My latest KT piece starts out with shout out to the folks who came the VP debate watching party last week before getting down to business:
I watched the U.S. vice presidential debate last Friday morning, Korea time, at a local bar that had been rented out for that purpose. (In a nice show of bipartisanship, the event ended up being cosponsored by the local organizations of Republicans Abroad and Democrats Abroad.)
Both candidates did well. Palin was especially strong on energy issues, which is hardly surprising given her experience as chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and chief executive of an energy producing state. Biden also generally did well, demonstrating his decades of experience in the Senate.
In short, both candidates showed that they are ready to serve as vice president.
However, I could not help but be disappointed by the answers the candidates gave on the current financial crisis in the United States, which threatens to undermine Korea’s economy as well.
As if to prove that I was not pulling the stuff I wrote in that piece out of my ample back-side, the KT graciously printed another piece on the opposite page with a similar theme.
55 Comments
I think your comment about both of the candidates being ready to serve as vice president is a little too kind to Palin. It seemed many of her answers were memorized talking points and she didn’t give many in depth answers.
“Palin was especially strong on blah, blah, blah…”
“Biden also generally did well…”
Nice gentlemanly spin there, Andy.
The way I saw it, Biden blew her away (though she didn’t make a fool of herself).
Joe Klein: Sarah Palin’s “very presence on a national ticket is an insult to your intelligence.”
http://www.time-blog.com/swamp.....acuda.html
Late Night with David Letterman: the Sarah Palin Debate Recap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZsO7dZ__iw
Can we have some objectivity in the next piece? Palin isn’t fit to serve as a lunch lady at her school canteen.
Boooo.
Palin response to 3.;
“Gosh darnit #3 I sure as heck am ready to serve, just go ask those soccer moms out there gee-whiz.”
Why do Korean IPs and US IPs get a French flag when posting? Socialist conspiracy!!
Joe Biden seemed very fluent with facts — especially when he was completely, utterly wrong. That’s his core problem: Joe Biden knows, and confidently explains, many things that simply aren’t true. Plus, he’s an unlikeable ass.
His Constitutional gaffes were really disappointing, since Biden teaches Constitutional law at Widener University School of Law. But then, I’ve already become accustomed to blowhard, phoney Constitutional scholars boldly stating falsities.
Unlikeable ass? Some would say that about you Brendon. (I wouldn’t, though.)
Yeah, when discussing the role of the vice-president, Biden mistakenly referred to Article One of the constitution when he should have said Article Two.
Meanwhile, here is the pearl of wisdom offered by Palin:
Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
Succinct, huh?
They would be wrong. My role is the likeable ass. Anyway, I don’t count baduk’s opinion.
As for which candidate I prefer, though, I’ll take the proven bi-partisan reformer who sounds not-so-swift under pressure (or when edited by a hostile producer) over Slow Joe Biden, who sure sounds smart — until you notice he isn’t.
Personally, I think the Democrats will be wrangling with Sarah Palin in 2012 regardless of who wins this election. She’s got it.
Can you provide detail of him being “completely, utterly wrong” and “his constitutional gaffes”? With just an assertion and no backup you’re no better than wjk.
Palin the “bi-partisan reformer”…I admit that somehow sounds a little sexy. There’s a good porn movie title in there somewhere.
Well gee, considering that to serve in the office of the Vice President is to be nothing more than a glorified chair-warmer, I would venture to say that my dead grandmother isn’t that unqualified… But really, which of these two bozos would we trust with the job of President? The Windbag, or Cheney Jr.?
Palin in 2012? Let’s see, Chuck Hagel, Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, George Will and David Frum are among the many establishment Repubs and conservatives who’ve spoken out against her. The “it” she’s got is widespread condemnation. She’s going to be associated with the failures of McCain from here on out, and I think Bobby Jindal is better positioned to get conservative support than her.
If this election goes to Obama as it looks like it’s going, won’t the Repubs take away from this that divisive fringe candidates like Palin are detrimental to the party? If they don’t get a clue and put up a moderate conservative next time they’ll likely get their collective ass whupped again.
This is a great time for a viable third party in the U.S. to come in and clean house.
http://www.tmz.com/2008/10/03/nailin-palin/
But wait, wouldn’t that mean Palin/McCain loses this election? Weren’t you declaring just a couple months ago that the American people would never elect Obama and that he’d be lucky to get 135 electoral votes? Where’s the McCain landslide you were crowing about all summer?
