Republican Infighting over Palin Continues

[atoms]

Thought this was interesting.....and not good for the Republican party.

If they want to be relevant, this is the shit they need to put behind them.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24392.html

[fuldstændigamok]

Worrying about palin mental state...Really?
As if it was ever any doubt about her mental state. The all palin family would win the royal suite in any funny farm in this planet without even trying, it's not even fair.

[atoms]

I guess just a comment....I really don't think this story says anything about Palin that we didn't know (or at least hear when the leaks in question happened). And I really find nothing here that sheds any light on the truth of those leaks.

What I found interesting was the absolute clusterfuck at the top level of republican strategists, both those in the campaign and those tangential to it. This is interesting only in that there is a moderate likelihood that some of these same people will be involved in the next campaign....or if this continues....maybe not.

[BIG PIZZLE]

Sarah Palin is everythign that is wrong with the republican party.

[fuldstændigamok]

Sarah Palin is everythign that is wrong with the republican party.

I thought that she simply was everything that is wrong with the human race.
Was I wrong?

[Morfin]

I have yet to receive my issue of Vanity Fair in the mail, but I look forward to this one.

As to the article that atoms linked to, there is one part that is absolutely hilarious in the back-and-forth between Bill Kristol and Steve Schmidt. Usually sarcasm does not come through in print. Here is the exception with this zinger by Schmidt:

Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: “I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”

“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued.

I'd give Schmidt major rep for that comment.

[freegood]

Article here: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908?printable=true&currentPage=all

Haven't read all of it. Nice read so far.

[Rover]

Good to see misogyny is still alive and well in the pages of Vanity Fair. Someday, female politicians will be treated fairly by magazines and reporters. Someday.

As Palin makes her way slowly across the crowded ballroom—dressed all in black; no red Naughty Monkey Double Dare pumps tonight—she is stopped every few inches by adoring fans.Interesting choice of imagery.
In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.So with Bubba and Tricky Dick it's cool and macho to be a ruthless politician, but this woman is a cunt.

But there were ominous signs—indications of an erratic nature. This is the third thing McCain could have discovered about Palin—a woman, after all, who kept a pregnancy secret for seven months...This is the beginning of my favorite paragraph. Those damn women with their fleeting opinions and PMSing. Why we ever allow them to be in charge of stuff, I'll never know.

Also, describing her as a narcissist was enlightening. A self-centered politician? My intellecutal core has been rocked on it's axis. A politician with a heightened sense of self? Surely, there's only one.

The elite media's obsession with Palin is bizarre. It's been 8 months and they're still rehashing campaign bullshit. I mean John Edwards was/is a big bag of sleeze, who chased ambulances and preyed on parents, who'd just gone through the worst experience in their lives, and I don't remember Vanity Fair articles that delved into his narcissistic personality traits 8 months after he lost. Why the Left in this country is so afraid of a Republican woman is strange to me.

It's like their obsession on trying to prove that Bush 43 was an bumbling idiot and wasn't intellectually qualified to be president. Can't they see he's an idiot? Don't they understand she's an idiot, but she's also a bitch?

[Morfin]

I have yet to read the article, but I will note that Purdham was excoriated by the Clinton people when he wrote an article for Vanity Fair 6-8 months ago. Same type of arguments that Rover puts forward here. Maybe that is his style, but he is equally-hated on both sides.

[tockit]

Sarah Palin is everythign that is wrong with the republican party.
You know its really odd though.

Shes the governor of one of the few states as of late thats not losing money and on the verge of insolvency. Unlike California, New York, etc, and all the other liberally ran states.

The majority of her constituents like her, and are satisfied with the job shes doing in Alaska.

And the main reason the liberal media doesn't like her is because shes not a member of the "Washington political" crowd.

Funny how she grew up the majority of her life in Alaska, and got involved in politics after running a sucessful business because she cared about the issues.

Very much the opposite of Hillary Clinton who is a member of a lifetime political family, who never lived a day in New York, then purchased a house there and more or less bought her Senate seat, stayed in a marriage while her husband was sleeping with every skirt in DC, just to maintain her political clout.

But Palin is the bad guy or gal in this case?

Just shows the genuine hypocrisy of the media.

[Das Kahlua]

http://cdn2.myxer.com/tn/c/915718/big/?t=20081007172657

[Gary_Busey]

I was fucking captivated by some of the shit she said during the campaign. It was entertaining.

[freegood]

I have yet to read the article, but I will note that Purdham was excoriated by the Clinton people when he wrote an article for Vanity Fair 6-8 months ago. Same type of arguments that Rover puts forward here. Maybe that is his style, but he is equally-hated on both sides.

Was that the one about how Bubba sabotaged Gore's election?

[Archangel]

Shes the governor of one of the few states as of late thats not losing money and on the verge of insolvency. Unlike California, New York, etc, and all the other liberally ran states.

Yeah, that's because Alaska has about three inhabitants. Does Alaska have a large manufacturing base affected by the global economic crisis? Does Alaska have a shitload of illegal immigrants? Massive urban populations with the usual associated problems?

That's like saying that Luxembourg is better off than China because its government is more right wing.

You dumb bastard.

The majority of her constituents like her, and are satisfied with the job shes doing in Alaska.

But then, the majority of her constituents are the daft mother fuckers too dumb to get the hell out of fucking Alaska.

And the main reason the liberal media doesn't like her is because shes not a member of the "Washington political" crowd.

Nah, I'm pretty sure that liberal or not, being a journalist requires literacy, at which point you tend to look down on those not endowed with it.

Seriously. Everything you say are sophomoric, common-place bullet points regurgitated from the Rush Limbaughs of the world which you try to present as opinions.

When was the last time you had an original thought?

[freegood]

According to the hatchet job from Vanity Fair, Alaska is in the red because of declining oil prices.

So did Palin’s suggestion, at a time when declining oil prices have thrown the state budget into the red, that she did not want to accept about a third of the $930 million in federal stimulus money available to Alaska, because it would come with too many big-government strings attached. The move seemed calculated to burnish her national conservative credentials. In the face of bipartisan outcry, Palin’s aides insisted she had never meant to say she wouldn’t take the money, only that she wanted to review the matter carefully. That was news to former aide Larry Persily. After the first meeting on the stimulus money, Persily told me, “Everyone in the room left thinking she’d said no. Then her staff said, ‘She didn’t say no. She just didn’t say yes.”’ Palin wound up taking all but about 3 percent of the $900 million available to Alaska. The consensus even among the Republicans I spoke to was that she rejected the last $28 million—for energy assistance—mostly to save face.

And the writer notes the declining number of Alaskans who find her favorable.

A year ago, 80 percent of Alaskans viewed Palin very favorably or somewhat favorably; by this spring, just 55 percent had a positive opinion. All this has given rise to speculation in Alaska that Palin may not run for re-election next year. She does not have to declare her candidacy until June 2010. Most politicians of both parties in Alaska with whom I spoke assume she could win, though not as persuasively as she did in 2006, which would hardly help her standing in a 2012 presidential campaign.

But it's all good distortion from the media liberal elite.

Palin/Sanford 2012!!

[satandole666]

If Palin makes it to the Republican ticket in 2012 I'll either abstain from voting or (gasp) vote for Obama.

How is it even possible to consider Palin for President or VP of the US? Is she really the "best" the Republicans have to offer? I like the tits and the hot secretary look, but we have pornhub to find jack off material...I don't need all the news sites as well.

The Republicans don't need a new face to win elections, they need a new platform. Give up the religious shit, become more socially liberal, and return to a truly fiscal conservative platform. Or, in other words, become the Libertarian party without the 3rd party taboo.

[atoms]

Just to get this thread a little bit back on track....

The original article (the politico one, not the VF one) was primarily about the infighting of top republican strategists.....the guys who run republican presidential campaigns. The VF article started a new skirmish, but what I am wondering is....how does the republican party pull it's shit together, when the guys whose job it is to pull the shit together (I think it is the strategists that help candidates develop and stay on a message) are fighting with each other.

I guess my question is how low do the republicans have to go before they can start moving in the right (pardon the pun) direction again. And of course part of that is...what the hell is the right direction.

[Das Kahlua]

The Republicans don't need a new face to win elections, they need a new platform. Give up the religious shit, become more socially liberal, and return to a truly fiscal conservative platform. Or, in other words, become the Libertarian party without the 3rd party taboo.

No, they don't, they just need to be able to a) articulate their message in a way that the average American can understand and support it and b) remain consistent on that message. For example, they can't rail against higher taxes and increased spending when they were the party in control that passed all sorts of new spending policies.

We already had a candidate that was more moderate on social policies, who supposedly could bring the two parties together and court the moderates. That person was John McCain. Didn't work out so well, did it?

