tough (before you pawn that $1,500 Gucci you bought with your first paycheck), there’s always mummy and Aunt Kathleen. Welcome to the economic downturn in Mainstream Media World.

Sarah Palin, who was ridiculed by one pundit for jewelry that looks like it “had been picked up at a local craft fair,” asks a simple question: when did “pasta and champagne” replace macaroni and cheese? And she challenges the central tenet, stated openly by Parker, that the average American wants those people who are better and smarter than them to take charge, to give them a country “to be led by…elites.” Otherwise, Parker warns, we’ll get a woman whose “lack of depth” and “lack of intellectual curiosity” would have us doing things that prove, as Brooks writes, that we are, in fact, “as shallow as we look.”

But never fear: those whose superiority allows them to lead have some tips for those, like Palin, born to follow. Kathleen Parker offers advice: she’d like to see Sarah do something literate, like take up journaling and use a few French words while referencing great literature, perhaps writing “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.” French means intelligence to Parker, “n’est-ce pas?” (translated “isn’t that so?” to those who pluck salmon or believe in “that great big problem: G-O-D”). A reference to the classics, a bit of French, and a literary pastime might change for the better a woman who, as David Brooks says, shows no sign of contemplation, “scorn(ing) ideas entirely.”

In Mainstream Media World, thought and contemplation are highly valued. Brooks demonstrated this when sitting at dinner next to a Republican senator who, he said, “had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time.” What to do? Think. Breathe deeply. Contemplate. And so he thought and breathed and contemplated the hand on his thigh for more than an hour. Finally, dinner over, he came up with this reaction: “I was like, ehh, get me out of here.”

No doubt, it is different in Palin World, where we take our cue from the Bart (Simpson), rather than the Bard (Shakespeare). Simpson asked of a nearsighted friend who, like Brooks, wears eyeglasses, “How can someone with glasses so thick be so stupid?”

Faced with the same situation, for many of us there would be no contemplation. We would immediately take a fork — there are usually three, sometimes four in the place settings at the ritzy restaurants inhabited by Mainstream Media World grandees — and drive it into the senator’s hand.

And then, giving Kathleen Parker the French she asks for and the senator the reaction he so richly deserves, declare “Le thigh, c’est moi.”

Not to be a name caller or anything, but “brandon, you silly slut.”

Sarah Palin loves God. God loves Sarah Palin.

And that is why they hate her…and Him.

And why she — and He — will be back.

That love, an essential part of her everyday life, holds out the hope of a return to the nation envisioned by the unapologetically spiritual generation that birthed the U.S. Like Ronald Reagan, of whom it was said that his relationship with God “had a profound affect on how he lived, on what he did, and on those around him,” Sarah Palin’s spirituality has affected every part of her life, allowing her to clearly recognize the evil that has leached into our political and media culture.

Sarah Palin is both usual and unusual. She is usual in that she is in the mainstream of those who believe in American exceptionalism, the 71 percent who are “very proud” of being American. At the same time, she is unusual in that she views and conducts herself not as a politician — which she is — but a citizen who sees public office as an opportunity to serve. Interwoven in all of this is the confidence that comes from knowing that God loves her, up close and personal, an integral part of her Christian faith and central to Judeo-Christian culture.

Sarah Palin is grounded in the divine, which means, in part, that she believes, as did the framers of our constitution, that individuals are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” God gives us our rights, and not Washington, the United Nations, or The New York Times or NBC. She does not need a poll to determine the morality of a political and media culture in which the pursuit of power and wealth on the part of its participants comes first (any doubt, see the recent attempt by the Washington Post to sell access to its newsroom and the Obama administration), in which a political establishment has replaced the national anthem with the soundtrack from Jaws.

She is steeped in the religious notion of service as evidenced by loving God and loving others, what one of her pastors praised as “a grounded sense of God.” In other words, a certainty that God is alive and well and a part of all that we do in this world. Her vision is shaped by what Gerard Manley Hopkins, priest and celebrated poet, described as a conviction that God “plays in ten thousand places…through the features of men’s faces.”

And when you’re shaped by something beyond this world, convinced there is a bit of God in all whom you serve, then morality is part of what you do — and being called “judgmental” is praise, not criticism. To Sarah Palin, the corruption of both Republicans and Democrats in Alaska, which suffered from an institutionalized class of thieves on the public payroll, was immoral, violating the God-given rights of the citizens of her state…and so she took them on.

She promises to do the same at the national level. Although leaving public office, she holds out the possibility of taking — in the words of an American Thinker commentator — on a “larger fight.” Both Mark Levin and Thomas Lifson see evidence that she is simply gathering her strength for the next round.

She looks at Washington and knows, instinctively and with gut-wrenching clarity, that what is happening is not just wrong…it is immoral. Following her resignation as governor, she told Time magazine — to the amusement of its editors — that the growing of government “outrageously” by President Obama is “immoral.” She deliberately chose a God word that suggests evil, a word that belongs — in the words of journalist Christopher Hitchens, the atheist darling of both elite right and left — to “the superstitious, fearful childhood of the race” because she has a visceral reaction to the mountains of debt being piled on future generations.

Like Hitchens, the Time editors believe the “religious part of our brain is part of the less highly evolved bit” and so she touched off a new round of sneers. Conservative Jonah Goldberg summed up the elite reaction to her continuing to pass judgment on the media and political class: You’re “whining,” you’re “blowing it,” just shut up (which is the civilized National Review’s equivalent of The New York Times label of “one nutty puppy,” which in turn is more civilized than MSNBC terming her a “delusional lunatic,” which is heads above the liberal award-winning website Wonkette, which described her as “batshit-insane”). And Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter who laments the decline of our social values while sipping half-caf nonfat lattes with quintessential liberal elite journalist Leslie Stahl of CBS and actress Candice Bergen (of Dan Quayle-is-a-Bible-thumping-ignoramus fame), did what Peggy Noonan does: take 1,200 words to again cruelly label Palin an idiot.

You know nothing, our liberal and conservative elite sneered. After all, you didn’t go to an Ivy League university, can’t rattle off on demand the names of ten trendy but unassuming restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and have never waxed poetic about taking an intern to a cozy little watering hole in Georgetown (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Lost in the derision is this truth: there is a higher standard, and Sarah Palin unashamedly rests in he grip of the one who provides those standards. The unparalleled borrowing to fuel Obama programs and Democratic patronage is not just wrong policy; rather, it is evil because it is accompanied by crushing debt that will, ultimately, devour large chunks of individual income, stimulate runaway regulation that will rob us of freedom, and establish involuntary servitude as measured in hours worked to support government.

And most of this will fall on future generations; in other words, unborn children. Sarah Palin is concerned about unborn children — another God thing. Fancy that.

And because, as Thomas Jefferson noted, “the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time,” she goes to the source for guidance. In other words, she prays — an act that prompted the digital venture of the Washington Post to label her “A Little Shop of Horrors,” Palin, described by Christianity Today magazine as “unabashed about her faith,” prayed continuously during the presidential campaign as she has for all of her life. In this she mirrors the sixty percent of the country that prays at least once a day. Her prayer is a heartfelt effort to prepare for trials and challenges, the stuff of life. In doing so, she connects with the source of wisdom, unashamedly asking her Creator for patience, clarity, and the ability to love in and through all circumstances. And with her prayer she, in the words of Christian writer Philip Yancey, “stands at a place where God and human beings meet,” a humbling experience that allows her to remain — through it all — just plain Sarah.

