Sarah's Coming to Town

[medved]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

I don't recall the earlier posting, A, but it doesn't sound implausible. Qualifications schmalifications. We keep electing people with impressive resumes and the country keeps getting worse off. At least if we define "qualifications" as political experience, I'll pass, thank you. A lifelong background in politics seems if anything to be more a liability than an asset.

But thats doesn't mean qualifications don't count. Quite the opposite; qualifications count much. It's just that our idea of qualifications doesn't fit the mold the urban elite has fashioned for us.

Very true. Good politician is not necessarily a smart one. The urban elite keeps telling us, we need a smart president to take care of us, which is their sneaky way of reducing our liberties. I wish we could elect stupid politicians, it would mean, they have so little power that nobody cares.

For those who still like smart asses like Clinton and Obama I would like to bring some examples of very smart politicians: Ulyanov, Bronstein and Jughashvili. These folks were very smart. They succeeded in uniting some serious political forces in the struggle for the common good, but I would hate to see them at the top.

[Master Shake]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Personally, I believe she is far better than most of her detractors, many of whom are foaming with hate yet all the while proclaim themselves to be the most caring and compassionate of Americans. (If you happen to be at the age of 8 months or less gestation that's a sick joke.)

That said, I do NOT believe she is even remotely qualified to be POTUS,
and I will not vote for her or anyone else with even a whif of NeoCon flavor.

Came across this a couple weeks ago at The Prudent Bear: Why They Hate Palin.

Excerpt

The publicity and vituperation around the book tour of a middling ex-governor of Alaska seems to have nothing to do with Sarah Palin's politics, which judging from her term in office are unexceptional and only center-right. The heat derives from her style, which is that of an iconoclast outsider, and from the establishment's fear that iconoclasm may be the wave of the future. Economically, their fears may be justified, whatever Palin's future career plans.

Historically, iconoclasm was an 8th-century Byzantine movement in opposition to the religious icons central to Orthodox worship. By smashing icons, the iconoclasts hoped to restore the purity of the Church and focus religious belief on the spiritual – they appear to have had similar impulses to those that later inspired Martin Luther to revolt against the decadent Medici papacy. Their opponents, the "iconodules," did not just love images, they were regarded as enslaved to them.

In the economic arena, there would seem to be a good case for iconoclasm. The bipartisan support for the bailout in late 2008 and the lack of action thereafter has left the institutional structure frozen, even a year after the event. Citigroup, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still in existence, and no plans have been made for their closure or breakup. Wall Street, in the form of Goldman Sachs, is making record profits and will pay even more outrageous bonuses than in the boom year of 2007, yet much of its activity is pure rent-seeking, with no beneficial effect on the outside economy. The U.S. mortgage market is even more hopelessly compromised than it was a year ago, with the combination of the home-buyer tax credit and the Federal Housing Administration's lax requirements for only a 3% down-payment producing a new $1 trillion pile of mortgages that appear to be toxic.

[snip]

It's not surprising given the new public taste for iconoclasm that the iconodules of both political parties have reacted with fear and alarm to Palin, who is no ideologue but through her background and style represents the strongest possible iconoclastic sentiment, opposed to Wall Street, Washington and all their doings. Her own political future is uncertain, as is her capability to take advantage of the new movement. But if she plays her hand cleverly, combining iconoclasm with political centrism, attracting good advisors while maintaining her anti-Washington following, her chances of a major political future at a national level would appear good.

With or without Ms. Palin, the iconoclast movement has substantial momentum. The current political-economic system is simply unsustainable; no economy can afford to pay for four giant zombie financial institutions, two substantial military adventures, a zombie-driven housing market, an exploding health-care bill and Goldman Sachs partners' lifestyle aspirations. While the iconodules remain in charge, U.S. economic performance will consist of anemic growth punctuated by deep, grinding recessions, with new and small business starved of capital, which is instead sucked inexorably into the triple money pits of housing, the federal and state budget deficits and the investment-banking trading fraternity. In such circumstances, mere reform at the edges will not be enough; icons will have to be broken to liberate the U.S. economy from its excessive costs and allow new private sector growth sectors to emerge.


http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php...w?art_id=10311

[flintlock]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Let Palin serve some time at a Secretary post or something like that. Get some experience at something of more substance than constantly running for office. Then I might consider her. (Or is she worried that by waiting her appeal would fade along with her looks???) Problem these days is people want to skip all that silly experience thing and jump right into running the country. This goes for at least the last two Presidents, if not much farther back.

Contrast the Presidents of America's early years with those of today in terms of experience in leadership. Most had either military or serious legislative or executive experience. Frankly, I think someone with a senior military background would make the kind of LEADER we need to work our way out of this mess. But that would never happen. We "Couldn't handle the truth!".

[Master Shake]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Thank you.

I was surprised to see him support someone with such limited qualifications. I get the feeling Palin is a sort of Chance the Gardener for many conservatives, an empty vessel they can pour their hopes into.

Do you feel the same way about Obama?

