So, as things tend to do, I sat down to make notes for a post, did a little surfing, and found that matters are more complex than I’d started out believing.
I started to write about the problem posed by an outsider – like Sarah Palin – who has political skills but much less policy knowledge. How do we know when too little policy knowledge is a problem? What’s the boundary, in other words, or is she Jesse Ventura?One of Bill Clinton’s great features was that he combined great political skills and deep policy knowledge – he could both talk about the history of an issue and rally people to act on it at a higher level than most politicians. What he was deficient in, to some extent, was judgment.
Because what we want from our political leaders is a combination of things – the political skill to rally people to join them in solving a problem and to build the alliances needed to Get Things Done – that’s the core job; the policy skill to understand the mechanics of issues and how best to exercise their political skills; and, finally, the judgment needed to decide on what policies to further and what politics to engage in.
I started to write about that, and about the legitimate concern that Palin may not be well-developed enough on the policy front to comfortably sit in the big chair in the Oval Office. I’ll come back and write about that some more (along with all the other things in the queue).
But in surfing around this morning, I found the same Newsbusters post that Glen Wishard linked to in the comments below, and fell into my usual high dudgeon about crappy, stupidly biased media. The parts they cut out are in bold.
GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.
PALIN: Sure.
GIBSON: Let’s start, because we are near Russia, let’s start with Russia and Georgia.
The administration has said we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?
PALIN: First off, we’re going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I was able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain’s running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia. And we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep…
GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.
PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals. That’s why we have to keep an eye on Russia.
And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.
GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?
PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.
You know, it sure seems like the interview was edited to make Palin look far less thoughtful and knowledgeable than she really was.
I’m tossing an email over to ABC News, asking “what the hell?“
Yes, the interview was edited severely to her detriment. And we should talk about that. The feebleness of her performance should not excuse the wrongness of what was done.
At the same time, the wrongness of what was done should not be used to draw a cloak over her inadequate knowledge. Not smarts – she’s very, very smart. Knowledge.
Rich Lowry speaks for me here, every word (link), not all of which I am quoting here.
bq. “But this was a merely adequate performance. The foreign-policy session was a white-knuckle affair. She barely got through it and showed no knowledge more than an inch deep.”
Yup. Can she do more than stick pieces of Republican boiler-plate together in a folksy style? _Not yet, not with her inadequate knowledge base._
bq. “What she did demonstrate was amazing self-possession. She somehow bluffed her way through the Bush doctrine question. Gibson apparently didn’t want to go into full “gotcha” territory by asking flat-out if she knew what it is. And then he muddled things further with his dubious definition of it, so she was never truly nailed and there was enough ambiguity there for conservatives to defend her. The fact still remains that she very likely didn’t know _any of the possible definitions of the Bush doctrine_.”
Yup. 🙁
bq. “I can’t imagine if Obama had picked Gov. Tim Kaine and he had had a similar moment, conservatives would have rushed to say that the Bush doctrine is just too amorphous and complicated for him to know anything about it.”
Yup.
bq. “Palin seemed weak on economic and budgetary policy too, talking in the vaguest generalities.”
Again: this candidate at the present time can talk without going off the reservation for a Republican or embarrassing her boss – _and that’s all_. That means: she is not, right now, ready to be President. I think she might be by election day, probably by her inauguration if McCain – Palin wins, and surely, easily after a year as McCain’s understudy … but the evidence is that _right now_ “she’s not ready to govern” is a fair cop.
bq. “She was much better, and positively good, on the social issues—which are dear to her and she’s thought about—and anything having to do with her personally or with her record in Alaska. She was magnificent on the Iraq-prayer question. This tends to suggest she’ll be as strong on the national issues, once she’s truly conversant with them.”
Yeah, her talent is vast, extraordinary. She’s the kind of person who, if she can’t get from the outskirts of power to the center, shows that the Republican process for finding and promoting talent is broken. You have to be able to get people like that into the main game, otherwise you are stuck with the same deadheads “forever” and you are crippled in pursuing major reform.
My emphasis added here:
bq. *_I hope she got up from the foreign policy session and said to her aides, “Dammit. That wasn’t good enough and I’m not letting it happen again. I’m not going to allow myself to be so under-prepared for another high-profile interview again.”_*
_This is all important._ Politically, a weak but still (barely) passing first major interview is only a (mild) negative; but for governance, it is either the making of her or the breaking of her, depending on whether she reacts by getting up to speed (which she can easily do and then all is well), or the ruin of her is she decides that, hey, she _can_ bluff her way through the process, and relaxes into laziness (bad) or becomes a specialist bluffer, a champion of airy hopey – changey gibberish and poses (which would be disastrous from the point of view of effective government).
bq. … “I believe the truly pro-Palin position is to think she can, should, and will do better than this.”
Just so.
I see various folks commenting that Palin’s reaction to Gibson’s question about “the Bush Doctrine” indicates that she hadn’t even heard of it.
It’s interesting to me that what many of these folks point to as the strongest evidence of her alleged knowledge deficiency isn’t directly about U.S. foreign policy or the state of global affairs. The alleged deficiency is in not knowing how the chattering classes have been talking about such things. Palin could have known the Bush administrations policies and public statements cold and still not known that the chattering classes had coined the term “the Bush Doctrine”.
Mr. Blue:
As always, I find your answer to be thoughtful; but as often, needlessly focused on the negatives.
1) Gov. Palin is not a deeply-read expert in foreign policy; however, as Vice President, it will be something she has a unique opportunity to learn. She will have access to briefings, to intelligence, to a staff and a budget designed to do little else but bring her up to speed on current issues and their histories, and make her able to step in if need be.
That will be her full-time job as VP. We’ve seen her undertake a number of full-time jobs before, and with outstanding results in every case. There is no reason to believe she won’t be just as devoted to this one.
2) People seem inordinately focused on an odd “what if?” question: “What if John McCain should die before inauguration day, and Gov. Palin should have to step in as she is right now?”
The actuarial tables suggest that it is far more likely that John McCain won’t die at all, but will finish his four (or eight!) year term in good health. The odds of him dying at any time in the first term are never more than 5% per year. Even assuming that the odds are actually five times that high, due to the particular stresses of the office and added dangers of assassination (and offering no deduction for the excellent health care a President will enjoy), that still leaves a 75% chance that Vice President Palin will never assume office at any point.
3) The Presidency is not just about foreign policy. Gov. Palin knows quite a bit about domestic policy. She is especially versed in energy policy, but also has had to deal with all the issues that America at home is interested in considering.
The _Foreign Policy_ piece that Tigerhawk spoke to the other day suggests why this is important. If you go by that kind of piece, or this kind of reporting, you get the idea that any grad student from Johns Hopkins’ SAIS is more qualified for the office than Obama _or_ Palin. Yet Gov. Palin has a track record tackling domestic issues that leaves her with an approval rating in the 80+% range.
So… don’t worry over it. It’s highly unlikely that she will be called to serve as President at any point without having to stand for it in an election. If she does have to step in for McCain, she’ll have had a stint as Vice President that will have prepared her, because it will have been her full time job to prepare and she has always taken her work very seriously. Finally, she knows quite a bit already about the domestic issues that Americans care about.
She’ll be great. They’re not trying to make her look bad because they’re afraid she won’t be a great VP. They’re doing it because they’re afraid she _will_ be.
What seems odd to me here is that Palin did what politicians always do, they answer the question they want to answer that has some relationship to a noun or verb in the proffered question. Palin was _supposed_ to say whatever she felt like saying about the Bush doctrine, whether relevant or not.
When she asked the interviewer what he meant by the term, I thought “Good,” we are going to have a serious discussion. We are going to take words and meanings seriously.
But no, it was what I expect to get in the debates: Questions followed by pre-set speeches. Doesn’t anybody notice this?
Oh, like this is new; 60 Minutes used to interview people for hours on end, and then string together a few minutes of badly phrased replies that slipped out when they were tired. I always wondered why anybody was stupid enough to allow 60 minutes to interview them…
Glenn Renyolds is right: Never go into an interview without your own camera running, and put the unedited feed up on youtube. Then dare them to edit it to make you look stupid.
bq. The actuarial tables suggest that it is far more likely that John McCain won’t die at all,
This is a breathtaking argument. Here you are arguing that it doesn’t matter whether she’s ready or not on “Day 1” because the odds are that she won’t need to be.
That is certainly not a standard I think anyone should be comfortable with or, worse, arguing for.
bq. She’ll be great. They’re not trying to make her look bad because they’re afraid she won’t be a great VP. They’re doing it because they’re afraid she will be.
Hogwash. The only credible fear at this point is that she will be a disaster of a VP or, god forbid, POTUS. After all, isn’t that what you’re trying to dispel in the bulk of your comment? You too recognize this fear and that it is credible enough to mount such a heated and multi-pronged defense such as yours.
When people look past her gender and pluckiness and realize her early claims about herself and her record are almost the precise opposite of what they really are, she will become a political liability to McCain. I predict we will all be discussing how foolish and impulsive a choice this was for him in the end, playing to his extremist conservative base at the expense of the middle. It’s not going to be enough in this election.
Look, Sen. McCain is ready on day one. Joe Biden is ready on day one, but won’t be President likely ever, so it’s of less importance.
Obama isn’t ready at all, and never will be, because of his character. He just doesn’t have what it takes. It’s not just that he has no experience and no actual accomplishments besides running for higher office: it’s that he has no principles, that there’s nothing important enough to him to fight for it (except, as noted in the previous post, for his wife — the one exception I’ve seen is a genuine loyalty to his wife).
Sen. Palin is ready on domestic issues, and needs to spin up on foreign policy; but she has a good work ethic, and an excellent track record. Like Joe Biden, she’ll probably not be President (unless she stands for election in 2012 or later), so it’s not as important; but there is no reason to believe she won’t be as good at this as she has been at everything else she’s undertaken. 80% approval ratings as a governor who goes to war against the embedded interests in your own state government is not easily done.
As for the actuarial tables, you can see them “here”:http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html if you are interested.
So Vista, here’s something that would be great. Can you pull together a set of links (not to Kos or Media Matters, but to direct sources) that support
If you do I’ll post it and we’ll do a little collective research and arguing – because that’s a legitimate claim to make, if backed by facts.
A.L.
“Gov. Palin”, that should read. Everyone else is a “Sen.”, but that’s no reason to slander the lady with a suggestion that she was somehow tied to Congress. _Mea culpa_. 🙂
In the past, being the governor of a state has always been considered a complete qualification for president – let alone vice-president. It was the sole governmental qualification of the last five presidents, except George H. W. Bush.
In some other dimension it’s Gov. Todd Palin who got the nod for VP pick. I don’t think anyone would question his foreign policy experience.
On the other hand, look at who loses elections (excluding incumbent presidents):
1964 – Barry Goldwater, Senator
1968 – Hubert Humphrey, Senator (former VP and mayor)
1972 – George McGovern, Senator (former House of Rep.)
1984 – Walter Mondale, Senator (former VP)
1988 – Michael Dukakis, Governor
1996 – Bob Dole, Senator (former House of Rep.)
2000 – Al Gore, VP (former Senator and House of Rep.)
2004 – John Kerry, Senator (former Lieutenant Governor)
“I’m tossing an email over to ABC News, asking “what the hell?””
AL – You are actually going to put principle over partisanship, particularly in a situation that may not be beneficial to Obama? If left-wing, pro-Obama blogs knew this, you would be hated.
You may have once been a Democrat, but your Reagan moment of “they moved away from me” has come. It may take many years for you to accept it, but that transition has occurred.
Everyone who reads your writing would agree, at this point.
I know you “would rather fight”. I hope you win, and transform the Democrat party into one that mirrors your values (which in turn would also improve the GOP, as the GOP would now have to compete on ideas, rather than win again and again just by waiting for extreme leftists to alienate the middle).
But I don’t think you can win that fight. There are too few like you, and the leftists are too committed.
“If you do I’ll post it and we’ll do a little collective research and arguing – because that’s a legitimate claim to make, if backed by facts.”