As long as the only message the Republicans have is 'Democrats are evil, lower taxes' they will never win. Reagan was the conservative version of Obama. Both were loyal to the values of their parties, and yet they were able to court a large percentage of the votes by being able to communicate their message to the average voter, making him/her feel as if they were supporting something greater than just an average politician.

When the Republicans can get that back, they'll get back to power, but not before.

[Whiffleball]

I think the VF article was excellent, as it afforded me a bird's-eye view of a trainwreck which I didn't have the patience to keep track of as it happened.

Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”In Evansville, though, Palin concentrated on the task at hand: an emphatic defense of the anti-abortion cause. But in doing so she made a startling confession about what she thought when she learned she was pregnant at 43 with her youngest child, Trig, who arrived in April 2008, as the world now knows, with Down syndrome. “I had found out that I was pregnant while out of state first,” Palin told the crowd. “While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, I thought, Nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, Wow, it is easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances and no one would know—no one would ever know. Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities—oh, dear God—I knew, I had instantly an understanding, for that fleeting moment, why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances, just make it all go away, get some normalcy back in life.” It is almost impossible not to be touched by the rawness of her confession, even if it is precisely this choice that Palin believes no other woman should ever have, not even in the case of rape or incest. the leaks continue:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009...2.shtml?tag=pop (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/01/politics/main5128672.shtml?tag=pop)

The episode in question began when an investigative report published on the left-leaning Web site Salon.com raised questions about Palin's relationship with members of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) when she was mayor of Wasilla. The AIP's platform calls for a vote giving Alaskans the option to secede from the United States. It had already been widely known that Todd Palin was a registered member of the AIP from 1995 to 2002 and that Governor Palin had taped a recorded greeting at the party's 2008 convention.

On the morning of Oct. 15, Palin was aboard her campaign jet and en route to New Hampshire when she happened to catch a disparaging CNN segment that touted the Salon.com story, complete with a provocative graphic at the bottom of the screen reading, "THE PALINS AND THE FRINGE."

While shaking hands after a rally later that afternoon, someone on the rope line shouted a remark at Palin about the AIP.

The comment set her off. She worried that the campaign was not sufficiently mitigating the issue of her alleged connection to the party, which despite a platform that harkens more to the Civil War than the 21st century, continued to play a serious role in Alaska politics.

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line "Todd" to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior advisor Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

"Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it ... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed."

Her reference to a single protestor's sign and "many shout-outs" was indicative of Palin's occasional tendency to take anecdotal evidence of a minor problem and extrapolate it into something far more menacing. The final of the three presidential debates was just hours away, which would mark the unveiling of the soon-to-be canonized Joe The Plumber.

The Joe The Plumber narrative was the Republicans' secret weapon -- the last chance to put a ***** in Obama's seemingly impervious armor. It was not a time for distractions, but the campaign was compelled to deal with the drama that seemed to follow Palin wherever she went.

Schmidt hit "reply to all" less than five minutes after Palin's e-mail was sent. "Ignore it," he wrote. "He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america."

This clear cut response from the campaign's top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the "cc" box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane. They included her senior political adviser Tucker Eskew, senior aide Jason Recher, the lone traveling aide from her Alaska office Kris Perry, press secretary Tracey Schmitt and personal assistant Bexie Nobles.

Palin's insertion of the five additional staffers in the e-mail chain was an apparent attempt to rally her own troops in the face of a decision from the commanding general with which she disagreed. Her inclusion of her personal assistant was particularly telling about her quest for affirmation and support in numbers, since the young staffer was not in a position to have any input on campaign strategy.

"That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan," Palin wrote. "He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed."

Palin was attempting to bend the facts ever so slightly to fit neatly into her version of events. In truth, the box that Alaskans have the option of checking when registering to vote states the full name of the party, "Alaskan Independence Party," not "Alaska Independent," which would make an error by uncommitted voters more plausible.

Clearly irritated by what he saw as Palin's attempt to mislead her own campaign and apparently determined to demonstrate that the ultimate authority rested with him, Schmidt put the matter to rest once and for all with a longer response to everyone in the e-mail chain.

"Secession," he wrote. "It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years. If this is incorrect then we need to understand the discrepancy. The statement you are suggesting be released would be innaccurate. The innaccuracy would bring greater media attention to this matter and be a distraction. According to your staff there have been no media inquiries into this and you received no questions about it during your interviews. If you are asked about it you should smile and say many alaskans who love their country join the party because it speeks to a tradition of political independence. Todd loves his country

We will not put out a statement and inflame this and create a situation where john has to adress this."

Schmidt's rebuttal to Palin's suggestion that reporters had asked her about the issue was particularly blunt in that it implicitly questioned her truthfulness. Furthermore, his unwillingness to budge an inch on the matter was a remarkable assertion of his power to pull rank over the candidate herself.I love that she was so desperate for support that she added more people into the e-mail the 2nd time including the random staffer with no power or input

[Whiffleball]

The problem wasn't with John McCain being the moderate; the problem was with the Republican Party. First of all, he was running in the wake of George W. Bush, who without hyperbole fucked us over socially, economically and on the global stage, all with a big ole (R) by his name. Secondly, because John McCain wasn't a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth Bible-thumping, torture-loving soldier of God, the crazy base who demanded he be those things refused to get behind him. So the GOP had to energize them with Sarah Palin, who was pretty much Bush in heels -- a folsky, likable King of the Hill character without any fancy book-smarts or "elitist" experience -- but who pretty much doubled down on everything wrong with Dubya.

If McCain wasn't following the worst act in history since the suicide bomber who got his mission for September 12th, he might have had a shot. If he hadn't been saddled with Peggy Hill turned up to 11, he might have won the experience argument and used his record of bipartisanship to win over independents. If he didn't have to be something he wasn't as well as something most Americans didn't want (a Republican)...

Well, he probably still would have lost. I mean, Obama is smart and charismatic and McCain was old and busted and Palin was dumb as a board. And saying "The fundamentals of the economy are sound" as we slid into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? And that creepy smile!

Yes, the Republicans do need someone who can communicate well. They can't go out there like Bobby Jindal and look like someone just stuffed a broomstick up their butt. But that's not all.

People like a leader they have confidence in, and people tend to trust people who are smart. Obama won people over because he came across as intellectual, as someone who could craft the policies to get us out of the financial meltdown. And considering that Bush was best known for being as thick as Vermont maple syrup, I think a candidate's IQ is going to matter more in the future than whether or not you'd want to have a beer with him/her.

But, really, what the Republicans need to do is rebrand themselves as serious "compassionate conservatives". When the Tories were turned out of power in the UK in 1997, they were at a total loss until David Cameron improved their image and updated their approach. They became less of the "nasty party" and more concerned with addressing damage to the fabric of society. They became more inclusive and tempted back the middle-of-the-road middle class voters they had lost to Labour. Instead of just appealing to a diminished neoliberal niche, they realized that the people wanted positive change. They didn't change their core philosophy, mind you, but they stopped purging anyone who wasn't a "wet" Hayekian drone.

The Republicans have vanished in New England and they'll continue to fade elsewhere until they're a regional party at this rate. Michael Steele has been a flop and the potential contenders who were trotted out for 2012 have started to drop like flies. They can't trust this like a regular period out of power; they're headed for the political wilderness unless they get their appeal back, and they're going to need more than just a talking head who can talk pretty. Obama wheels and deals in ideas, and until the GOP can flesh some out and make them attractive to the public, articulating them well is a secondary priority.

[Whiffleball]

P_GDqQR4VKc

[satandole666]

No, they don't, they just need to be able to a) articulate their message in a way that the average American can understand and support it and b) remain consistent on that message. For example, they can't rail against higher taxes and increased spending when they were the party in control that passed all sorts of new spending policies.

How is that any different than what I said? I want them to return to truly conservative fiscal policies. Don't just preach it, actually do it.

One thing I'm beginning to notice is that the majority of the youth in this country are distancing themselves from the religious right. I don't know many/any people my age or younger that I would put into that category.

That's why I suggested giving up the religious shit. It'll help bring moderates back to the Republican party.

[Deadhead Derek]

P_GDqQR4VKc
I think I just had a stroke

[Mustard]

STFU NOOB!!!

[Whiffleball]

STFU NOOB!!!

http://i40.tinypic.com/29m3n9x.gifhttp://i40.tinypic.com/29m3n9x.gifhttp://i40.tinypic.com/29m3n9x.gif

[Yelram]

Yeah, that's because Alaska has about three inhabitants. Does Alaska have a large manufacturing base affected by the global economic crisis? Does Alaska have a shitload of illegal immigrants? Massive urban populations with the usual associated problems?

That's like saying that Luxembourg is better off than China because its government is more right wing.

You dumb bastard.



But then, the majority of her constituents are the daft mother fuckers too dumb to get the hell out of fucking Alaska.



Nah, I'm pretty sure that liberal or not, being a journalist requires literacy, at which point you tend to look down on those not endowed with it.