[Raz]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Give me examples read her Bio how does it compare to Obama, Clinton, Carter, Bush II, Regan and Kennedy. How do you grade her intelligence? Do you have her IQ results? SAT scores? She did get elected to be Governor of Alaska in a largely male dominated state, She has excelled at everything she has done. She was tapped to run as VP. She is as popular as a sitting president. She has a best selling book. Anyone with a low intelligence level and a pretty face could do that right? :rolleyes: Raja you are obviously intelligent from your postings I could understand you saying you couldn't support her because of her positions but she surely has the experience as compared to other presidents and the intelligence to be where she is.

Obama is a mystery man and media sensation. Personally, I don't think he's all that smart,
and I fail to see how he's any more qualified than Palin.


Hillary Clinton is probably more qualified than Obama - but not by much;
personally I don't believe either of them is qualified.

Bill Clinton and "Jimmah" Carter were both qualified - executive experience, well read, very intelligent - but Carter was an arrogant, micromanaging, thick-head who was a disaster as chief executive, and since I've never had a penchant for amoral, pathological liars
I didn't vote for "Bill".

Reagan was far smarter than his detractors wanted people to know. He had executive experience, was an incredibly good communicator, and made a pretty good chief executive. His biggest failing was in listening to a total 'friggin idiot like Arthur Laffer. Some of his deregulation was needed, but his hadling of the S&Ls was a fiasco, to put it mildly.

By Kennedy I suppose you meant "Teddy". The man was very intelligent and certainly had the necessary experience to handle the office. But alcoholics make lousy bartenders, and after watching his treatment of Robert Bork combined with his almost insufferable arrogance (he was, after all, Sir Teddy, Heir of Camelot) I didn't much care for him. Being a woman killer wasn't a plus either.

Lastly we come to Bush II - George W. Dumbass. Executive experience, not much else. NeoCon nitwit, big spender who probably avoided reading anything heavier than Readers Digest; phony "conservative" who with the help of Trent Lott and Denny Hastert managed to discredit Conservatism by presenting a counterfeit to the American people.
Didn't care for him back then - care even less for him now.


Guess I'm just a Ron Paul kinda' guy.

[KGW]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Anyone who remotely believes that a single individual called the "president" changes the tenor of the PTB, gets my vote for "rube of the year."

Kabuki for the masses, since they never get off their asses.

[Raz]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andreuccio Thank you. ... someone with such limited qualifications. I get the feeling Palin is a sort of Chance the Gardener for many conservatives, an empty vessel they can pour their hopes into.

Do you feel the same way about Obama?

I certainly do. Slick and smooth doesn't make him smart - or qualified.

[swgprop]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Give me examples read her Bio how does it compare to Obama, Clinton, Carter, Bush II, Regan and Kennedy. How do you grade her intelligence? Do you have her IQ results? SAT scores? She did get elected to be Governor of Alaska in a largely male dominated state, She has excelled at everything she has done. She was tapped to run as VP. She is as popular as a sitting president. She has a best selling book. Anyone with a low intelligence level and a pretty face could do that right? :rolleyes: Raja you are obviously intelligent from your postings I could understand you saying you couldn't support her because of her positions but she surely has the experience as compared to other presidents and the intelligence to be where she is.

She makes Katie Couric look bright by comparison. Run for your life.

[Finster]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Very true. Good politician is not necessarily a smart one. The urban elite keeps telling us, we need a smart president to take care of us, which is their sneaky way of reducing our liberties. I wish we could elect stupid politicians, it would mean, they have so little power that nobody cares.

For those who still like smart asses like Clinton and Obama I would like to bring some examples of very smart politicians: Ulyanov, Bronstein and Jughashvili. These folks were very smart. They succeeded in uniting some serious political forces in the struggle for the common good, but I would hate to see them at the top.

My comments above were not necessarily an endorsement of Palin; but they are a firm rejection of the litmus test advanced by her political opposition. There are some genuine, hard and fast qualifications for the US presidency:

US Constitution, Article II Section I

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

All else beyond that is a matter of opinion. Mine is more interested in ideas than political experience. While in theory the President is an executive - there to execute policy, not to make it - in practice he has enormous influence over it. That being the case, where a president wants to lead is at least if not more important than technical competence.

This is the rap on Obama. He may be the most competent man to hold the office in modern memory. It's where he wants to lead that is questionable. By the same token, the same could be said about Clinton and both Bushes. All fostered expansion of the power of the federal government, expansion of government spending, reduction in individual liberty, and all were globalists whose idea of free trade applied only at and outside the border. All oversaw the two decade credit binge that has turned the US into the world's biggest debtor and are now turning it into an economic also-ran.

I really don't know enough about Sarah Palin to argue that she would be a good president, but by these measures it wouldn't be that hard to be better than what we've had.

[Mango]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

My assessment of the book has nothing to do with the accuracy of its accounts. Some news agencies have fact-checkers poring over every sentence, which would be to the point if the book were a biography, a genre that is judged by the degree to which the factual claims being made can be verified down to the last assertion. “Going Rogue,” however, is an autobiography, and while autobiographers certainly insist that they are telling the truth, the truth the genre promises is the truth about themselves — the kind of persons they are — and even when they are being mendacious or self-serving (and I don’t mean to imply that Palin is either), they are, necessarily, fleshing out that truth. As I remarked in a previous column, autobiographers cannot lie because anything they say will truthfully serve their project, which, again, is not to portray the facts, but to portray themselves.

