I’m not sure what to make of this. No amount of dopeslapping or head:desk banging is going to help these people get a clue.
And while I haven’t read Sarah Palin’s book, I’ll wager they won’t get a clue there, either. Listening to the interviews one wonders whether they would be able to read Palin’s book. Most of the kids who work hard to fail my classes look like geniuses next to these people.
And then a horrifying thought bubbles up: Dear God, these people might actually vote! They probably view Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” sequences with astonished looks and great confusion. They can’t tell what’s wrong with the answers, and they miss the humor.
I found this piece at Canadian Cynic (from whom I stole the headline) — he confessed he could only stand just under two minutes of this torture.
For Palin groupies, here are a couple of issues to consider while watching this video:
- While it’s done by New Left Media, it’s astonishing that anyone could find so many babbling idiots at one gathering, anywhere in America. This was Ohio? Yeah, Columbus; I know people in Columbus. I fear for their lives, now.
- Palin has never made any particular defense of the First Amendment, nor of any of the five freedoms it enumerates. When people say she stands for “freedom to speak,” or “freedom of religion,” they are making stuff up.
- “Realness” is not a policy.
- Tax cutting isn’t generally a great policy when people aren’t making enough to pay any taxes at all. Tax cutting contributed to our current mess.
- Socialism is not “giving away money.”
- Obama’s two books do not portray Marxism in a good light. They don’t mention Marxism as a potential path for any American, anywhere.
- “Czar” is a shorter word for a headline than “Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,” or “Special Assistant to the President for Energy Policy.” People who are called “czars” by headline writers do not have any special powers beyond being right when they speak to the president (among many other advisors). The real power is held by agency heads, like the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Treasury. The President’s Cabinet is not a wooden device in which he keeps his dinnerware.
- One may always question motives, but on the issue of Obama’s “liking” the military, consider: He’s appointed many former military people to important positions, including U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, to get good advice from people who know the military well; Obama is the only president since Johnson, maybe since Lincoln, to go meet victims of war as their caskets come back to their families; Obama is the only sitting president ever to visit the graves of victims of a current conflict at Arlington National Cemetery. The lives and welfare of our men and women in uniform has been a singular focus of this president.
- Talk of martial law? Not from Obama. Not in the administration. Not in any agency. Not in Congress. Only in wingnut dens.
- Illegal aliens cannot be naturalized under current law. No illegal aliens are being naturalized. When found, they are being deported.
- Obama is an American citizen; even the courts are getting testy about that, tossing the crazy lawsuits out with harsh comments for people who are so gullibly dumb.
- It’s 700 miles from Sarah Palin’s home to the nearest point in Russia. “Seeing Russia from the backyard” is a figure of speech, and not accurate in any way.
- The Governor of Alaska is not the first defense against any attack from a foreign nation on the U.S., coming through Alaska. The U.S. Air Force has jurisdiction, and still patrols that area, along with satellite and radar surveillance. In an attack, the official role of the Governor of Alaska is to duck and stay out of the way.
- The Governor of Alaska has no special security clearance that no other governor has. I’m not sure that any governor has a security clearance as governor.
- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is not a player in the protection of polar bears, nor any other animal on listed as threatened or endangered.
- No proposal is before Congress to change current law on “partial birth” abortion. Since there is a law on the topic, it would take a new law, passed by Congress, to change current law. Obama can’t touch it without Congressional action. (This is basic civics, you know?)
- Are you afraid of what’s happening in America? After you listen to these yahoos, you may have cause to fear what would happen if their views were to carry an election.
Are people still lining up for lobotomies? Do they directly from the operating table to a Sarah Palin book signing?
We can hope New Left Media edited out all the cogent, intelligent remarks. I have this nagging fear that they didn’t have to edit at all.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/palins-latest-emrogueem-g_b_373453.html
http://www.newser.com/story/75196/palins-john-wooden-quote-actually-from-native-activist.html
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Nick, that’s priceless. Got cites? Got links?