Seriously. Everything you say are sophomoric, common-place bullet points regurgitated from the Rush Limbaughs of the world which you try to present as opinions.

When was the last time you had an original thought?

They dont have Pravda here in the US, so we dont get all the "original thoughts" that you espouse.

So Alaska, a state with very few people (that also means a very small tax base), is able to maintain a budget in the black (and even GIVE MONEY to its citizens), it should be MUCH EASIER FOR A PLACE WITH A HIGHER POPULATION. Atleast using conventional economic logic. Once you start in with socialism, every person becomes a liability, not a tax-paying citizen, and once that whole process plays through, you end up with massive amounts of public debt, which requires "quick and decisive action", or in otherwords, finding somewhere else to steal the money from. This ends with government seizures of companies, and the government owning the means of production, and not the citizens.

The budget defecit for 2008 was around 400 billion there are roughly 300 million people in the US, thats 1330 dollars for every man woman and child in the US per year that we are in the red.

Now lets look at entitlements, and how they stack up against the deficit.
"
According to The Budget for Fiscal Year 2008, Historical Tables (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/hist.pdf), total outlays for Means Tested Entitlements in 2006 were $354.3 billion. This was 2.7% of GDP and
Includes Medicaid, food stamps, family support assistance (AFDC), supplemental security income (SSI), child nutrition programs, refundable portions of earned income tax credits (EITC and HITC) and child tax credit, welfare contingency fund, child care entitlement to States, temporary assistance to needy families, foster care and adoption assistance, State children's health insurance and veterans pensions."





Hmm, its pretty funny that minus all of these entitlements, we're only 45 billion in the hole per year. Its almost like entitlements arent exactly the best idea if you want to have a financially stable government. (I tried to isolate veterans pensions from the number, but couldnt find a source)

If you compare the whole of the defense budget for a year, money that actually travels out to people doing work, and producing things, @ 700 billion, 360 billion to just hand out because the government has deemed you worthy of free money is a fucking joke. 700 billion a year to have one of the best militaries on the planet, consisting of 3 million personel, and ridiculous amounts of equipment. Not to mention the people who BUILD the equipment staying employed, and the whole chain of contractual obligations held by the DOD.

[Claydon]

No, they don't, they just need to be able to a) articulate their message in a way that the average American can understand and support it and b) remain consistent on that message. For example, they can't rail against higher taxes and increased spending when they were the party in control that passed all sorts of new spending policies.

We already had a candidate that was more moderate on social policies, who supposedly could bring the two parties together and court the moderates. That person was John McCain. Didn't work out so well, did it?

As long as the only message the Republicans have is 'Democrats are evil, lower taxes' they will never win. Reagan was the conservative version of Obama. Both were loyal to the values of their parties, and yet they were able to court a large percentage of the votes by being able to communicate their message to the average voter, making him/her feel as if they were supporting something greater than just an average politician.

When the Republicans can get that back, they'll get back to power, but not before.

Both had/have incredible charisma. Reagan and Obama just drip with charisma. However, I will take Dutch any day of the week compared to the joke we have at the moment.

[BIG PIZZLE]

The only thing that is successful in Alaska thanks to Palin right now is oil. That's all they seem to have going for them. I give Palin credit for exploiting that. But what happens when the oil money stops? Without oil, many of its citizens lose their checks. It's basically a one trick pony. It's ripe for meth to take over. If Palin was smart, she would look towards tourism, timber, and othr ways to bring money into the state and create jobs rather than placate the citizens with a government check based on a fleeting resource.

[Debo]

They dont have Pravda here in the US, so we dont get all the "original thoughts" that you espouse.

So Alaska, a state with very few people (that also means a very small tax base), is able to maintain a budget in the black (and even GIVE MONEY to its citizens), it should be MUCH EASIER FOR A PLACE WITH A HIGHER POPULATION. Atleast using conventional economic logic. Once you start in with socialism, every person becomes a liability, not a tax-paying citizen, and once that whole process plays through, you end up with massive amounts of public debt, which requires "quick and decisive action", or in otherwords, finding somewhere else to steal the money from. This ends with government seizures of companies, and the government owning the means of production, and not the citizens.

The budget defecit for 2008 was around 400 billion there are roughly 300 million people in the US, thats 1330 dollars for every man woman and child in the US per year that we are in the red.

Now lets look at entitlements, and how they stack up against the deficit.
"
According to The Budget for Fiscal Year 2008, Historical Tables (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/hist.pdf), total outlays for Means Tested Entitlements in 2006 were $354.3 billion. This was 2.7% of GDP and Includes Medicaid, food stamps, family support assistance (AFDC), supplemental security income (SSI), child nutrition programs, refundable portions of earned income tax credits (EITC and HITC) and child tax credit, welfare contingency fund, child care entitlement to States, temporary assistance to needy families, foster care and adoption assistance, State children's health insurance and veterans pensions."





Hmm, its pretty funny that minus all of these entitlements, we're only 45 billion in the hole per year. Its almost like entitlements arent exactly the best idea if you want to have a financially stable government. (I tried to isolate veterans pensions from the number, but couldnt find a source)

If you compare the whole of the defense budget for a year, money that actually travels out to people doing work, and producing things, @ 700 billion, 360 billion to just hand out because the government has deemed you worthy of free money is a fucking joke. 700 billion a year to have one of the best militaries on the planet, consisting of 3 million personel, and ridiculous amounts of equipment. Not to mention the people who BUILD the equipment staying employed, and the whole chain of contractual obligations held by the DOD.



Alaska is a dump. The entire state runs on pork from Ted Stevens and oil revenue.

From pork to petrodollars
Sep 4th 2008 | ANCHORAGE
From The Economist print edition


Sarah Palin’s home state is awash with money
JOHN MCCAIN’S decision to anoint Sarah Palin as his running-mate looks eccentric for many reasons. Not the least is economic principle. Thanks in part to Mrs Palin, Alaska’s economy is built on two things that Mr McCain has spent the last few years railing against.
The first is federal spending, especially the little-scrutinised grants known as earmarks. Between 1996 and 2006 per-capita federal spending in Alaska rose from 38% above the national average to 71% above. Scott Goldsmith, an economist, reckons a third of all jobs in the state depend on it. So needy are the citizens of the “last frontier” that the looming trial of Ted Stevens, Alaska’s senior senator and champion pork-rustler, for failing to disclose gifts is viewed not just as a political scandal but also as an economic threat.
Mrs Palin has been less single-minded in her pursuit of pork than other Alaskan politicians (which is, admittedly, setting the bar pretty high). But she can take credit for the other pillar of Alaska’s economy: windfall taxes. Last year she championed a tax hike on oil companies which is helping bring in huge sums—more than $10 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June, according to the companies that pay them. Suddenly flush, the state has promised $1,200 to every man, woman and child, ostensibly to cover the high cost of fuel.
That giveaway is just the start. Rather than paying taxes to the state, Alaskans receive cheques from it. In “The Simpsons Movie”, released last year, Homer Simpson is handed $1,000 at the Alaskan border for “allowing the oil companies to ravage the state’s natural beauty”. That is an understatement: this month’s payments from the Alaska permanent fund are expected to be about twice as big. With the fuel surplus, this alone would get a family of four three-fifths of the way towards the federal poverty line in the lower 48 states. And many Alaskans do not pay sales taxes.
Meanwhile, the state’s industries hum along. Fishermen are doing well, thanks in part to a collapse in California’s salmon stocks. Mining is booming. Between 2000 and 2007 about 8,000 health-care jobs were created, a lot in a state with a civilian working population of just 335,000. More and more cruise ships chug up the coast. Alaska’s natives, who were given money to set up corporations in lieu of land, have proved adept at hoovering up federal contracts in the lower 48 states.
Federal grants to Alaska had begun to slow even before Mr Stevens’s indictment, as Congress clamped down on earmarks. But they will not cease even if the senator is convicted. Alaska still has plenty of plans for spending taxpayers’ money—the big one is a highway through Anchorage. It also has other politicians who are prepared to plead for that money (see article (http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12066196)).
Not all federal spending comes in the form of earmarks, in any case. Retirement and Medicare cheques will roll in as Alaska’s population ages. Military spending, a big part of the state’s economy during the cold war, is heating up again: from the air you can see construction at Fort Richardson army base, north of Anchorage.
So Alaska’s growth streak, now in its 21st year, is unlikely to break soon. But the good times obscure a big weakness. The state government has become dependent on revenues from oil, which are likely to decline as the major fields dry up. Rescue may come in the form of a huge pipeline that would run from a natural-gas field in northern Alaska to Canada. It may not be built; even if it is, the gas will not start flowing for at least a decade. Alaskans will be hoping a Vice-President Palin can move things along a little quicker.