And therein rests the problem with our elite: God is an intimate part of her life. He is not a tool to be used at the appropriate time to convince the governed that you, too, can “cling to guns or religion,” as Obama described praying America to San Francisco grandees during the campaign. This God stuff sets off our privileged classes, which refuse to acknowledge that anyone — especially someone who did a road movie with Charlton Heston — has authority over them. And so they scream. The Washington Post, dismayed by her spirituality, trotted out a minister who said Palin “lacks ministerial preparation and theological education” to speak about God. Neither the minister nor the newspaper editors noticed that few of God’s significant others — from Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Paul — have Harvard Divinity School degrees.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin moves inexorably forward, her life a testament to God’s admonition:

Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously- take God seriously.

God is not done with her. Nor is he done with a nation that has brought freedom and opportunity to hundreds of millions around the world.

I’m not much on prophesying, but I’ll take a turn: They’ll be back.

by chayal
Not to be a name caller or anything, but “brandon, you silly slut.”

Wow! A rip off of an old SNL line (actually, it was ignorant
slut). What basis do you have for this?

Sarah Palin, contrary to all excuses, had her chance to
make an impression. That impression was a person
who could not answer basic questions, did not know 8th
grade level civics info (one does not have to be
a lawyer to know a few Supreme Court rulings. We all learn
about Dred Scott, Plessy and Brown by 8th grade at the
earliest and by the time we finish our university or
college pre-requisites,as these issues are discussed in
Western Civilization II and the first level of U.S
history) and could not give one example of her own
running mate’s efforts towards political reform-McCain-Feingold; Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006;
McCain Detainee Amendment just to name a few.

In the debate, she willing evaded questions, even telling
Ms. Ifill she would not answer questions as asked.

As far as her being a real American, that is not the issue
nor should it be a main qualifying factor. There are
plenty of real and average Americans we encounter
every day. That does not mean we should had them the
keys to the nuclear codes. Being president requires
intellect, nuance, understanding. When we invest in
securities, money markets, real estate or equity markets,
do we want the guy who is just like us managing our
investments? No! We want a person who has the skill and
knowledge of these investments to manage the money; the
person who knows more than we do.

When we have to have an attorney, we want someone who
obviously has some basic knowledge of the law, not
the guy who works at Diamond Shamrock whose knowledge of
the law is a parking ticket.

Why do many Americans think being “elite” is dirty when it
comes to managing the nation? In the Olympics, we cheer
elite athletes. When we go for a surgery, we want elite
doctors.

Being president is about ideas; about being able to articulate
a vision and contemplate various positions on various
issues. It is not “snobbery” or “elitism” to want persons
who are more knowledgeable than ourselves with respect
to governance.

If you were an employer, would you hire Sarah Palin? If she
cannot answer the most basic of questions such as what
papers she reads (by name and not based on biographical
info provided by a relative); basic civics knowledge that
we all learn between 8th grade and the end of our
second year in college and cannot answer questions as
asked or stay on topic:

“Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That’s why we got into so much trouble.”

Joe Biden: VP debate: 10/02/2008

IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?

PALIN: “I’m still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also”

So, if you have to use a line by Dan Akroyd from SNL
circa 1977-78 and not even use that line correctly to
deal with the fact Sarah Palin is simply not qualified
for high national office, I honestly do not know what to
tell you.

yowza! snl, way before my time blue-hair. as if i watch snl anyway, got a life you know. Your initial question is why one should pay any attention to sp. By your snarky argument, one shouldn’t. okay fine, by that same line of logic, why should anyone pay heed to your opinion about her? She is an american citizen with a right to speak freely about issues facing her country. Why does that disturb you so? What I like about her is that she is real. That and the affect she has on lefties—keeps their pink undies in a twist.

re: brandon
Oh, and btw, just effin’ witcha about the slut thing—didn’t want to call you ignorant. Sheesh, youse lefties sure are touchy. Also, it seems to me if being led by elitists is so appealing, why not go live in fwance, they like mindless followers for citizenry. Real Americans are tough minded, rugged individualists and don’t need elites. Why not try that, you might like it.

As a matter of curiosity: Does Trig Palin have health insurance ? If so, at what cost ? I don’t expect an answer on this question, it’s rhetorical. It just got me wondering about how people in that situation cope. This is the only link I could find quickly on a possible rate. http://www.gamacdonald.com/down-syndrome-health/
Would this be a difficulty for many individuals working in jobs without insurance? And if they have insurance, will that cover a ‘special-needs’ child? Perhaps someone in the insurance industry can respond.

Brandon….chayal called you a ‘blue-hair’….seems like that marginalizes you…better hope the “death panel” didn’t see that….they might be coming for you….

Brandon….chayal called you a ‘blue-hair’….seems like that marginalizes you…better hope the “death panel” didn’t see that….they might be coming for you….

The last time I had blue hair was when I sprayed it blue
when I was a teenager. And that was just for a specific
event or gathering.

This person also miscontextualized my remarks, saying I should
go to France if I wanted to be led by elites. Typical
deflective and dismissive response. My point is, whenever
we hire someone to do a job, we want them to have some
basic skills and knowledge of that industry or task.

While there is no class or training to be President, we
do expect our political leaders to have a basic grasp
of American civics, government and to be able to address
very basic and simple questions.

When candidates and would be candidates or politicians turned
pundits address issues, they should address them on merits
and not use falsehoods and distortions. Alas, Ms. Palin,
who seems to lack the basic knowledge most of us
acquire by the time we finish high school, can only deal
in paltitudes and sensationalism; politics, not policy.

Her distortions of Dr. Emanuel’s writings, which did not
endorse euthanasia but rather was an analysis of the
health care issues at the time in 1996 and was trying to
put forth what these issues meant in terms of both
policy and implementation show a lack of even understanding
what it is she is criticizing.

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082103327.html

Comparing him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi mad scientist is
an anti-Semitic slur, given Dr. Emanuel is Jewish.

Given that Palin is prone to sick Tom Van Flein after anyone
who writes anything critical of her; e.g a threat to
sue Shannyn Moore, an Alaska blogger, and Van Flein
threatening and outing a man who blogged under a
pseudonym, causing the man to be threatened he quit
his job as an educator, the only death panels I fear
would be ones that woman would try to establish
to kill criticism of her; the Free Speech Death Panel.

would it be the Elite Right on that panel ?

Marc said:

“Would it be the Elite Right on that panel?”

Well, I usually think of the “Elite Right” as the Republicans/ conservatives of years past: Robert A. Taft, Henry Cabot Lodge, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller. While Taft, Nixon and Goldwater represented the more conservative elements, they were primarily economic and foreign policy conservatives and not really social conservatives in the sense of a George W. Bush or Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann.

As to who would sit upon the Free Speech Death Panel of
Her Royal Highness Queen Sarah, here is my list; subject
to change at any time with or without notice or cause,

Sean Hannity
Rush Limbaugh
Ann Coulter
Kevin McCullough
Meg Stapleton-1 local Palinista at large

Brandon, Sarah Palin’s first impressions were with the voters of Alaska (who not only elected her governor but gave he approval ratings well over 80% before the national media took a whack at her). The mainstream media decided to maul her like no other candidate instead of discussing any of her accomplishments that led to that 80% approval rating in Alaska. We have a media totally uninterested in things like the real estate deals between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko’s wife in Chicago while they were souring Alaska for anyone who might have anything bad to say about Sarah Palin. And when they did talk about her accomplishments, it was often with a harsh negative spin, like the gas pipeline article I mentioned earlier.