Fifty bucks (figuratively) says Vista can’t produce enough to persuade AL to agree with Vista’s position.
The biggest flaw of Palin is her inexperience. Of course, this is decreasing by the day, as she gains experience.
Leftists insist McCain is on the brink of dying, and Palin could be President as soon as Feb 2009. At the same time, they fail to admit that Palin’s inexperience decreases with time. If McCain dies after, say, 3 years, Palin has gained 3 years of VP experience by then.
So they think time is accelerating for McCain, but is at a standstill for Palin. This way lies madness, of course, and is more proof that the left is short on thinkers.
There is no way around the fact that each day McCain ages, is a day that Palin also gains experience.
It seems to me that the reason Obama’s lack of experience is a problem is that he lacks the judgment one typically gains from experience. To my mind he’s demonstrated this on multiple occasions. What I’d want out of a President is a combination of idealism and pragmatism such that they want to make everything perfect but realize that it isn’t possible and thus know what is within their power to improve while not wasting effort on things that are never going to happen. It’s also important that they understand what can and can’t be achieved through diplomacy, and how to effectively use diplomacy to achieve those things which can be achieved.
I really have no idea how much foreign policy knowledge or experience Palin really has but I worry less about her judgment because she seems to have better initial judgment than Obama. I think it comes down to the relative rawness of life in Alaska requiring a type of pragmatism that is similar to what foreign policy experience brings. She seems to be a better judge of human nature, and of the way the world works. I’m sure more experience will be better but she starts out with an advantage in my mind.
Anyway just my $2 (inflation adjusted).
Ok GK, I’ll bite… how is she gaining foreign policy experience? Is it fast enough that by November she could run the goverment?
And yes, governors are considered to be a good run up position to president. Usually though, you elect someone with more than 20 months experience. I find it interesting that video of Karl Rove insults Kaine for governor, because before his governorship he had only been the mayor of ‘Richmond’ which is too small to be adequate experience for the white house. What about 6,000?
David: I certainly hope Palin will do better in her next interview. Everybody knows that Sean Hannity likes to throw some curveballs at republican candidates…
Let’s face it though. What I think of Sarah Palin doesn’t matter. That pick isn’t going to sway me, for a number of reasons that we’ve already gone over. First of all, I have yet to see evidence that she’s a true reformer. Most of her acclaims have either been misleading, or cover for other decisions (that in my opinion) show a shocking lack of good judgement.
Nope, the Sarah Palin pick electrifies the base. And that’s what’s happened. Her down-home character has pulled people that will listen to her no matter what she says. And that’s why McCain refuses to tour without her. He knows that the crowds will go to her and not him.
“She seems to be a better judge of human nature, and of the way the world works. ”
In other words, she is not a leftist. She is a normal person.
Teddy Roosevelt was VP for only 4 months before becoming President at age 42. He did rather well.
“Is it fast enough that by November she could run the goverment? ”
Why would she be running the government in November? Or even in February? Is McCain really going to die after just 2 weeks in the WH? Evaluating Palin’s learning curve is what matters, rather than what she knows today or knew in 2004.
If a brilliant 10th grader wants to be a surgeon, should one shoot her down just because she is still 6 years away starting from Medical school, even though there is no doubt she will gain admission and do well, when the time comes?
Again, Obama supporters fall for this trick without even knowing it. They bash Palin’s lack of experience, but this merely highlights Obama’s even greater lack of experience, which hurts Obama more than the GOP because OBAMA IS AT THE TOP OF THE TICKET, PALIN IS AT THE BOTTOM.
tee hee… they don’t even know that they are throwing pebbles towards someone who can throw boulders at their glass Rezko-financed house.
In a nutshell :
Obama :
a) No executive experience
b) Ideologically un-American
c) Top of the ticket, must perform on day 1
Palin :
a) Brief, but growing, executive experience. High approval rating.
b) Ideologically mirrors most Americans
c) Bottom of the ticket, very small probability of becoming President after just a few months as VP
Now, which is more risky?
McCain is more risky. He has compromised his honor and judgement. He startd w/ his honor when he allowed the Republican party platform to move abortion and stem cells to extreme positions he did not support in the past. He gave up both his honor and his judgement by picking gov Palin. His honor again because she supports social positions he had not in the past. His judgment because for someone running away from Pres Bush he picked someone just like him to be vice president.
Pres Bush constantly has proven he is unwilling to do the research to understand what his policy’s mean. He believes he is right and that God has brought him the correct knowledge to be right.Bush blusters and is folksy and the kind of guy a religious bigot wants to have a beer w/. We have suffered through this religious bigotry for long enough.
As for the mortality and morbidity tables McCains bouts with skin cancer at the level he suffered it have severely reduced his chances of making it through his first term. Call NYL and see if they will insure him. So if McCain wins and dies you want Gov Palin as President. More bad judgment.
I still am looking for a complete transcript of the interview.
AL
Can you pull together a set of links (not to Kos or Media Matters, but to direct sources) that support
“When people look past her gender and pluckiness and realize her early claims about herself and her record are almost the precise opposite of what they really are, she will become a political liability to McCain.”
too answer this question I figure since you’re a Democrat and the rest of your riders aren’t for the most part I’ll give you something from the Obama campaign. I hope you don’t mind the whole thing.
To help you cut through their lies and spin, below are the facts you need to set the record straight.
McCain Myth: Palin Visited Troops In Iraq
FACT: Palin Did Not Venture Further Into Iraq Than It’s Border With Kuwait
“In The Second Official Revision Of Her Only Trip Outside North America,†Palin Aides Concede That Her 2007 Visit To Iraq “Consisted Of A Brief Stop At A Border Crossing.†“Sarah Palin’s visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate’s campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America. Following her selection last month as John McCain’s running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a ‘military outpost’ inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin’s foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone. But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as ‘K-Crossing,’ on July 25, 2007.It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called ‘the trip of a lifetime.’ Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.†[Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
McCain Myth: McCain’s Appearance Drew Crowd of 23,000 to Event
FACT: Crowd-Size Estimates Provided By Campaign Aides Not Backed By Officials.
Bloomberg: “McCain-Plain Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed By Officials.†“Senator John McCain has drawn some of the biggest crowds of his presidential campaign since adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to his ticket on Aug. 29. Now officials say they can’t substantiate the figures McCain’s aides are claiming. McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal. Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events. . The McCain campaign said 10,000 people showed up at the Consol Energy Arena in Washington, Pennsylvania, home of the Washington Wild Things baseball team. The campaign attributed that estimate, and several that followed, to U.S. Secret Service figures, based on the number of people who passed through magnetometers. ‘We didn’t provide any numbers to the campaign,’ said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service. Wiley said he would not ‘confirm or dispute’ the numbers the McCain campaign has given to reporters.†[Bloomberg, 9/13/08 > ]
McCain Myth: Palin Is a Fiscal Conservative
FACT: Palin Has Grown Government in Her Time as Executive of Both Alaska And Wasilla
Boston Globe: “Fueled by Oil Taxes, Alaska Spending Soared Under Palin.†“Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska has also presided over a dramatic increase in state spending in the last two years. Still, she can accurately claim that her state is in good fiscal health, thanks to an explosion of revenues from state taxes on oil industry profits. Indeed, in her 20 months in office, Palin’s toughest financial decisions involved dickering with the Legislature on creative ways to spend and salt away the billions of dollars in oil revenues pouring into the state treasury.†[Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
· In Two Budget Cycles, Palin Only Vetoed $2.6 Million In Spending Requests For Alaska’s $8.1 Billion Operating Budget – Which Has Increased 30 Percent In Two Years. “.in two budget cycles, Palin has vetoed a total of only $2.6 million in spending requests for the state’s now $8.1 billion annual operating budget, which, according to an analysis by the legislative finance office, has increased about 30 percent in two years. The increase figure includes the one-time energy rebate checks but no increases in reserve accounts or any capital expenditures. It also doesn’t include a supplemental appropriation for additional expenditures, which is routine. Last year, the supplemental budget was more than $4 billion, mostly deposits in reserve accounts when revenues continued to pour in at high levels.†[Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
Wasilla’s Total Government Expenditures Increased 63 Percent Under Palin. In fiscal 2003-the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget-the total government expenditures of Wasilla, excluding capital outlays, were $7,046,325. In fiscal 1996-the year before Palin took control of the budget-the expenditures were $4,317,947. The increase was 63 percent. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 1]
McCain Myth: Palin Has Succeeded in Signing a Deal to Build Alaska’s Long-Stalled Gas Pipeline
FACTS: High Gas Prices Have Given Alaska a Huge Windfall, Passed on to Alaskans Like Sarah Palin in Huge Dividend Checks – And Palin Has Backed Shipping Alaskan Natural Gas to Asia
Palin Touts Her Pipeline Deal, But It Has Not been Started, Would Take Years to Complete and Could Never Happen, Costing Taxpayers $500 Million for Nothing. “When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska took center stage at the Republican convention last week, she sought to burnish her executive credentials by telling how she had engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas pipeline project. But an examination of the pipeline project also found that Ms. Palin has overstated both the progress that has been made and the certainty of success. The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.†[New York Times, 9/13/08 ]
· Republican Lawmaker Worried Alaska Bargained Away Too Much Leverage, Has No Agreement to “Lift One Shovel of Dirt or Lay Down One Inch of Steel.†“As Ms. Palin takes to the road to campaign with Mr. McCain, invoking the pipeline as a major victory, some Alaska lawmakers who initially endorsed her plan now believe it was a mistake. State Senator Bert Stedman, a Republican who is co-chairman of the finance committee, said that in its contract with the chosen developer, TransCanada, the state bargained away too much leverage with little guarantee of success. ‘There is no requirement to lift one shovel of dirt or lay down one inch of steel,’ he said.†[New York Times, 9/13/08 ]
McCain Myth: Palin’s Energy Experience Will Lower Gas Prices and Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil
FACTS: High Gas Prices Have Given Alaska a Huge Windfall, Passed on to Alaskans Like Sarah Palin in Huge Dividend Checks – And Palin Has Backed Shipping Alaskan Natural Gas to Asia
Thanks To “Soaring Oil Prices And A Higher Windfall Oil Profits Tax,†Alaska’s State Coffers Are “Overflowing With Petrodollars.†“Soaring oil prices and a higher windfall oil profits tax – an increase pushed through by Palin, now the Republican vice presidential nominee – have state coffers overflowing with petrodollars. The Alaska oil industry calculates that its annual payments to the state doubled in a single year to $10.2 billion.†[Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
· Every Alaskan Receiving $1,200 From The State, Along With Annual Check From The Permanent Fund, Which Is A Record $2,069 Per Resident This Year – Palin Family Eligible For $19,000. “And Alaska residents are getting their cut. Starting this week, every Alaskan who has lived in the state more than a year will receive $1,200 from the state, a total of about $756 million in rebates to offset high energy costs in the 49th state. That’s on top of the perennial check each will receive from the state’s oil revenue-endowed Permanent Fund, this year a record $2,069 per resident. The large Palin family is eligible to receive more than $19,000 from the combined payments.†[Boston Globe, 9/13/08 ]
Palin Backed A Two-Year Extension Of The Export License To Export Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) To Japan And Other Asian Countries-Criticized Because Alaska’s Gas Reserves Are Declining. “Alaska producers can continue shipping gas to Asia after DOE last week approved an extension of the export license for the Kenai liquefied natural gas plant owned by ConocoPhillips and Marathon. The companies will be allowed to export up to 98.1 Bcf to Japan and other Pacific Rim countries over a two-year period through March 31, 2011. [.] The application came under fire from local end-users, including gas distribution companies Enstar and the Chugach Electric Association, as well as fertilizer maker Agrium, all of which claimed the exports would exacerbate the problem of declining gas reserves in south-central Alaska. Agrium permanently closed its plant near Kenai due to an inability to find enough local supply for the facility that used 53 Bcf/year. In January, ConocoPhillips and Marathon reached a deal in which they agreed to step up development in the Cook Inlet region in return for the state’s support of the export license extension. The producers also agreed to divert gas from the LNG plant as needed to meet the peak winter supply needs of the local utilities. [.] Alaska Governor Sarah Palin welcomed the DOE approval. “In these times of economic uncertainty, this is great news for the state and its residents. This extension will secure a future for the LNG operation and is another step toward ensuring energy supplies and energy security for Alaska,†the Republican governor said. [Platts Inside FERC, 6/9/08]
McCain Palin Myth: Sarah Palin Told Congress “Thanks But No Thanks†On That Bridge to Nowhere
FACT: Palin Was Before It Before She Was Against It – Kept the Money for Other Projects
Politifact: Palin’s Stance On “The Bridge To Nowhere†Is “A Full Flop.†Politfact, a service of CQ and the St. Petersburg Times wrote, “McCain said Palin has ’stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need. And when we in Congress decided to build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere for $233-million of yours, she said, we don’t want it. If we need it, we’ll build our own in Alaska. She’s the one that stood up to them.’ Nevermind that Alaska didn’t give the money back. It spent the money on other transportation projects. The context of Palin’s and McCain’s recent statements suggest Palin flagged the so-called Bridge to Nowhere project as wasteful spending. But that’s not the tune she was singing when she was running for governor, particularly not when she was standing before the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce asking for their vote. And so, we rate Palin’s position a Full Flop.†[Politifact ]
McCain Myth: Sarah Palin NEVER Sought Earmarks As Governor.