[Das Kahlua]

The only thing that is successful in Alaska thanks to Palin right now is oil. That's all they seem to have going for them. I give Palin credit for exploiting that. But what happens when the oil money stops? Without oil, many of its citizens lose their checks. It's basically a one trick pony. It's ripe for meth to take over. If Palin was smart, she would look towards tourism, timber, and othr ways to bring money into the state and create jobs rather than placate the citizens with a government check based on a fleeting resource.

After reading Morfin's recent thread about how California, made up of the best and brightest that the left has to offer, is completely bankrupt and paying city officials with IOUs, I couldn't disagree with you more. At this point, the way the country's going, I couldn't care less why a state is one of the few that is remaining in the black, as long as it is. California has more than its share of natural resources, too, if it decides not to use them, for whatever reason, then tough shit when the bills come due and it can't pay them.

I am certainly not the biggest Palin proponent on this board or anywhere else, but I do feel that she gets a raw deal from the media and the public at large the vast majority of the time. Bill Clinton was a relatively unknown Governor from Arkansas before his meteoric primary run, who celebrated such 'accomplishments' as taking Arkansas' education system from 49th to 48th best in the country, and he was a media darling. Palin is managing to be one of the handful of Governors capable of successfully running a state during these tough economic times, while still maintaining incredibly high popularity within her state, and she gets mocked and ridiculed incessently as a reward.

The media and Democrat party did one hell of a hatchet job on this woman and her family, and maybe she is forever tarnished and unable to run for higher office, which would be just fine with me, but at least give her credit where it is due; maybe she sounds dumb and uninformed sometimes, maybe she's not as worldly as people might wish of her, but what does that say about all the other politicians around the country who can't do their jobs anywhere near as well as she can?

[BIG PIZZLE]

She brought her family into the limelight. She was parading that retarded boy all over the stage at the convention. And although the media has been hard on her, she's realy good at playing the martyr which is right out of the modern republican paybook. And I think Riverside County has about 3 times the population of Alaska. There's no comparison. Sure she's the governor of a state; but alaska has the population of a small town in California, they barely have 600k people.

[Das Kahlua]

She brought her family into the limelight. She was parading that retarded boy all over the stage at the convention. And although the media has been hard on her, she's realy good at playing the martyr which is right out of the modern republican paybook. And I think Riverside County has about 3 times the population of Alaska. There's no comparison. Sure she's the governor of a state, but alaska has the population of a small town in California they barely have 600k people.

I'm not saying that she didn't ask for at least some of the media attention, and I agree that there is a significant difference in population and diversity between California and Alaska, but the same principles in running each state are the same.

It's not like California was a couple million bucks over their budget one time, this has been a pattern for a long time, and has gotten so bad that they literally don't even have the money to pay their employees. Something like that doesn't happen unless a lot of things have gone very wrong for a long time.

Is it a perfect analogy, comparing Alaska and California, or Michigan, Illinois or New York? No, but population size notwithstanding, her state was one of the few that's managed to stave off bankruptcy. Maybe, just maybe, when looking for national economic policies to adopt during the difficult times, maybe we should at least think about adopting the policies of states that are actually economically stable and not habitually bankrupt.

[BIG PIZZLE]

There's a difference between running a cruiseline and a motorboat. Plus what she has done in Alaska has made the citizens dependent on their monthly checks from the government. That's not very conservative.

[Das Kahlua]

There's a difference between running a cruiseline and a motorboat. Plus what she has done in Alaska has made the citizens dependent on their monthly checks from the government. That's not very conservative.

Pizz, my standards for being impressed have been lowered to the point that I'm happy if a politician can run anything on budget.

As for 'being dependent' on checks from the oil companies, the people are selling a good/service that belongs to them, and receiving monetary compensation for it. That is the essence of capitalism, and very conservative. It is a far cry from all the people living off of the people who are working, productive members of society all over the country, and especially in states like California.

[BIG PIZZLE]

The people arent doing anything. They are sitting back and collecting checks. If I was a citizen of Alaska I would get a check even if I didnt leave my bed all month. That's just spin. If she really wanted to move the economy, use the money to prop up another industy in Alaska. Advertise tourism, subsidize plane tickets to get people up there and spening money. Build good schools, make it a hub for higher education. It's a unique state. There are lots of better ways to spend that money without creating dependancy on a goverment check. It's just glorified welfare and a legislative cop-out.

[Das Kahlua]

The people arent doing anything. They are sitting back and collecting checks. If I was a citizen of Alaska I would get a check even if I didnt leave my bed all month. That's just spin. If she really wanted to move the economy, use the money to prop up another industy in Alaska. Advertise tourism, subsidize plane tickets to get people up there and spening money. Build good schools, make it a hub for higher education. It's a unique state. There are lots of better ways to spend that money without creating dependancy on a goverment check. It's just glorified welfare and a legislative cop-out.

Well, tourism is fairly hyped there already; I haven't seen as many commercials with Palin as I have with Schwarzenegger, but she still does hype it up.

As for welfare, that is when money is taken from people who work hard and pay their taxes and given to people who don't do shit. In the case of Alaska, the oil companies are buying a natural resource from the owners, the people of Alaska. I haven't read stories of massive numbers of the citizens of Alaska sitting around not working, living off of the government teat, as is the case in so many other states.

Furthermore, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average US unemployment rate is 9.4%. In Alaska it is 8.4% and in California it is 11.5%.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

Whatever your assessment of Alaska and how the state is run, the numbers seem to suggest that those policies are more effective than what is used elsewhere.

[Gary_Busey]

Any state can get their economy back on track. It's so easy. Just discover massive oil reserves in your state and problem solved.

[potaters]

Man, dem crazy Republicans. They racist as hells. I like Alaska, it seems like a cool place to live. Its got a lot of hard workin peeps. I don know if they got good welfare benefits there, but I heard they give free checks to people. Sounds like a great place to live.

[Gary_Busey]

http://www.thedeets.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/peep_large1.jpg

They have to work hard, they have no arms.

[Gary_Busey]

Annndddd she's out.


Alaska Governor Palin to resign in weeks
Posted: July 03, 2009, 3:34 PM by Ron Nurwisah U.S. Politics (http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/tags/U.S.+Politics/default.aspx), sarah palin (http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/tags/sarah+palin/default.aspx)

http://www.nationalpost.com/1757282.bin
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has announced that she is stepping down as that state's governor in a matter of weeks.
From Alaska CBC Affiliate KTVA (http://www.ktva.com/ci_12746301%20):
At an 11:00 a.m. press conference today, Governor Sarah Palin announced that she would not seek a second term as governor. The governor continued, saying that by the end of the month she would resign from the governorship.
“I’m not seeking re-election,” Palin told a news conference at which she said she would transfer authority to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell.

Palin ran as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate and is seen by many Republicans as a potential Presidential candidate in 2012. Palin's term as governor, her first, does not end for another year.
“We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time,” she said.

Palin said her decision came after much “prayer and consideration.” She did not want to waste time on “political blood sport” and cited public criticism of her actions and her family since the 2008 campaign.


http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/07/03/alaska-governor-palin-to-resign-in-weeks.aspx

[Whiffleball]

~LETTERMAN CALLED IT~

http://xs141.xs.to/xs141/09275/s628.jpg

[Genius]

How will she run for President if she's not governor?

[Whiffleball]

In all seriousness either

(1) she couldn't handle the heat anymore and she's quitting politics

or

(2) she wants to start a 3 year political campaign without any of that "responsibility" stuff she had to deal with if she stayed in office or if she ran for re-election

[Whiffleball]

How will she run for President if she's not governor?

Palin has disappointed many of those who once had the highest hopes for her. She has stumbled over innumerable details. But as she said to Andrew Halcro years ago, “Does any of this really matter?” Palin has shown herself to have remarkable gut instincts about raw politics, and she has seen openings where others did not. And she has the good fortune to have traction within a political party that is bereft of strong leadership, and whose rank and file often demands qualities other than knowledge, experience, and an understanding that facts are, as John Adams said, stubborn things. It is, at the moment, a party in which the loudest and most singular voices, not burdened by responsibility, wield disproportionate power. She may decide that she does not need office in order to have great influence—any more than Rush Limbaugh does.
In all seriousness, if governance isn't your thing and you have presidential ambitions, who says you need to hold political office? She's already got the GOP base wrapped around her little finger and the longer she stays in power the more she'd be expected to deliver. Now she can stay in the public eye, release her book, give speeches and continue to be a mouthpiece for the far right without any sense of duty or responsibility

Of course, people who value things like "job performance" and "experience" will see this for what it is, but those Ivy League intellectuals with their rolled umbrellas and ACLU membership cards weren't going to vote for her anyway

Machiavelli in heels, folks

[Genius]

If she wins the nomination it's going to set up a Nixon-Ford-Reagan-type Dark Ages for the Republicans. Maybe you'll get a little Carter thrown in for four years, but woe be unto you.