As for Supreme Court cases, Brandon, what would have happened if Palin had accidentally told Couric she disagreed with Brown (which was included in your list)? Again, Palin isn’t a lawyer (that’s a plus for many people) and I again remind you that she hadn’t run for President herself, as every other candidate in 2008 had and every presidential and VP candidate has since Dan Quayle. She hadn’t had months, if not years, to polish her answers to such questions. Need I remind you that Barack Obama was criticized for some of his off-the-cuff remarks when he first started running, too.

Have you ever watched a reality television show? The whole art of reality television shows, as perfected by Mark Burnett, is to take raw footage of normal people and turn them into characters and their actions into a narrative. This is why people, when they see people they know on a show like Survivor, often comment that the person on the show is nothing like the person they know. That’s because the editors have carefully picked scenes that enforce the character they want to create and edit out those that might undermine that character. That’s what they’ve done with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin. The press largely ignored the holes in Barack Obama’s background, his own lack of experience, and gaffes while emphasizing anything bad that anyone said about Palin and any gaffe she made. That was on clear display when the other mainstream media turned on Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos for daring to ask Barack Obama questions that weren’t softballs.

As for the debate with Biden that Ms Ifill moderated, she didn’t actually evade questions any more than Joe Biden did, and most observers thought she did reasonably well, even if they thought Biden won. She raised the possibility that she wouldn’t answer questions she didn’t want to answer early on, but can you name one question she actually refused to answer? See below before claiming you already did.

“Being president requires intellect, nuance, understanding.”

Really? Where’s Joe Biden’s intellect? He not only didn’t know that FDR wasn’t president when the stock market crashed in 1929 but didn’t realize that nobody owned a television in 1929, either. Imagine if Sarah Palin had said that. Where is his nuance? He’s made all sorts of statements that the Obama administration has had to scramble to correct or clarify. And understanding? This is the guy who not only called Barack Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” (no racism there, right?) but said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” Yeah, he’s a real gem. And remember, he has the same job that Sarah Palin was running for.

“When we invest in securities, money markets, real estate or equity markets,
do we want the guy who is just like us managing our investments? No! We want a person who has the skill and knowledge of these investments to manage the money; the person who knows more than we do.”

And what makes you think Barack Obama knows better how to manage the United States than we do? Given that he is trying to pile things like cap and trade and healthcare reform on a faltering economy where most people are concerned with jobs and the economy suggests someone who doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

“Why do many Americans think being ‘elite’ is dirty when it comes to managing the nation?”

Because the sort of elite that the American people don’t like are detached from reality. They send their children to private schools, live in million dollar homes, earn $300,000 a year for jobs they don’t regularly show up to work for, vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, and never have to worry about the price of gas or groceries or having their houses foreclosed. They live a life without consequences and never have to worry about being homeless or destitute and that warps their priorities and the risks they take with other people. Further, they don’t understand the limitations of expertise and think that every problem can be solved with sufficient money and talk. Remember the much-played video of George H. W. Bush being fascinated by a supermarket scanner that was shown as evidence of how detached he was since he didn’t go shopping for himself? That’s part of what bothers people.

There is a scene in the movie Braveheart where Robert the Bruce tells William Wallace that the nobles are reluctant to help because they have much to lose and William Wallace asks him if the normal people don’t also have something to lose, if not more. The point that illustrates is that the elite not only have a different set of priorities from “the little people” but they are oblivious to what matters to the little people and treat the little people as expendable.

This was on fine display when, while contemplating the death of Ted Kennedy and what he had done in Chappaquiddick, several left-wing pundits opined that overlooking Mary Jo Kopechne’s death was worth it because of all the good things Ted Kennedy had done. People know that to the elite, they are simply ants that might get stepped on for the greater good because they’ve seen it happen, again and again. That Sarah Palin must also be not simply defeated but destroyed is yet another manifestation of this. Paula Jones? Juanita Broaddrick? Robert Bork? Clarence Thomas? Simply defeating them isn’t enough. They must be destroyed.

“Being president is about ideas; about being able to articulate a vision and contemplate various positions on various issues. It is not ‘snobbery’ or ‘elitism’ to want persons who are more knowledgeable than ourselves with respect to governance.”

According the the US Constitution, the role of the President is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”, be commander in chief of the armed forces, to grant reprieves and pardons, to make treaties, appoint ambassadors, receive ambassadors, appoint judges, and other officials, and give the state of the union report to Congress. There isn’t much else. Americans need to stop expecting their Presidents to be kings and stop expecting Camelot in the White House.

“If you were an employer, would you hire Sarah Palin? If she cannot answer the most basic of questions such as what papers she reads (by name and not based on biographical info provided by a relative); basic civics knowledge that
we all learn between 8th grade and the end of our second year in college and cannot answer questions as asked or stay on topic:”

C-Span recently did a poll where only 49% of the people who voted in the last election could correctly answer how many Justices sit on the Supreme Court so let’s just say I’m skeptical about your assessment of what constitutes “basic civics knowledge that we all learn”.

“Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That’s why we got into so much trouble.”

She wasn’t ignoring Gwen Ifill’s question. Ifill didn’t ask about deregulation. Biden brought it up. Biden was trying to push a talking point and Sarah Palin didn’t bite. Basically, she didn’t let Biden take control of the debate and decided to further he own talking points. Go read the debate transcripts instead of a left-wing talking point cheat sheet.

“So, if you have to use a line by Dan Akroyd from SNL circa 1977-78 and not even use that line correctly to deal with the fact Sarah Palin is simply not qualified for high national office, I honestly do not know what to tell you.”

So, Brandon, do you think Joe Biden was qualified for the same office, despite all of his gaffes before, during, and after he was picked by Barack Obama as his VP? You have seen the SNL spoofs on Biden, right?

“Her distortions of Dr. Emanuel’s writings, which did not
endorse euthanasia but rather was an analysis of the
health care issues at the time in 1996 and was trying to
put forth what these issues meant in terms of both
policy and implementation show a lack of even understanding
what it is she is criticizing.”

Have you actually read the article? I encourage everyone to do so and let us know if you think ol’ Zeke Emanuel is being misrepresented by his critics. Here’s the URL again:

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf

Let me put it to you this way. If I wrote an article saying we can deal with the elderly living in poverty by (A) leaving them alone, (B) creating government programs to help lift them out of poverty, or © round them up and turn them into dog food and I said I wasn’t endorsing any of those three positions (and pointedly didn’t reject option © as immoral and unthinkable), what would that tell you about me? Would you want me taking care of your elderly grandmother?

And this all misses the much bigger point that rationing and “death panel” type decisions are already taking place in places like the UK, where people are being denied treatment based on lifestyle, age, and the cost of treatment. Further, as Ezekiel Emanuel’s defenders point out, we already have a certain amount of rationing and denial with the insurance system we have now and it often is worse when the medical plan is managed and cost-conscious. What’s different is that the quality won’t depend on what an employer or individual is willing to pay but on what the government mandates or is willing to tax and spend for. People are familiar with the quality of government services and the “lowest bidder” mentality and can see what’s happening in Canada and the UK.

“Comparing him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi mad scientist is an anti-Semitic slur, given Dr. Emanuel is Jewish.”

If you haven’t noticed, the Nazis did actually start out with euthanasia of those who were a burden on society. You can find quite a few Nazi-era posters online promoting euthanasia, and every one makes a utilitarian argument about the burden and cost on society of caring for the unfit. Remember, the official name of the Nazi party was the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). That sounds really “right-wing”, doesn’t it?

“Given that Palin is prone to sick Tom Van Flein after anyone who writes anything critical of her;”

No, just people who libel or slander her. You do understand that libel and slander are illegal, right, Brandon? You don’t have a right to just make stuff up and ruin people because you don’t like them.