Democrats can only dream they’ll be wrangling with Palin in 2012. Paris Hilton would be a more formidable intellect to wrangle with. The only skills she’s shown thus far have been reading off a teleprompter, winking, and regurgitating memorized talking points…anything you can train a monkey to do. Or have trained Bush to do in that past. In every instance where she’s had to actually answer follow-up questions or expand beyond her Cliff Notes, she’s been a national joke of a fucking train wreck. And that’s the future of the Republican party…a ditzy, smirking bitch that doesn’t know Hezbollah from Haifa, but goddamn it she loves Jesus and loves her shootin’ some moose. Yeeeeehaw!
The real question is, why are Republicans so anxious to continue dumbing down the party with clueless country bumpkins after the unmitigated abortion of the last 8 years brought to us by their beloved Joe Six-Pack of a president? Were they really ignorant enough to believe that America would buy a Paris Hilton on the ticket this year, after having seen the current President Pauly Shore send the GOP brand name right down the shitter along with their control of the House and Senate?
If President Simpleton’s 22% approval rating, massive losses in party identification numbers, Democratic domination in new voter registrations, 80% wrong track numbers, and a second straight ass-whipping in national elections aren’t enough to convince you that intellect matters, what the fuck will?
Add David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer to that list as well. These people are conservatives, not Republicans. At least they can claim some intellectual honesty in calling a spade a spade.
The army of head-in-the-sand cheerleaders currently rooting on Simple Sarah are the same brilliant crew that cheered on and defended George W every step of the way. It took 7 years for them to throw his retarded ass under the bus, so no one should be surprised if they’re painfully slow on the uptake when it comes to Palin. Of course given their consistent support of W, no one should take them seriously either.
They’re still living in 2001, but instead of worshipping the cowboy hat and brush-clearin’, they’ve gone ga-ga over lipstick and a snow-machine.
From the column:
Common sense would say you’re right. Unfortunately the banking system no longer operates according to common sense. It has, instead become so complicated that few understand how it works.
Many banks no longer own the mortgages they issue. They quickly sell them to a third party that bundles them together into mortgage-backed securities, which are parceled up and sold to investors. Because they no longer had long-term accountability for the mortgages they issued, neither the bank nor the loan officer had any accountability if borrowers defaulted.
At the root of this system-wide breakdown is a lack of direct personal accountability. Companies operate well when promotions and even employment are tied to business results. Banks that uncoupled performance from employee evaluation damned themselves. This financial crisis wasn’t caused by a government policy and I’m not sure that it can be solved by a government policy either. It will take strong reform measures within the business community and there may be a place for government leadership here, but as long as companies try to use tricks to make a quick buck, the system will be vulnerable.
Palin: “Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.” The grammatical retard is saying here that America is imperfect and pals around with terrorists.
At least Bush had entertaining malapropisms. Palin’s garbled syntax would get her a failing grade in a sixth grade English class, leave aside the utter bullshit she’s trying so ineptly to convey.
CNN.com says politely:
what slate.com says more viscerally:
In Biden we have a guy who not only stole Neil Kinnock’s speech, but his life story. A gasbag so confused that he thinks us and the Frogs removed Hezbollah from Lebanon back in some imaginary halcyon era. Yep, a real intellectual, placing 76th out of 85 at Syracuse Law School.
The point is not that either are smart. The point is that smart people don’t go into politics. But Palin resonates with the average sneered-upon flyover-country Joe, unlike Biding-His-Time Biden or the Messiah.
That’s not visceral. This is.
Sorry about that.
Well, it was crazy for Biden to credit the United States and France with kicking Hezbollah out of Lebanon; that never happened. Syria was booted, but not by us — it was a “people power” revolution in Lebanon.
He also was flat-out mistaken about the spending in Afghanistan and Iraq. Biden said that three weeks in Iraq spends more money than six years in Afghanistan, which is completely ridiculous. Yet he sounded so confident.
His entire diatribe about the Dangerous Dick Cheney and the Constitutional role of the Vice-Presidency and whether it’s a legislative or executive function was off-base — Biden didn’t even know which article of the Constitution establishes the office and its functions (which aren’t many, by the way), and he teaches Constitutional law!
Biden is a blowhard, a liar, and an intellectual thief — repeatedly he’s been caught plagiarizing, starting in law school. He’s misappropriated not only others’ words, as Wedge notes above, he’s claimed others’ life experiences as his own.