[freegood]

In all seriousness, if governance isn't your thing and you have presidential ambitions, who says you need to hold political office? She's already got the GOP base wrapped around her little finger and the longer she stays in power the more she'd be expected to deliver. Now she can stay in the public eye, release her book, give speeches and continue to be a mouthpiece for the far right without any sense of duty or responsibility

Of course, people who value things like "job performance" and "experience" will see this for what it is, but those Ivy League intellectuals with their rolled umbrellas and ACLU membership cards weren't going to vote for her anyway

Machiavelli in heels, folks

Plumber Joe/Maverick Palin 2012!

[Whiffleball]

Mitt Romney had sold his soul for 2012. He had done things, bad things, he would never thought he would do. In the depth of night, he would toss and turn, struggling to justify to himself his black deeds, committed in the name of seeking power. Usually he convinced himself that it was all in the best interests of his country. Usually.

The weak pretenders to the throne in his party had to go. They couldn't take down Obama. They didn't have the vision or the character to go up against the Messiah and bring him down. They lacked the intelligence, the wit and the ability to change with the times. But they had the base frothing at the mouth for them. Those stupid sign-waving, slogan-chanting obese idiots wearing baggy t-shirts with words written on them... Joe the Plumber didn't know what was best for him. Mitt Romney did, but Mitt couldn't make Joe love him.

Jindal had been the first to go. It had been so innocent. A left-over laxative in Mitt's pocket and a few minutes alone with Bobby's Diet Sprite. It was a bitter act, but with that first sinking of a political career, Mitt had been emboldened. He suddenly saw a path to the White House, with the bodies of his fellow Republicans pushed to the side.

Some of the more gullible ones were easy enough to trick. "Secession is a hot issue," he had told Perry while duck hunting. "I mean, you see the stars and bars everywhere. The South has to rise again, right? Why not 2012?"

Others had taken more work. Sanford was principled; he wouldn't strike a deal or sit on the sidelines. It had taken Mitt calling in a favor from an old friend, a little harlot from Buenos Aires, to try and seduce the upright South Carolina governor. It worked; Sanford was soon upright in a different way, multiple times. Mitt hadn't expected Sanford to expose himself, but he did, bawling on national TV. Back in his den, Mitt could have tasted the salt of Sanford's tears on his lips.

But the big threat had always been that bitch from Alaska, the hockey mom. She had to go, but she wasn't like the rest; she had no real belief system, and would say anything for a vote. In the same way Rainman was with cards, she was an idiot savant with a gift for raw politics. Romney had to pull out the stops to bring her down.

"...Not retreating, simply advancing in a different direction." He had heard the tail end of Palin's speech over his cell phone.

"Okay, it's done," Todd Palin said on the other end. "Are you happy now, you sick son of a bitch?"

Mitt smiled, surprising himself. "Yes. Yes, I am." He looked at the cross-eyed baby sitting on the sofa beside him. "And little Trig is happy too. Aren't you, son?"

Dead eyes stared back at him. A trickle of drool fell down a rounded chin.

"Hello?" Todd sounded desperate. "Okay, we did what you wanted. Give our son back now. Give him ba--"

Mitt shut the phone. He had originally thought this would be the last one. But there was still a dark horse out there, a populist who could spoil everything. He had come this far; he might as well finish the job.

"May God forgive me," he said. "Ron Paul has to die."

Beside him, Trig cooed.

[mdaddyrabbit]

The republican party hasn't had a strong leader for a while now, this is shown by the infighting. Untill they have someone that is a strong leader they will continue to loose ground. I could careless about Palin and what she does.

[freegood]

Pizz, my standards for being impressed have been lowered to the point that I'm happy if a politician can run anything on budget.


I didn't think you would be the type to be enamored with a "young, up and coming politician" who only served "two and half years" as governor. I guess her "qualifications" were sufficient.

I'm ready to be awed by the stories you have of her new programs and moves balancing the budget as governor. You know, which would be more impressive than inheriting a state that has always been in the black because of its oil reserves.

[Archangel]

Hell, even Arabs manage to get rich off oil, which is all you need to know about what a great job Palin was ostensibly doing.

[Das Kahlua]

I didn't think you would be the type to be enamored with a "young, up and coming politician" who only served "two and half years" as governor. I guess her "qualifications" were sufficient.

I'm ready to be awed by the stories you have of her new programs and moves balancing the budget as governor. You know, which would be more impressive than inheriting a state that has always been in the black because of its oil reserves.

It's not a question of my being 'enamored' by her in any way, I just know that if she were a Democrat, being the head of a state that manages to remain solvent during a time when most states are completely bankrupt, she would be portrayed as an economic and political genius.

I may not always be successful, but I try to be as consistent on political issues as possible; just as I didn't want Obama as President because I didn't think he was qualified, I also didn't want Palin in that position. My biggest issue is the hypocrisy that she is treated with by so much of the population, that is my only point.

[freegood]

She's dumb as a brick.

She's dumb as a brick.

She's dumb as a brick.

You could have a point about charges of sexism, but it'd be interesting to see how well you fare defending Hillary.

Oh well, keep fighting her good fight. The country needs her to stick around for another 2 years.

[Das Kahlua]

She's dumb as a brick.

She's dumb as a brick.

She's dumb as a brick.

You could have a point about charges of sexism, but it'd be interesting to see how well you fare defending Hillary.

Oh well, keep fighting her good fight. The country needs her to stick around for another 2 years.

I'm not so much defending her as I am attacking the habit of the media, and eventually the populace as a whole, to fall in love with political candidates (usually left-wing ones), and ignore any flaws those candidates might have, while simultaneously attacking candidates on the opposite end of the political spectrum, even for sharing some of the same flaws that the candidate that they supported.

Obama was celebrated for not having Washington experience, while Palin was considered unqualified. Obama was called a great orator who could connect with the people, while Palin was at best 'folksy.' It goes on and on.

If you want to call shenanigans on Palin, because she's unqualified or for whatever reason you choose, go right ahead, but you'd better hold everyone who fits that criteria accountable to the same standard, Democrat or Republican, or I will call bullshit each and every time.

[wacker]

The ones calling Palin 'folksy' were the ones who were defending her. They were trying to hide her stupidy.

[freegood]

Obama was celebrated for not having Washington experience


I don't think anyone celebrated that. People worried about his inexperience, and a scandal would've wrecked him. Jeremiah Wright almost stopped his campaign cold. It tells you more that the GOP couldn't find a scandal to produce over the allegation that media bias didn't report one. Reporter liked Obama, but they like ratings more.

He rode high from a Dem. convention speech that made him one of the few black Senators in US history. He didn't make any missteps as a state legislator or on the US Senate. His real test was organizing a campaign on a national level, and the campaign commentators remarked it resembled was the 2000 election ran by G W Bush.

My memory's fuzzy, but I don't think I've seen you level any criticism on Dubya or the people when they celebrated him for whatever the fuck they thought he stood for in 2000.


, while Palin was considered unqualified.

Maybe you hate the media so much that you don't watch any of it, but check out the Couric and Gibson interviews to get what people are talking about. Or the evil Vanity Fair article.

Or even her weird hyperventilating resignation speech.


Obama was called a great orator who could connect with the people, while Palin was at best 'folksy.'

So you think Palin is a great speaker?

Instead of this dogged juxtiposition of Obama and Palin, what do you think ARE Palin's strengths? Her sweet rack and disarming wink? That could be one...others have used looks to great success.

What else? What else would make her a good President of the United States in your opinion? How she passed legislation on an overpriced sports complex that put her town in debt? How she doubled the checks to every citizen in Alaska when gas prices peaked but now is an albatross on the state budget?

I'm still waiting on what makes Palin on equal standing to Obama or even Biden.


If you want to call shenanigans on Palin, because she's unqualified or for whatever reason you choose, go right ahead, but you'd better hold everyone who fits that criteria accountable to the same standard, Democrat or Republican, or I will call bullshit each and every time.

Here's a surprise....everyone has their biases. You have one. I sure as hell have one.

It's great you're calling bullshit. One suggestion: look at the bottom of your shoes to check out what you're standing on.

Really, Palin aint worth fighting or making a point over.

[Das Kahlua]

I don't think anyone celebrated that. People worried about his inexperience, and a scandal would've wrecked him. Jeremiah Wright almost stopped his campaign cold. It tells you more that the GOP couldn't find a scandal to produce over the allegation that media bias didn't report one. Reporter liked Obama, but they like ratings more.

He rode high from a Dem. convention speech that made him one of the few black Senators in US history. He didn't make any missteps as a state legislator or on the US Senate. His real test was organizing a campaign on a national level, and the campaign commentators remarked it resembled was the 2000 election ran by G W Bush.

My memory's fuzzy, but I don't think I've seen you level any criticism on Dubya or the people when they celebrated him for whatever the fuck they thought he stood for in 2000.