As for “Gryphen”, given the various other things he said online, I don’t consider it a tragedy that he’s no longer around children because I wouldn’t want him around mine. You can feel free to hire him as a nanny for your kids if you feel that sorry for him. And weren’t you the one calling me a coward earlier in this thread for not using my full name? So which is it, Brandon? Do you support anonymity online or is it cowardly? Do try to be consistent in the same discussion thread.

Concerning poll trends discussed earlier in this thread:

Zogby has Obama’s approval at 42% (http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1737)

Rasmussen has Obama’s approval at 47% (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll)

Note that both Zogby and Rasmussen are of “Likely Voters” while Gallup, CNN, CBS, and Pew (which have better numbers) are of “Adults”.

Also, from Gallup, Democratic Advantage in Party Affiliation Shrinks:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/122693/Democratic-Advantage-Party-Affiliation-Shrinks.aspx

Further, both independents and Republicans are tracking together on Congressional approval:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/122399/Congress-Job-Approval-Ratings-Grow-Polarized.aspx

Finally, Gallup has 56% of people thinking the economy is getting worse.

I suppose I should add that the reason why Levi Johnston isn’t working on the North Slope as a electrician’s apprentice and is, instead, doing the slime Sarah circuit in the media is because Palin’s enemies in Alaska complained that he wasn’t qualified for the job without a high school degree, hoping to show that Sarah or Todd Palin had pulled strings to get him the job. Turns out it was Johnston’s father who pulled the strings so they kicked Levi Johnston and cost him a job in an attempt to get Sarah Palin, the grandmother of his child. So we’re supposed to fear Palin for destroying people but not her enemies?

bc: in what universe is a neophyte, inexperienced community agitator with 100 days of actual senate time qualified for the presidency. Your partisan bias is showing. I have been told the obama is one smart cookie, but where’s the proof? Away from the teleprompter he gaffs like ol’ smokin’ joey biden, but gets a pass by his media minions. Ever read any of his las review articles? College papers? Seen his cum? Of that’s right, no one has; because he’s paying big legal fees to keep all that hidden. WHY? What is he trying hide? We are told he is a constitutional scholar and taught classes on the subject, etc. Riiight. Bet he was a TA in one class. You know how lefties lie. He certainly didn’t read, or learn anything if he had, federalist paper #45 which makes it quite clear what the framers intended for the role of the central govt.

Seriously though, given the various presidents we have had in the past—many not genius material. What is offensive about your cheap-shoting sp is that it is so typical of elitist lefties, and so-called conservative journalists. They fear and loath her, as apparently you do, because she is an average american and a G-d fearing conservative. And people, average people, like her. And that scares the s—t out of the elitists on both sides of the pol. spectrum. Because if they fail to marginalize her, indeed, destroy her, they will lose what remains of their power and influence. I mean who really needs the talking heads anyway. I want info, not propaganda. I think Stuart, above, has it spot on. And right on as well John.

Finally, I do not believe I miscontextualized you. You intended your piece to snarky and belittling. Just thought you should have a small dose of your own med.—nothing personal. The france reference is merely reflective of my opinion that unhappy, America hating lefties should find a happy litle socialist have to go live in. Why are they so determined to jack things up here in America for the rest of us?

Hey John:
would you say that bc’s faulty argumentation is an example of a false syllogism? If his premises are false, ie, opinion and not actual fact, then his conclusion is incorrect.

John,

Libel and slander laws do not apply as long as the writer uses
the language of “reported,” “reputed,” “alleged,” or
“rumors.” Ever read the Chicago papers of the late
1960s, “reputed crime boss Tony Accardo?” Or, the NY Times
of the same period, “Aniello Dellacroce, alleged to be the
underboss of the so-called Gambino crime family?” Notice
how those men never sued? A media outlet is generally
protected if they use these qualifiers.

Notice how Ms. Moore stood up to Van Flein and dared him
to make good on his threat? He did not.

As far as my comments about online anonymity, my point is,
Jesse Griffin was running a blog and many bloggers and
operators use assumed names. You elected to put a first
name to your personal attacks, so I was curious as to
if you had the fortitude to go all the way with it. If
you used a pseudonym like IJACKOFFTOSARAHPALIN, I would
have laughed and blown it off. Given you put a name,
I simply challenged you to employ your full name, since
you are proud of using a legal first name.

As far as Palin not being a lawyer, that is an excuse. Gee,
I should have thought of that one when I had to write
a short essay on Brown vs. Board of Education and its
predecessor, Plessy Vs. Ferguson for my finals in U.S
History in middle school and again in high school.
Basically, if she disagreed with Brown, she would have
been in position of having to defend school segregation.

Pointing to Biden’s gaffes is nothing more than drawing
equivalence; excusing Palin by using Biden. BTW, yes,
Biden is a gaffe machine and I have seen the SNL
skits of him, which are very funny. However, he also
is very experienced and knowledgeable about legislative
process, the DC scene and foreign and domestic policy and
his gaffes are usually the result of just speaking
his mind at too fast of a clip. Palin’s gaffes betray
a lack of basic knowledge.

I drew the point about debate questions from the actual transcript: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/

While Ifill did not ask about regulation, she did ask Palin if she cared to address that issue; related to Biden’s remarks
about McCain’s ideas about health care, which were based
upon the principle of deregulation, similar to his
beliefs about banking and finance.

“According the the US Constitution, the role of the President is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”, be commander in chief of the armed forces, to grant reprieves and pardons, to make treaties, appoint ambassadors, receive ambassadors, appoint judges, and other officials, and give the state of the union report to Congress. There isn’t much else. Americans need to stop expecting their Presidents to be kings and stop expecting Camelot in the White House.”

However, the Constitution also gives Congress the express
authority to make laws, some of which are not expressly
in the Constitution. Furthermore, treaties, amabassadorships
and judicial appointments require a basic knowledge of
government and civics, which Mrs. Palin so lacks. Does
she know what a treaty is and the ramifications of one.

Also, just like foreign policy, the country has evolved
significantly from the days of the Constitution’s origin.
Washington advised Americans to beware of foreign entanglements. Yet, the nation is involved in many
countries and many foreign matters, both overt and covert.
Was the overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz
in 1954 with the assistance of the U.S something within
the Constitution? I don’t recall anything in the document
saying the President, Congress or any agencies have
explicit rights to destabilize other nations’ governments
due to disputes between those governments and foreign
corporations (United Fruit).

As for Congressional approval, always remember the old
addage: Congress sucks but I like my congressman or
senator. As long as people think someone else’s congressman or senator is the problem and not their own, it really does
not matter what Congressional approval ratings say.

As for Obama’s polls dropping, my assumption is this: Many
Americans who elected him to enact change are frustrated
that he is so easy to compromise on his programs. Politics
by its very definition is a partisan game. When the
same party has both the legislative and executive branches,
there should not be a major holdup in getting their
agenda accomplished (weak link is Lieberman, who does
not always follow the Democratic caucus line). When
the party in power cannot achieve its agenda without
having to water down or wanting to get support of
other party, the electorate can get pretty fickle. Part of
this weakness was addressed in 2008 primaries, highlighting
Obama’s “present” votes; does he have what it takes to
force his agenda a la LBJ?

Lastly, I did read Dr. Emanuel’s article. In no way did
he support a utilitarian view; rather, he was analyzing and
presenting various schools of thought on the issue and
did not put forth a personal opinion in his piece. Your
example is little more than a scare tactic, presenting
extreme scenarios. Dr. Emanuel simply was pointing out
the various positions on the issue and in later
writings, he has been on record as explicitly
opposing euthanasia.

