What’s the deal with Sarah Palin?
There is a feeding frenzy regarding Sarah Palin out there. It’s intense and disorienting. It’s also disquieting.
Palin seems like a pleasant woman who would make a nice neighbor. But since when are people qualified to be Vice-President just because they are “nice”?
Tonight I started seeing many comments that extol Palin for having a baby (”Trig”) even though she allegedly had amniocentesis, which indicated that Trig had Down’s Syndrome. It struck me as odd that someone would have amnio when she was planning to have the baby no matter what. In fact, this puzzling point is but one of many strange stories adding up to an intriguing claim that Trig was not actually the child of Sarah Palin, but her grandchild, and that Sarah pretended (but not very well) to be pregnant to cover up for her Daughter Bristol, who was absent from high school for more than five months allegedly because she had mononucleosis. This story is burning up the Internet at Daily Kos. If you venture over there, you’ll need to weigh the evidence presented for yourself, and you can (if you’d like) add your comment to the 1,500 comments already added–a phenomenal amount of comments, given that the post went up only today.
As disputed as the story about Palin’s pregnancy is, there much more to concern cautious voters. Palin is demonstrably anti-science (disputing the human cause of global warming) and her church has tangible connections to dangerous right wing extremists. As P.Z. Myers writes, “The anti-intellectualism is overt. They’re actually proud of their contempt for learning.”
Here’s another concern. Palin has the appearance of a small town mayor, not someone sophisticated. She doesn’t show depth of thought or detailed knowledge of the world around her. Her comfort zone is simple and local. I would very much like to see Palin given as much time as she can fill, to tell us everything she knows about the culture, geography and politics of any country other than the United States. I suspect that she would be out of things to say in 30 minutes. Links are springing up by the dozens on Palin’s strange statements and behavior (Andrew Sullivan has a quickly growing collection). Palin’s story appears to be a facade that is being intensely worked over. She was actually FOR building the Bridge to No where, though she now claims to have opposed the project.
There is much more to be concerned about Palin. I suspect that it’s going to get intensely bad for her within a week. Her story just doesn’t add up.
What most concerns me most, however, is John McCain’s poor judgment. Aren’t there any job qualifications for the office of Vice President? All responsible businesses require special knowledge and experience for demanding jobs. Why wouldn’t McCain demand someone with the requisite knowledge and experience? Palin is a laughable choice for Vice President. Should we start allowing life guards to work as architects? Should we allow window washers to teach medical school? Add this to the list of questions the Press should ask McCain.
I suspect that McCain’s choice of Palin is possible in McCain’s mind because John McCain subscribes to the Grover Norquist school of “starve the beast” when it comes to government. He thinks we’re all better off without government. We’re better off on our own, and the country will somehow run itself. That’s the way it is with many free market fanatics. Therefore, it doesn’t matter who serves as President or Vice President.
Our country can’t run itself, of course. What McCain is revealing by choosing a running mate without meaningful qualifications is that he is actually a nihilist. Or maybe he’s trying to cleverly hand the election to Obama. Or maybe he is pandering to the religious right. Or maybe he is intellectually incoherent.
- What else Sarah Palin didn’t know and why I’m not forgiving John McCain
- McCain campaign: Real journalists will not have access to Sarah Palin
- The twelve lies of Sarah Palin
- “Thanks, but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere” Palin keeps saying.
- John McCain and Sarah Palin continue with their ongoing campaign of lies
Opinions that I earlier expressed right here notwithstanding, I am seeing growing evidence that Ms. Palin was not chosen by Sen. McCain as much as imposed upon him by the Party. And a strange and distrubing thought occurred to me as a result: Is this the Republican Party’s way of telling the world that they are so powerful that they can put ANYBODY up for election and still win? That the desires and demands of the American People and the needs of the United States of American itself are simply irrelevant?
I think McCain reasoning is that the American people voted for Bush because he is a likeable chap. Sarah Palin is his female counterpart. The voters want someone they like. Likeability is an important point when you want to get elected. That was one reason why Hillary Clinton lost. In my humble hobbypsychologist opinion.
Edgar: With the help of the corporate media, I think that the Republicans CAN put anyone into office and they can tear down any contender. They proved last election that they could turn a guy who went AWOL after a cushy assignment into a war hero and they can turn a guy who served honorably in combat into something other than a war hero.
