Posted on 10/12/2008 8:04:47 PM PDT by neverdem
David Brooks is taking some heat from doctrine-enforcement agents of the left and right for stating, in an interview with me at that famed redoubt of populism Le Cirque that Sarah Palin represents a "fatal cancer" for the Republican Party...
(Excerpt) Read more at jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com ...
People also laughed at the C student from Eureka College.
I’m just saying.
I didn't have anyone in mind, but she certainly wasn't what I had in mind. Here's the thing, I'm really not trying to offend you, or anyone who thinks like you. I'm just honestly trying to lay my cards down on the table and let it be known that I'm not impressed by this woman. I'm sorry, I'm just not. I'm not impressed by her political experience. God only knows her education left me cold. I'm not impressed with her hokiness. I'm just not impressed period. I know it's now a mortal sin to not like Palin, but sorry, I don't.
Well, let's see here B. I'm a lifelong Republican. I'm a veteran. I'm a father. I'm a grandfather. I'm a McCain supporter. What are you?
Alaska is bigger than Texas!
Alaska has more land than Texas. Texas GDP dwarfs alaskas, and Texas has half a dozen cities with more population than Alaska. Yeah, Alaska has more frozen tundra. Whoop.
Without knowing which other freeper names that you go by, I’m not much interested.
You sure read like a troll and you have since Aug. 29th.
Obviously your definition of troll is anyone who doesn’t like Palin. I can live with that, if that’s the criteria.
I’m sorry, but there’s only one legitimate Freeper/conservative opinion on Sarah Palin. Nevermind that you’ve been posting since 2001; you’re still a troll according to a poster who joined four years after you since you don’t blindly accept it.
What’s ironic is that Palin IS the attempted ‘cure’, but she’s an incredibly WEAK one that doesn’t have the leadership, intellect, or gravitas to come close to ‘curing’ the party. And if elected as VP, she won’t have much power either. One VP is going to turn the GOP around? The same GOP sprinting to socialism, the same GOP that blew their opportunity to govern, the same GOP that gave us the globalist, liberal socialist that is Bush, the same GOP that gives us open-borders, global-warming McCain?
She gives the kool-aid drinkers something to rally around because of the novelty of it.
A man with a BA from Eureka College in Illinois went on to become the greatest president of the twentieth century.
IMHO, Gingrich is the the anti-Palin. The whole renewing America philosophy that he gave birth to was all about detail.
However, and this speaks extremely well of John McCain. McCain is obviously much, much smarter than I am. I would have never thought that his ticket needed something as superficial as I percieve Palin to be, but the cult-like following she’s developed just proves that he was right, and I was wrong.
So it would seem. Ah, well, these things pass. Election years are never pretty. We already dealt with the people who actually thought Duncan Hunter was ahead, so we can ride this one out too. With any luck, she’ll acquit herself admirably of her VP duties, and we’ll select a better candidate in 12.
No hellfire from me. I’m a hillbilly a/k/a redneck a/k/a blue-collar workin’ class a/k/a salt of the earth and I often encounter folks who aren’t comfortable around me because of who I am, and that’s okay, it doesn’t bother me in the least. One thing to bear in mind though, it doesn’t mean that folks like myself and Gov. Palin are unsophisticated, we’re comfortable with who we are and with those around us.
Economics is a far cry from Communications my friend.
DING DING DING DING ....
No more calls, please, no more calls. We have a winner.
Seriously, you have it precisely right. I would add, moreover, that it was the mandarin Acheson, not the former haberdasher Truman, who committed the verbal stumble (omitting Korea from a list of our guarantees) that brought on the Korean War. And it was the deep, wide counsel of the "wise men" in the Kennedy Administration (Averell Harriman, Maxwell Taylor, the Bundy brothers, etc.), and not the Main Street leadership of the Babbitt-like Sen. Bob Taft (R-Ohio) or his successor Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) that took us to Vietnam.
As for what separates the luminary lords of Manor Bush from Babbitts like Taft, it is instructive to remember that the Bush founder/dynast Prescott Bush began life as a shoe salesman in Ohio (Taft's state) who, wanting to get ahead in the world, figured out that the road up lay through Yale University, where "Pressy" managed to "get over" on the fellows of the class that must be deferred to, in consequence of which Pressy eventually became a United States senator from Connecticut -- and George H.W. Bush a legacy Yalie and Bonesman.
Such is that which separates patrician Bushes from proletarian Tafts.
So was Senator Jacob Javits, the New York Republican whose voting record was not all that different from McGovern's.
I'm a McCain supporter
Being a "Republican" and a "McCain supporter" doesn't automatically make you a conservative.
Exactly, and that philosophy inspired one of the greatest landslides we've seen in decades.
The problem with the Republican party is it's done very little to appeal to educated (or even critically thinking) voters. People will say I'm being elitist--which is now the worst possible insult on this site--but Reagan and Gingrich managed to appeal to (among others) these voters without being elitist by effectively articulating compelling, conservative philosophies that anyone could reasonably adhere to.
Since Bush, Republicans have done a terrible job at either communicating or acting on any coherent philosophy, which is why despite Rove's short-term political skill in building a successful coalition, the party's support has collapsed in the past few years. McCain, with his generally populist rhetoric, does nothing to change this. And Palin only further continues the trend.
You can see the same trend in the popularity of conservative media figures like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. They can repeat conservative slogans, but I doubt they could intelligently discuss most issues at a deeper level and explain why the conservative position actually makes more sense, and as a result they do little to convince anyone actually undecided on an issue.
In terms of their personal lives, Gingrich, who was married three times, is most certainly the anti-Palin.
Exactly, which is why these comparisons between Reagan and Palin don’t ring true. Reagan appealed to me. I cast my very first presidential vote for Ronald Reagan. Palin, on the other hand does not appeal to me at all. I remember Reagan, and she’s no Reagan.
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