I do not fear Mrs. Palin nor do I hate her. I just believe she
is unqualified for public office. The info is her debate
and interview performances and even her resignation
speech. That is not propaganda. That is SP in her own
words. Read any one of her quotes from various
campaign stops (see above). Once again, her own words.

As a matter of fact, I hope she is the nominee in 2012.
With her at the top of the ticket, Barack Obama will have
Lyndon Johnson level numbers in re-election.

Brandon some things you say display a naiveness that is worthy of a high school kid. An example is this gem: “ Furthermore, treaties, amabassadorships and judicial appointments require a basic knowledge of
government and civics, which Mrs. Palin so lacks. Does she know what a treaty is and the ramifications of one.” Brandon, Ambassadors are largely selected from that class known as rich donor; some examples: Louis Susman, to England, John Roos to Japan, Charles Rivkin to France. Each of these men raised or contributed at least $750,000 to Obama’s campaign. The list has many others. Demonstrating that Obama ignored career diplomats in favor of the spoils system.

Miguel Diaz’s appointment to the Vatican is an example of Obama ideology and pandering to the radicals rather than the diplomatic needs of our nation. Diaz is an outlaw catholic who chaired a committee of dissident catholics’ who are pro-abortion. You defend Obama saying he has a “basic knowledge…” when he appoints someone to the Vatican who will not be allowed in the door. How silly, how ideological you are.

Presidents have appointed some noteworthy blunders to the judiciary. Ike has his Earl Warren, governor of CA, a non lawyer who knew as much about the Constitution as Obama does. Before you defend Obama, show us anything noteworthy he wrote explaining the Constitution and it’s role in American life. Justice Arthur Goldberg, appointed by JFK, argued the death penalty was condemned by the international community and should be regarded as “cruel and unusual punishment,” under the 8th amendment, ignoring the fact the writers of the Constitution were well aware of the death penalty and made no attempt to abolish it. Goldberg, a very liberal labor lawyer, also wrote a singular but concurring opinion in Griswald v. Connecticut in which he argued the 9th Amendment, which limits the power of the Federal Government, allowed the court to strike down a state law. Goldberg with other justices also found in the 14th Amendment (and the 9th) a privacy that is nowhere mentioned in either Amendment or any associated writing. The dissenters in Griswald were Justices Black and Stewart. Black argued that the right to privacy is to be found nowhere in the Constitution. He criticized the interpretations of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments of his fellow Justices. Stewart’ famously called the Connecticut statute’ “an uncommonly silly law”, but argued that it was nevertheless constitutional and not the business of the Federal Courts. This ruling laid the foundation for Roe v. Wade. Not one word or sentence of the Constitution or related documents suggest the Federal Courts or Federal Government have a role in deciding if sexual activity between anyone is within the power of the U.S. to regulate. The same is true of abortion. Activist justices decided to find in the Constitution rights that cannot be found on paper. The Progressive justices read the minds of the dead who wrote the Amendments, and those who voted to pass them, to find they meant a privacy existed that should be ordered by the Court.

Our Constitution is written for this nation, is not replicated anywhere, and is not subject to the approval of other nations. But JFK, like FDR and other Progressives want people on the Court who ignore the Constitution, who ignore it’s provisions for change; they want activists who will interpret it their way.

Would Palin appoint better Justices? Who knows. Who knows how viciously they would be attacked. Look at what Kennedy did to Robert Bork who he had previously praised for his understanding of the Constitution and adherence to his oath and the lynching of Clarence Thomas by the Democrats. You de-facto defend that abdominal behavior by your petty attacks upon Palin. When challenged to defend your incorrect attacks on her regarding “death panels” you shifted to disemboweling her every sentence and action in the elective positions she has held. Each mistake you have made has been discussed and facts shown that support Palin. But you do not stop. I watched Palin’s resignation speech. She discussed her actions in office, the brutal attacks on her that have been rebutted at great cost (far more than $1/m) to her family and the taxpayers of Alaska and that the solution for the people of Alaska was for a new governor to lead the state. This was a thoughtful, orderly explanation of her public life and the turn it took AFTER her nomination. Where is your indignation that such lies were told about her by a party operative? Is your silence because it is OK for a Progressive to destroy a person for political gain… the end justifies the means?

Misguided people allow ideologies to blind them.

Thanks plunk for steering folks to info on my site, and I’d like to add that if you think Palin is a sociopath now, as indicated by this headline, think what kind of traction she’ll have as the new focus of Rupert Murdoch’s Media Machine…

“Big Scarah In Little China – Murdoch Will Have The Last Laugh”

Apparently my url isn’t allowed so just google nailinpalinnow and go to the latest posting.

bc: I know it is pointless to point out that you have lost this debate. John and others have pretty much outmatched you point by point. In particular you lost it when you lost your temper for sure, and you began the snarky personal insults against John, not the other way around. You won’t agree, but it is what it is. All that remains is your bias. And if you can’t take critique on your letters, why write them?

Where was your outrage during the election when bo was handled with kids gloves by the press, and is hiding so much about his past? Do you not see the difference in how sp and bo were treated and thus perceived. Aren’t you outraged that george soros and his lefty minions in the press and other orgs he funds have taken over the democratic party and FOISTED upon all of us an empty suit.

How can you be so outraged by sp’s lack of credentials to even speak about hc issues and not turn that same high powered intellect on bo’s same short comings and deceptions. Bias? Partisanship? Hatred? Double standard?

I don’t really expect an answer of any kind, much less a logical one. Still, I had to ask. I just don’t get how any American can think bo is presidential material.

Great job John and thanks for the research and time it took to outflank this guy.

Chayal,

All right wing talking points. Mr. Obama was vetted as much
as any other candidate: His writings, Tony Rezko, Reverend
Wright, William Ayers, etc. The 2008 election unfortunately
was not a rerun of the 2004 elections; smears, personal
associations, who did what way back when. Rather, it was
about issues-economy, health care, foreign policy.

Where is the unbiased proof of Soros and his minions taking
over the nation? The only place I hear those accusations
are right wing blogs and talking points. Echo chambers are
nice; don’t bother with facts or evidence but rather all
is from the gut. After all, the gut has more nerve endings
than the brain, according to right wing logic.

Furthermore, what exactly is Obama hiding? If you are talking
about his transcripts, GPA, etc, let me ask, is he required
to submit these matters for public inspection. After all,
the Constitution only has two basic requirements and
transcripts, grades, and writings are not part of those
requirements. If you’re a Birther, well, there is nothing
anyone can do for you. All courts and the FEC have validated
the fact he is a U.S citizen, born on U.S soil.

The presentation was basically this: John McCain was
offering 4 more years of George W. Bush. He called himself
a maverick but then admitted he voted with Bush 90% of the
time. He vowed to continue Bush’s failed foreign policy, which
resulted in net gains for jihadists around the world; did
bin Laden’s dirty work by increasing support and recruitment
for Al Qaeda and allowed AQ to become a McDonald’s franchise
business. He vowed to continue support for the failed
economic policies that preached deregulation and tax cuts
but nothing else, even after the meltdown (Clinton owns
part of the mess as well, by signing Gramm-Leach into
law and his ties to Wall Streeters such as Rubin).

The American people did not want a third term of George Bush.

As far as Sarah Palin’s lack of credentials on healthcare,
it was painfully obvious when she lied about death panels
and distorted Dr. Emanuel’s writings. Add in her painfully
obvious lack of basic civics knowledge, inability to answer
basic questions on matters that are learned in 8th grade and again in high school and college and her poor debate
performance (hint: debates are not about right or wrong
answers. They show how one responds to questions, the knowledge and study they have of complex issues and to convey both confidence and competence.

I will get it to brass tacks: She is either a liar or a fool.