Meanwhile, Obama seems determined to make sure that nobody ever finds out about his life experiences. Why haven’t we heard from anyone at Occidental College, Columbia University, or Harvard Law School? Why is Bill Ayers just a “guy from the neighborhood”? As was pointed out about Don Draper on an episode of Mad Men recently, “He’s got no people. You can’t trust someone like that.”
Whereas if Palin were to be asked to name an article of the Constitution that she knows about she’d say what?
a) “I’m gonna hafta get back to ya.”
b) “All of them.”
c) “a, an, and the”
d) “I’m a maverick.”
e) “There you go again with that media filtering.”
What’s your definition of “smart,” Wedge?
Barack Obama
* Occidental College - Two years
* Columbia University - B.A. Political science with a specialization in international relations.
* Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joe Biden
* University of Delaware - B.A. History
* University of Delaware - B.A. Political Science
* Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)
John McCain
* United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 of 899
Sarah Palin
* Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
* North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
* University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
* Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
* University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. Journalism
I actually agree to an extent that “smart people don’t go into politics,” mainly because the private sector is more financially rewarding. It takes a massive ego and/or a belief in public service to go into politics.
However…in this instance it’s pretty obvious that the Dems have the edge in the education department. Of course there’s other factors that give politicians value, such as McCain had in an earlier incarnation when he was truly a bipartisan reformer.
As an aside, people would never believe, looking at McCain’s rhetoric now, that he reportedly toyed with joining the Dems in 2001 and running with John Kerry in 2004.
Three observations for ya:
1. Nobody says Barack Obama is not smart. He ain’t half as smart as he thinks he is, though. And we ain’t as dumb, either.
2. If you graduate 894 of 899 at the United States Naval Academy, you’re still one of America’s best and brightest young people. The institution selects very smart people, plus subjects them to a rigorous program where people do fail.
Columbia University and Harvard Law School, don’tcha know, do not — once in, you’re in like Flynn. Nobody fails, and when Obama attended, almost everyone was magna cum laude; in 1999, the Los Angeles Times reported that Harvard Law School was changing its Latin honors policy to remove the “stigma” of NOT being magna cum laude!
3. The Sarah Palin college thing is a crock. Palin having attended five colleges speaks to restlessness and difficulty finishing a degree from a single institution.
There are a whole host of reasons why this is possible, including not having enough money. Most Americans do not finish college at all, and of those who do, a lot of them take five or six years and enroll at multiple institutions. It is crass elitism to say this makes her “unqualified”. What about being a mayor and a governor? Does actual experience count for nothing? If so, let’s just hand all future elections to Harvard Law School.
I myself had credits from five institutions on my diploma when I finished my own B.A. while on active duty in the Navy before I headed off to law school, so I am inclined to give Palin the benefit of the doubt on this issue.
She’s not a lawyer. And she’s not ever taught Constitutional law to future lawyers, something both Barack Obama and Slow Joe Biden have done. They brag about it as if it were one of their superior accomplishments (in Barack’s case, this is a good idea since he has so few other actual accomplishments).
If pressed, though, I’d guess she’s manage to work in both (d) “Maverick!” and (a) “Hafta get back t’ ya”.
Yeah, you’re right. Only lawyers should be familiar with the Constitution (or Supreme Court decisions or newspapers and magazines for that matter). Ordinary citizens like the governors of states need not be bothered with such trivialities.
McCain is intelligent, Palin can’t even speak coherently when she is campaigning sans “media filters,” whatever those are, so I can’t give her the benefit of the doubt. My reply to Wedge was more to address the “smart people don’t go into politics” line. Some smart folks do go into politics.
Also, no one is disputing that Palin has actual experience in office, it’s what she did while in office that is garnering mixed reviews.
Bullshit. Prior to being thrust into the vortex of national party politics, Sarah Palin had an approval rating of greater than 80% in Alaska. The reviews were as good as anyone could ever have hoped, and the “mixed” aspects discovered by the Democrats — like the rape-kit smear — have all been thoroughly debunked.
All they have on her is that she goes to church, and that she’s a rather ordinary, working-class American who has dared to challenge her “betters”. Well, as for me, I believe in America and in ordinary Americans.