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Then there is the lightness of Sarah Palin herself. Because if she had any intelligence she would have figured out the problem with attributing the following quote to basketball coach John Wooden:
She really should have wondered why is it that John Wooden would have chosen to speak about the sacrifice our grandfathers paid for this land?
Because the quote isn’t talking about any white person’s grandfathers. It’s talking about Native Americans. That’s because the quote is actually by John Wooden Legs, a Native American and a liberal activist. And his grandfather fought at Little Big Horn against Custer. Oh and she gets the quote wrong too. The quote is this:
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Along with my arguments above, another factor in the Baroness’ personality will remove her from the race, early. She really hates to work, to accept the responsibility that goes along with the prizes she seeks.
Take her current drive to be a ‘celebrity.’ Even that requires her to actually follow through on her commitments. The most recent story (from Mudflats, the first source on all things Palin,)
I am beginning to wonder if the real danger she presents is not that she might get nominated or elected, but that whoever the Republicana do nominate will get a pass on whatever his particularly absurd positions are on the grounds that
“At least he’s not Palin.”
(Bad for most of them, but really scary if it’s Huckabee, who has hidden some truly scary craziness behind a mask of ‘nice guy compassionate Conservative.’ (Not ‘like’ GWB, GWB-squared.)
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As I said on a comment at ‘the other Ed’ (Brayton)’s blog, there is almost zero chance that a campaign by the Baroness Munchhausen would make it past New Hampshire, if that. (A 3rd Party campaign might be a possibility.) I read the Alaska blogs, and have been since McCain’s ‘fly-catching’ announcement. (We forget that the announcement was made to take the headlines away from Obama’s Denver acceptance speech — and succeeded.)
There is so much verifiable and verified information ‘up there’ about her, her actions as governor, her ethics violations, her repeated stabbing of allies in the back, etc, as well as the lies that cause me to give her her ‘title.’
(Just this week her former legislative director called her a ‘sociopath’ on Shannyn Moore’s television show — too busy to link right now, I’ll add a link to the whole show later.)
(And there are at least two unsolved mysteries that may be worth investigating — having nothing to do with her family. Her *ahem* rather strange college career — six colleges in five years for a bachelor’s degree — and the fact that it was during her mayorality — and not her predecessor’s — that Wasilla became known as the ‘meth capital of Alaska.’)
The point is that her opponents in the race are professionals, know how to do research, and ‘play rough.’ And other Republican leaders can read polls and can see how unpopular she is becoming — her devoted band of follwers isn’t growing, even before the attacks they would launch, and the majority of Republicans even know say they consider her unqualified.
She’s good at ‘stirring up the base’ but even that is weakening. But even the Republican Party hasn’t reached a level of craziness that would nominate her, even as a ‘sacrificial lamb’ like Dole, Davis, and Alton Parker.
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Nothing to worry about – she will burn herself out before 2012 and her supporters don’t seem to have an attention span long enough to get to 2012.
And when they are out there hunting in out National Forests lets tell them we cut back on Federal Spending and stopped issuing permits.
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Er that should have read “MSNBC Reporter Nora O’Donnell.” Apparently my fingers decided to fumble the typing.
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Jason, MSNBC Nora O’Donnelreporter asked a Palin supporter about Palin’s support of the bailouts during the election.
The Palin supporter had absolutely no clue what the reporter was talking about.
You don’t think that’s a problem?
I’m so incredibly sick of my former party, yes I was a Republican until the Republicans marched further to the right then I thought proper, pandering to the least common denominator…spreading the idea that stupid is good and intelligence is bad that I could barf.
Barry Goldwater all but defined what actual conservatism is. Barry Goldwater, if he was alive, wouldn’t have a prayer of a chance of being nominated by the current Republican party if their souls depended on it. They’d throw him out so fast it wouldn’t be funny.