FACT: Palin Sought Nearly $200 Million Earmarks For The Coming Year.
AP Fact Check: McCain “Erroneously†Asserted That, As Governor, Palin Never Sought Earmarks. “John McCain continued to laud his running mate, Sarah Palin, as a budget cutter on Friday, this time erroneously asserting that as governor of Alaska she had not sought congressional earmarks for her state. In fact, while Palin has significantly reduced the state’s earmark requests, she asked for nearly $200 million in targeted spending for the 2009 fiscal year. And in an interview with ABC News aired Friday, she defended her earmark requests, emphasizing that she opposed ‘earmark abuse.’ . Appearing on the ABC television show ‘The View,’ McCain was pressed on her record of seeking such targeted money for Alaska. ‘Not as governor she didn’t,’ McCain said. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said that McCain’s remark came ‘in the middle of a conversation, the middle of a back and forth,’ and the reference was to her record of cutting spending.†[AP, 9/12/08 ]
McCain Myth: Sarah Palin Has Taken a Tough Stance Against Earmarks
FACT: As Mayor, Palin Hired a Lobbyist Tied to Ted Stevens Who Got Wasilla $27 Million in Earmarks and as Governor, Alaska Has Sought and Received More Earmarked Spending Per Person than Any Other State
Lobbyist Hired By Palin Secured $27 Million In Federal Earmarks for 6,700-Person Town. “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog group.†[Washington Post , 9/2/08]
In 2008, Alaska Got More Earmarked Federal Funding Per Person Than Any Other State. “Arizona, the second fastest growing state in the nation, will receive just $18.70 per capita in federal earmarks this fiscal year. By comparison, Alaska – with roughly a tenth of Arizona’s population – is set to receive $506.34 per capita, the highest in the nation, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group which tracks earmarks. The state of Alaska receives about three times as much as Arizona receives in actual dollars, $346 million to $119 million.†[USA Today, 3/22/08 ]
Palin’s Requests – More Per Person Than Any Other State. “Just this year, she sent to Sen. Ted. Stevens, R-Alaska, a proposal for 31 earmarks totaling $197 million – more, per person, than any other state.†[Seattle Times, 9/2/08 ]
McCain Myth: Palin Cut Taxes
FACT: Palin Raised Wasilla’s Sales Tax
Palin Supported First-Ever Wasilla Sales Tax to Pay for Police Department. In 1992 “Palin, a political newcomer, was one of two supporters of the police-sales tax plan elected to the city council in Wasilla, Alaska.†[Anchorage Daily News (AK), 10/8/92]
Palin Supported Increasing Wasilla Sales Tax From 2 to 2.5 Percent to Build $14.7 Million Sports Center. “Wasilla residents have given the go ahead to building a new multiuse sports center in town and to raising the city sales tax to pay for it. With the final votes counted Friday, residents voted 306 to 286 in favor of a measure to raise the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay the estimated $14.7 million cost of building the center.Mayor Sarah Palin, who supported the measure, said the tight vote will motivate city officials to keep a close eye on the budget for the center.†[Anchorage Daily News, 3/9/02]
McCain Myth: Palin Is a Reformer Who Brought Ethics Back to Alaskan Politics
FACT: Palin Is Under Investigation, Faces a Separate Ethics Complaint and Signed a Weak Ethics Law
Joint Legislative Council of the Legislature Voted Unanimously to Appoint a Special Counsel to Investigate Palin Abuse of Power Claim. The Alaska State Legislature’s Legislative Council voted 12-0 to approve $100,000 for a special investigator to begin an investigation into claims Palin fired a former state official because he would not fire a state trooper who was involved in a bitter custody battle with Palin’s sister. [KTVA 11, 07/28/08 ]
Ethics Complaint Filed Against Gov. Palin Over Alleged Involvement in Hiring a Campaign Contributor. In August 2008, former state House member Andree McLeod†filed against Gov. Sarah Palin and her staff today with the Attorney General’s Office. It accuses the governor’s office of using its pull to get a Palin supporter hired to a [Department of Transportation] job in Fairbanks.†McLeod said †‘Executive branch employee shouldn’t be getting involved in the recruitment process unless it’s based on merit,’ said Andree McLeod, who wrote the complaint based on a series of e-mails between members of Palin’s team.The complaint accuses Palin, her acting chief of staff and others of breaking executive ethics branch and hiring rules. It centers on the hiring of surveyor Tom Lamal, who once co-hosted a Palin fundraiser, for a state right-of-way agent job in Fairbanks.†The complaint is available online. [Anchorage Daily News , 8/6/08; Anchorage Daily News , 8/7/08]
McCain Myth: Palin Traveled Abroad to Ireland
FACT: Palin Stopped In Ireland To Refuel Plane.
Palin’s Ireland Trip Was A Refueling Stop. Politico’s Ben Smith reported, “I wrote the other day that a Palin spokeswoman said trips to Germany, Kuwait and Ireland made up her foreign travel. Two details worth clarifying: The Ireland trip was a refueling stop on her trip to military installations in Germany and Kuwait, spokeswoman Maria Comella said. And she’s also visited Canada, another spokesman, Ben Porritt, says.†[Politico , 9/2/08]
McCain Myth: Palin Has Experience in Foreign Affairs Because She Was Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard
FACT: Palin Has No Role in National Guard’s National Defense Responsibilities or Overseas Deployments and Never Issued Any Orders to the Guard Since She Took Office
Adjutant General of Alaska National Guard Said Palin Plays No Role in National Defense Activities, Even When They Involve Alaska National Guard. “Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin ‘extremely responsive and smart’ and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder. But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.†[AP, 8/31/08 ]
· Palin Has Not Issued Any Orders for Guard Activity Since Becoming Their Commander in Chief. “Occasions in which Palin retains command authority over the 4,200-member Alaska National Guard are whenever the Guard responds to in-state natural disasters and civic emergencies, said Campbell, who also serves as the commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.Some examples? ‘We’ve deployed individuals in state service all over the state under Sarah Palin,’ he said. ‘We had defense men down in Seward for the (Mount) Marathon run doing security. ‘Out west and northwest we had erosion problems, and the National Guard was involved in some of the protection out there. About three days ago, the Army National Guard picked up a lady from Little Diomede (Island) . . . at the request of state troopers.’ Did Palin directly approve each of those activities? No, Campbell said. The governor has granted him the authority to act on his own in most cases, including life-or-death emergencies – when a quick response is required – and minor day-to-day operations.†[McClatchy, 9/3/08 ]
McCain Myth: Palin Sold the State’s Jet on eBay
FACT: Palin Sold the Jet to Campaign Contributor at a Loss of $600,000 for the State
Palin Did Not Sell Murkowski’s Plane on eBay – Sold it to an Alaskan Entrepreneur at a Loss of $600,000. “One of the compelling anecdotes about Sarah Palin is that she auctioned off the Alaska governor’s jet on eBay after taking office – a swift move made by a reformer hoping to clean up the excesses of her predecessor. But in fact, the jet did not sell on eBay. It was sold to a businessman from Valdez named Larry Reynolds, who paid $2.1 million for the jet, shy of the original $2.7 million purchase price, according to contemporaneous news reports, including a story in the New York Times. What happened? It appears that, as promised during her bid for governor in 2006, Palin did try to sell the plane on eBay, but that doing so was not as easy as it might have sounded. After putting it up to auction, there was one serious bid, in December of 2006, and it fell through. Still, the Westwind II was sold about eight months later, achieving Palin’s goal of ridding the state of a luxury item.†[Washington Post Blog, 9/5/08 ]
· Larry Reynolds Made Campaign Contributions To Palin And State Rep. John Harris, Who Is Credited With Brokering The Sale, In 2006 And 2007. “Dan Spencer, the director of administrative services for Alaska’s Public Safety Department, said that the Republican speaker of the Alaska House, John L. Harris, brokered the deal. Reynolds made campaign contributions to both Palin and Harris in 2006 and 2007.†[Washington Post Blog, 9/5/08]
McCain Myth: Palin Fired the Governor’s Chef
FACT: Palin Did Not Fire the Chef, Just Reassigned Her to a Different Job – She Now Cooks for the Legislature
Contrary to Palin’s Claim, Governor’s Chef Wasn’t Fired, She Was Just Reassigned. “Remember the long-time executive chef who lost her job at the Mansion when Sarah decided to live mostly in Wasilla instead of Juneau? Stefani Marnon was first reassigned as a ‘constituent relations assistant’ in the governor’s office and later to the state museum. Earwigs report she’s finally landed where they really appreciate a good chef: the Legislative Lounge. Lawmakers were smacking their lips in anticipation, according to Sen. Kim Elton’s newsletter.†[Anchorage Daily News, 9/9/08 ]
.
#20:
I see that you also have picked up the “dishonorable” language that the Obama campaign and its surrogates have been using this week. I saw that Obama’s press secretary “doubled down on it”:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13417.html today, so Obama must think it’s really important to challenge McCain’s honor.
Amazing. Again, “to honor” is to sacrifice something important of your own for something more important, some greater cause or principle. Honor is the quality of a man who does that.
Just to say those words brings McCain’s story to mind. There is no reason to elaborate.
Sen. Obama has never sacrificed for an instant, not for anyone else — not his “white grandmother” he threw under the bus for a moment’s advantage; not the school he promised to support in Africa (which they named in his honor as a result — see Baldilocks); not the preacher who gave him his start in Chicago politics and twenty years’ ministry to his family; not his constitutents who slept in Rezko-built freezing houses in his district while he funneled new contracts to the man; not the taxpayers who funded the million-dollar earmark he requested for his wife’s employer after they tripled her salary.
He’s the last man who should use the term. Positive or negative, honor has simply had no impact on his life.
Robert – links?
A.L.
#21: Robert M:
bq. I’ll give you something from the Obama campaign. I hope you don’t mind the whole thing.
bq. To help you cut through their lies and spin, below are the facts you need to set the record straight.
Does this happen to be a cross-post? If it is, permit me to warn you that they are generally frowned on here; a link probably would have sufficed in lieu of original substantive content from you. AL asked for links, if I recall correctly.
Permit me also to point out that “Palin Was Before It Before She Was Against It” seems like rather poor English. Or was it so clever I don’t get it?
“Link”:http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/09/obama-campaign-memo-unraveling-the-myth-of-the-straight-talk-express/#more-2826
Didn’t think it made it
[Incorrect format of URL. Foxed for you, this time. –NM]
Grim, I’ll take your correction to heart. I was too negative. America is a country addicted to optimism, and maybe it takes a deliberate effort to be positive to understand it.
