Sarah Palin selected by McCain for VP slot

[JohnRgt 0]

Obama has a lot of skeletons the media won't talk about.

Really? What are they?

O'Reilly, furious about the pass given to Obama by the Press, is airing a personally supervised, 25-part investigation into Obama on Fox. It starts 9/8/08. Given the broadcast's nightly ratings and demographics, this series could have an impact on the election.

[bborg 0]

O'Reilly, furious about the pass given to Obama by the Press, is airing a personally supervised, 25-part investigation into Obama on Fox. It starts 9/8/08. Given the broadcast's nightly ratings and demographics, this series could have an impact on the election.

25-part? I don't like O'Reilly, but I can hardly wait for this.

[JohnRgt 0]

O'Reilly, furious about the pass given to Obama by the Press, is airing a personally supervised, 25-part investigation into Obama on Fox. It starts 9/8/08. Given the broadcast's nightly ratings and demographics, this series could have an impact on the election.

25-part? I don't like O'Reilly, but I can hardly wait for this.

O'Reilly just announced that, because Obama just agreed to go on the Factor tomorrow night, the series will be postponed by a week so they can take this last-minute interview into account.

[Scott A. 0]

In continuing to think about the original question of this thread, one thing the Palin nomination demonstrates is the emotionalism of the Right. I'm so used to observing emotionalism on the Left, that I almost equate the two. The result is that I don't as quickly detect emotionalism on the Right. But I think this is what we are seeing.

It seems that Palin is being almost universally embraced (not just accepted) by the core Conservative base for (many) of her stated beliefs and the story of her life. Conversely, she seems almost universally hated by the Left for the same reasons, which, in a way, further endears her to the Right. She is being attacked and going through the kinds of examinations that, as others have pointed out, have simply not been undertaken regarding Obama. And the Conservative base see her as someone worth defending, for a variety of reasons.

However, the emotionalism comes partly in what the Right is not saying much about. For instance, I haven't heard them address the fact that she uses feminist terms such as "glass ceiling," gives credits to people like Hillary, and, as Vice President, really won't be setting the intellectual agenda. Also, while I think her nomination has been the most major event in this election, it was still a political decision, a calculation based on a need for votes. Given the Conservative base's apparent reaction, it was a brilliant decision.

But also consider how the Conservative base has been "feeling" in the past few months. Once Hillary finally gave up in June, the Obama media blitz began and didn't end until the day after his speech at the DNC. In that time, McCain was ineffective in getting any media attention or saying anything inspiring. Plus, he was never well-liked by the base anyway, and the feeling was probably mutual. The base was demoralized by or, worse, indifferent to McCain, and feared Conservatism was on its way out.

The depth of that demoralization can be measured by the strength of the Conservative base's reaction to and embrace of Palin. The timing of the announcement, right when Conservatives were probably at their lowest, may have had as much to do with the gleeful shock as the person. It's like learning that a diagnosis of cancer was wrong, that you're healthy as an ox. In that state of giddy momentum, they seem quite willing to overlook or write off as "necessary politics" some of the terms she uses or the reality of her role as Vice President.

The fact is that Palin will "serve at the pleasure of the President," who will be McCain. I imagine this gives Conservatives that elusive feeling of "hope" they often talk about. But hope is not a reason or evidence. Obama is learning this now.

Personally, I think Palin projects an intelligent, confident, and competent demeanor. Despite her religiosity, she may be very rational when it comes to problem-solving. If she is, then I would hope she is an influence on McCain. But, I guess we'll see the truth in time.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Personally, I think Palin projects an intelligent, confident, and competent demeanor. Despite her religiosity, she may be very rational when it comes to problem-solving.

So far, that is my impression as well.

After watching her speak, I wrote to a friend, "I was quite impressed. She was real, spunky, witty, forthright, self-confident, ... and feminine. She also seemed to have a strong sense of right and wrong and struck me as a valuer."

It is tragic that some of her values are seriously wrong, but given that she seems to be such a valuer, the odds are they are innocent errors of knowledge.

[Thales 0]

It's like learning that a diagnosis of cancer was wrong, that you're healthy as an ox.

I can tell you right now, it's not that good.

Personally, I think Palin projects an intelligent, confident, and competent demeanor. Despite her religiosity, she may be very rational when it comes to problem-solving.

So far, that is my impression as well.

After watching her speak, I wrote to a friend, "I was quite impressed. She was real, spunky, witty, forthright, self-confident, ... and feminine. She also seemed to have a strong sense of right and wrong and struck me as a valuer."

It is tragic that some of her values are seriously wrong, but given that she seems to be such a valuer, the odds are they are innocent errors of knowledge.

I agree.

I get the impression she is a bit like Rush Limbaugh. She has a mixture of an American sense of life and religious values. The American sense of life is strong in her in that she is a real achiever, but the religious values are having a negative impact. I like a lot about her, but the down side is evident as well.

