They have professional advisers who tell them what to do. The job of the actual politician is just to be a salesmen.
But you’ve got to look more closely at the people they’ll be bringing into office with them. Little did we know the radical cabal Bush would sweep into office, even though they had all(Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) been writing about their desire to take over the world long before the 200 election.
I just can’t believe she wants to ban all forms of abortion yet she’s a hunting enthusiast and a lifetime member of the NRA.
The two points aren’t totally connected. With abortion, I imagine she would argue that it’s protecting life (or more specifically, human life). Most anti-abortionists consider human life to be sacred, in both religious and non-religious terms. With hunting, the rationale goes that the hunted are lesser animals; they are not on par with humanity and should not be treated as such.
Put all opinions on abortion aside, and let’s just call it killing for this one little thing. To most people, there is a big moral difference between killing a human and killing an animal. The human, because he is of the same species as us, cannot be justifiably killed, except for punishment, as he is the same species and is afforded the same rights to life, liberty, blah de blah blah blah. Animals, on the other hand, are not the same; they are dumb beasts, and we are their betters. Or so the rationale would go.
As for being an NRA member, that’s also not really connected. Most hunters justify gun ownership, in part, to allow them to continue their hobby. There’s also the arguments of self defense, from both intruders and the government.
A better question of supposed hypocrisy would be her stance on the death penalty. While there is some rationale that criminals have lost their rights (which runs counter to the Eighth Amendment in some regards), they are still nevertheless human. That would be a stronger case for pointing out if someone is being hypocritical.
Am I the only one who thinks all these arguments of social conservationism and such to be total bullshit? It is basically a fancy way of saying “We like to continue oppression and supporting lack of options for people who can not travel to other countries”.
Also, just how does Obama have some magical lack of experience? I mean, neither him nor McCain have been president before; and regardless of who wins I think you’re all fucked.
:kissy:
Eden wins. >.>
Yes, Eden would win except for the fact that people don’t attack Obama for not having presidential experience. The experience factor is not based on having been president; it’s based on the fact that Obama has 3 and a half years of national political experience whereas McCain has 25 and a half years of national political experience. It is asserted, then, that McCain understands the intricacies of running a nation, domestically and in the foreign sphere, much better than Obama. That’s what people mean by experience in this election, not some straw man about neither man having been president before.
A better argument would be that experience does not necessarily correlate with a good presidency.
The 984 makes a good point. That’s why he puts a lot of weight into highlighting McCain’s bad judgment (Iraq-economy-voting record) while, so far, the way he’s handled his campaign works for him.
I think there’s a greater discrepancy between being anti-abortion (“pro-life”) because of the sanctity of human life and then sending soldiers to places that don’t really matter to kill and get killed.
Various Palin stuff:
March 2007:
ABM: We’ve lost a lot of Alaska’s military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?
Palin: I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.
Among the reactions:
Alaska State Senate President Lyda Green ®: “She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” (Green is from Palin’s home town of Wasilla.)
Alaska House Speaker John Harris ®: “She’s old enough. She’s a U.S. citizen.”
[Oops!]
Other Alaskan reactions.
It seems the McCain campaign didn’t know (or care) about this: Sitting silent while a guy describes her ® opponent (with cancer problems in her past, just like McCain) as a cancer and a bitch. Ouch. And then she says she’d be honoured if the guy came to hear her talk.
edit: I guess they could call it the pro-life* argument then. It may be consistent if you shrug off people as collateral damage but that’s not really my definition of consistent.
*Limitations apply
The pro-life argument is actually consistent with support for the death penatly or sending troops to war. Unborn fetuses are innocent, but criminals and (if the war is just) enemy troops are not.
I’m definitely not pro-life, though. I don’t believe fetus life can be equated with already-born life, even if the fetus is technically alive.
I just have one quick question: why do you keep saying Obama’s reaction to the Georgian conflict was inferior to McCain’s, Mullenkamp? From what I remember, Obama reacted in a calm, restrained approach, deciding that the matter required more time to analyse instead of just rushing in and immediately condemning Russia.
McCain (again, from what I can recall), sent his officials to Georgia as envoys (which he doesn’t have any real authority to do: he’s not even the official nominee for the GOP yet), said they deserved all the support they can get and was willing to cast Russia as the aggressor in the conflict.
Why was the kneejerk reaction something you consider superior?
Note: I’m sure Obama has since then being more than willing to exploit the invasion, however, I have been busy travelling so I haven’t had much time to check.
I think that Ms. Alaska 1988 won’t be too hardcorein the matters of premarital sex. And she does look quiet hot for a grandma. My babushka looked a lot like Brezhnev.
Every time one of Canada’s higher echelon female elected officials is mentioned, almost immediately, an image of Belinda Stronach in all her splendor appears in front of me.
Hold on… Oh yeah, that’s her poster in my office, and another one in my bedroom.
She could have been Canadian Prime Minister; if only she didn’t drop out of the last Liberal leadership contest, and let Dion and Ignatieff duke it out. Apparently, Belinda decided not to enter the race because of her insufficient knowledge of Canada’s “other” official language. Now her political career is almost over – she wants to run her daddy’s business (Magna Internaional) – and Harper will cream Dion in the next election.
Okay, let’s talk about experience for a minute. Bush served as a governor and ran several businesses. Trent Lott has had years of experience in government - would that make him a suitable candidate for president?
