Sarah Palin needs to go far away

[DaShi]

It was clear.

[Straybow]

[Q=Elok;5706967]No, the former makes her merely ignorant, while the latter makes her a dishonest politician like any twelve others. I suspect you misunderstand me; "Bobby's Mom on crack" means "a seriously weird and creepy version of Bobby's Mom, doncha know." I don't mean that Palin is/was literally on crack. If anything, I suspect her tastes run to prescription meds to help her stay perky and chipper and whatnot.[/Q] In other words, you are foolish enough to trust the heavily edited Gibson and Couric interviews rather than recognize them as the hack job they were, and are too eager to join in the shallowest possible criticisms to be taken seriously.

If asked an unscripted question on the Bush doctrine I bet Obama would have given a far less coherent answer. The difference is Obama would have included the Bush Is An Evil Warmonger mantra in his response, and the fawning media would say, "He's a policy genius!" despite the fact he can barely tie his own policy shoes.

But since Palin answered in her own words that extending the fight to address Islamic terrorists elsewhere in the world was worthwhile (demonstrating a clear grasp of the issue) she's mocked for not reciting a formula that those of limited reasoning skill can identify as The Bush Doctrine.

[Straybow]

[Q=Imran Siddiqui;5706461]In addition to being stunning ego centric, even for a political (she wanted to speak on election night?!) and quitting as Governor of Alaska before her term was up for... what, campaigning (way to go for a sense of duty)? She wants to be as much of a celebrity as President Obama is. She's just incredably more stupid.[/Q] She's been interviewed on that. You could actually know the reason for her resignation, but you'd rather preen your own stunning ego. Go figure.

[Lorizael]

It saddens me that in an unfathomably gigantic universe of terrible and awesome beauty where unstoppable atomic processes give rise to a panoply of celestial bodies, we waste our time quibbling over the pressure waves that one set of self-aware cellular hosts of self-replicating complex molecules momentarily uses to perpetuate a confused and arbitrary form of kin selection.

[Drake Tungsten]

The douchiness of that paragraph saddens me.

[Lorizael]

Exactly.

[Elok]

[Q=Elok;5706967]No, the former makes her merely ignorant, while the latter makes her a dishonest politician like any twelve others. I suspect you misunderstand me; "Bobby's Mom on crack" means "a seriously weird and creepy version of Bobby's Mom, doncha know." I don't mean that Palin is/was literally on crack. If anything, I suspect her tastes run to prescription meds to help her stay perky and chipper and whatnot.[/Q] In other words, you are foolish enough to trust the heavily edited Gibson and Couric interviews rather than recognize them as the hack job they were, and are too eager to join in the shallowest possible criticisms to be taken seriously.

If asked an unscripted question on the Bush doctrine I bet Obama would have given a far less coherent answer. The difference is Obama would have included the Bush Is An Evil Warmonger mantra in his response, and the fawning media would say, "He's a policy genius!" despite the fact he can barely tie his own policy shoes.

But since Palin answered in her own words that extending the fight to address Islamic terrorists elsewhere in the world was worthwhile (demonstrating a clear grasp of the issue) she's mocked for not reciting a formula that those of limited reasoning skill can identify as The Bush Doctrine.

Pssht, I didn't even watch those interviews. The veep debates (which were live, not edited) gave me a clear enough picture of her brand of sheanderthal conservatism, and of her distinctive bubblehead charm. Doggone it!

[-Jrabbit]

You betcha!

[Imran Siddiqui]

[Q=Imran Siddiqui;5706461]In addition to being stunning ego centric, even for a political (she wanted to speak on election night?!) and quitting as Governor of Alaska before her term was up for... what, campaigning (way to go for a sense of duty)? She wants to be as much of a celebrity as President Obama is. She's just incredably more stupid.[/Q] She's been interviewed on that. You could actually know the reason for her resignation, but you'd rather preen your own stunning ego. Go figure.

Yes she has been interviewed on it and her answers are entirely unconvincing. It's a completely transparent job to start running for President in 2012. She's a quitter, plain and simple. And an absolute moron as well. She is all that is bad in the Republican Party right now and I do think if she gains any traction at all in the primaries, at the very least Romney and Huckabee will form and anti-Palin coalition (though I don't think Huckabee is that much better).