[KPO'M 0]

I'm watching Giuliani now. It's almost comical, but sad, watching him try to defend Sarah Palin when he knows he's eminently more qualified to be VP than she is. He even had to stoop to the level of claiming her "mayoral" experience was significant, and admitting people in Wasilla "cling" to religion. If there was any doubt that the GOP is still in the control of the evangelicals, Giuliani's disgraceful performance proved it.

[KPO'M 0]

OK, Sarah. Lesson #1. Please learn the correct pronunciation of the country where your son is fighting...

[KPO'M 0]

OK, Sarah. Lesson #1. Please learn the correct pronunciation of the country where your son is fighting...

Now she's on to Trig. A "perfectly beautiful" child. I gather she's a true evangelical from her comments. "Special needs" breed "special love."

[KPO'M 0]

My reaction to Palin's speech is that the pundits are right in that she is a decent speaker. However, it seems that, at least in GOP land, it's once again en vogue to bash the majority of the country that lives in urban areas. Giuliani, a native New Yorker, criticized Obama for being steeped in Chicago politics (as if he's from an environment that's much different). Palin reminded us over and over again how she's a "hockey mom" (whatever that is) from a small town where people "cling to religion and guns." The last time I checked, "Blue states" and urban areas send far more money to Washington than we get back, while "red states" and rural areas, where supposedly people are rugged individualists, take far more from the public dole than they send there. Whether McCain or Palin actually do anything to address this (or give us specifics on what they would do if elected), I'm skeptical.

[Nathaniel Hale 1775 0]

OK, Sarah. Lesson #1. Please learn the correct pronunciation of the country where your son is fighting...

What is the point in criticizing someone's pronunciation? Will you correct her grammar as well?

[Carlos 0]

OK, Sarah. Lesson #1. Please learn the correct pronunciation of the country where your son is fighting...

What is the point in criticizing someone's pronunciation? Will you correct her grammar as well?

All that matters is that she does her job good.

[KPO'M 0]

OK, Sarah. Lesson #1. Please learn the correct pronunciation of the country where your son is fighting...

What is the point in criticizing someone's pronunciation? Will you correct her grammar as well?

It goes to her level of knowledge. Would you vote for someone who mispronounced the United States of America?

[Scott A. 0]

Regardless of who becomes President, Sarah Palin is the winner of this election season.

[B. Royce 0]

Regardless of who becomes President, Sarah Palin is the winner of this election season.

I agree, Scott. She loves honest hard work, she loves her life and she loves America. That in itself puts her above most politicians.

[KPO'M 0]

Regardless of who becomes President, Sarah Palin is the winner of this election season.

I agree, Scott. She loves honest hard work, she loves her life and she loves America. That in itself puts her above most politicians.

I disagree. She clearly loves power, and loves Alaska more than America. Her "family values" leave much to be desired. No wonder why her daughter failed to take her advice. If anyone thinks Bristol is having the child and marrying Levi Johnston of her own volition, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.

Palin's speech tonight was a cynical attack on the urban America who pays for the government's subsidization of states like Alaska who could pay for themselves, but instead choose to live on the public dole (like most "red" states). McCain had a lot of good people to choose from. Too bad he chose an affirmative action hire who appealed to the evangelicals.

[KPO'M 0]

Another thing. If anyone clings to the notion that the media has a liberal bias, he or she obviously wasn't listening to CNN. Palin managed to cast them under her pied piper spell tonight. They were clearly falling all over someone who believes a woman shouldn't be allowed to save her own life by having an abortion (something they wouldn't do if Sarah Palin were Sam Palin).

[ewv 0]

Regardless of who becomes President, Sarah Palin is the winner of this election season.

I agree, Scott. She loves honest hard work, she loves her life and she loves America. That in itself puts her above most politicians.

I disagree. She clearly loves power, and loves Alaska more than America. Her "family values" leave much to be desired. No wonder why her daughter failed to take her advice. If anyone thinks Bristol is having the child and marrying Levi Johnston of her own volition, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.

Palin's speech tonight was a cynical attack on the urban America who pays for the government's subsidization of states like Alaska who could pay for themselves, but instead choose to live on the public dole (like most "red" states). McCain had a lot of good people to choose from. Too bad he chose an affirmative action hire who appealed to the evangelicals.

The "royalties" to the Federal government from Alaskan oil fields are enormous.

We have yet to see any statement of political principles from Sarah Palin, but she has clearly exhibited a strong American sense of life in a way that the cynical, speculative nihilists on the left and those who echo them cannot begin to grasp, as is shown by their constant irrelevant sniping. McCain needed her, not the other way around, which makes the repetitious sneering about "affirmative action" absurd.

I agree with Scott and others that Sarah Palin is in many ways strongly pro-American in her personal values and spirit; it is refreshing in contrast to the supposedly sophisticated, "urban" pseudo-intellectuals who look down their noses at the rest of the country while getting almost everything wrong themselves. Sarah Palin's speech tonight properly dismissed them in a way that was nice to hear and highly unusual in politics. The question for McCain is, why isn't he the candidate for vice president?