I still agree with everything Rich Lowry said, especially this:
bq. … “I believe the truly pro-Palin position is to think she can, should, and will do better than this.”
That optimistic position is also the correct one. There is every reason to think that she’s going to improve rapidly, and she’ll be ready to be President by the time she needs to be, or sooner than she needs to be.
Her answers on where she stands on social issues were perfect. She has taken the time to think out where she stands there. Getting her up to the same level on foreign policy and the economy is only a matter of putting in that same time for study and reflection, since she already has all the other requirements, as demonstrated by her ability to negotiate a pipeline and her general mastery of the energy issue – a vital issue that only she of all the four candidates really owns.
I appreciate your comments, Mr. Blue, and agree. I won’t say that I have found your countrymen to be pessimists in the reverse of the way you have found mine optimistic — it is not so! — but I do think we are good companions to each other. There is something about the American and Australian approaches that seems to harmonize very well.
I started to work through the “FACTS”, but decided that I was tired of that thankless task after spending too much time at it over the last week. So just the last.
FACT: Palin Did Not Fire the Chef, Just Reassigned Her to a Different Job – She Now Cooks for the Legislature
Yes, it is well known that Palin didn’t just fire the chef, leaving her without work and income. Instead, Palin tried to find her other employment just as anyone with a heart would. After all, it wasn’t the chef’s fault she was employed at the governor’s mansion. I really don’t understand why a progressive sort would try to score points by accusing Palin of insufficient heartlessness. I suppose it goes along with the whole reversal of progressive values that have taken place over the last two weeks.
Grim here’s a poem: _SAID HANRAHAN_ by John O’Brien (link).
Now, I’ve had that feeling my very self this last year. 🙂
From the link – the first part of the bolded parts were he not answering the question. The answer was no, and she sought to deflect it until he followed up. Then, ended her answer with something completely unrelated to meeting heads of state.
As for what you selected? Perspective on how small the world is, and how sharing a border 5000 miles away gives insight into how desperately Russia wants to show national strength? He pressed her for what insight it gave her, and the answer was nothing more than the campaign line.
If she had gone on to explain why she believed it was unprovoked, and they cut it, it would be one thing. She went off on a campaign tangent in order to start establishing a narrative.
_Never go into an interview without your own camera running, and put the unedited feed up on youtube._
Except for when CBS edits your answers to provide a more coherent interview, like they did with Senator McCain.
_In the past, being the governor of a state has always been considered a complete qualification for president – let alone vice-president._
Not when they have had less than 2 years in office as governor. Has there been a Pres/VP who had not even been up for re-election yet as governor who has been viewed as completely qualified? At least one without previous Congress experience. I think Carter comes the closest, but I think Georgia law didn’t used to allow for re-election.
I don’t especially care either way, but I view it as far from a complete qualification or disqualification for not.
#29 from David Blue at 3:08 am on Sep 14, 2008
From Oz?
Great Poem. My ex-father in law, Syd Buttrose, a poet introduced me to a bunch of bush poetry. Hanrahan is right up there witht he very best of Banjo Patterson. I never thought I would find it mentioned here. Thanks.
From Oz. 🙂
As has been pointed out by others, the Big Deal about the Bush Doctrine is that there isn’t (just) one. There are a number of formulations, but all orbit around pre-emption, with major attention to the promulgation of prosperous liberal democracy and human rights everywhere.
It was entirely onside to ask Wilson to clarify, since no accepted formulation of that doctrine exists (unlike, say, the Monroe Doctrine, etc.).
Again, loaded and deliberately ambiguous questions followed up by cut-and-paste editing are the essence of the issue, not Palin’s responses.
bq. Obama isn’t ready at all, and never will be, because of his character.
This is a spurious and invalid claim that deserves no reasonable response other than to say you need to get a grip on reality.
Mr Blue #29: That poem did my wizened pessimistic heart good. Thanks, mate.
Vista #35: A suggestion only: If you think Grim saying, basically, that Obama’s character is fatally flawed is somehow beyond any reasoned riposte, maybe your reaction is worth noticing as much as what was said. In other words, I’d recommend you “get a grip” yourself — and carry on. Cheerio. 🙂
PS to Vista: I actually have some grave doubts about the Presidential fitness of Obama, Biden *and* McCain, though each one’s set of defects is distinct in my estimation. Palin seems somewhat less messed up than any of them, but I admit that there’s insufficient data to provide confidence, and she’s far from perfect. Should I get a grip, too? Or just shut up so the adults can talk?
( 1/2 🙂 )
“”I’m tossing an email over to ABC News, asking “what the hell?””
AL – You are actually going to put principle over partisanship, particularly in a situation that may not be beneficial to Obama? If left-wing, pro-Obama blogs knew this, you would be hated. ”
He already is. They call him a ‘concern troll’ and make bets on how long before he will switch to McCain.
“Obama isn’t ready at all, and never will be, because of his character.
This is a spurious and invalid claim that deserves no reasonable response other than to say you need to get a grip on reality.”
His long term associations are reason enough to question to question his character.
Where are the examples of Obama’s fitness to be president?
I realize that it’s hard to defend Obama’s character in a reasoned way. Character touches on both the rational and irrational parts of the soul; it’s hard not to invoke both in discussing it.
Cassandra of Villainous Company had “a good post”:http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2008/09/on_obama_and_ma.html on the subject a while ago. She was trying to find a way to discuss his character without “impugning his manhood.”
If you read it and its comments, as well as the comment here of #22; and add in the associations with Bill Ayers, etc., that davod mentions in #39, and the fact that he tried to hide them; and then ask yourself why he hasn’t produced the normal documentation you would produce when applying for any job with the Federal government (e.g., college transcripts); these will give a sense of why I believe his character is simply unfit for the office.
Now, I am prepared to be proven wrong on the subject, but there is really only one person who can do that: Sen. Obama himself. One gets the sense that he has it in him, by looking at the ready and faithful defense he puts forward for his wife whenever she is criticized. If he could be that loyal to his principles, his family, and those who have been his friend and helped him across the years, I could change my opinion.
I’ve mentioned his wife a number of times, and there’s a reason I do: precisely because it’s the best thing I’ve seen in him, the one exercise of apparently genuine loyalty and feeling. I focus on that and return to it in order to keep from being unfair or — as you put it — irrational in my criticism.
Yet there is no sign of that kind of loyalty anywhere in the rest of his life. We see him throw friends, family, principles, promises overboard without the slightest hesistation. He is not fit to be President: and it is his _character_ that makes him unfit.
From this clip it appears Palin didn’t have a clue what the “Bush Doctrine” of foreign policy means—which suggests she knows less about foreign policy than most of the commenters on this thread.
Was this clip taken out of context? Or is there a mass agreement by conservatives to pretend Chauncey Gardiner of Wasilla is uttering some deep truths? Myself, I’ve had enough of truthiness for a lifetime.
(BTW, I’ve been off the grid for a while, but I’m back to the fight. This time I know our side will win)
#41 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _”From this clip it appears Palin didn’t have a clue what the “Bush Doctrine” of foreign policy means—which suggests she knows less about foreign policy than most of the commenters on this thread.”_
That was my impression.
bq. _”Was this clip taken out of context?”_
Yes. Which doesn’t mean it would look good if it was put in the proper context, with the interview presented uninterrupted and in full.
If anything, the context solidified my opinion that she was clueless here. On her controversial social policy opinions, which are dangerous to defend, she was _good_. Here, with a question that should have given such a talented person the opportunity to take the initiative away from Charlie Gibson, she was hanging on for dear life, just trying to avoid any gaffes or anything that might embarrass the boss. She succeeded, which is a tribute to her self-possession and quick wits. But what can explain the difference? Why so masterful in one case, and so tense in the other? I think the difference is raw ignorance.
That can be gotten rid of very quickly, given her talent.
Please compare her to John Edward, who nothing could have made fit for office. His experience was inferior to hers. Her accomplishments are far superior to his. Her moral character and family life are about as superior as possible. And yet he was considered an acceptable running mate.
It would not surprise me if many of the people damning Sarah Palin now voted for Kerry – Edwards ’04. There may be some inconsistency there.
I assume many people who thought the lesser half of Kerry – Edwards ’04 was a lightweight, especially compared to Dick Cheney, approve of Sarah Palin now. I know I do. But I don’t think there’s necessarily any inconsistency there.
Thinking less of a candidate because they seem an irredeemable lightweight is one thing. Being slightly reserved about but basically approving of a talented reformer who seems to have no weaknesses that can’t be put right with an evening course or two of International Relations 101 is something else.
Just a general remark on “taken out of context”. _Seen properly in context is often much worse._
Snippets of Jeremiah Wright were not nearly as bad as long stretches of the man in full flow – and as long as it was just snippets, Barak Obama could say the race-hate preacher was being taken out of context. After Wright supplied the context, in excruciatingly thorough, worked out and theologically buttressed detail, there was no possible defense for him.
The snippet of Barak Obama’s “pig with lipstick” remarks that John McCain wrongly seized on for a weak and whiny attack ad. was out of context and harmless. The whole elaborate, too-sneaky-by-half pig and fish metaphor Obama constructed was _in context_ thoroughly obnoxious and obviously not a possible slip of the tongue or careless moment.
Sorry, I posted accidentally before making my main point there. Editing with a shredder is bad not only because it can leave out good stuff and make a politician look worse than they are, which was done to Governor Palin, but it’s great for hiding bad stuff and making media darlings out to be better than they are. Either way, it’s bad, and we’ll all be better off when politicians habitually record their interviews in full and are _expected_ to release the unedited tapes online.
Norton
I suggest you keep your english lessons to yourself. Better yet teach English to all the immigrants so desperate to come to America they risk life and limb. They would appreciate your help and it would help the country.
Chuck
One of the McCain/Palin claims to her ability to promote change is that Gov Palin shook up Anchorage. She did this buy firing the chef as a sign of the excess’ of her predecessor. Transferring her to a different job is not the same thing as firing someone. If you are fired you don’t have a job w/ in this case the Alaskan government.
PS Since your are tired of reading the truth perhaps you should take English lessons so you understand it.
Grim
One of your failures is that your military training has made you unable to recognize the needs of a pluralistic political society from that of a military society. You confuse the military notions of honor , which your affirmative action village idiot of the naval aviation and man, by his own admission, got shot down because he DELIBERATLY DISOBEYED ORDERS, as the same as political honor.
As a member of the military there are two absolutely essential things. One is to follow orders along the chain of command. Two, complete the mission until other wise told not to. They are necessary because the training is to perform under the pressure of combat where people will die.
In combat the order comes to take the enemy position; a hill. In politics, the standing order of the day is to get legislation/policy enacted. It is perfectly acceptable to compromise; half a hill.
Your real complaint is that Obama compromises on political policy. You falsely accuse him of throwing his white grandmother under the bus because he acknowledges she is afraid of young black men during a discussion about race. It is OK not to acknowledge the truth. You accuse him of being dishonorable because he worked w/ Rezko. You are a liar. Resko is on trial and the Federal Republican AG has acknowledged there is no connection to Resko and you have conveniently forgotten McCain’s membership in the Keating Fiasco. As to earmarks Obama has never said he didn’t use them.
In short you are trying to hold him to a military standard you do not hold to yourself as a civilian.
The change Obama wants is competent people in government agencies, a refocus on regulation to prevent the excesses and resulting debacles in the entire economy and an end to Gott mitt uns in foreign policy.
As to VC the crux of her article can be summed up in her own words: But the bottom line (for those of us to whom a strong national security posture is important) is that we require assurance that he won’t back down if America is confronted.
I see no evidence Obama would. I believe the President has the hammer when it comes to protecting the nation. The President I believe has to understand that the hammer is the mailed fist underneath the diplomat’s white glove. There is nothing in McCain’s judgment and demeanor that has ever tell me he understands the white glove. For you I think, you doubt Obama understands the mailed fist beneath the glove.