I love how you completely buy a politician's reasons . Did you give President Clinton the same leeway?

Basically, stop being a complete moron.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Reason (no liberal rag, mind) does it well in its book review of Palin's new book:

http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/19/palin-and-the-conservative-des

The 19th century American writer Henry Adams said the descent of American presidents from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant was enough to discredit the theory of evolution. The same could be said of the pantheon of conservative political heroes, which in the last half-century has gone from Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to Sarah Palin. That refutation may be agreeable to Palin, who doesn't put much stock in Darwin anyway.

You can confirm all this by looking at what the three wrote. Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, made his reputation four years earlier with an eloquent and intellectually coherent volume, The Conscience of a Conservative, which laid out a blueprint for the policies he favored.

Reagan likewise made the thinking person's case for conservatism. Between 1975 and 1979, after he had finished two terms as governor of California, he did some 1,000 radio commentaries, most of which he wrote himself. They were later collected in Reagan, In His Own Hand, which provides the texts of his handwritten manuscripts and proves that, far from being the "amiable dunce" of liberal mythology, he thought hard and clearly about the issues of his time.

Palin? Her new memoir, Going Rogue, fills up 413 pages, but it has less policy heft than a student council speech. Where Reagan dove into the murk of arms control and Goldwater fathomed federal farm programs, Palin skims over the surface of a puddle.

Amid all the tales of savoring the aromas at the state fair and having her wardrobe vetted by snotty campaign staffers, she sets aside space to lay out her vision of what it means to be a "Commonsense Conservative." It takes up all of 11 pages and leans heavily on prefabricated lines like "I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it is" and "If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes."

But the priorities of Going Rogue are striking poses and attitudes, not making actual arguments about the proper role of government. The book is meant to create an image, or maybe a brand—folksy but shrewd, tough but feminine, noble but beset by weaklings and traitors, ever-smiling unless you awaken her inner "Mama Grizzly Bear" by scrutinizing her loved ones.

No one could be more pleased with her than she is with herself. Reading the book is like watching Palin preen in front of a mirror for hours on end, as she tirelessly compliments herself for courage, gumption, devotion to family, and maverick independence.

Who needs policy? In her world—and the world of legions of conservatives who revere her—the persona is the policy. Palin is beloved because she's (supposedly) just like ordinary people, which (supposedly) gives her a profound understanding of their needs.

That attitude used to be associated with the left, which claimed to speak for the ordinary folks who get shafted by the system. Logic and evidence about policy, to many liberals, were less important than empathy and good intentions. Now it's conservatives who think we should be guided by our guts, not our brains.

Palin is the embodiment of this approach, never imagining that knowledge and reflection might be of more value than instinct. When Oprah asked if she had felt any doubts about her readiness to be vice president—which requires the readiness to be president—Palin replied breezily, "No, no—I didn't blink. … I felt quite confident in my abilities and my executive experience and I knew that this is an executive administrative job." (The audience tittered.)

Contrast that with Reagan, who after learning of his victory on Election Night 1980 told his supporters, "There's never been a more humbling moment in my life." Palin doesn't do humble.

You could almost forget that for well over a year, Republicans have ridiculed Barack Obama as lighter than a souffle, an inexperienced upstart who owes everything to arrogant presumption and a carefully crafted image. But Obama wrote a 375-page book, The Audacity of Hope, that shows a solid, and occasionally tedious, grasp of issues.

It is hard to imagine Palin (as opposed to a ghost writer) producing anything comparable. Almost as hard as it is to imagine that modern conservatives would expect it.

Leaders who can think? That's so 20th century.

[Arrian]

*SMACK*

[Drake Tungsten]

That Reason article depicts Palin as more shrewd than I think she really is. Kudos to her if she's actually exploiting the fact that celebrity and branding are now more important to a prospective Presidential candidate than intellectual heft on policy issues, but I think she's really just in it for the money.

[DinoDoc]

I don't think she's actually going to run again anyway.

[Asher]

I'm sure her handlers strategized with strategery, and it wasn't her call.

[Dinner]

Hell, Palin didn't even write most of it and paid a ghost writer to write it for her.