Of course Obama was celebrated for not having Washington experience, it was claimed that he was 'untouched by the corruption' and would 'wipe the slate clean' and all sorts of other bullshit campaign rhetoric.

As for Bush, all I'm going to say is what I said many times before on this board and other places, there were plenty of things that Bush did that I liked and plenty that I down right hated, and I applauded when I approved and called him out when I didn't.

My biggest issue about his campaign rhetoric was the whole 'compassionate conservative' BS, as if our laws should somehow be amended for different groups of people because we feel bad for them.

Maybe you hate the media so much that you don't watch any of it, but check out the Couric and Gibson interviews to get what people are talking about. Or the evil Vanity Fair article.

Or even her weird hyperventilating resignation speech.

I don't hate the media, I dislike the agendas that are substituted for actual news, but that's a far cry from hate.

I don't think Palin is a great prospect for the Republican party, I would prefer she stay in Alaska and do whatever it is she does there, spy on Russia or whatever. I do think, all of her public antics aside, she's had a pretty good track record as Governor of Alaska, much better than some of her fellow Governors could claim, and she gets nothing but abuse for it.

So you think Palin is a great speaker?

Instead of this dogged juxtiposition of Obama and Palin, what do you think ARE Palin's strengths? Her sweet rack and disarming wink? That could be one...others have used looks to great success.

What else? What else would make her a good President of the United States in your opinion? How she passed legislation on an overpriced sports complex that put her town in debt? How she doubled the checks to every citizen in Alaska when gas prices peaked but now is an albatross on the state budget?

Where exactly have you heard me say that I think she would be a good President? Please try rereading before you go off on a tangent, because I have repeatedly said the exact opposite. All I have said is that, whether she deserves the credit or not, as Governor of Alaska the buck stops with her so she gets it, but her state is one of the few in the country that is economically sound. Maybe our country as a whole should take a few pointers from Alaska, like don't spend more money than you take in or use your natural resources wisely.

I'm still waiting on what makes Palin on equal standing to Obama or even Biden.

Obama is working on quadrupling the national debt, which China is considering no longer buying, he's nationalizing everything he can touch, making a mess of it along the way, and every time Biden opens is mouth he puts his foot in it. I'm not saying that Palin is 'equal' to the two of them, but for all the criticisms she's been getting, she's done a hell of a lot better job with the responsibility she has than they have. If government were a corporation, Biden and Obama would have been fired by now, and Palin would have been promoted.

Here's a surprise....everyone has their biases. You have one. I sure as hell have one.

It's great you're calling bullshit. One suggestion: look at the bottom of your shoes to check out what you're standing on.

Principle.

Really, Palin aint worth fighting or making a point over.

I really don't care much about Palin, she's just a seat-filler in this whole drama, but there are much bigger issues at play here that are worth fighting over.

[freegood]

I really don't care much about Palin, she's just a seat-filler in this whole drama, but there are much bigger issues at play here that are worth fighting over.

I think she's a sideshow to laugh and point at. Now that she's resigned after two and half years of governorship, it's sad to see her go.

The bigger issue should be how Republicans can get out of their mess and become credible again.

[Archangel]

The ones calling Palin 'folksy' were the ones who were defending her. They were trying to hide her stupidy.

Stupidy?


At any rate, there is a fundamental difference between the inexperience of Obama and that of Palin.

One is smart, the other is the dumbest fucking politician I've ever had the displeasure of hearing. So the media are biased because they show her to be the phenomenally ignorant hick cunt she is, and don't do the same for Obama and Hillary? So they should show how Obama doesn't know who the head of state of any major US ally is? Um, guys, odds are, he DOES know.

You can point out any number of flaws with those guys, but if one is stupid, and the other isn't, then focusing on the one's idiocy has got jack shit to do with bias.

[Archangel]

All I have said is that, whether she deserves the credit or not, as Governor of Alaska the buck stops with her so she gets it, but her state is one of the few in the country that is economically sound. Maybe our country as a whole should take a few pointers from Alaska, like don't spend more money than you take in or use your natural resources wisely.

Again, Saudi Arabia is a rather wealthy country. So by your reasoning, that makes their monarchs master statesmen.

Or, it could be that any fucking monkey can balance his cheque book when money basically comes bubbling out of the fucking earth.


Obama is working on quadrupling the national debt

Which he alone is responsible for, obviously.

The sorry state of the US economy was created on the day he was elected, and has nothing to do with a bunch of imbecile fucking cunts - in both parties, mind you - running the country for years beforehand.

I dunno, but the near trillion dollars buried in Iraq for - what exactly, again? - not to mention the additional money you lost by electing a frat boy trying to show off his penis sure would have helped now, now wouldn't it. Or, say, letting a bunch of glorified accountants run wild because a third yacht to them was more important than the state of their nation - and politicians being browbeaten by those fucks into letting them do anything because apparently, regulation = communism.

Bush handed a burnt down house to the next tenants, and now those who gave him the matches have the fucking audacity to criticise the successor for spending money to try and rebuild it?

[Das Kahlua]

Again, Saudi Arabia is a rather wealthy country. So by your reasoning, that makes their monarchs master statesmen.

Or, it could be that any fucking monkey can balance his cheque book when money basically comes bubbling out of the fucking earth.

Again, just because I've said that I don't think that Palin deserves the attacks she's received, I also don't think that she should be VP, President or anything else close.

To use the example of Saudi Arabia, I don't think that running that country successfully means that a person is qualified for anything beyond that, but they should at least get credit for what they have done. If, continuing the analogy, countries like the UAE, Kuwait and Yemen had all reached the level of bankruptcy that they couldn't even pay their governmental employees, then I certainly wouldn't think it out of bounds to attempt to adopt some of the economic policies of SA, since they clearly had been successful there; in addition, with all the other countries doing so poorly economically, it would put SA's leader in a different light by comparison.

Which he alone is responsible for, obviously.

The sorry state of the US economy was created on the day he was elected, and has nothing to do with a bunch of imbecile fucking cunts - in both parties, mind you - running the country for years beforehand.

I dunno, but the near trillion dollars buried in Iraq for - what exactly, again? - not to mention the additional money you lost by electing a frat boy trying to show off his penis sure would have helped now, now wouldn't it. Or, say, letting a bunch of glorified accountants run wild because a third yacht to them was more important than the state of their nation - and politicians being browbeaten by those fucks into letting them do anything because apparently, regulation = communism.

Bush handed a burnt down house to the next tenants, and now those who gave him the matches have the fucking audacity to criticise the successor for spending money to try and rebuild it?

I never said Obama was completely responsible, but, fairly or unfairly, the President gets the credit for the successes of the country and the blame for the failures, no matter what his level of involvement was.

Say whatever you want about Bush and his wars, you can even go back and talk about George H. W. Bush before him and the first Persian Gulf war if you want, it doesn't really matter. Our debt had been accumulating since the formation of the United States, including all the wars we've ever fought, the New Deal spending, the Great Society spending, all of it added up for President to President. All that debt that Obama accumulated was not done on his watch, and thus he shouldn't be blamed for it. In 6 short months, Obama has already planned to double, triple even quadruple all that accumulated debt in a few short years. He does deserve to be blamed for that.

At any rate, there is a fundamental difference between the inexperience of Obama and that of Palin.

One is smart, the other is the dumbest fucking politician I've ever had the displeasure of hearing. So the media are biased because they show her to be the phenomenally ignorant hick cunt she is, and don't do the same for Obama and Hillary? So they should show how Obama doesn't know who the head of state of any major US ally is? Um, guys, odds are, he DOES know.

Unless I missed some intelligence test that the two of them have taken, you have no idea how 'smart' either of them is, you are basing everything you just said on a combination of how well they speak and how smart the media has told everyone that Obama is. Beyond that, unless you have some inside information, you have no idea how they compare intellectually.

Obama could be the smartest guy in the world and Palin could be the biggest idiot, it doesn't matter. Palin seems at least smart enough to realize that, just like with a personal checking account or a business, a government cannot survive long by spending more money than they take it. That is why her state is solvent and places like California are not. I don't care how smart Obama is, if he doesn't understand this basic fact, I don't want him in charge of our economy.

[Archangel]

Unless I missed some intelligence test that the two of them have taken, you have no idea how 'smart' either of them is, you are basing everything you just said on a combination of how well they speak and how smart the media has told everyone that Obama is. Beyond that, unless you have some inside information, you have no idea how they compare intellectually.

Um, yeah, last I checked, eloquence and knowledge of basic information were pretty common yardsticks when it comes to measuring intelligence.

Obama could be the smartest guy in the world and Palin could be the biggest idiot, it doesn't matter. Palin seems at least smart enough to realize that, just like with a personal checking account or a business, a government cannot survive long by spending more money than they take it. That is why her state is solvent and places like California are not. I don't care how smart Obama is, if he doesn't understand this basic fact, I don't want him in charge of our economy.