I think that Palin supporters (and detractors) should take a hard look at what S. Fish is saying in the paragraph quoted above. Essentially what it boils down to is that he's praising it not as a work of truth but a successful work of propaganda explicating, "the truth about themselves...even when they are being mendacious or self-serving." Fish immediately parenthetically backs away from any suggestion that Palin is either, but he's just trying to have it both ways.

For fact-checkers and other people interested in reality as the only rational basis for important decisions the other kind of truth is paramount--not the truth that Fish finds praiseworthy in Palin's story.

It's interesting that Fish mentions Mein Kampf. Under his standard of assessment he might find it to have been a remarkably truthful work, and concluded his review of it by saying:

The message is clear. Germany can’t be stopped. I can’t be stopped. I’ve stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. His political opponents, especially those who dismissed his beer hall putsch before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Adolph is coming to town.

Luckily for us today, Adolph was a much better speaker.

[flintlock]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Obama is a mystery man and media sensation. Personally, I don't think he's all that smart,
and I fail to see how he's any more qualified than Palin.


Hillary Clinton is probably more qualified than Obama - but not by much;
personally I don't believe either of them is qualified.

Bill Clinton and "Jimmah" Carter were both qualified - executive experience, well read, very intelligent - but Carter was an arrogant, micromanaging, thick-head who was a disaster as chief executive, and since I've never had a penchant for amoral, pathological liars
I didn't vote for "Bill".

Reagan was far smarter than his detractors wanted people to know. He had executive experience, was an incredibly good communicator, and made a pretty good chief executive. His biggest failing was in listening to a total 'friggin idiot like Arthur Laffer. Some of his deregulation was needed, but his hadling of the S&Ls was a fiasco, to put it mildly.

By Kennedy I suppose you meant "Teddy". The man was very intelligent and certainly had the necessary experience to handle the office. But alcoholics make lousy bartenders, and after watching his treatment of Robert Bork combined with his almost insufferable arrogance (he was, after all, Sir Teddy, Heir of Camelot) I didn't much care for him. Being a woman killer wasn't a plus either.

Lastly we come to Bush II - George W. Dumbass. Executive experience, not much else. NeoCon nitwit, big spender who probably avoided reading anything heavier than Readers Digest; phony "conservative" who with the help of Trent Lott and Denny Hastert managed to discredit Conservatism by presenting a counterfeit to the American people.
Didn't care for him back then - care even less for him now.


Guess I'm just a Ron Paul kinda' guy.

Raz, you hit all those people spot on in my opinion. Thanks for your honest opinions on this forum, without all the Party bias most of us bring.

[flintlock]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

and she appeared to have been uninterested in many National issues up until the point she got the nod from McCain

I think that is what first put me off with Palin. Now she claims its all about saving America. I think its all about Sarah. But she's no different than any of them. We could do worse..... I guess?

[Raz]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

And how is this different from Obama? Audacity of Hope and Dreams of my Father?

Bingo!

I cannot understand why so many people who think of themselves as conservative refuse to see the horror of the NeoCon mutation, and can't see that however much they may like Sarah Palin - and look for her to lead them out of the wilderness - either can't or won't see that she'll almost certainly take them right back in.

And for my Liberal friends: fliped42 has just pointed it out for you: for all your dislike of and disagreement with Sarah Palin, how is it that you can't - or won't - see the nearly identical situation with Barry Obama?

And I have actually read the Audacity of Hope. It is a pile of featherweight, sanctimonious, self-serving nothing!
As I read page after page of his platitudes it reminded me of a critique of Erasmus' Diatribe by Luther: " I thought it outrageous to convey material of so low a quality in the trappings of such eloquence; it's like using gold or silver plates to carry garden rubbish or dung."

[Andreuccio]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

Do you feel the same way about Obama?

I didn't during the election, but I'm sure starting to now.

[Gnosis]

Re: Sarah's Coming to Town

I still have not heard any solid reason why she is not qualified to be POTUS is it because she is a woman? (Hillary) because she is a mother? (Hillary) because she is religious? (Bush, Carter) because she has a family scandal? (Kennedy,Bush) Because she comes from a small state? (Clinton) Because she supports the military? (Eisenhower,Reagan, Bush) Because she wrote a book? (Obama) Because she fumbles interviews? (Nixon, Ford, Carter) Because she talks folksy? (Carter, Clinton) Because she had a troopergate? (Clinton) Because she didn't go to an ivy league school (Reagan, Carter) or is it just a mindless smear by the opposition?

You are kidding, right? She is unqualified because she is unread. She is dangerous because she does not know that she does not know, and is nauseatingly self interested, for America's sake, of course.
Those thoughtful minds that came together to think this great country into existence, also warned of these future ignorant children of their republic springing forth from the wellspring of monied handlers, dubious regard and propelled by populist ignorance. These worthy gentleman are currently rotating at 30,000 RPM in the grave.