Netroots and other activists are doing everything they can to keep the media somewhat balanced, so that we can have a real election.
I agree totally your concern, though. The Republicans think (arrogantly and perhaps legitimately) that they can rig the media so that facts don’t matter in this election.
FYI– the road that she indicated support for is not the “bridge to nowhere.” The “bridge to nowhere” was a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska across the Tongass Narrows to the island of Gravina ( a sparsley populated island.) Palin said she supported construction of a road from Juneau, Alaska to Skagway, Alaska– this road would connect the state capital with the mainland continent.
See Colbert’s reaction to Palin’s Appointment
http://www.hulu.com/watch/32856/the-colbert-report-fri-aug-29-2008
Consider the success that the GOP has had with unqualified governors of large oil-economy states.
Andrew Sullivan reports that if Palin was vetted by McCain in Alaska, no one in Alaska seems to know of it. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/heckuva-job-sar.html
The questions that immediately rose to my mind regarding the amnio - done at 13 weeks? (very unusual) why? (most pro-lifers I have met do not have amnio due to risk and unnecessary expense). I am also personally acquainted with a woman who claims to have adopted a daughter after her other (teenage) daughter was grown, but the spitting image of this adopted child to her “adopted” mother and sibling is so great that she is obviously the grandchild. I have more respect for a teen mother who is pro life than a grandmother who is pro life but ashamed to have the baby’s true mother acknowledged. I think the whole amnio thing is a lie. A teenager would not be advised by her doctor to have this, and a woman who is pro-life under any circumstance would also not be advised to undergo it. I think the amnio thing was made up as a further shield when the baby was found to have Down syndrome. She could then say, “Wow! I am so pro-life that I even carried a baby to term that I knew would have challenges. I am a Republican star!” I have yet to meet a social conservative who was not hypocritical in their own life, as their standards are near-impossible to meet for the average joe. It is the main reason I think she is not qualified - social conservatives do not represent the majority of their constituencies.
Cindy McCain says that Sarah McCain has LOTS of experience because she has a son who will someday serve in Iraq and because Alaska is close to Russia. Also, Palin “has a great mind.”
Laughable and pathetic. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/31/cindy-mccain-touts-palins-experience-the-pta-and-proximity-to-russia/
One Alaskan does know about her appointment:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/what-is-mccain-thinking-one-alaskans-perspective/
I still think nobody chose Palin, because he wanted to prove something or because he’s after the American people. She got chosen, because she is likeable and therefore electable. You guys think a little bit too complicated and you underestimate the power of likeability. I just know if I walk into a certain internet forum I will hear the idiots make positive/neutral comments or voice a bit of criticism about McCain’s choice, but it will definitely not amount to the same kind of below the belt comments that I read about Clinton. And one big advantage of Obama is his likeability. Without it, he would be nothing. Nothing he had said or done or plans to do would make much of a difference if people did not like him.
These elections are not more than a big show in order to win a popularity contest. You have to be liked so that people will listen to what else you have to say, although that probably doesn’t really matter either.
Proj: I agree with you that Palin looks friendly and that friendliness goes a long way. But her lack of experience, curiosity and ability are nonetheless stunning.
This episode really reflects most poorly on McCain. Good leaders are proud to choose people who are smarter and more competent than themselves. They choose people who will make them look successful.
Poor leaders like McCain are threatened by competence. They surround themselves with people who are incompetent. Grumpy’s examples (in the comment above) come to mind.
By the standards that McCain has set, virtually any hockey mom (or dad) who has served on a PTA is qualified to be the U.S. President. He says Palin, because she is a parent, understands the pressures that American families are facing in these tough economic times. Huh? Once again, McCain displays his utter ignorance of economics: being a parent is microeconomics; leading a nation through tough economic times is macroeconomics. The two have very little overlap. Moreover, there is clearly a gigantic chasm between being able to empathize with your unemployed neighbor, and actually having *solutions* to what many experts are calling the worst U.S. economy since the Great Depression. To that latter point, no evidence yet exists that Palin is any more capable than, say, the guy who delivered the last pizza you ordered. Indeed, McCain tries to play-up Palin’s eye-blink-short stint as governor of Alaska, declaring that she has helped create jobs and strengthen the state’s economy. Um, excuse me, but in a state with a vast surplus of oil, in an economy with skyrocketing oil prices, Palin would have to be a complete imbecile to *not* have a strong state economy.
