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Sep
14
Because there are so many and I’m still doing at least one a day on the main attraction.
Will Palin Get the Same Scrutiny Hillary Got? I mentioned the value of scrutiny in my Reason #54 to vote for Obama/Biden. E.J. Dionne writes:
There is also a question here for the media. When Hillary Clinton claimed last March that she had to evade sniper fire during a landing in Bosnia in 1996, the media came down on her hard. It was a huge story. But at least Clinton actually visited Bosnia. Will the media focus the same attention on the false and exaggerated claims about Palin?
Journalists gave Al Gore endless grief about supposed exaggerations and even suggested he said things (about inventing the Internet) that he actually didn’t say. Aren’t Palin’s claims about opposing earmarks, when she actually tried to get them, and about saying “no thanks” to the bridge to nowhere, when she initially supported it, part of a larger narrative of deception?
The media made a big deal about whether John Kerry, when he served in Vietnam, did or didn’t cross the border with Cambodia. Why doesn’t Palin’s relationship to the Kuwait-Iraq border deserve at least as much attention?
Tony Knowles, the two-time Democratic governor of Alaska who lost to Palin in a three-way race in 2006: Op-ed contributors, Are We Experienced? Governing Happens:
A governor’s priorities also must include Hubert Humphrey’s moral test of how we treat “those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
My state has a partnership with the federal government to provide health care for children whose working parents cannot afford it. Giving incentives to families to continue to work is a moral, social and economic mandate. Yet today, sadly, fewer children in Alaska have a chance for this vital service than when it was initiated in 1998, even though the state now has huge surpluses as a result of the high price of oil.
Several years after I left office, a young man approached me at the grocery store. All he wanted to do was say thanks. He said that without the health care program, he and his wife never could have adopted their three young children because they could not have afforded the special health care they needed. That’s the experience a president needs.
Palin should be laughingstock to all feminists:
Sarah Palin makes me sick because although black Democrats have been responsible for giving white candidates the boost they needed to beat their Republican opponents in tight races, these voters are now being insulted by feminists who say they will cross over into the McCain camp because of her.
How can that be?
Palin’s extreme views on abortion (she once said she would be against her daughter having an abortion even in the case of incest or rape) and her support of abstinence-only programs should make her a laughingstock to feminists.
Instead, she’s a star.
That ought to be enough to make any true feminist sick.
Ed Koch (former Mayor of New York City) on Sarah Palin in his endorsement of Obama:
So the issue for me is who will best protect and defend America.
I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.
If the vice president were ever called on to lead the country, there is no question in my mind that the experience and demonstrated judgment of Joe Biden is superior to that of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a plucky, exciting candidate, but when her record is examined, she fails miserably with respect to her views on the domestic issues that are so important to the people of the U.S., and to me. Frankly, it would scare me if she were to succeed John McCain in the presidency.
What I think about Palin: A list for undecided moms:
I think she’s drop-dead gorgeous.
I think Tina Fey had better come back to SNL to play her in the skits.
I think she’s a dynamic speaker.
I think she’s closely tied to Ted Stevens.
I think it’s no one’s business but hers and Todd’s how they run their family life.
I think she’s a secessionist who is more loyal to Alaska than the Union.
I think she’s a force to be reckoned with.
I think she’s talking out of both sides of her mouth when she says she killed the Bridge to Nowhere but then it turns out she was for it before she was against it, and kept the earmarked funds for it in any event.
I think she’s talking out of both sides of her mouth when she says she’s against earmarks in the first place but then it turns out she hired a lobbyist to make sure Wasilla got as many earmarks as possible.
I think there’s a very good chance that as the Troopergate and Dairygate scandals continue to be investigated it’ll turn out that she has seriously abused her power as governor.
I think I’m sorry for Bristol’s boyfriend–he looked like a deer in the headlights, and his MySpace page said he never intended to have children–but then, my cousin married at 18 and they’re still happily married 30 years later, so who knows? Not my business. Just a thought.
John McCain’s convention gambit is a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ‘68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash.
At the center of the strategy is the flashpoint candidacy of Sarah Palin, a charismatic figure around whom the war can be fought to scale, as it were. The Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars.
I have no idea if the ignition system will work; nor do I claim that “this is what they were thinking” when they made the decision to nominate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Other interpretations may turn out to be truer than mine. This is my look at the bets McCain and company seem to be placing. I am not recommending the strategy. I am not predicting it will succeed. I think it was improvised, like my description here.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:42 pm September 14th, 2008 in Politics, Sarah Palin, Vice President, WH2008
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7 Responses to “Post o’Palin Perspectives, Part II”
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Its not rocket science, all Obama has to do is show how Mccain is not the Common man, especially if he can connect his historical economic views to the failing housing market. Palin and waffles and lipstick
is a distraction because McCain has little substance
Oh really, rawdawgbuffalo? Is that all Obama has to do? I hope Obama thinks just like you. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is appealing to common folk, showing that Obama and Biden aren’t common folk, either.
Jill, I’ll take the Palin record on earmarks and the McCain record on earmarks over the Obama and Biden records on earmarks any day. Clearly you are preaching to the choir, as the arguments you present would not be persuasive to those on the fence, as you only point out Palin shortcomings without side-by-side comparisons with Obama and Biden, which would reveal shortcomings of their own. Fence-sitters are definitely more persuaded by side-by-side comparisons.
There is so much unknown and un-reported (outside Alaska) about Palin. Even here, most of the media shield her. They tried to primp her recent “homecoming” by cropping photos to make the crowd look more crushing and full than it was. Ed Schultz came to do a town hall & people who attended were disappointed that there weren’t more Palin supporters to debate with. This stuff doesn’t make CNN or Drudge. The big media networks aren’t reporting on Palin’s disregard of indigenous Alaskans (and Black folk). Her disregard to minorities is not (I don’t believe) so much purposeful as it is out of ignorance, apathy and upbringing. Glad you are shining a light on the issues.
I agree with Daniel Jack Williamson. I think its preaching to the choir or pushing people toward McCain/Palin.
Hi Daniel – thanks for the comment.
You wrote: “Clearly you are preaching to the choir, as the arguments you present would not be persuasive to those on the fence, as you only point out Palin shortcomings without side-by-side comparisons with Obama and Biden, which would reveal shortcomings of their own. Fence-sitters are definitely more persuaded by side-by-side comparisons.”
I’m not preaching – I made no editorial comments at all on these posts. If you’ve got some links you think would work well here, feel free to post them. These are representative of what I’ve read through my browsing or links sent to me and so on. The only conservative-leaning stuff I read tends to be Ohio blog stuff – I don’t read big box blogs in general anywhere on the spectrum.
And no one reads blogs anyway, less and less.
Free – thanks – as I note above, these links represent what I’ve read or what has been sent to me. I’m not going out there and looking – still have 150 tabs open on a lot of other issues – but life gets in the way sometimes.
Thanks for commenting.
J Rowsey – thanks for reading still. What is the “its” you’re referring to?