I will give you an example that should give you hope and let you better understand this by opening w/ a statement by VC in the same article you site: I do believe, however, that some of the questions regarding Obama’s toughness are not out of place. Mild manneredness and reason are one thing when it comes to an argument.
Obama is operating as though he were a Tuskegee Airman. He is fighting Imperial Japan(yes I know they were only stationed in the European theater) and Fascist Europe abroad and racism and Fascism in America at home(the Bunde). He keeps to the mission protect the bombers. He does this by keeping formation and not darting off to cleave heads in aerial combat. He doesn’t get shoot down over enemy territory, like a hot head we know all to well, depriving the bombers of a escort tomorrow morning. He doesn’t loss his temper and keeps his composure for the real mission; keeping America safe.
This is what you will find after Jan 20 in America national security.
#45 Robert M.
bq. Norton
Permit me a correction: That’d be Nortius, or Nort; not “Norton”.
Your suggestions to myself and Chuck will, I’m sure, receive all the attention they warrant.
The part of your #45 addressed to Grim at least appears to be original content with an attempt to be substantive, for which I thank you kindly.
Still waiting for someone to link to the definitive definition of the Bush Doctrine. Assumedly there was a speech Bush defined it in?
Mark: How dare you? It’s a clear emanation of a penumbra!
Seriously, I can tell you what I wish it were. I wish it were a policy of doing whatever can be accomplished practically to disempower tyranny. Which is quite trickier than just “promoting democracy” (qua democracy — “[We’ve got a majority.] Let’s you and me kill Bruce and take his stuff!”), and might even result in a tacit policy with effects of Mr Blue’s “Less Islam”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/009121.php#comments — or at least less ascendancy of Islam to an increasing number of Sharia-enforcing polities. And which possibly might even result in a little less tyranny here in the USA.
But I’m dreaming when I say all that. Whatever the Bush Doctrine turns out to be, it won’t be that. How could it?
#45:
The reason I post under a pseudonym is precisely because of the propensity of people like yourself to say things like, “You’re a liar.” Where I come from, that’s a deadly insult with serious consequences — and therefore quite rare. Indeed, no man has ever called me a liar in person, and I don’t expect that anyone ever will.
On the internet, it happens just from time to time, because here people are free to use the term without taking the consequences. I get it less than a lot of people because of my straightforward manner; the term is a commonplace of internet discussion. Still, as one need not defend the honor of an incognito, I can ignore such insults.
What’s interesting to me is you certainly don’t mean it: you aren’t arguing, as far as I can tell, that I don’t _believe_ what I’m saying. As long as I am telling you what I believe, I cannot be lying: and your actual argument is that my beliefs are inappropriate (b/c you feel they are an imposition of military standards on civilian life; in fact, if they are inappropriate, it is because they are an imposition of Southern standards on Chicago Way politicians).
So, you clearly believe that I believe what I’m saying. You’re using “you’re a liar” as a way of saying “I don’t think your interpretation of the facts is correct.” You don’t mean that I’m being deceptive, but that you feel I believe the wrong things.
That usage tells me that you really have no notion of what honor is, or what it is like to live in a system of honor. That being the case, I am not shocked to discover that you think Obama might somehow be honorable. In fact, however, I think I am correct: honor has not impacted his life. It’s not a concept he’s ever attempted to understand or apply to himself.
Now, I would like to address two of your complaints specifically:
1) “Resko is on trial and the Federal Republican AG has acknowledged there is no connection to Resko…”
I assume you mean that there is no connection between himself and Obama in the matter under investigation. Note, however, that I never claimed there was.
What I claimed was that Obama had not honored his duty to “his constitutents who slept in Rezko-built freezing houses in his district while he funneled new contracts to the man.”
That “is well established”:http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/07/let-me-put-it-in-pictures-for-our.html and nothing to do with the current investigation. None of the information is in dispute.
2) You also raise McCain’s relationship with the Keating Five. The investigation into that demonstrated that he had violated no law and no rule of the Senate. However, as a point of _honor_, it remains interesting. How did McCain fall afoul of the investigation? McCain and Keating had been personal friends since 1981. He appears to have become involved on Keating’s word — that is, because he trusted his honor.
He is described by documents from the investigation as becoming nervous about the matter, and finally severing all ties when it was revealed that there was an investigation into Keating’s business practices. McCain “said”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain of it, _”The appearance of it was wrong. It’s a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do.”_
This is much the same language he used recently, when confessing his failure in his first marriage at the Saddleback Civil Forum. He was direct that it was a failure, it was his failure, and he owned it.
An honorable man isn’t perfect, and needn’t be perfect to be honorable. Any man has failings, and surely a Senator will have more than most.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Sen. McCain has been deeply informed by the concept of honor. It matters to him. He has sacrificed for the honor of his country and other things.
Sen. Obama is not an honorable man. That is not a synonym for “evil.” It just means he isn’t informed by notions of honor. Honor is not important to him, something he’s thought about or something he’s tried to live.
That can be good or bad, depending on who you are. From where I sit, though, it is a simple fact.
I’m sorry for the brevity of this comment, but I need to get down to Obama HQ for volunteer hours.
That cruel MSM is starting to wonder if McCain’s behavior in this election requires some updating of the concept of his honor. It wouldn’t be the first time behavior later in life revoked the honorable earlier part: see under “Petain, P.”, “Lindbergh, C.”, “Arnold, B.”.
McCain personally and his campaign in general are making completely false statements, followed challenging the media to call them on it, even boasting that the “media filter” will be unable to shake the impressions created by the campaign’s deliberate lies.
McCain himself stated that the Palin Administration (in Alaska) stopped asking for earmarks. I guess they felt the truth, that she reduced the size of the request in the face of changed national political reality, was too nuanced (even Obama-like) for their purposes. At least this time the campaign later sort-of retracted McCain’s claim, but I ask, is this deception the act of an honorable man?
The McCain campaign runs an ad distorting Obama’s support of an anti-pedophile measure as a desire to teach explicit sex ed to kindergartners. I’m not aware of any media that agrees with the McCain campaign’s interpretation of the proposed law in question. Is this deception the act of an honorable man?
Factcheck.org complained that McCain didn’t even use their own work accurately. Karl Rove describes the McCain campaign as less than truthful. An honorable man?
In the 2000 race, McCain apologized for his dishonorable flip-flop on the Confederate Flag in South Carolina. That’s his m.o.: try the dishonorable tactic, then watch the suck-up press, confronted with an erstwhile hero, fawn over his subsequent apology.
McCain has compromised everything for his ambition.
And, just to get back to the origins of the thread, the sort of discrepancy that drives metrico and friends crazy is that Armed Liberal, in the original post, is complaining that the media (or, in other cases, the Obama campaign) are bringing improperly sharpened sporks to what McCain sees as a gunfight.
“His long term associations are reason enough to question to question his character.
Where are the examples of Obama’s fitness to be president?”
I see a lot of extended comments but non that respond to my simple question.
I believe the point of this post was that the media edited Gov. Palin’s remarks to make her seem less intelligent and thoughtful, and to omit critical information. That’s hardly the same as ‘bringing a spork to a gunfight,’ and makes it clear that the media filter complaints are not without meaning.
As for the Confederate flag, I’m here deleting a comment that would take us far off topic. We’ll talk about that on another occasion.
AL
This is a link on taxes: “(link)”:http://alchemytoday.com/obamataxcut/details.html
[Robert M: Please stop posting bare links; they mess up Movable Type’s layout. Guidelines for posting links in a form that works here are posted above the comment entry text fields. Fixed for you, this time. Thanks. –NM]
Grim
I do not accept your definition of honor. I see you chose not to discuss my argument about honor but fall for the petty tricks the republican party spends so much of its time using. To become immersed in hearing the sound of your own false reasoning you remind everyone
why you hide behind your pseudonym. Grim one place I read its a mask another says shockingly repellant. Both infer you seek to hide and instill fear instead of reason.
If the best you can do is say your sense of honor is challenged because I called you a liar you still have to tell me why my definition of honor is incorrect. You define honor as “He has sacrificed for the honor of his country and other things”. What is the honor of the country the wrongs it has imposed on its AfricanAmerican citizens? Or is it as w/ Keating, “He appears to have become involved on Keating’s word — that is, because he trusted his honor”. What good was Keatings honor? He stole and defrauded the savings loan he ran. This is during the days of Reagan. Has John never heard of “trust but verify” before he gives his word about someone. McCain is a politician. This behavior is honorable?
You do not even have notions. You merely have your inflated version of yourself hiding so you can spew noxious airs of rectitude, Grim. know him for what he is a liar.
Nortius
Are you a python fan? I can’t find any other reference that makes your pseudonym make sense to me.
AL
Another reason you should vote for Obama. You do not suffer from this problem:
“(link)”:http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1755
[Robert M, please check the text presented above the comment entry fields for a guide on how to format URLs. Fixed (again) for you, this time. –NM]
Robert:
You might also like to read Kenneth Greenberg’s _Honor & Slavery_. I don’t doubt you would find much to harmonize with your views. Whether you would be able to see past those preconceptions to the heart of the matter is something I doubt; but at least you’d be better positioned to make a counterargument.
What, otherwise, am I to make of this?
“What is the honor of the country the wrongs it has imposed on its AfricanAmerican citizens?”
Well, what are you arguing? That America can have no honor because of that birth — never, though it shed the blood of hundreds of thousands to resolve that question in favor of liberty?
I deleted the Confederate flag comment, but perhaps I should have posted it after all. I wondered why the left celebrates the Lakota who fought Custer, but not the Confederates who did. The issue was the same issue: the violation of treaties, whereby the Federal government was asserting a greater and more permanent power than was really ceeded them by the signators. (Likewise, both the Lakota and the Confederates practiced slavery: race-based slavery in the South, but the slavery of captured women among the Lakota. Yet the slavery issue is seen as the core, really the _only_ issue for the South; and forgotten entirely for the Lakota.)
The answer has to do with myth-making more than it has to do with history. Well, a good man must have room for both in his mind: both myth and history. Yet I think we can reasonably honor the valiant Lakota fighters who fought the Seventh Cavalry; and the valiant fighters of the Seventh Cavalry; and the valiant Confederates with their war-flag.
Whether we can agree on that or not, though, I think I can honestly say that I have treated you with greater kindness than you have offered or asked, and perhaps more than you have deserved. You are right about one thing: “Grim” can mean both a mask, and a truly horrible thing. Believe me, I am worse than the vision you have conjured for yourself. That is one reason I can laugh at it.
But, I am trying to be better. I have heard that one way is to forgive as you would hope to be forgiven: so, I forgive you.
#56 Robert M: I wrote this in my first post at my blog long ago (mid-2005). Take it for whatever you wish.
bq. About my nom de plume: In days gone by, a misbehaving urchin asked to identify himself might say, “Puddin’ Tame. Ask me again, I’ll tell you the same!” If asked again, he might repeat that, as promised—or (eventually) escalate: “John Brown. Ask me again and I’ll knock you down!” The latter’s pugnacity might startle an adversary enough for the speaker to escape—or at least give notice that his name was “none of your bee’s wax”, as the saying went. (Does that saying still go? Please advise…)
bq. In a similar vein, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, “Nortius Maximus” is how a Roman Legionary identifies himself to Brian’s mother, before doing something he probably oughtn’t. It’s a bad joke the Pythons probably encountered in primary school: Nortius=”Naughtiest”; Nortius Maximus=”Most Naughtiest”—geddit?
bq. So: picture me as a Roman citizen who, rough around the edges, irreverent, wondering if he ought to be caught doing this, is still willing to be a part of his civilization. I vow I’ll keep my gladius strapped, mostly.
From Instapundit (link): we can now see that Sarah Palin was ambushed not only by unfair editing to make her seem dumber and less moderate than she is, she was also diminished physically by sneaky photography (link).
That’s to be expected when mainstream media photographers ambush and trick the conservatives they photograph, and make images like this (link) of them. That’s what people do, when they have hatred in their hearts. (And do not say “hatred” is an exaggeration till you’ve studied those images of John McCain for a while, and hunted down the serial demented ravings that the mainstream media has published against the good name of Sarah Palin.)