Further to Erich’s comment above, one of the big concerns we should all now have about McCain is who he would appoint to the many thousands of other government jobs that are presidential appointments. I shudder to imagine another four years with a government run by people as incompetent as those Bush has appointed.
Another way to view the Palin nomination is to consider Christian evangelist Pat Robinson’s television show, “The 700 Club.” The show features long dialogue segments in which Pat — a semi-senile old guy — responds to softball questions that are fed to him by an attractive, much younger woman. Significantly, the woman’s main job appears to be helping to prevent Pat from wandering way off the subject with his answers — so Pat won’t look as crazy and forgetful than he clearly is. Seeing McCain and Palin together, I can’t help but notice the parallel.
Ellis Weiner says, “Heck of a Job, Palie”:
Go here for Weiner’s full post.
From the London Times:
When she made her debut speech on Friday she immediately touted her success in killing off the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere”, which would have connected Gravina Island with Ketchikan international airport, a project that had become a nationwide symbol of the wasteful, pork-barrel spending that Mr McCain has made a cornerstone of his campaign.
Yet in a first unsettling revelation – which the McCain camp will hope does not become a pattern – the Anchorage Daily News reported yesterday that when she ran for governor Mrs Palin campaigned on a “build the bridge” platform. The newspaper, in a reference to John Kerry’s alleged “flip-flopping” in the 2004 presidential campaign, said: “Palin was for the Bridge before she was against it.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4647965.ece
Here’s more on the bridge lie. At her first big national speech, Palin tells a whopper of a lie. Check out oil man Todd’s role in the Palin government, too.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/31/to-serve-for-the-wrong-reasons/
Palin is, indeed, a lot like Bush, Cheney and McCain. There are so many problems with her that it’s hard to focus on anything in particular.
“But her lack of experience, curiosity and ability are nonetheless stunning.”
So what? Did Bush have any of these? He made it, she can do it, too. Or do you guys don’t believe that a woman can do a job as badly as he did?
Palin sets a PZ Myers trap for Dems: This Crunchy Conservative column suggests that Palin’s benefit is to rouse the ire of Dems, who will probably mock her positions, and alienate fence-sitting evangelicals.
Comments to that post suggest that it is not a good sign that courting the extreme religionists is necessary to win an election in a nominally secular country.
In November 2006, then gubernatorial candidate Sarah Palin declared that she would not support an abortion for her own daughter even if she had been raped.
Granting exceptions should the mother’s life be in danger, Palin said that when it came to her daughter: “I would choose life.”
At the time, her daughter was 14 years old. Moreover, Alaska’s rape rate was an abysmal 2.2 times above the national average and 25 percent of all rapes resulted in unwanted pregnancies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-on-abortion-id-oppo_n_122924.html
Do we really want the kind of Vice-President who believes that the end of the world is imminent? Do we want the kind of Vice President who rejects evolution without even understanding what it is?
Thanks to some good digging by Harpers, here are the kinds of things Sarah Palin’s preachers preach:
From an April 27, 2008 sermon: “If you really want to know where you came from and happen to believe the word of God that you are not a descendant of a chimpanzee, this is what the word of God says. I believe this version.”
From a July 8, 2007 sermon: “Those that die without Christ have a horrible, horrible surprise.”
From a July 28, 2007 sermon: “Do you believe we’re in the last days? After listening to Newt Gingrich and the prime minister of Israel and a number of others at our gathering, I became convinced, and I have been convinced for some time. We are living in the last days. These are incredible times to live in.”
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/08/hbc-90003486
As soon as Harper’s published the link to Palin’s preachers’ sermons, the church removed them from the site. What else do they have to hide??
We need a reporter to simply ask Palin:
1) Do you believe that the end of the world is imminent?
2) Explain the theory of evolution.
“2) Explain the theory of evolution.”
If I may be so bold; evolution is not a theory, it is a well-supported scientific fact. Natural selection is a theory.