All that remains is my bias. How has Simple John outmtached
me? Using a dead astronomer and a catchy slogan? Sorry
but Sagan was an astronomer,not a political scientist or
lawyer. In the world of law, politics and media, we make
evaluations based on available information at the time
and hope that the evidence is not tainted or distorted by
parties with a vested interest in the outcome. In the real
world, absence of evidence means that there is no third
party evidence for a claim or belief.

I lose my temper when I am insulted first. Simple. Talk shit,
get hit. John insulted me first. Instead of being reasonable,
he went for the “anyone who insults Sarah Palin is a fool”
line and went into partisan mode; using catchy slogans
and partisan talking points.

You elected to use the soundbites “elitist” and “socialist,”
meaning that since you do not have anything beyond
buzzwords, throw out the old standbys.

As for Howell, the Cosntitution is flexible and at times
vague. Concepts like due process and equal protection
are elastic and require interpretations within specific
case contexts. The right of privacy is an inferred
right by the 4th amendment.

Let me ask Howell this: Do you desire a return to back alley
abortions? Answer yes or no. Do not spin the issue
by invoking the 9th and 10th amendments states’ rights
arguments. Just answer the question.

“Libel and slander laws do not apply as long as the writer uses
the language of ‘reported,’ ‘reputed,’ ‘alleged,’ or
‘rumors.’”

That, alone, is not sufficient. What’s required is good faith and a belief that the statements are true. This is why you’ll hear the term “malice” in defamation suits. The question is whether the bloggers are acting out of good faith or malice and whether they honestly believe the rumors they are spreading are true. If they don’t care, don’t have good sourcing (again, I go back to the reason why the National Enquirer and other gossip magazines always mention two sources, if not by name by explaining their position to show that they could reasonably know what they claim to know), or are lying on purpose, then putting flowery words around the lies don’t protect them.

“Notice how Ms. Moore stood up to Van Flein and dared him
to make good on his threat? He did not.”

The hurdle for proving defamation against a public figure is very high in the United States because the Supreme Court set that standard in 1964 in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which was a departure from Common Law and that reasoning was rejected both by the UK and Canada. That Van Flein decided not to sue is not proof of innocence. Of course this totally sidesteps the issue of whether it is ethical to spread unsubstantiated rumors about a person simply to tear them down. Given that you apparently have no problem proclaiming, with confidence, that a person you’ve never met and seem unqualified to provide any psychological diagnosis of is a psychopath speaks volumes about your ethics, or absence of ethics, in that regard.

“As far as my comments about online anonymity, my point is, Jesse Griffin was running a blog and many bloggers and operators use assumed names. You elected to put a first name to your personal attacks, so I was curious as to if you had the fortitude to go all the way with it. If you used a pseudonym like IJACKOFFTOSARAHPALIN, I would have laughed and blown it off. Given you put a name, I simply challenged you to employ your full name, since you are proud of using a legal first name.”

Stop trying to defend your double-standard. It’s possible I picked “John” as a pseudonym (as in “John Doe”) because it sounds better than a silly pseudonym or it’s possible that John is my real first name and I used it because it’s so common it effectively provided anonymity. I could just as easily have used a pseudonym if I wanted to. It doesn’t matter what I used. Either it’s cowardly to use a pseudonym or it’s not.

It’s not a matter of principle unless you apply the same standard to everyone.

“As far as Palin not being a lawyer, that is an excuse.”

Not at all, Brandon. You had to write an essay on Brown and Plessy and it stuck with you so you assume that if you know something, then everyone should. If you haven’t notice, what students learn in various school districts and even classes varies quite a bit. I know Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States because I had to write an essay about him in elementary school but how many Americans can tell you who the 13th President was?

“Pointing to Biden’s gaffes is nothing more than drawing equivalence; excusing Palin by using Biden.”

Pointing to Biden’s gaffes both demonstrates the bias in the mainstream media concerning how they report the flaws of Democrats (as isolated gaffes that don’t reflect on the character of the person making them) and Republicans (reflections of the incompetence of the person making them) as well as the the absurdity of your claims that a short list of statements demonstrates that Sarah Palin was unqualified to hold the office for which she was running, the same office that Joe Biden was running for and holds. Both of those points are relevant to the debate so far, quite independent of the moral equivalency fallacy.

“BTW, yes, Biden is a gaffe machine and I have seen the SNL skits of him, which are very funny. However, he also is very experienced and knowledgeable about legislative process, the DC scene and foreign and domestic policy and his gaffes are usually the result of just speaking his mind at too fast of a clip. Palin’s gaffes betray a lack of basic knowledge.”

The problem is that you confuse experience with ability. There is a reason why nobody hires based solely on resumes. And it was interesting that during the debate, Barack Obama’s resume resembled that of a person with a lot of education but few achievements to show for it (Ivy League schools, jobs held, counts of laws he’d voted on, etc.) while Sarah Palin’s resume resembled that of a person with little education but a lot of achievements to show for it (popularity rating, legislative achievements, politicians toppled, etc.). Guess which sort of person employers look for in the real world?

But back to Biden, saying that FDR got on television when the stock market crashed in 1929 to comfort the American people is scary stupid, Brandon. If that’s not a lack of basic knowledge, I don’t know what is. But it’s even worse than that. Not only does his story betray an ignorance of the stock market crash, FDR presidency, and the technology of television but it displays a casual willingness to make stuff up to make a rhetorical point. He created an event that didn’t exist and couldn’t have existed out of whole-cloth to make a rhetorical point. What that betrays is not simply “speaking his mind at too fast of a clip” or even just “a lack of basic knowledge” but a willingness to make things up.

“While Ifill did not ask about regulation, she did ask Palin if she cared to address that issue; related to Biden’s remarks about McCain’s ideas about health care, which were based upon the principle of deregulation, similar to his beliefs about banking and finance.”

The quote from Biden that you used to introduce your complaint, “Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild,” was misleading not only when Biden said it but when you quoted it because you used to as part of your claim that Palin wasn’t answering the questions she was asked in the debate. Ifill didn’t ask her a question about deregulation. In fact, before that point in the debate, Biden didn’t ask her a question about deregulation, either. It was a “When did you stop beating your wife?” question because the premise was false. Ifill asked Palin, “Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?” Palin decided not to answer Biden’s talking point or false premise and instead talked about her own.

To salvage the point you were trying to make, that Palin evaded questions, you actually have to show that Palin evaded a question, not that Biden claimed she was evading a question she was never asked and that Ifill gave Palin the opportunity to address Biden.

“However, the Constitution also gives Congress the express authority to make laws, some of which are not expressly in the Constitution. Furthermore, treaties, amabassadorships and judicial appointments require a basic knowledge of government and civics, which Mrs. Palin so lacks. Does she know what a treaty is and the ramifications of one.”

As Phillip Howell has already pointed out, ambassadors are frequently appointed from a pool of political donors. In fact, the historical average is that about 30 percent of ambassadors are political while it was running nearly 60 percent for Obama. Sotomayor is a political judicial appointment. So far, Obama suggests that he decisions are not driven by any knowlege of government a civics but by politics. As for treaties and other international agreements, you might want to look into Obama’s statements, clarifications, and reversals on NAFTA during the election. And let’s just say Obama’s statements about nuclear arms reduction treaties with Russia were naive and troubling.

“As for Congressional approval, always remember the old addage: Congress sucks but I like my congressman or senator. As long as people think someone else’s congressman or senator is the problem and not their own, it really does not matter what Congressional approval ratings say.”