Wait, didn't you just say:

Say whatever you want about Bush and his wars, you can even go back and talk about George H. W. Bush before him and the first Persian Gulf war if you want, it doesn't really matter. Our debt had been accumulating since the formation of the United States, including all the wars we've ever fought, the New Deal spending, the Great Society spending, all of it added up for President to President.

Apparently, America has survived rather long without understanding that basic fact.

[Das Kahlua]

Um, yeah, last I checked, eloquence and knowledge of basic information were pretty common yardsticks when it comes to measuring intelligence.

Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. Also, I hear that Stephen Hawkins isn't the most eloquent guy in the world, but he's rather intelligent. I choose to place a slightly higher standard on intelligence than being able to read speeches that someone else wrote off of a teleprompter.

Apparently, America has survived rather long without understanding that basic fact.

We certainly did, but it's starting to catch up to us big time. Irresponsible economic policy is still irresponsible, no matter how long we've been doing it for, especially since, during the campaign, Obama railed against the Republican's "orgy of spending." Now, all he's doing is keeping that tradition alive, big time.

[vasili denisov]

Also, I hear that Stephen Hawkins isn't the most eloquent guy in the world, but he's rather intelligent.

I don't get your point here. Hawking is very, very eloquent. He's able to reduce extraordinarily complicated physics concepts down to a layman level in his books. Palin can't explain her oil policy coherently. Hawking's also one of the few physicists knowlegeable in many cultural areas outside of physics. Beyond that, a physicst must have a clarity in his ideas that a politician can fake; otherwise his theories are disproved or considered unacceptable by others in the scientific community.

[Morfin]

Since this has morphed into the Sarah Palin thread, check out this article which shows that she has a reeeeaaaallly sharp attorney:

Palin attorney decries 'defamatory' rumors

Gov. Sarah Palin's personal attorney issued a statement Saturday denouncing rumors that Palin resigned because she is under criminal investigation and threatening legal action for publishing "defamatory" material about the governor.

Earlier in the day, Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, sent out a statement from Van Flein attacking "false and defamatory allegations that the 'real' reasons for Governor Palin's resignation stem from an alleged criminal investigation pertaining to the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex."

Rumors that Palin steered contracts for the 2003 construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex before leaving office as Wasilla mayor the previous fall, in return for work building her home about the same time, have been around at least since the vice presidential campaign last fall. They've resurfaced on many Web sites this weekend following her abrupt announcement she will resign from office in three weeks.

Van Flein's letter threatening legal action specifically pointed the finger at Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore as "most notably" claiming as "fact" that Palin resigned under federal investigation.

Van Flein, asked why he singled out Moore, said it's because she went on national television and talked about it. Moore was on with MSNBC's David Shuster on Friday, the day Palin said she will resign.

She said she's never seen Palin appear as nervous as she did at the press conference announcing her resignation and "I think she was actually doing damage control for news that's coming up later."

Anchorage attorney Peter Maassen, who last fall successfully defended legislators sued in an effort to stop the "Troopergate" investigation of the governor, said Van Flein would have an extremely hard time winning any legal action.

"If (Palin) is actually a public figure, which clearly she is, there has to be actual malice involved, in my understanding of defamation law. That would be very hard to prove. ... It's a very, very high bar if it is a public figure," he said.

Moore said she always characterized it as rumors and never claimed it was fact. She said she has no idea if Palin is under investigation for the construction of her house or anything else, but that the governor's resignation from office was so out of character it's raising questions about what's going on.

"I haven't defamed the governor, I reported on speculation and rumor in Alaska. ... It's not my rumor; it's been out there for 10 months and the First Amendment protects me," Moore said.

Van Flein wrote that his letter "is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish this defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law."

The New York Times and Washington Post haven't written anything about this, but Van Flein said he believed they were asking questions. "What I've been informed is that they've been interviewing people in Wasilla about this, and have tried to interview the governor's parents about it," Van Flein said.Link (http://www.adn.com/palin/story/853746.html)

I especially like the part where the attorney says he is going to sue the NY Times and Washington Post even though they hadn't written about the rumors.

[Morfin]

There is an interesting Op-Ed column in today's NY Times (here (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/opinion/06ross.html?_r=1&ref=opinion)). It is an interesting exploration of where Sarah Palin would be if she had said "No" to John McCain last year. It does not take a partisan line either way.

And now, seemingly, it’s over. Oh, maybe not forever: she’s only 45, young enough (and, yes, talented enough) to have a second act. But last Friday’s bizarre, rambling resignation speech should take her off the political map for the duration of the Obama era.

One hopes that was intentional. A Sarah Palin who stepped down for the sake of her family and her media-swarmed state deserves sympathy even from the millions of Americans who despise her. A Sarah Palin who resigned in the delusional belief that it would give her a better shot at the presidency in 2012 warrants no such kindness.

Either way, though, her 10 months on the national stage have been a dispiriting period for American democracy.

. . .

Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.

[Archangel]

Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. Also, I hear that Stephen Hawkins isn't the most eloquent guy in the world, but he's rather intelligent. I choose to place a slightly higher standard on intelligence than being able to read speeches that someone else wrote off of a teleprompter.


Yeah, let's totally neglect the fact that one has written several best selling, critically acclaimed books, while the other would be hard pressed to write a street sign.


If partisanship makes you disregard common sense to a point where you're actually trying to defend Sarah Palin's intelligence - something about as easily defensible as Idi Amin's ("who?" - Sarah Palin) philantropy, then I can't help but think that there is something seriously wrong with the two party system.

[redsox39]

One is smart, the other is the dumbest fucking politician I've ever had the displeasure of hearing. So the media are biased because they show her to be the phenomenally ignorant hick cunt she is, and don't do the same for Obama and Hillary? So they should show how Obama doesn't know who the head of state of any major US ally is? Um, guys, odds are, he DOES know.

You can point out any number of flaws with those guys, but if one is stupid, and the other isn't, then focusing on the one's idiocy has got jack shit to do with bias.

But if Obama were to say somethng retarded like "We have 57 states" or any of his other Gaffes...well he is just tired.

Not saying Palin should become a Mensa member, but come on, the free pass given to his ilk is obvious to all except the most feverent Obama fans.

[Archangel]

But if Obama were to say somethng retarded like "We have 57 states" or any of his other Gaffes...well he is just tired.

Not saying Palin should become a Mensa member, but come on, the free pass given to his ilk is obvious to all except the most feverent Obama fans.

No offence intended, but If I spell "fervent" wrong, then everybody assumes that I was distracted, or accidentally hit the wrong key. If you spell it "feverent", then everybody assumes that you don't know how it's spelt properly.

Liberal bias? Or the fact that certain higher standards are warranted for a very good reason?

Your religion will be mocked

Palin's isn't a religion, it's the hash which a bunch of illiterates have made of one. If that's a proper religion, then burning scrap metal is a fighter jet.

[redsox39]

Or the fact that certain higher standards are warranted for a very good reason?


But only if their name is followed by an (R)...

[Morfin]

Wah, wah, wah, RedSox. You're self-pitying is very unappealing.

Wah, Obama is getting a free pass. Wah, Republicans get more scrutiny.

Jesus Christ, give it up. You are like the sport fans who gets comfortable listening to the play-by-play guys for your local team -- homers -- and then when you actually have to listen to a non-biased set of announcers for one of your games claim that the national announcers hate your team because they only talk about how great the other team is.

Give it a rest. Maybe, just maybe, you should compare Obama's coverage not to Bush's at the end of his term, but to Bush's at the beginning. I bet non-biased minds would see that they are/were similar. And that the Democrats were claiming that Bush was getting a "free pass."

[tockit]

But if Obama were to say something retarded like "We have 57 states" or any of his other Gaffes...well he is just tired.
Kind of like when Al Gore said "he invented the internet?"

I guess that somehow made him a scientist, and now he's gotten a Nobel Peace Prize for his Global Warming Work?


Sounds like something out of a Forrest Gump movie...

[atoms]

Are you contending that Al Gore didn't get massive amounts of shit (probably well deserved) for that statement?

I think one could probably argue that that statement maybe even cost him the presidency.

[redsox39]

Wah, wah, wah, RedSox. You're self-pitying is very unappealing.

Wah, Obama is getting a free pass. Wah, Republicans get more scrutiny.

Jesus Christ, give it up. You are like the sport fans who gets comfortable listening to the play-by-play guys for your local team -- homers -- and then when you actually have to listen to a non-biased set of announcers for one of your games claim that the national announcers hate your team because they only talk about how great the other team is.

Give it a rest. Maybe, just maybe, you should compare Obama's coverage not to Bush's at the end of his term, but to Bush's at the beginning. I bet non-biased minds would see that they are/were similar. And that the Democrats were claiming that Bush was getting a "free pass."

Fine. Let's compare two very recent stories.

Gov Sanford of South Carolina
and...John Edwards of North Carolina.