Counselor - I mean this with all due respect, please take it as a hesitant intervention from someone who is looking out for your best interests and good reputation - but if you hit the ‘Return’ key a few more times in your writing you’d be nearly indistinguishable from wjk on this thread.
I believe in America
and in ordinary Americans.
BAC speaks the truth.
Mr. Carr, if you were the governor of a state that dispensed $3200 rebate checks to your citizens (from a windfall profit tax on oil companies, you know, the kind Obama also proposed) you’d get a high approval rating too.
As for the church business, I was raised a Catholic, then Protestant, then went to a Pentecostal church where people in the congregation “spoke in tongues,” so I’m quite familiar with evangelical Christianity. I disagree with her views on abortion, and the rest I couldn’t care less about. I don’t like her environmental record as governor, her shallow understanding of world affairs, and as you probably surmised, her abuse of the English language, which indicates to me a mediocre intellect. Also, I’d like to know if she indeed abused her office with this family vendetta thing, but the McCain campaign won’t allow us “ordinary Americans” to find out what really happened.
And my family is working class too. So what?
See? That’s where the likeable part of likeable ass comes into play.
I observe that “ordinary Americans” did not form our government because it takes a unique combination of personal traits to make an effective administrator and leader. It is a bit disingenuous to count such commonality as being a virtue of leadership when people like G.W. Bush have aptly demonstrated that actual Republican leadership consists mainly of placating party ideologues and consolidating power at the expense of the system of values it claims to defend.
The last eight years reminds me more of the drug lord that ends up using his own junk that he sells and burns out on it in a cinematic pyre of glorious decline. The “common American” has enabled this trip in such a mindless fashion that I wonder if it is we Americans that are in need of a benevolent despot rather than the debased and co-opted government that represents big money organizations far better than the “common American” too many claim to defend.
I respect that, but it’s still no reason that those who question Palin’s ability should change their minds. A transcript set such as hers is quite unusual, and just as you can say it speaks to her ‘restlessness’, others can attribute it to a lack of resolve.
With respect, it indicates nothing other than she attended five colleges before getting her degree. And I don’t hold that against anyone. I think sneering at Sarah Palin because she bounced around from college to college, and implying things about her character or intelligence therefrom, is inappropriate — especially so if we’re also being asked to overlook creatures like Dohrn and Ayers and what they imply about the Great Obama’s character and judgment.
That is gracious, yet given your interest in affording anyone benefit of doubt in this regard, why do you suggest that Obama’s record is less than what might appear, due to his having attended schools which have relatively liberal grading policies?
Surely we do not know enough of the Obama’s academic achievements by simply knowing the institutions he has attended to hold that against him. Or, does gracious understanding of one’s academic record only hold when considering the number of schools one’s attended?
‘…not know enough of the Obama’s academic achievements…’
should be ‘…not know enough of Obama’s academic achievements…’ (though I like the mistype
)
Give me a break. Obama’s magna cum laude from Harvard is discussed most often, if not only, when being offered as a specious contrast to McCain’s having graduated number 894 of 899 at the United States Naval Academy. This despite the fact that at Harvard Law School magna cum laude honors were handed out like candy when he attended, while at the Naval Academy all manner of non-academic factors — like maverickitude! and the conduct demerits that go with it, to say nothing of physical-training results and a crooked gig line — go into class ranking.
Neither magna cum laude at Harvard Law School nor 894 of 899 at the Naval Academy mean what they’re being advanced to mean in this campaign.
Y’all talk, but the game is in the 4th quarter. Team Dems is leading, and the clocking is ticking. In such a situation, I listen not to the heckles of the other team; I merely point to the scoreboard.
“In short, both candidates showed that they are ready to serve as vice president.”
The fact that she scrutinized her notes every time Biden was speaking and learned to pronounce “Ahmadinejad” makes her “ready to serve as vice president?”
Living in Korea has apparently caused you to lower your standards considerably.
Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant and the rest of the conservative AM radio crew have been preaching lies for months now regarding Obama’s connection to Bill Ayers. In court, this would be dismissed as being highly circumstantial. The idea that Obama is sympathetic to domestic terrorism fits nicely with the other right-wing fallacy, that he is a crypto-Muslim. And, of course, we also have Michelle Obama as the “angry Black woman”.