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Jason, I often note the line Mark Twain wrote into one of the Tom Sawyer books, approximately: “Ain’t we got every fool in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”
And, rather like Nick, I like a close race. I spent a great afternoon with the great Missouri Rep. Richard Bolling, and eventually we got around to discussing the balance of power in the House and Senate, and civil rights, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Bolling said that he thought Lyndon Johnson could have been one of the greatest legislators and presidents ever, but, in Bolling’s view, Johnson didn’t push for change hard enough. Somebody asked him how he could say that, when Johnson had had such great success pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Pell Grants, Public Broadcasting, Social Security boosts to pull aged people out of poverty, and quite a few others. Bolling said, “Did you see the margins those bills passed by?” A few were squeakers, but most of them had 100 vote margins in the House, and would pass the Senate 98-2 or something similar. “When you see votes like that, you know you’re not pushing hard enough.” Bolling said that, if Johnson had pushed harder, he’d have gotten more change. The votes would have been 51-49 in the Senate and 220 to 215 in the House — but that would be a sign that the maximum change was in the bill. One more tweak would have lost the majority.
And then there’s Ed Darrell’s Dan Marriott rule. One year Utah’s First District had an absolutely unbeatable Democratic incumbent, Alan Howe. Howe had about an 80% approval rating among Republicans. So the Republican primary was a scramble among turtles and nobodies. There were five candidates, all of them duds. They split the convention almost evenly, but the two top vote-getters went to the primary, and Dan Marriott won. Marriott was some sort of financial planner, no close relation to the famous hotelier family, and incredibly ill-informed about issues and government. A lamb to the slaughter.
But Alan Howe got arrested for soliciting sex for hire in Salt Lake City. He refused to resign the ticket, and in desperation the Democrats put up another Democrat as a write-in to try to save the seat. Dan Marriott won handily. All across Utah, Republicans who hadn’t wanted to lose a race kicked themselves for letting Marriott have the seat.
For his part, Dan Marriott went farther on the limited gas he got than anyone expected. But he was largely ignored in the House, and when he got anything done it was more because other members were surprised he could talk than anything he said. After five terms he ran for governor and lost badly in the primary.
I never want the other party to nominate the worst possible candidate. Accidents happen, and that idiot might be the winner.
I think Palin is dangerously ill-informed, and wrong on everything she is informed on. We watched Bush nearly destroy education and other good programs in Texas. I think Palin is a lot like Bush, but with less skill, less knowledge, and more malificent intent.
And, frankly, I prefer to have fellow citizens who are up on things and can intelligently discuss events. The people in that video are less conversant on serious issues than serious Alzheimer’s victims I have met.
I laughed when I first saw that video above. But it’s not funny, really. That’s a tragedy waiting to happen. Madison observed that a popular government where the people lack the means to get education and information is either a farce or a tragedy, or both. Madison never conceived of a voting public that is incompetently, and willfully, stupid.
Did you see the Fox News comments? At the moment I’m wondering whether Rupert Murdoch isn’t a greater enemy to the U.S. than Osama bin Laden. No, that’s not a joke.
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Jason, how about I’d rather have an actual republican party instead of a party of intellectual lightweights, conspiracy theorists, religious whackjobs and people who think it’s a jolly good idea for businesses to be able to do whatever they damn well want.
In other words, I want the party of Goldwater back. I want the party of Lincoln back.
Because, Democrat though I am, I think it’s a jolly good idea to have opposing viewpoints and parties.
But sadly, the Republicans seem bent on driving any Republican who can think for themselves or is a moderate out of the party. After all….they’re coming up with a litmus test on how to prove you’re a Republican according to some mythical view of Reagan…that Reagan couldn’t pass.
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Instead of being worried about this, aren’t you happy? When she runs for President, one of two things will most likely occur. Either: (1) she will lose the nomination, but force the Republican nominee to spend an enormous amount of money and effort to beat her, weakening the Republicans in the general election, or (2) she will win the nomination, and, because she alienates the business and libertarian wing of the Republican party as well as most independents and almost all conservative Democrats, her nomination will likely ensure President Obama’s reelection.
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