I know you might have a problem remembering the story, but I am pretty sure everyone and and their mom knew about the affair before the mainstream media finally published it...on page 17 of the NY Times I believe. What page was the Sanford story on for a week?

Hell, Obama makes jokes about it.

"The other night, I couldn't sleep, so I rolled over and asked Brian Williams..."
(I laughed)

Sure, there is going to be bias because everyone has one. I think I am pretty middle of the road, but that opinion is not shared here. So maybe it is not intentional. However, I feel that anyone with an ounce of Common Sense could see that Palin came under a million times more scrutiny than any of the Actual Democratic Presidential Nominees...
(not saying it wasn't deserved..but Jesus...she had more reporters up her ass than Obama did! And that was hard to do!)

[atoms]

Sox....do you seriously believe the Sanford story and Edwards are comparable.

Well in some ways they are....but the key difference is timing. Edwards had lost as a presidential candidate....and had a very unclear future. If this had broke in the middle of his campaign it would have been a different, and more covered story. Sanford on the other hand is in the middle of "active duty" and has a moderate amount of buzz about his future as a presidential candidate.

One other thing Sanford had going for him was just the whole Appalachian hike thing. It's like we had this building story. First, we here minor news report about how he has "disappeared". Then he appears and was just hiking. Then it turns out he has a mistress. But not just any mistress, she is an Argentinian, and that's where he had disappeared to. I mean, Hollywood could not have scripted this better.

I think Republicans also get hammered just a tad more, because morality has been part of their message in the last 2+ decades. However, this doesn't hold water as much with Edwards, as I think among Democrats, morality was part of his message too.

So simply....I think Edwards was a has-been when his story broke...and there wasn't this dramatic build-up. But I think if Edwards had been in similar circumstances, the story would have been about as covered (or perhaps even more covered).

Just to prove the point...I don't think the Ensign coverage was that different in the "regular" news than was the Edwards coverage. It was covered more in the political news, because it had more political repercussions.

[redsox39]

. Edwards had lost as a presidential candidate....and had a very unclear future.

Edwards was promised by the Obama Campaign that if he wasn't tapped to be the VP, he would be the AG...not exactly an unsure future. And if his future was still so unsure...how was money still pouring into the campaign coffers to pay for the cover-up?

Pretty sure Mike Huckabee having a love child with a gold digger and covering it up with campaign funds would have been buried too, right?
I am sorry, if Bob Dole had a love child right now with some mistress, and tried to hide it, it would be front page news...and he is out of the limelight.

[Morfin]

No, I don't believe that was true that the greater numbers of reporters went after Palin than Obama or Biden. The number of reporters scouring Obama's life was surely just as great, going back at least to 2007.

The difference is that there was blood in the water and the sharks circled. Notice how they circled when Jeremiah Wright exploded on the scene. No different.

The Edwards scandal would have been many times more sensational if he had been a candidate at the time or if he had been in office. And, more importantly, if he had been a state governor and had disappeared for four days without telling anyone, only to turn up in Brazil (after lying about the Appalachian Trail) with a Brazilian hottie whom he claimed was his "soul mate."

I think you are wrong that the press coverage would have been any less rabid if Sanford had been a Democrat, as opposed to a Republican who had chastised Clinton for an extra-marital affair.

[atoms]

Sox....you are confusing rumors with facts. I can't disprove what you are saying, but neither can you prove it. Sanford's story is not rumor based...so it can be carried more by mainstream media (in spite of it's liberal bias, it still likes those fact things). The A.G. thing too is just a rumor (unless you were sitting in on some Obama meetings that I don't know about). Maybe a likely rumor, but unlike running for office, it isn't happening in the public eye, and is handled simply by him not having any spot in the administration.

As to Mike Huckabee....if it happened now, it would be news because he is a TV personality more than a former candidate. And even after the election, but before he started his show, the story would have had a little more legs, just because it looks like Huckabee has an important role to play in the future of the Republican party, maybe another, possibly more successful, presidential bid. Edwards....two unsuccessful runs....he was done at that level probably. Yes, he might have had a job in the administration, but that isn't quite the same.

As to Dole, I think the story would be front page....as it was for Edwards. But it would not have "legs", meaning we wouldn't be talking about it a week later. Except I think there would be a little curiosity about the chick banging Bob Dole.

[redsox39]

The difference is that there was blood in the water and the sharks circled. Notice how they circled when Jeremiah Wright exploded on the scene. No different.

Can you imagine if McCain's minister/Spiritual Adviser was a White Supremist who says "God Damn America!!" and blames black people for all the problems in the world. And all McCain had to say was "Gee, I never heard any of his hate in the 20 years I went to church there" and it goes away?

Bravo! Obama Campaign for that, for sure.

How he got away with that is a PR miracle...and a double standard, but I digress.

The Edwards scandal would have been many times more sensational if he had been a candidate at the time or if he had been in office. And, more importantly, if he had been a state governor and had disappeared for four days without telling anyone, only to turn up in Brazil (after lying about the Appalachian Trail) with a Brazilian hottie whom he claimed was his "soul mate."
Admittedly, a more sensational story. However, Edwards parading his dying wife around on Oprah and all the talk shows to win sympathy votes and show what a good man he was, all the while banging some blonde bimbo and knocking her up, keeping the baby and paying a married staffer to claim it was his? That is pretty good too...(it lacks the exotic flavor of Argentinia...but still pretty good)

I think you are wrong that the press coverage would have been any less rabid if Sanford had been a Democrat, as opposed to a Republican who had chastised Clinton for an extra-marital affair.

This is where our waters part again, and we will have to agree to disagree since this is not anything we can prove. But I am right. :)

[Archangel]

Man, the media sure swept that Lewinski thing under the rug. If not for that damned liberal bias, we'd know now exactly what had gone down.

[Morfin]

Can you imagine if McCain's minister/Spiritual Adviser was a White Supremist who says "God Damn America!!" and blames black people for all the problems in the world. And all McCain had to say was "Gee, I never heard any of his hate in the 20 years I went to church there" and it goes away?

Bravo! Obama Campaign for that, for sure.

How he got away with that is a PR miracle...and a double standard, but I digress.


I don't understand how Obama "got away with one." The fact that there was less of an uproar over Wright than the hypothetical you provided, has less to do with the press than race relations in America.

America will tolerate Wright's racism against whites, but not the hypothetical McCain white supremacist preacher. This is the same as the blacks being able to call each other ******, but if a white does the same, he is villified.

[atoms]

I agree too that there is a double standard with the Wright reaction. But frankly I'm more for the reaction that happened for Obama. That is, it got scrutinized, didn't seem to truly reflect Obama's views, and slowly we moved on. I would hope I would not get condemned for every crazy belief held by my friends and relatives. And I still have friends who I agree with 90-95% of what they say and do, and take much away from those friendships. But there may be a 10-5% that I don't care for. I might even let them know that, but it doesn't always mean we can't be friends.

So the problem is not in the lack of reaction to Wright (and the reaction was still considerable, though in the end not damning for Obama). But in the overreaction to this hypothetical racist. But, as Morfin said, this is more of a race issue than a party politics issue, except for the fact that there are more blacks in the democratic party, and more whites in the republican party, so there is some mirroring of racial issues along party lines.

[redsox39]

Man, the media sure swept that Lewinski thing under the rug. If not for that damned liberal bias, we'd know now exactly what had gone down.

The sitting president getting hummers in the oval office is an incredible story, no matter the party.

But once again, you bring up the story that only the bible beating dinasaur riders and political sharks really cared about. I don't think anyone really thinks that Ken Star is a hero of any sort here.

[Yelram]

Man, the media sure swept that Lewinski thing under the rug. If not for that damned liberal bias, we'd know now exactly what had gone down.

Thats because you were dumb enough to follow the wrong hand. Ever hear of chinagate? Whitewater? Filegate? Hillary's cattle futures? All of the campaign contribution issues? All of the people around them that suddenly dropped dead or committed suicide. I mean i'm sure the most disturbing thing in the Clinton whitehouse was blowjobs from interns (/sarcasm) If the guy is willing to lie about a blowjob, he'll lie about fucking anything.

Lets take a look at the comparison between the money Bush spent in 8 years, and Obama has spend in his first few months.
http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/wapoobamabudget1.jpg

Can we say order of magnitude? Oh yeah, its all Bushs fault....
http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/comparisonofdiscretionarysavings-thumb.png
Hmmm, and thats after slashing another 9 billion from the defense.

Heres your magical wizard of common sense pondering over the latest financial instrument.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gcA0ZuKGkI8/SevT9DegUaI/AAAAAAAAAgU/X7nLT3ohjno/s400/obama_spending.JPG

[BIG PIZZLE]

That's a nice watch.

[redsox39]

That's a nice watch.

It has built-in reminders 5 times a day to remind him to pray to Allah

/sarcasam