During the early days of the civil rights movement, Martin L King, Jr, an ordained minister, was often accused of being a Communist sympathizer. This was during the McCarthy era, where the Red Scare held the same fear-mongering value that terrorism and Islamo-fascism holds today. MLK, Jr’s supposed link to Communism was based upon the fact that one of his associates, a Jew named Samuel Levison, was an avowed Communist.
The attempts of right-wing demagogues to paint Obama as a person with questionable loyalties to America is a similar attempt at character-assassination.
Meanwhile, we have Sarah Palin’s husband, the “First Dude”, who was a member of an organization to have Alaska secede from the Union. Isn’t that an act of high treason?
#10
I’m sure Dick Cheney knows a lot about the new expanded roles of the vice presidency. They should go on a hunting trip together so they could discuss it.
It’s not even an act of low treason. Nor is it criminal in any way, so long as they’re not being stupid about it and stockpiling arms or bombing buildings. It may call into question the loyalties of a person who would have a better than usual chance of serving as President sometime in the next four years, but it’s not treason.
#46
That’s an act of high awesome in my book.
Zonath, President Lincoln would like to have a word with you.
The more pertinent issue is what does this say about Palin’s judgment and character, and ultimately McCain’s judgment in picking her as VP knowing (or more likely being ignorant of) her husband’s association with the AIP? People keep harping on Obama’s acquaintance with Ayers, when I have seen absolutely no evidence that it has any influence on his policies or outlook. None whatsoever. However, don’t you think a husband and wife often influence each other’s beliefs? Since the American people aren’t allowed to know what Palin really thinks about this, because the McCain campaign keeps the media away from her, all we know is that the First Dood belonged to this group and Palin addressed its conventions.
Still, in the scheme of things this is minor compared to McCain’s massive loss of credibility as he sinks to the lowest, crassest form of politics.
Funny, but beyond the facile comparison between Todd Palin and the Civil War, there’s really little relation. Again, this isn’t a group that is actually conspiring to engage in armed rebellion, is it? It’s really not criminal in any way to be a member of a group that advocates secession, so long as the group does not advocate secession through illegal means.
@42,
Surprising that you are focusing on Obama’s magna cum laude in HLS and not on his editor-in-chiefdom of Harvard Law Review. At my law school, that meant something.
In my ideal world, Hillary Clinton would be the president, and she would nominate Obama as a Supreme Court justice, allowing the good man Justice Stevens to finally retire. With luck, Scalia would get tired of being a judge, and Richard Posner could replace him.
So, is Obama a crypto-muslim, crazy Christian, a communist, or a Vietcong sympathizer? Sometimes, I think the end goal of people who sling bullshits like that is to label Obama as schizophrenic.
It blows my mind that people actually think Palin is qualified to be the Vice President. Usually, when someone on a presidential ticket labels a question that one can expect in a high school government/civics class midterm as ‘gotcha journalism’ or ‘media bias’… there’s a bit of a problem. She could have copped out and said “Dred Scott” for Christ sake, and that still would’ve been better.
My initial reactions to Palin pick was “Hmm, governor of Alaska, huh? That’s interesting./McCain didn’t pick her because she’s a woman, did he? That would be really fucking cynical of him…” That quickly turned to “Oh my gentle Jesus. Is this some sick joke he’s pulling?”
I really thought he was going to pick Pawlenty. Just… ugh.
Obama’s magna cum laude from Harvard is discussed most often, if not only, when being offered as a specious contrast to McCain’s having graduated number 894 of 899 at the United States Naval Academy.
I hadn’t heard of McCain’s “low” graduation number until I read it here. And I heard about Obama being Harvard Law Review editor much more than him being magna cum laude.
Naval Academy and Harvard Law are both high achievements for smart people, and I’d heard plenty times of the two senators graduating from those places. I also heard about Obama’s editorship of Harvard Law Review. I think it was added a lot so people wouldn’t think Obama was just an affirmative action admission.
And Obama is a crypto-Muslim. Just you wait. We’ll all be wearing turbans and praying to Allah by the end of 2009. Spring of 2010 at the latest. Stupid Dhimmicrats!
I must say it is interesting that McCain managed such a high score in one of the Nation’s leading tertiary institution for training blockheads.
But really, should we really glorify this old farts failure to do his job properly in a war that was wrong.
Shot down, captured, and failing to escape from a 3rd world nation?
Sumimasen, but if we had more war heroes like this during WW2 we would all be speaking Japanese.
Then to pick this Hussie as a running mate…
Our country is going to hell in a hatbox.