Instapundit is right to say that you want not only your own video camera but your own photographer if the mainstream media is going to treat you like this.
I would add: you probably need your own talking head to interact with if the mainstream media talking head is going to attack you on the basis of your _”exact words”_ that he’s _mis_-quoting from his notes contrary to your memory, and throwing you off-guard with a complicated question that he treats as a simple one…
… one that a child ought to know the answer to – _like the child that the sneaky photo editing is making you appear to be_.
These people are beyond “biased”. An ordinary person can be biased, and often is. The mainstream media is propagandistic in sneaky, highly skilled, synergistic ways that call for professional skills and teamwork.
My hat is off to Sarah for getting through this tricky, manipulated interview as well as she did.
I still hope she puts in more classes in remedial foreign relations soon, and I’m confident she will.
But I’m no longer prepared to judge her adversely in any way based on impressions created by manipulated images and conversations that were severely edited and in the _”exact words”_ even _Dowdified_ to her detriment. It’s not good enough to talk about a “deer in the headlight” look when someone is being set up by sneaky professionals to look like that.
If John McCain and Sarah Palin win, as I hope they will, watch the mainstream media roast President McCain and Vice-President Palin for treating the mainstream media with suspicion, as though it was an adversary, and for trying to control it or shut it out, like President George W. Bush did – even while it keeps up the same sneaky tactics that makes “chin defilade” about the only posture in which they can approach the mainstream media.
These people – the mainstream media professionals – are disgusting, and they are getting in the way of the conversations that need to happen between the people and their chosen temporary rulers for democracy to work properly. They are hogging the channels of democratic communication for purposes of their own.
Let’s try taking Grim at his word and he believes that part of honor is keeping your word. Here is McCain besmirching his in regard to the Future Combat systems:
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2008&base_name=more_on_future_combat_systems
Grim
By your own words you see honor only within the context of the military or warrior culture. This is politics we are talking about. that is why I insist you are a liar. You have to bring the correct framework to what the discussion is about. This is about politics.
Elaborate on the violations of treaty that gave the traitors of the Southern States of the United States of America cause for treason. The Civil War was about the union it was never about Slavery. The abolition of slavery came after two years of fighting and an understanding that warfare had begun to change. By eliminating it Lincoln sought to impose the beginning of total warfare by destroying the economy.
Robert, I take a very firm line on calling out someone’s honor. It is my expectation that, were I to do so, I would rightly be challenged to take the field. Similarly, I tend to brush off people’s aspersions against my honor unless it is in person, on the grounds that if I were to take their aspersions seriously, I would be compelled to call them out. You seem to have no such feeling, and I wonder if you even comprehend the concept of honor that Grim is talking about. You see, your link is a non sequitur from a position of honor.
Let me expand on that. As far as I can tell, using only that source and links within it (though aware that the American Prospect is explicitly liberal and less likely to be fair to McCain than, say, the National Review is likely to be fair to Obama), I read the following claims:
1. John McCain has criticized the FCS (Future Combat Systems) program and held a position for a long time that it should be scrapped.
2. The Army Times (for those who don’t know, this is not an Army publication) wants to see if McCain still holds that position.
3. There is significant confusion about whether McCain’s and/or Obama’s references were to Future Combat Systems (the specific program) or future combat systems (a generic reference to developing new military systems); hence the attempt to determine whether McCain has reversed himself.
4. The chief complaint against McCain seems to be (voiced, at least) from Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute (a Libertarian think-tank), and his comment is an emotionally loaded charge of hypocrisy against John McCain.
5. McCain’s statement, in the context given in the American Prospect quote, is a charge of hypocrisy against Obama for now saying he wants to increase defense spending, when earlier this year Obama said that he wanted to decrease defense spending.
So, fundamentally, McCain used an ambiguous term as an example when making a charge of hypocrisy against Obama, and American Prospect has used this ambiguous term to make a charge of hypocrisy against McCain. Where in there is John McCain’s honor in question? The only way I can even stretch this to poorly fit is to assume that you mean that a person charged with hypocrisy may not charge another with hypocrisy, but even that does not implicate honor in either direction. It may implicate consistency or wisdom or any number of other characteristics, but not honor.
Grim, would you care to expound on the similarities between what the Union did to the Confederacy after the war and what the USA did to the Lakota? The South was left to its own devices twelve years later. The Lakota were plundered of their best lands, permanently taken for whites’ use, and haven’t recovered since.
I don’t follow this sub-argument at all.
As for the main thread, it’s deteriorated into links to paranoid and anonymous ravings that they made Sarah Palin look short. Which she (relatively speaking) is.
Palin has been cramming for two weeks so that she can rattle off canned answers about Georgia, etc. When the exam is on something that wasn’t on her syllabus, she fails. So can we stop pretending that there’s some hidden knowledge there and get back to acknowledging that her support is based on cultural and religious empathy?
And as a side comment, Robert, you might note that charges of “liar” and “hypocrite” are so common coming from the left, that no serious person regards the charges as credible without significant and concrete evidence. The bare accusation is insufficient even to begin the conversation. (The fact that so many are unserious about political debate reinforces, rather than undermining, that point.) It also helps to be familiar with the definitions of loaded terms, especially aspersions such as “liar,” which does not mean what you seem to think it means. You might also check back in on history, looking at the views of the Southerners and taking them at their word; to those in the South, the war was not about slavery, either, but about Federalism and states’ rights.
And Grim, should you decide that you need someone to stand second at some point, I would be gravely honored to offer my services, given sufficient notice to arrange travel.
Andrew, as a Pagan who think Palin is fantastic, allow me to dispute your claim that support for Palin is necessarily rooted in religion.
The Volokh Conspiracy has done yeoman service in reminding us just which States Right the South was interested in. It isn’t what Jeff said above
Or you can read the leaders of the Confederacy themselves. This is an excerpt from Mississippi’s instrument of secession.
There are dozens of such statements at the link and elsewhere at Volokh.
You know, to go across threads, I’m all for the conservative tradition of Southern hospitality, but is it so bad for a liberal to point out that it was severely and fatally limited in application?
#64:
I’ve looked over the Tapped piece, and I admit that I’m confused by the controversy. I’ve been told by Obama supporters that his comments were NOT intended to apply to the FCS directly, but to all future combat systems; and I’ve also been told by Obama supporters that the reverse is true. I don’t know how to read the controversy, therefore, as I’m not sure what either candidate really means to say: but I agree with Tapped that I’d like someone to question them (both) more directly, to get a position on it. I am a supporter of the FCS, particularly because of its robust networking capacity, which would bring soldiers in the field direct and immediate access to information that they currently do not have. That advantage — which could be the ability to quickly check a suspect against a database of known terrorists, or the ability to grab from an overhead drone a video capture of a suspected sniper position on the roof of a building — will save lives, both in major combat operations and COIN.
That said, this is why I think you really don’t get what I’m talking about:
“By your own words you see honor only within the context of the military or warrior culture. This is politics we are talking about. that is why I insist you are a liar. _You have to bring the correct framework to what the discussion is about._ This is about politics.”
So: I’m a liar for having standards that you don’t think should apply? What? That’s nonsense.
They aren’t, by the way, _military_ standards. They’re _my_ standards. I think I’m entitled to have them, and apply them as I see fit, just as you are entitled to your own.
#64/6:
The question at stake in both cases was whether the Federal government could lay claim to the area as sovereign territory, and use force (up to and including burning villages, or cities) to suppress opposing efforts at government (whether tribal or confederate). The understanding common in the United States at the time of the Founding was that a right to secession was implied in the Constitution, and a number of states (both north and south) had threatened to seceed before the Civil War. The claim that secession was “treason” is plausible if and only if you accept the Federal government’s claim outright. The lack of prosecutions for treason following the war suggests that this was not a common understanding even among the victors.
As for why the Southern states were left alone and the Lakota were not, the answer is chiefly that there were more Southerners. Both were ceeded a measure of sovereignty, either through the state system or the reservation system; but exerting a more direct control over the South required vastly more resources. As for the “plundering” of the land, however, I think you should examine the use of monetary policy to enforce cotton monoculture on the Southern states from the end of the war until the Boll Wevil destroyed the crop in the late 1920s. The decline of individual wealth in the South continued steadily after the war, with an ever-increasing number of small farmers forced to become sharecroppers or tenet farmers, who farmed land they used to own but no longer could. This applied to both blacks and whites in the South equally, and so was in that sense “fair” — but it was a plundering and poverty-inducing system much like the one inflicted upon the Lakota.
My wife, by the way, is a good part Lakota: the analogy isn’t intended to be disrespectful at all. I honor the Lakota. I mean that I see in them some real similarities, not that I wish to diminish their experience.
#67:
I thank you for the kind and honorable offer.
#69:
_I’m all for the conservative tradition of Southern hospitality, but is it so bad for a liberal to point out that it was severely and fatally limited in application?_
No: and Greenberg’s book, which I’ve cited a few times, makes a great deal of the issue of slavery. Indeed, I think you could fairly say that his thesis is that the South’s extraordinary attention to the issue of honor arises from the need to control a subject population, much as Sparta’s military code arose from a similar need. (The Lakota, to continue the analogy, also had a tremendous warrior ethic: and it arose out of the fact that they became important by being an early adopter of horses as a means of raiding, driving off, and capturing the women of enemy tribes.)
I don’t have a problem with Greenberg writing that, or your pointing to it. I’m not opposed to the truth, even if it’s an unpleasant truth.
Yet what interests me is this part: “…all for the conservative tradition of Southern hospitality.”
There’s a lot of ugly in history, not just here and there but in all human history everywhere. Once in a while, though, something beautiful and right arises. What interests me is how to preserve those things. I’m not really convinced that any system can do away with the ugliness: but I am convinced that we have to recognize and try to uphold the beautiful.
Palin has been cramming for two weeks so that she can rattle off canned answers about Georgia, etc. When the exam is on something that wasn’t on her syllabus, she fails.
I think this is largely true, but less important that others. I don’t think Obama or McCain or anybody else (up to and including the Bush administration) had a policy on South Ossetia 3 months ago. Yet, that’s what’s important right now (it’s why Biden’s on the ticket if nothing else).
The next foreign policy crisis is likely to be in some place that nobody outside of some desk in the CIA has spent anytime thinking about. The President will get a quick brain dump and then apply their best judgment to the situation. On these grounds, Palin doesn’t fail(*) and I would argue Obama has yet to be tested at all.
Which is not to deny the importance of knowledge. All things being equal, I would much prefer the person with knowledge over the ignorant one. But I would prefer an ignorant person with a track record of effective decision making over the knowledgeable person with no track record. Ignorance is easily correctable.
(*) I think the McCain campaign is wrong in how it’s attempting to spin Palin’s experience. It’s not that she’s rides on a white horse, it’s that her reforms have been (exceedingly) pragmatic. She appears to fight battles she can win and avoids those she can’t. It’s not foreign policy experience, but it’s not a bad foreign policy.
#61
If Sarah Palin can’t deal with being “set up” by the media, or addressing tough but important questions during her FIRST national interview, then she’s not ready to be involved in government beyond her little slice of heaven up in Alaska.
Imagine if her simple-minded bellicose comments on attacking Russia were made as VP rather than in an interview during a presidential election, for one. Especially since this is in direct contradiction to earlier McCain comments that he would not.
I suppose it is not wholly inappropriate to become angry with people who are arguing that, in these times of war and economic hardship, the US should place an air-head in such a critical government position that is only a heartbeat away from POTUS. What is really striking is how concordant both conservative and liberal news outlets are on her utter lack of qualifications. That should tell the strident and increasingly desperate sounding commenters like David Blue here something about bias and perspective, I would think.
grim is not describing honor entirely as a martial virtue. Another example would be two business men, who make a handshake deal that they execute for years until one of the businessmen finds out that the high cost of gas means he can’t keep his promise without threating his business. He mentions this problem to a lawyer, who asks to see his contract. He has none, it was a handshake deal. The lawyer says, no writing, no contract, you don’t have to keep your promise.