Feel free to believe that nothing is wrong and the Democrats are safe.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26393.html

“As for Obama’s polls dropping, my assumption is this: Many
Americans who elected him to enact change are frustrated
that he is so easy to compromise on his programs.”

No, the problem is that many Americans elected him thinking he was a moderate and he’s turned out to be an activist leftist. Moderates don’t like to be lied to. A lot of people are genuinely surprised that he’s the left-wing community activist that his right-wing critics said he would be. By going to the far left, he’s not only undermined his own credibility but he’s also made his right-wing critics sound more credible. The Obama administration is even making Glenn Beck look good with the Van Jones resignation (boy, did that boycott backfire).

“When the party in power cannot achieve its agenda without having to water down or wanting to get support of other party, the electorate can get pretty fickle.”

I don’t think that’s what the evidence shows at all. The evidence I see, based on polls about various items on Obama’s agenda, shows that people simply don’t like the agenda that’s being pushed. And the more stuff like this comes out, the less people are going to trust him:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/08/31/contradictions-are-revealing-politicizing-the-nea/

“Lastly, I did read Dr. Emanuel’s article. In no way did he support a utilitarian view; rather, he was analyzing and presenting various schools of thought on the issue and did not put forth a personal opinion in his piece.”

To quote the band Rush, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” The options one doesn’t reject can say as much as the options one promotes.

“Your example is little more than a scare tactic, presenting extreme scenarios. Dr. Emanuel simply was pointing out the various positions on the issue and in later writings, he has been on record as explicitly opposing euthanasia.”

Examples? I’d love to see come quotes from Ezekiel Emanuel, from before this whole controversy broke, rejecting not only euthanasia but withholding care from people on utilitarian grounds.

“I do not fear Mrs. Palin nor do I hate her. I just believe she is unqualified for public office.”

Really? Do you usually call people you believe are unqualified for public office “ sociopath or a psychopath”? Do your various criticisms in this discussion really show a dispassionate search for the truth? Do you really expect anyone to believe that, Brandon?

“The info is her debate and interview performances and even her resignation speech. That is not propaganda. That is SP in her own words. Read any one of her quotes from various campaign stops (see above). Once again, her own words.”

They are her own words taken in isolation and sometimes even out of context. I’ve read her quotes. I’ve watched parts of her debate for governor. I’ve read what her friends and foes say about her. I’ve watched interviews with her from before McCain tapped her as VP. Try not looking at quotes carefully selected by her enemies to make her look at bad as possible. That’s why it’s always important to look at any quote in context, whether it’s Sarah Palin or Ezekiel Emanuel. Palin has legitimate weaknesses that her opponents could go after. Several of them.

“As a matter of fact, I hope she is the nominee in 2012. With her at the top of the ticket, Barack Obama will have Lyndon Johnson level numbers in re-election.”

I think it’s just as likely that Barack Obama will resemble Lyndon Johnson in 1968 as in 1964. In fact, even Keith Olbermann and Gene Robinson have already been talking about Barack Obama facing a primary challenge in his own party:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/03/olbermann-obama-could-fac_n_277075.html

John,

Sue me. Many other blogs, letters, commentaries also called
her a sociopath; lacking empathy; glib and superficial
charm; feigned emotional expressions. When Biden talked
about his dead wife and kids, she showed no empathy or remorse.

Or, she is delusional; believes her own propaganda.

The use of the terms is based on behavioral observation. BTW,
I have studied psychology and have close colleagues that
are psychologists. She has been caught in lie after lie and
keeps lying.

Quit making excuses: “Taken out of context; loaded questions,
etc.” Either you can answer basic civics questions of
an 8th grade level or you cannot! That’s that!

“…how many Americans can tell you who the 13th President was?

Someone running for VP should know.

Her “experience” included leaving her own town in debt
and legal tape over the sportsplex; Wasilla not have full legal title to the land, resulting in litigation
and over $1 million in interest and compensation to the person the courts determined was the legal owner at the time, plus $250,000 in city legal bills.

She also had to hire a manager, John Cramer as her weakness
came to light:http://www.poppolitics.com/archives/2008/09/sarah-palin-and-the-experience-argument-to-nowhere.

She cannot answer basic questions; winked her way through
a debate about very fundamental issues facing this country;
lied about healthcare reform; resigned because “they
were picking on her” (note: she is the one who decided
to hire Van Flein and his expensive services instead of
letting the state just throw the complaints out and then
trying to work towards tightening up the loopholes; too hard
to actually work when you can make soundbites and get
the audience riled up).

You’re a brick wall and nothing will ever convince you
she is just not qualified. Can’t help you there.

At least 2/3 of Americans agree with me.

“the Cosntitution is flexible and at times vague. Concepts like due process and equal protection are elastic and require interpretations within specific case contexts. The right of privacy is an inferred right by the 4th amendment.” Brandon Curtis.
Brandon has given us a favorite argument of the Progressives and a statement not supported by any reading of the 4th Amendment which says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” What is vague about this amendment? The Court has held this Amendment to apply to govt actions regarding search in criminal matters. I find no cases that refer to “privacy” in this Amendment. My belief is Progressives toss out such concepts as “the Cosntitution is flexible and at times vague” to justify their push for laws and regulations that are offensive to the Constitution and possibly to influence some people who do not read the Constitution and her supporting documents, notably the Federalist Papers. Which will take us to Brandon’s next question: abortion.

“Let me ask Howell this: Do you desire a return to back alley abortions? Answer yes or no. Do not spin the issue by invoking the 9th and 10th amendments states’ rights arguments. Just answer the question.”
Brandon, since when is quoting the Constitution “spin?” Although I believe it is spin when Progressives say it is “flexible.” The plain language of the “9th and 10th Amendments”[to the Constitution] prohibit the Federal Government to regulate the activities and affairs of the people and or the states as the 10th says this, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” You cannot find “privacy” hinted at in the Constitution or related papers. The 4th Amendment declaring “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” without “probable cause” is not a hint of “privacy” rather it declares the govt must have judicial approval to conduct a search.

Now to your question: “Do you desire a return to back alley abortions.” Of course not; because ALL abortions, other than those medically necessary to save the life of the mother-to-be, are a great tragedy. They are a tragedy for the mom whose baby is dead, they are a tragedy for the men and women who have lost a son, a daughter, the families who have lost a sister or brother, a grandchild, cousin, nephew or niece. Unlike the death of a born child, there is no coming together to mourn the loss, no comforting the mom and dad whose dreams are shattered by a baby’s death; no grave to visit, birthday to be remembered. All that remains of an abortion is an empty place in the heart of the mom-to-be and the dad-to-be if he is aware of or a participant in the act. Abortion is always bad news for the unborn baby, bad for women, destructive for families and the nation.

Brandon, do you know how many “back alley abortions” were performed before Roe vs. Wade, how many deaths occurred, how many deaths occur in legal abortions? Did you ask that question to be provocative or as a distraction from a losing argument? Nothing in this discussion is germane to your question.

PS: “All courts and the FEC have validated the fact he is a U.S citizen” is inaccurate. The Supreme Court declined to hear the matter.

“Sue me. Many other blogs, letters, commentaries also called her a sociopath; lacking empathy; glib and superficial charm; feigned emotional expressions.”

Yes, many partisan bloggers and writers have called her a psychopath. Guess what? Many partisan bloggers and writers on the other side have said the same thing about Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and so on. That people say something doesn’t make it true and if you made any attempt to understand the why logical fallacies are called logical fallacies and that they have nothing to do with Carl Sagan, science, or astronomy, you might understand that.

