Posted on 09/26/2008 3:24:39 AM PDT by acsuc99
WASHINGTON -- If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream -- away from Sarah Palin.
To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president -- and possibly president -- is to risk being labeled anti-woman.
Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick -- what a difference a financial crisis makes -- and a more complicated picture has emerged.
As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan's president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)
And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she's had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).
Finally, Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain's running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood -- a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn't make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there. Here's but one example of many from her interview with Hannity "Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we're talking about today. And that's something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this."
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama's numbers, Palin blustered wordily: "I'm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?"
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
The real problem is that that they think they are.
that was Al Gore’s problem. He thought he was so smart that he could micromanage the entire country himself.
OBAMA filibusters, etc. etc. And he's running for the TOP spot.
HE Is Clearly Out Of HIS League.
Dare I mention the "intellectual giants" like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, etc. etc. etc....
Sheesh!
The only “Palin Problem” is that she is not here to seek their “good opinion.”
Oh, and Biden now is the perfect veep choice. Give me a break. Ordinarily I like Parker, but I think she’s been sniffing something with this editorial.
Palin’s strength is that she is not a Washington insider. That has not changed. Moreover, she is in no way, shape or form tied to the financial debacle. Onada and the dems , however, are up to their eyeballs in it. Onada’s response to McCain’s challenge was at best juvenile. I think his “call me if you need me” smarty pants remark will turn out to be his “jump the shark” moment.
Just wait til the VP debate.
Palin will turn the media on their ears.
No, I agree. An advanced degree isn’t a substitute for experience or common sense. I say this holding two, and trust plenty more people w/o advanced degrees or even Ivy League BA/BS degrees than the other way around. Heck, the Dems love to tout Harry Truman... he didn’t even have a college degree!
I’m also with you with Mitt, but Palin was a great choice too, and, if elected, can’t wait for her to absolutely drive the left mad daily. That will be hoot.
And so did Jimmy Carter who was famous for micromanaging everything, including scheduling the use of the WH tennis court.
I’ll accept experience as a tie-breaker. Ted Kennedy has a ton of experience, but very little wisdom and no acceptable principles.
Yes, I’d like her to be more experienced if for no other reason than to show me to what degree she will stick to her principles. There is always that dissonance between one’s beliefs and actions, and I recognize that. I’d feel more comfortable if she had the chance to demonstrate how reliable she is in her implementation of her stated principles would be good. I’m just thrilled that someone who claims to believe in doing the right thing in a conservative manner is involved in the race at all. It didn’t look good prior to August. I view her as our only hope at having a reliable conservative voice somewhere in the Executive Branch.
W.E. Deming used to say that “Profound knowledge must come from outside the system.” All those senators who grew up inside politics and law practice are rarely outside the system. I think Gingrich (with his history background), Thomas Sowell (with his economics background), and several others with non-lawyer backgrounds can introduce interesting changes from outside the system. A different set of models and paradigms, if I can be so cliche’.
Congratulations! I would happily vote for you for Vice President!
“I am not sure what Palin is an expert on.”
Look at her record. You become an expert on what you do. She is governor of Alaska. She seems to have knocked planned natural gas pipeline off a 30 year dead center & cleaned political house, which Washington certainly needs.
I can’t say that I disagree...
Based on her record of actual accomplishments, she appears to be an expert on (just for starters):
Cutting out waste and fraud in government; taking on and defeating corrupt politicians in government; returning budget surpluses to their rightful owners, the people; correctly perceiving and implementing the nature of and solutions to safeguarding Alaska's environment while sensibly developing it's natural energy resources.
What she has really focused on to know the different layers of complexity.
As noted above, As Alaska's chief executive, she has successfully focused on achieving correct, sensible and principled solutions to problems, all of which presented many difficult "layers of complexity". "Res ipsa loquitur" ("the thing speaks for itself").
As mentioned, I see an advanced degree as a proxy, not a must for the type of deep experience I want the POTUS to have.
Do you even know what the term proxy means? Perhaps you meant to leave out the "not" in your sentence, e.g. "a proxy, a must", but even then the term proxy is inappropriate. Or perhaps you meant "prerequisite" or "necessity" or "requirement".
As formulated, however, even if you had used one of these terms your assertion would still be factually and historically wrong, as other posters have noted. As it is, your statement and your argument are nothing more than semantic gibberish.
Palin doesn’t do it for me like Mitt did.
I think I can safely speak for many others here when I say that the details of how Mitt "did it for you" is something we'd really not explore further. You like Mitt - you don't like Palin. We understand completely.
However, the effete, ersatz erudition of many of Palin's detractors has long since ceased to be amusing, and is now merely enervating.
You cannot possibly have a problem with Gov. Palin, Kathleen, when your candidate for president can't even go into Congressional negotiations without crib notes/a tip off. Do you really think that the foes of Putin will hand Obama a sheet with details of Putin's plans? Or that there will be some subversive types in Iran who will forward secret emails of Ahmadinejad before Obama holds high-level talks??
Puh-leeze.
Thank you - you echoed my thoughts about that poster exactly!
I don’t really understand the use of her response about the poll numbers favoring Barry as a negative example. It’s a perfect summation of Barry’s empty suit rhetoric.
And then she breathlessly pleads “do it for the country”.
A strange, strange article.
Sarah Palin is a bugzapper. I can’t find the old bugzapper thread because search is down, but newbies could see how RINOs couldn’t help themselves but be drawn into the bugzapper and get zotted on that thread. This “conservative” reporter and Peggy Noonan are just the latest outed RINOs. Well, not RINOs, but CINOs. Maybe it’s because the Rparty has such a big tent that it allows in AntiConservatives as well as Conservatives.
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