What is the legal thing to do? What is the honorable thing to do? Not the same.
Honor culture is not a legal culture. It’s not about treaties or contracts or orders. It includes breaking the law for the greater good and paying the price for it. It’s what “McCain”:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/400rhqav.asp?pg=2 is describing when he responds to the ticking time bomb scenario: “you do what you have to do. But you take responsibility for it.”
#66 from Andrew J. Lazarus
bq. _”As for the main thread, it’s deteriorated into links to paranoid and anonymous ravings that they made Sarah Palin look short. Which she (relatively speaking) is.”_
The thing about “the main thread” is that it’s on-topic, as opposed to off-topic and sneering at facts relevant to the original post.
On-topic relevance is always, automatically superior to thread-jacking and digressions. Doubling down with pejoratives may increase the stakes of the dispute as to what we should be discussing by some tiny amount; it cannot change the answer.
Honor.
bq. “Midshipmen are persons of integrity: They stand for that which is right.
bq. They tell the truth and ensure that the full truth is known. They do not lie.
bq. They embrace fairness in all actions. They ensure that work submitted as their own is their own, and that assistance received from any source is authorized and properly documented. They do not cheat.
bq. They respect the property of others and ensure that others are able to benefit from the use of their own property. They do not steal.”
“Link”:http://www.usna.edu/OfficerDevelopment/honor/honorconcept.html
Now take a close look at the second statement and ask yourselves if John McCain dishonored himself?
Although you might be tempted to argue that he is retired from the Navy and therefore that this code no longer applies to him, which is probably technically true (although many might still consider it personally binding) I will point out that if you wish to make this case then we can only consider whether his actions were honorable or not during the portion of his life when he was a civilian; in other words, Viet Nam is out.
No charge of traitor was made because it was not necessary. They knew they were. From Lincolns point of view which was the preservation of the union it was also not necessary. Unlike the religious fanatic in the White House, he recognized that a guerilla war could continue unabated unles men’s passions were cooled.
Your standards I am still willling to submit came from your military background. Your desire to die by dueling is not a claim to honor political(half of dead is still dead) or military(can’t complete the mission dead). It’s some sort of childish fanatasy. It reminds of of why you don’t wrestle w/ pigs; the pig likes it.
It is clear regardless of how you came to honor telling the truth is part of it. Try this for McCain’s truthfulness:”Text to display”:http://windsofchange.net/http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7013
I do not think I linked this properly. I will keep working on this
Robert M: would you like me to fix the link for you and delete these follow-up posts? I’m always happy to help people who are trying to play by the rules.
#76:
That’s not the Naval standard for sailors; it’s the academy’s standard for students.
The Academy’s standard is mostly about the integrity of one’s academic work: obviously the military does not believe that deception is always wrong or dishonorable. “Military deception,” in fact, is a term of art — and an important part of information operations, which the military trains people to perform, including former midshipmen.
The Academy is right, of course, about what honor means for a student. For a warrior, it means something else, and very different.
Again, the issue from the Greenberg book: a man invites a neighbor for dinner, then forgets. He stands up on the porch and declares to his neighbor that he can’t receive him because he is not at home. The neighbor accepts his word, even though he can see himself that the man in fact is home.
Why? Because the man is honorable, and therefore his word is good enough. But still: why?
When you can answer that, you’ll understand more of the matter at issue.
#77:
Who said anything about a desire to die dueling? What I said was that I adopted a psuedonym because it prevented the necessity of feeling I had to take comments like yours personally. My approach is about avoiding conflict, not invoking it.
However, since you bring it up, a gentleman duels only with equals. You feel that the whole concept of honor that might lead to dueling is childish, and you throw around fighting words with abandon. That suggests to me that whatever else we are, we are not equals.
It may be that we are not because I am childish or foolish, and attached to inappropriate standards such as not sneering at my fellows. Or it may be that we are not equals because you are simply unaware of what honor means or how it might apply, and therefore cannot behave as a gentleman.
Which of those is true is left to the individual to decide; but since one of them must be true, a duel between us would be inappropriate even under my own name.
bq. “Military deception,” in fact, is a term of art — and an important part of information operations, which the military trains people to perform, including former midshipmen.
So, are McCain and his campaign currently involved in an “information operation”? Isn’t this something one engages in to defend the US against enemies? Is this a war, and he the warrior?
Vista (#73), you are certainly showing us a lot about bias and lack of perspective, though not (I suspect) in the way you desire.
Vista (again, #76), you are missing something key: your accusations of a lie based on a rather incomplete definition and incomplete and biased evidence do not constitute a lie in fact. A lie as a point of honor would have to have all of these characteristics:
1. The statement would have to be materially false. An exaggeration or rhetorical embellishment, for example, is not necessarily a lie. This also implies that the statement must be a statement of fact, as an opinion is not falsifiable (though its premises might be).
2. The person making the statement would have to have known at the time he made the statement that the statement was materially false. Saying something that one believes to be true, but which turns out to be false, is not stating a lie.
3. From the standpoint of honor, a lie impacts honor if it is for personal gain, either directly for one’s self, indirectly for one’s self by impugning the honor or character of another, or tangentially by impugning the honor or character of another for the benefit of a third party. White lies, for example, are not points of honor.
I see no way in which McCain has been shown to have met all three of those conditions in any recent incident. There may be incidents I am unaware of, so please feel free to provide examples. But if you wish me to question McCain’s honor (note: not in relation to Obama’s; honor is a personal and absolute thing) on account of some lie you allege, please lay out for me how he has met each of the three conditions above, because frankly, all of the accusations I’ve seen to date are excruciatingly juvenile. I would be embarrassed if my ten year old son made arguments like the ones I’ve seen.
#73 from Vista:
bq. _”If Sarah Palin can’t deal with being “set up” by the media, or addressing tough but important questions during her FIRST national interview, then she’s not ready to be involved in government beyond her little slice of heaven up in Alaska.”_
She did deal with it. She came through unscathed, without blunders, and with as much command of her facts as Ronald Reagan used to have.
#73 from Vista:
bq. _”Imagine if her simple-minded bellicose comments on attacking Russia were made as VP rather than in an interview during a presidential election, for one. Especially since this is in direct contradiction to earlier McCain comments that he would not.”_
Then conservatives longing for a new Reagan might be happy, and the Russian reaction would be as paranoid as it always is anyway, and everybody sensible, like the Australian government, would discount for routine mainstream media misreporting and bias, plus the fact that the American President has the final say.
#73 from Vista:
bq. _”I suppose it is not wholly inappropriate to become angry with people who are arguing that, in these times of war and economic hardship, the US should place an air-head in such a critical government position that is only a heartbeat away from POTUS. What is really striking is how concordant both conservative and liberal news outlets are on her utter lack of qualifications. That should tell the strident and increasingly desperate sounding commenters like David Blue here something about bias and perspective, I would think.”_
I’m not desperate. I’m increasingly optimistic. Sarah Palin has proven to be a great political talent and a good person; and this election may yet be won by the Republican Party.
#81:
_So, are McCain and his campaign currently involved in an “information operation”? Isn’t this something one engages in to defend the US against enemies?_
Yes, military IO are not permitted to target US populations, and any IO based on deception has to be very careful even when there is a chance of the IO being picked up by media that could leak it back to the US. That, however, is not why I mentioned the issue.
Rather, I want to point to the fact that the “honor code” for Midshipmen is wholly about honesty and fair play; but that isn’t what the broader military means by the term “honor.” My point is that the term has a different meaning in the specific context of the academy than it has anywhere else.
It’s not McCain’s retirement from the Navy that is the issue, then, but his graduation from the academy into broader life. Nor can we say that the standard is meant to apply to former midshipmen, as an eternal oath, as the Navy itself often trains them in deception.
My point is that the definition of “honor” you linked to is not one that applies to this case, or any case outside the academy — not even the military service that your time in the academy is meant to prepare you to perform.
Let me quote Rich Lowry again:
bq. _”But this was a merely adequate performance. The foreign-policy session was a white-knuckle affair. She barely got through it and showed no knowledge more than an inch deep.”_
In other words, he took it and I take it that graded pass / fail, her performance was a pass; but our concern was with her failure to display extra knowledge and her visible lack of comfort.
In deciding how much extra knowledge you want, and how good the candidate is supposed to look providing it, it has to be relevant that the candidate _did_ say a lot more sensible things, that were edited out to her detriment, and that the way the interview was presented literally belittled her.
In that context, an adequate, goof-free but uninspiring performance by the candidate is fine. That she did not show us any more is not her fault but the editor’s, and not a problem. The candidate is acceptably qualified. _Game on!_
#85:
Well said (and on topic!). 🙂
For purposes of argument, I’ll accept the three-pronged lie test from #82. I will also posit that a lie told in furtherance of a campaign for national office to make oneself more attractive to voters is a lie told for personal gain, and hence dishonorable. To find lies, therefore, we need campaign statements that are materially false and known by the speaker to be false.
On those criteria, Sarah Palin apparently lied about energy production in Alaska. From her interview with Gibson:
Alaska produces, in fact, 14 percent of the oil from US wells, so even restricted to oil, her statistic is false. The real number is, of course, much smaller, because a great deal of energy is produced within the U.S. from sources other than oil (e.g., coal, nuclear, hydro). Accounting for those sources, Alaska contributes 3.5 percent, not 20.
I think we can agree that overstating the amount of energy Alaska produces by a factor of five is a materially false statement. Since Palin herself claims expertise in energy policy at the very time she makes this blunder, she is almost certainly lying consciously either about the amount of energy produced, or about the “credential” she brings to the table. I suppose it is possible that she believes she knows what she is talking about but does not. That would not, I concede, make her a liar (not guilty by reason of stupidity, arrogance, and ignorance). It would certainly make her dangerously unqualified for the Vice Presidency.
It is somewhat difficult for me to accept that the truly important aspect of the interview was the camera angles that made Palin look short, or even the allegedly dishonest editing of the Georgia question. Why is this thread not about Palin, bounce-around college student, displaying ignorance even in a field in which I would, on her record, have conceded a priori some knowledge until she demonstrated otherwise?
The formerly honorable Senator McCain repeated the totally bogus 20 percent claim. I would like to think that as a veteran of the Senate McCain had some idea of where American energy comes from, but we are instead stuck with the same dichotomy: dangerously ill-informed, or lying?
Perhaps the conservatives on the thread can choose.
#82 from Jeff Medcalf at 5:33 pm on Sep 15, 2008
As far as I can see McCain entered into the “It depends upon what the meaning of “is” is.’ about a month ago. this is no longer a debate about politics, it is a debate about Merlin, who knowing both the past an future got them confused forgot where he was and disappeared.
If this doesn’t make sense to you that is the point. Neither does McCain’s campaign and it seems that it is going to catch up with him. Voters will either think that he is lying or not. The following Defense will not get him a single vote:
1. The statement would have to be materially false. An exaggeration or rhetorical embellishment, for example, is not necessarily a lie. This also implies that the statement must be a statement of fact, as an opinion is not falsifiable (though its premises might be).
2. The person making the statement would have to have known at the time he made the statement that the statement was materially false. Saying something that one believes to be true, but which turns out to be false, is not stating a lie.
3. From the standpoint of honor, a lie impacts honor if it is for personal gain, either directly for one’s self, indirectly for one’s self by impugning the honor or character of another, or tangentially by impugning the honor or character of another for the benefit of a third party. White lies, for example, are not points of honor.
I have read hundreds of contracts in my time and been involved in a number of lawsuits. I doubt that this iwll fly in the court of public opinion.
Palin flat out lies about teleprompter use. The Party of Lincoln becomes the Party of Lenin.
But let’s not lose sight of the “important” camera angles they used to film her while she was lying.
Good lord, man.
Your source says, “But it’s different to use one, and to use one but imply that you weren’t. Was Palin doing that tonight?” It then provides a list of ‘Some say she was, and some say she wasn’t’ argument.