We’re forgetting Strom Thurmond and Tom DeLay.
edit: the more I hear about this chick , the more disturbed I am. She tried to ban books in her town’s library when she became mayor and had her sister’s ex-husband fired from the state troopers when she became governor. She is supped up version of George Bush with her fundamentalist christian ties, with the oil ties to boot thank to her husband.
If half the things posted on Andrew Sullivan’s blog about Palin are true (political and personally-motivated firings, the library matter, Jews for Jesus) then I should have ended this sentence with an ominous ellipsis.
Hey, but she likes the Jeebus, so corruption, pork, a striking lack of serious thought on energy and foreign policy are all good, yeah?
This pick is what happens when literary criticism meets politics.
You must not be digging too much, Sin, there’s a lot more good going on with her than just that.
First of all, there’s just an investigation into whether or not the accusation concerning her brother-in-law is true. That doesn’t mean she did it. Honestly, none of the people in the presidential campaign can really get into an uproar about this; Obama was investigated due to his ties to Rezko, McCain was investigated due to his conduct with the Keating Five back in the 1990’s, Biden stole an speech from a British politician in his 1988 campaign and is being investigated for his dealings with the same credit card company his son lobbies for.
Investigation does not translate into admission of, much the presence of guilt so you shouldn’t say that she had the man fired if the investigation hasn’t really even been finished yet.
The oil ties due to her husband is just mere conjecture; actually, it’s downright silly considering the man quit his job with BP when his wife became Governor in order for there not to be a conflict of interest. This is the woman who gave portions of oil revenue back to her constituents and pushed forward ethic reforms concerning how politicians deal with those oil companies as well as other situations.
Just watch her speech from last night; she said it better than I ever could.
Didn’t Cheney quit his Halliburton job too? Okay, Palin distributed the surplus back, but advocated borrowing for projects when the state already had money.
Looking at the speech, it seems like it’s about five points:
Iraq= A lot of harping about security, but never mention who sent all these troops there (hey, Maverick McCain did that) and that they’re in the wrong place. She doesn’t even mention Afghanistan, which, as far as we know, is together with Pakistani areas the places where the 9/11 culprits are still operating. Not to mention that she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. If Obama did that he’d be toast. But Ms Palin? Not a secessionist, just a “hockey mum”.
Family. Okay. Her opponents don’t have families.
Alaska. Good idea firing the chef and ditching the jet. No mention about the $27 million in earmarks (she’s against them though, she said that) she got in Wasilla or the $22 million debt she accrued. She “opposed” that bridge. About half the budget in Alaska comes from oil earnings, which isn’t the case in the rest of the country. Nice shooting herself in the foot about how she didn’t need no voter surveys because she knew all of them. I hear the U.S. have 300 million citizens.
Obama=taxes/big gov. Guess who spent all these trillions (debt=future taxes) in Iraq (or Halliburton, whatever), without even counting the Bush tax cuts that surely as hell didn’t go to her ordinary folk voters. (Btw it seems like Obama sponsored 800 bills in the Illinois senate).
McCain=Nam maverick. If McCain was such a maverick, she’d not be a VP candidate. Having opposite positions to your party is no big deal when you do 180s to get its nomination. It’s great that McCain survived (and he had balls to deny being released with the rest staying prisoners), but the U.S. lost that war and survived, because they had no reason to be there. He was in Viet Nam, not WW2.
Edit: All in all, it seems like her gist was: We’ll be strong and make do, cutting from the big bad government. That’s our plan for the future.
Mullenkamp: you’re forgetting that her husband took his job back days later so his leaving his job is meaningless. I’m not sure the firing of her ex-brother-in-law is as much the question as the specifics of whether she abused power, along the lines of what the Bush administration did with the firing and hiring of lawyers or the outing of Valerie Plame, which was illegal. The timing of her actions is also extremely troubling as she doesn’t waste time imposing her fascist beliefs on others. Stealing a few lines the late 80s doesn’t mean a whole lot compared to this kind of behavior especially in the context of the rest of the things she did. You’re selectively ignoring the point that I made comparing her past behavior to the unacceptable obstructionist and unethical behavior of the current administration, which you probably won’t even acknowledge.
If you want to go back to the 80s we can start talking about her drunk driving.
edit and are you so stupidly naive as to truly believe that any investigation into something like that will not get brushed under carpet after she was nominated to be McCain’s VP? The irony is that these political strings which she is denouncing is something she will profit from.
I can only sum up my thoughts by saying I find this woman to be highly disturbing in every possible manner.
Are the Republicans seriously calling the criticisms thrown at Palin ‘sexism’?
Seriously?
Didn’t she call Clinton a ‘whiner’ back in March when she was talking about the media’s apparent sexist bias against her?
It kinda looks to me that they’re using sexism as a shield to cover for her faults. Granted, Obama has been accused of using racism for the same. Either way, it’s not right in any case.
It is God’s will.
I am watching Palin’s “God’s will” speech again:
If the Sarah Palin pick suprises you, you haven’t been paying attention these past eight years. From the Justice Department to the CPA to even the State Department, Republicans have shown that they value someone who will shut up and do exactly what they’re told more than someone who knows their stuff. The added bonus that Sarah Palin is cute and has titties is great for if/when she gets called out on something. Just like Monica Goodling.