But none of them are discussing what they think the proper role of government is, which is the fundamental criterion. As usual we are left with buying time with sense of life to whatever extent that is possible. Sarah Palin is at least raising some major issues, like energy production, with a lot of spunk in ways that Obama and the left don't want discussed -- they have become accustomed to their public opponents being defensive and Sarah Palin is anything but that.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

I'm watching Giuliani now. It's almost comical, but sad, watching him try to defend Sarah Palin when he knows he's eminently more qualified to be VP than she is.

I can't say I noticed that at all. I thought Rudy was terrific. He was clear, witty, and right on target as he shot Obama full of holes with the perfect weapon: ridicule.

He even had to stoop to the level of claiming her "mayoral" experience was significant, and admitting people in Wasilla "cling" to religion. If there was any doubt that the GOP is still in the control of the evangelicals, Giuliani's disgraceful performance proved it.

I guess you missed the joke. That was a sly reference to an Obama's put-down of small-town Republicans at a San Francisco fund-raiser (here) when he said:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Palin's speech tonight was a cynical attack on the urban America who pays for the government's subsidization of states like Alaska who could pay for themselves, but instead choose to live on the public dole (like most "red" states). McCain had a lot of good people to choose from. Too bad he chose an affirmative action hire who appealed to the evangelicals.

If that's all you saw, I think you missed a lot.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Another thing. If anyone clings to the notion that the media has a liberal bias, he or she obviously wasn't listening to CNN. Palin managed to cast them under her pied piper spell tonight.

Apparently, liberal CNN didn't miss it.

[KPO'M 0]

evw, I think this is yet another instance where we'll need to acknowledge our disagreements. Palin is the one who is high on rhetoric but short on substance. She supposedly loves life and this country so much, but wants to force her brand of religious extremism (which has led to a 16-year attack on our constitutional rights by the Clinton and Bush II administrations) on us all. She applaud's Bristol's "choice" to have her baby and marry Levi Johnston (notwithstanding that Bristol had no "choice" at all) but would deny it to all other women.

Plus, contrary to popular opinion, more of us live in the Chicagos and New Yorks of this country than the Wasillas, and more importantly, more tax dollars come from the blue states as well. Lost in all the rhetoric about the bridge to nowhere is that Alaska got all that federal money, anyway. It's just that it was no longer earmarked specifically to that bridge (given Palin and her administration free rein to spend that money on other pork barrel projects).

As for Alaska and all its oil, consider that fresh water is as valuable a natural resource as oil (perhaps more so). Wars will be fought over potable water during the course of this century. No big surprise that arid "red states" like most of the west are pining at the chance to divert Great Lakes water for their pet causes. Of course, water doesn't make for as nice a campaign slogan, so it gets little attention.

We are fooling ourselves if we think that voting GOP will buy us time. The best thing that can happen for the cause of freedom and rational thought is for the GOP to disintegrate and be forced to reconstitute itself along rational lines. It happened to the Conservative party in Canada in 1993. Now a revitalized party has taken power and is delivering sustainable limited government (at least by Canadian standards). Palin represents the evangelical wing of the party, which is the very wing that gave us GW Bush, Sarbanes-Oxley, and the TSA; and the very wing that needs to be purged.

[KPO'M 0]

I guess you missed the joke. That was a sly reference to an Obama's put-down of small-town Republicans at a San Francisco fund-raiser

No, Betsy. I get the joke and the reference to Obama. However, unlike some on this forum, I also can see through Palin's spell and can recognize her for what she truly is. She's an irrational, freedom-hating evangelical who distorts the truth to feed her insatiable desire for power. At least Chicago politicians are blatant in their desire for power. People like Palin are more insidious, and thus more dangerous. The most dangerous people aren't the ones who come across as smart and power-lusting. The most dangerous people are the ones who come across as "folksy" and "humble."

As for Giuliani, he must have been fuming inside at having being forced to defend the "mayoral" experience of someone who ran a town 1/1000th the size of his. Clearly, he relished the fight, but it's equally clear to me he knows he's far more qualified to be VP than Palin.

I fear that in their (mostly justified) fear of Obama, many Objectivists fail to see the true dangers of the GOP in its present form, as epitomized by people such as Sarah Palin.

[KPO'M 0]

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

For the record, I do think Obama was on to something there, even if he didn't fully grasp it himself. Why do people "cling" to religion? Perhaps its because it provides an outlet for explaining away what they perceive to be the injustices of daily life. That's not to say that all religious people are like this. For sure, there are lots of wealthy religious, too. But it is no accident that a lot of people who consider themselves "disadvantaged," from the inner cities to rural areas, cling to religion. In its frenzy to feed upon "Bittergate" the media never really gave this view its proper due.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

[...]

Whoa! Obama said that, not me! Please watch the quoting.