You read this as an assertion that she “flat out lies.”
As “Cassandra says”:http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2008/09/we_have_met_the.html _”Politics is a blood sport, andnd it’s not hard to find regrettable examples of McCain ads where he arguably could be more evenhanded. But by the same token before the Obama campaign begins resorting to words like “liar”, “sleazy”, and “dishonorable” on the basis of campaign ads they believe distort the record, or which they disagree with, they may wish to consider that there is no shortage of Obama ads at which these same terms could be fairly leveled.”_
It is particularly unwise to question the honor of a lady on no more than such dubious evidence as you provide.
_The McCain campaign runs an ad distorting Obama’s support of an anti-pedophile measure as a desire to teach explicit sex ed to kindergartners._
I’ve read the bill. I’ve read the law before the bill and how the law reads today. I’ve read other portions of the Illinois School Code.
My conclusion is that Obama voted in favor of a bill that would have expanded comprehensive sexual education to kindergarteners. That’s the claim in the ad.
Ah, Grim, the ones who saw her using the teleprompter are MSM media eyewitnesses. The ones who say she didn’t are spokespersons of the campaign with no basis for independent knowledge. Case closed.
I wondered why CNN had a story about Obama using a teleprompter. Now I understand…They’re going to create a controversy over Palin’s claim about the teleprompter and they want to prep the ground first.
I’m curious, do reporters coordinate this with the Obama campaign, or is the Obama campaign able to keep them at arm’s length?
I’m also curious about the various Obama supporting posters. Is there a mailing list or something where they inform you of the line you’re intended to push, or do you just well-attuned to the general zeitgeist?
And the lady herself, don’t forget — the only one who really knows.
Case closed? Well, I’ll take her word over anyone’s.
Grim, are you really telling me you take Palin’s word for a teleprompter malfunction, from which she confects a charming campaign story pumping up the Wonder Woman myth, over multiple [1, 2, 3] eyewitnesses who saw no such thing, and would have seen it had it happened? If Obama claims to have made the blind to see and the lame to walk, over against eyewitness testimony, you’ll show similar credulity? I doubt that.
_Grim, are you really telling me you take Palin’s word for a teleprompter malfunction…_
Uh, yeah. I am. I am really telling you that I’ll take a lady’s word if she says her teleprompter didn’t work right while she was using it.
And no, I won’t quite apply the same credulity to claims by Obama — or anyone — to have made the blind see and the lame walk.
I’m not quite sure why that standard seems so odd to you, but it seems right to me.
Good god. She was giving a campaign speech. It was a rhetorical flourish.
In other news, I don’t think Barack Obama was “really happy” to be in Golden, Colorado, even though he said so. Several reporters commented that, despite his assertion to the contrary, Obama appeared to have a pointedly sour demeanor upon leaving the dais.
Am I living in an Onion article? Is this what we’re now going to debate? Can we go back to arguing over who was Trig’s real mother? While equally pointless, it was sufficiently lurid to at least be interesting.
Somehow SG’s negative pregnant “defense” of Palin reminds me of a woman who explained to me once how a certain English verb conjugates. I make love, you have sex, he/she/it sleeps around.
Meanwhile the right wing spreads malicious untruths about Obama (Limbaugh, best-seller Corsi.) Is there an Armed Conservative making admissions against interest about them, or is the delicacy of the original post confined to Democrats?
_(105 ILCS 110/3) (from Ch. 122, par. 863) Sec. 3. Comprehensive Health Education Program. (a) The program established under this Act shall include, but not be limited to, the following major educational areas as a basis for curricula in all elementary and secondary schools in this State: human ecology and health, human growth and development, the emotional, psychological, physiological, hygienic and social responsibilities of family life, including sexual abstinence and prevention of unintended pregnancy, prevention and control of disease, *including age appropriate instruction in grades K 6 through 12 on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV, public and environmental health, consumer health, safety education and disaster survival, mental health and illness, personal health habits, alcohol, drug use, and abuse including the medical and legal ramifications of alcohol, drug, and tobacco use, abuse during pregnancy, sexual abstinence, tobacco, nutrition, and dental health.*_
(emphasis mine, also i took out the formatting and struck out text)
“(link)”:http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=3&GA=93&DocTypeId=SB&DocNum=99&GAID=3&LegID=734&SpecSess=&Session
Notice the dearth of terms such as ‘sexual predators’, or even ‘abuse’.
[Busted link format fixed. –NM]
#98
I’m not defending Palin so much as I’m challenging you. We’re in the heart of silly season. Anybody who’s interested enough in politics to be reading this site isn’t about to change their mind based on what committed partisans on either side say about the worst possible interpretation of the pseudo-scandal du jour.
Which is not to say that some real critical issue couldn’t come up that might swing votes, only that not everything is that issue. Keep your powder dry. Attempting to make a scandal out of every single thing is counter-productive. Remember the “Boy who Cried Wolf”?
Mark B (#99), _Notice the dearth of terms such as ‘sexual predators’, or even ‘abuse’._
That’s because at the time the bill was proposed, up to and including today, Illinois has always had a seperate law regarding instruction on sexual abuse. “Section 105 ILCS 5/27-13.2”:http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=010500050HArt%2E+27&ActID=1005&ChapAct=105%26nbsp%3BILCS%26nbsp%3B5%2F&ChapterID=17&ChapterName=SCHOOLS&SectionID=49363&SeqStart=145600000&SeqEnd=151900000&ActName=School+Code%2E requires all public schools to teach pupils annually in grades kindergarten through 8 “to recognize the danger of and avoid abduction.” This section also authorizes “programs about child sexual abuse,” but parents and guardians have the right to opt out of the child sexual abuse provisions (as they do the comprehensive sexual education classes). So when Obama says he was concerned about child sexual abuse at younger ages, he is ignoring the fact that Illinois law already authorized instruction in this area. The bill did not alter the sexual abuse provisions, it altered the comprehensive sexual education program.
Mark B, did you look at your own link? On the bottom of the first page [reformatted]
The material in this bill appears to be pretty standard for sex ed laws. The implication of McCain’s ad is that Obama wants to bring the Kama Sutra into kindergarten. An illustrated edition, I guess, since some of the kids can’t yet read.
Fact-checking organizations describe the ad as a pants-on-fire lie, one of many with which the McCain campaign is flooding the zone.
_Is there an Armed Conservative…?_
I haven’t been by his site in a while, as he and I have an agreement to resume our friendship after the election; but I believe The Commissar of the Politburo Diktat fits this bill. Unless he’s had a falling out with Obama in the last few months, which I doubt, he was a strong supporter of Obama’s having been a strong opponent of Kerry’s, etc.
You can find him through Google. Tell him I send my respects, if you go by.
Grim: Wouldn’t that be “regards”? As a free man, don’t you outrank him? 🙂
#97 from SG at 7:19 pm on Sep 16, 2008
Can we go back to arguing over who was Trig’s real mother? While equally pointless, it was sufficiently lurid to at least be interesting.
*Janet Reno?* (My profuse apologies, I just couldn’t help myself)
Grim, I visit Politburo Diktat very occasionally, usually via a link from John Cole at Balloon Juice, who likewise repents of his two votes for Bush. (He even re-registered as a Democrat.) As a long time BJ commenter I like to think I helped him turn from the dark side.
I meant something a little different, though. I’m looking for McCain supporters who are upset about exaggerations and untruths about Obama either in the media or from the McCain campaign. That’s the true mirror image of Armed Liberal’s original post here. And there’s no lack of material: we can start with Jerome Corsi’s screed, full of refuted lies about Obama’s citizenship, birth certificate, drug use, and religion. This book was published by a mainstream press under the editorship of GOP hack Mary Matalin, who described the work as ‘scholarly’. Corsi is a guest on Limbaugh and Hannity and other such shows where is book is pumped. Where is Armed Conservative, McCain supporter, writing a blog post about this?
#97 from SG at 7:19 pm on Sep 16, 2008
Can we go back to arguing over who was Trig’s real mother? While equally pointless, it was sufficiently lurid to at least be interesting.
*Janet Reno?* (My profuse apologies, I just couldn’t help myself)
Well, he’s not really a Communist. That was just a pose for mocking something or other, and one he set aside a long time ago. He is a good fellow, husband and father, and at our last conversation was studying Greek so he could read Xenophon in the original.
I look forward to the time when these election-oriented passions, which Mr. Shaw was referring to just recently, have subsided enough that we can enjoy each other’s company again. In the meantime, elections and politics aside, I insist on respecting him as well as holding him in high regard. 🙂
_”The material in this bill appears to be pretty standard for sex ed laws. “_
Aside from changing 6th grade to Kindergarten, which is the change that was made (the other major change of course being the revocation of any reference to marriage).
_”Mark B, did you look at your own link? On the bottom of the first page [reformatted] “_
Well and good. But look at the format of Section 3:
Part A lays out the agenda and goals for the program: _”The program established under this Act shall include, but not be limited to the following major educational areas as a basis for curricula”_
Part B (which you reference), lays out the limitations and criteria: _”All comprehensive health education programs established under this Act shall satisfy the following criteria:_”
Part A makes no reference to sexual abuse. Part B includes it (the 8th point) as one of the criteria. But _not_ as one of the ‘major educational areas’. IE, its an afterthought. Had the goal of this law been to educate Kindergartners about sexual abuse, this would look like a far different law. In fact, as PD points out, there _is_ a different law.
And what the hell is this all about:
_”11-10 Course material and instruction shall teach male pupils about male accountability for sexual violence and shall teach female students about reducing vulnerability for sexual violence.”_
Male students arent victims of sexual violence? Only males are perpetrators?
Anybody else find this just as maddening as anything else?
SG, I think for liberals, the Boy Who Cried Wolf is politically incorrect stereotyping that violates animal rights. Because apparently, they’re not terribly familiar with it judging by their constant breathless distortion and prevarication about Palin–to the point that if they found something substantive, no one would believe them.
#106 from Andrew J. Lazarus at 9:33 pm on Sep 16, 2008
I was a McCain supporter in 2000. Now I do not know what to think about him. I am most troubled by the fact that he is no longer his own man. As I have said before, his ads seem to be on the level of teen fan magazines. I have no idea who this guy is any more. He seems to repeat and do whatever his handlers tell him.
My greater fear is that he doesn’t know either. Nobody else on the right here seems to be bothered by this or his penchant appear to detached in a way that reminds me of the the way my mother was in the incipient stages of Alzheimers.
The more I see of the GOP as it is presently constituted is that it has become unrecognizable over the past 10 years, which I see as the direct influence of Rove and his acolytes. Again, Republicans here seem not to be concerned about that. This bothers me.
Oneother thing that bothers me is the blind acceptance of Sarah Palin. It was as idiotic as the Democrats blind negation. No one seems to be concerned about that either.
Character was mentioned on the site recently. Setting aside the Democrats, does anyone think that the Mc Cain campaign has showed character? Sad state of affairs.
TOC:
No, I believe Janet Reno was the father.
Oneother thing that bothers me is the blind acceptance of Sarah Palin. It was as idiotic as the Democrats blind negation. No one seems to be concerned about that either.
I think Palin is almost the exact Republican analogue to Obama. She’s non-traditional, gives a good speech, and says just enough to allow all different sorts of people to project their own beliefs on to her. At some point the real Sarah Palin is going to be exposed and some of the people currently enraptured by her will wonder what they ever saw in her.
However unlike Obama, she’s only got to keep the act going to 2 months. She might be able to pull it off.
For the record, I currently like Palin the most of any of the four at this point. I expect I will be one of those who is disappointed as more about her becomes known.
#111:
McCain’s speech at the convention said more about character than any other in recent weeks. Or years.
First Dude Todd Palin says what we already knew, but didn’t want to admit. The McCain campaign didn’t start vetting Palin until a few days before she was picked. Impulsive? Reckless? The McCainiacs were calling this ridiculous, which is the new code word for true, when Dems said it.
But, did you know McCain was a POW?
Sorry, forgot to link. (I don’t care what platform you use if we can get PREVIEW.)