I’ve posted the checklist for you and have pointed out that she’s missing plenty of traits that are hallmarks of psychopaths. And perhaps you’ve missed the fact that your checklist, “lacking empathy”, “glib and superficial charm”, “feigned emotional expressions”, repeated lying, etc. all apply to both Joe Biden and Barack Obama. And where both Biden and Obama fit the profile much better than Palin is that normal people may lie to achieve an objective but narcissists and psychopaths lie for the heck of it and to enhance themselves and their backgrounds. For example, when necessary for a political story, Obama claims that he and his wife met in school when it’s been well established that they met on the job. How does someone lie about something like that?

“When Biden talked about his dead wife and kids, she showed no empathy or remorse.”

Why should Sarah Palin show any remorse for an incident that she played no role in? That makes no sense. As for showing no empathy, perhaps she showed no empathy at the debate for the same reason I didn’t, because it was clear that old Joe Biden was using his loss for political purposes and was engaged in those “feigned emotional expressions” you were talking about. Remember, this is the guy who shamelessly claims the man involved in the accident with his wife was drunk while the evidence clearly shows something very different. Here is some good background on what a faker Joe Biden is about his own background:

http://www.slate.com/id/2198597/

“Or, she is delusional; believes her own propaganda.”

It’s possible she’s a narcissist. It’s possible they all are because so many people in politics are. Narcissism explains all of the traits you were talking about but that’s not the same thing as being a sociopath or psychopath.

But if you look at various interviews with Palin, too many things don’t fit the profile including flashes of humility and embarrassment as well as reducing the staff that normally catered to a governor in Alaska. And all sorts of biographical details, including finishing college despite switching between so many of them, not keeping her on-camera news job, sticking with a guy she went out with in high school, and on and on also just don’t fit the profile of a psychopath or even a strong narcissist.

You are looking at the left-wing caricature of Palin and pronouncing it a psychopath. Straw men usually work that way. It’s what they are designed for.

“The use of the terms is based on behavioral observation. BTW, I have studied psychology and have close colleagues that are psychologists. She has been caught in lie after lie and keeps lying.”

Behavioral observation? Really? So you’ve watched the Elan Frank footage where she made sandwiches for her kids and played the flute only after prodding by Frank? You’ve watched the Greta van Susteren interviews with her and her daughter Bristol or the John Ziegler interviews? You’ve watched the debates for governor for Alaska? How about looking for the “real” Sarah Palin in things she said and did before she was nominated for VP?

I’ve watched all of those things and see plenty of evidence disputing your diagnosis or even the diagnosis that she’s a narcissist, and I have looked for those traits. While I see a certain amount of evidence of narcissism, I also see plenty of evidence against it and no evidence that she’s a psychopath.

That you can’t see all of the characteristics you attribute to Sarah Palin displayed far more overtly and obviously in Joe Biden (and well documented since his 1988 run for President, including plagiarism in college) suggests that you are neither an objective observer nor a keen one on these matters.

Further, I’ve provided you with Robert Hare’s PCL-R psychopathy checklist which details the traits found in a psychopath. I’m still waiting for you to provide any evidence of the “socially deviant lifestyle” part of the list. Yes, she displays some narcissistic traits. Almost all politicians do. But a narcissist isn’t a psychopath. If “studied psychology”, sure you know that, right?

“Quit making excuses: ‘Taken out of context; loaded questions, etc.’ Either you can answer basic civics questions of an 8th grade level or you cannot! That’s that!”

You’d like it to be that simple, wouldn’t you? The three problems with this point are (A) that you should take a look at polls about what adults remember from their 8th grade civics questions (one 1998 polls shows only 40% of 12th Graders being able to answer, in a multiple choice test where 25% would get the right answer by randomly guessing, that Brown v. Board of Ed ended school segregation), (B) you assume that what your civics classes focused on where what Sarah Palin’s civics classes focused on, and © you assume that she was even thinking of a case like Dred Scott or Plessy in response to that question since it’s pretty much a given that everyone disagrees with them. You’ll notice that when a Supreme Court nominee gets appointed, every wonders about their views on Roe but nobody is worrying about them overturning Brown or citing Plessy or Dred Scott as precedent. Why would she even think to give those cases as answers?

“Someone running for VP should know.”

So you really mean if someone had asked Barack Obama or Joe Biden who the 13th President was and they couldn’t answer that, then they aren’t qualified for the office? How about knowing who was President when the stock market crashed in 1929? That seems even more basic and relevant to me that knowing who the 13th President was.

“Her ‘experience’ included leaving her own town in debt and legal tape over the sportsplex; Wasilla not have full legal title to the land, resulting in litigation
and over $1 million in interest and compensation to the person the courts determined was the legal owner at the time, plus $250,000 in city legal bills.”

If the sports complex was supported by the people of Wasilla, then that’s not necessarily a problem. The legal title issues on the land is a legitimate issue to raise. As I said, there are plenty of legitimate issues to raise about Sarah Palin. The Bridge to Nowhere is one of them. So is the sports complex land title issue.

“She also had to hire a manager, John Cramer as her weakness
came to light:http://www.poppolitics.com/archives/2008/09/sarah-palin-and-the-experience-argument-to-nowhere.”

What happened to non-biased sources? This ADN article about Palin’s background (which I found by way of one of those wonderfully “unbiased” FactCheck.org articles) contains an interesting detail about that position that suggests her opponents are leaving some details out:

http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/background/story/510447.html

“She quickly hired a deputy administrator, reworking the city budget to find money for the $50,000-a-year position, which had been empty for several years. Critics said it showed she wasn’t up to the job, but Palin defended it as necessary for the fast-growing city.”

In other words, the position of deputy administrator already existed for Wasilla and had been filled in the past. Further, it’s her critics who claim she wasn’t up for the job but she claimed it had to do with the growth of the city. Also put this in the context of the fact that (A) Sarah Palin defeated the incumbent administration to become mayor and (B) was reelected in Wasilla. The biggest problem with the argument that Sarah Palin was cartoonishly incompetent was mayor of Wasilla is that she was reelected and then followed by a candidate that supported her.

“She cannot answer basic questions; winked her way through a debate about very fundamental issues facing this country;”

Most reviews of her debate performance considered it adequate and many considered it as good as Biden’s. I again remind you that she was the only candidate in the race who had not been running for President for over a year. I asked you to provide me with a single example of where she refused to answer one of Gwen Ifill’s questions and I notice that you still haven’t.

“lied about healthcare reform;”

No, she told the truth about where healthcare reform was inevitably going, which was why here comments were so effective and they didn’t have an effective retort. Here, let me help you out again with the bit you are missing. Just because Barack Obama and Ezekiel Emanuel say that they don’t support something or it won’t happen doesn’t mean that they don’t support it and it won’t happen. “Barack Obama says so” doesn’t prove anything any more than “Sarah Palin says so” does.

“resigned because ‘they were picking on her’ (note: she is the one who decided to hire Van Flein and his expensive services instead of letting the state just throw the complaints out and then trying to work towards tightening up the loopholes; too hard to actually work when you can make soundbites and get the audience riled up).”

Her enemies were using the ethics rules and her office as a trap to, how does that go again, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.” She got out of the trap. That’s smart.

“You’re a brick wall and nothing will ever convince you she is just not qualified. Can’t help you there.”

You, on the other hand, are open minded, right? I’ve acknowledged where i think Sarah Palin has legitimate problems and weaknesses. You’ve yet to acknowledge glaring weaknesses in Joe Biden. Again, it’s not a principle if you don’t apply it equally. Stop pretending you have principles when you don’t.

“At least 2/3 of Americans agree with me.”

Over 90% of Americans believe that God exists. Is that proof that God exists? The whole logical fallacy thing really is totally lost on you, isn’t it?