Posted on 10/30/2008 9:19:25 PM PDT by Saint Athanasius
The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:
He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. Obama and the Runaway Train The race, the case, a hope for grace.
He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.
Read the rest of this dribble if you want...
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
“This woman hates Sarah Palin, plain and simple. ..This is a wonderful election. We are really seeing the worst trash of both sides very clearly in the light of day.” ~ NoControllingLegalAuthority
Yep! bttt
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sarah Palin as Rorschach Test
http://theamericancontrarian.blogspot.com/
The fear and loathing, hate and scorn that Sarah Palin has generated since her meteoric appearance in the political firmament is both fascinating and disturbing; a subject for study by psychologists even more than political scientists or party tacticians. And it can’t be chalked up to mere ideology, since some of the most vicious attacks have come from right-leaning pundits like Peggy Noonan.. and Kathleen Parker.
I tend to write off the sniping from Noonan and Parker as cattiness and envy; there’s a hot new conservative “it” girl in town and they’re old news, as charter members of the conservative cougars club. ...
Sarah Palin was the girl who made cheerleader and got the hunk, while Noonan and Parker headed-up the forensic team and served as president of the School Library Club, determined to prove that they were more than just pretty faces (but secretly hoping they could be as popular as Sarah). ...
That’s a superficial (and somewhat snide) analysis, I know. Obviously, the national reaction to Palin — which swings from adoration to contempt, depending on where in American society one stands — exposes a deeper cultural divide, which Wall Street Journal columnist Dan Henninger takes a laudable stab at explaining, in a piece I’ve pasted below. ..
Hatin’ Palin
By DANIEL HENNINGER
The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot.
The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she doesn’t qualify for admission to the national political fraternity. Boy, that’s rich.
Behold the shabby frat house that says it’s above her pay grade. Congress has the lowest approval rating ever registered in the history of polling (12%!). She isn’t the reason polls are showing people want the entire Congress fired, with many telling pollsters they themselves could do a better job.
Sarah Palin didn’t design a system of presidential primaries whose length and cost ensures that only the most obsessional personalities will run the gauntlet...
Out of this process has fallen a Democratic nominee who entered the U.S. Senate in 2005 fresh off a stint in the Illinois state legislature, with next to no record of political accomplishment. ...
By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either candidate’s governing proposals, the media have created a lot of downtime to take free kicks at Gov. Palin.
My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has compiled a glossary of Palin invective, and I’ve added a few:
“Republican blow-up doll,” “idiot,” “Christian Stepford wife,” “Jesus freak,” “Caribou Barbie,” “a dope,” “a fatal cancer to the Republican Party,” “liar,” “a national disgrace” and “her pretense that she is a woman.”
If American politics is at low ebb, it is because so many of its observers enjoy working in its fetid backwash.
The primary discomfort with Gov. Palin is the notion that she doesn’t have sufficient experience to be president, that Sen. McCain should have picked a Washington hand seasoned in the ways of the world.
Such as?
Here’s an opinion poll question: If as Joe Biden suggests the U.S. is likely to be tested by a foreign enemy next year, who ..would you rather have dealing with it in the Oval Office: ..
My pick? Gov. Palin, surely the most grounded, common-sense person on that list of prime-time politicians. ....
The stoning of Sarah Palin has exposed enough cultural fissures in American politics to occupy strategists full-time until 2012. We now see there is a left-to-right elite centered in New York, Washington, Hollywood and Silicon Valley who hand down judgments of the nation’s mortals from their perch atop the Bell Curve.
It seems only yesterday that the most critical skill in presidential politics was being able to connect to people in places like Bronko’s bar or Saddleback Church.
When Gov. Palin showed she excelled at that, the goal posts suddenly moved and the new game was being able to talk the talk in London, Paris, Tehran or Moscow...
Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Saturday Night Live,” lives on the forward wave of American life. This week he gave his view of Sarah Palin to EW.com: “I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she’s powerful. Her politics aren’t my politics. But you can see that she’s a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she’s had a huge impact. People connect to her.” ...
*
“.... Sarah Palin. You know, unlike Hillary Clinton, she really has built her own political career. She is more of an independent woman than Hillary Clinton ever was. She has done this totally on her own. Camille Paglia, a big Obamaite, and, as you know, I have tremendous respect for Camille Paglia, Camille Paglia said that Sarah Palin’s speech with McCain last week was the best by a woman in US politics that she has ever heard. Paglia said she was reeling, that Palin just might become the first female US president. Now, Camille Paglia is one of the smart liberals, one of the smart Democrats. I will guarantee you there are others ..who see the same thing that Camille Paglia sees, but they have got to try to destroy Sarah Palin to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
“..For all this talk, ladies and gentlemen, about this being a man’s world, take a look at the reaction of men to Sarah Palin. It’s been very positive, has it not? You like Sarah Palin, you like the choice, Snerdley? Snerdley’s one of the biggest sexists you could ever find, and he has embraced Sarah Palin without a single question. And he said it. That is a woman. She is a woman. Not “that.” “She” is a woman. But she is. There’s no question that she is. The only voices against her, all these effeminate men on the left, as they’re sitting there getting their manicures done, sitting there wallowing and whining and moaning, and they’re just trying to impress the feminist women that run their lives. It seems to me, folks, it seems to me like the liberals cannot handle a strong, attractive, independent, self-made lady. They just can’t. They can’t stand it ‘cause it puts the lie to everything they supposedly stand for. Feminism is not about women; it’s about liberalism. Feminism is a mask. Feminism is one of these many tentacles of liberalism that uses women to advance ultra, far-left, radical ideas.
Palin represents everything in a woman the libs used to say they wanted. She has a family and a job. She is self-made. Her husband has a job, but is very much involved in the raising of the kids. She trumps their propaganda with real life. Sarah Palin has lived a real life. No holes in the story. Hundreds of people to vouch for her achievements, her accomplishments, her life. Obama doesn’t have that. The only people Obama has to vouch for him are people he doesn’t want speaking: Bill Ayers, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, wacko priest Pfleger, half-brothers living in huts, “Hut, Sweet Hut,” $12 a year. She has lived an American life, conservative and all. You know, we’ve always said, ladies and gentlemen, that we will support the person based on his/her views. We love Thatcher. We love Jeane Kirkpatrick. The liberals support the women they support because of identity politics and because of liberalism, not because they’re women and not because they have all these so-called characteristics of strong women that they admire. I think, compared to Sarah Palin, I think Barack Obama comes off as a small little man-child. ..”
MORE: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_090208/content/01125113.member.html
Step #1- Quit following false prophets.
"his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. "
Fresh start? Relief?
There are rumblings of "riots" out there, Peggy. That's not a fresh start. That's a step backwards.
sw
Right. There is very little to gain from packing heretics into the wilderness. Although the moderates will argue that the party must broaden its base, enlarge the tent, if it is to make its way back into majority status, I say, we have to find out who we are and what we believe. Then we can fashion a message, find a messenger, and build the majority.
I welcome the events of this election / crises.
These are the times that tell us who has always been there with us and who never was. We will know who we can depend on to support freedom and liberty and who will hide in their homes or even fight against us.
Let the sadness and anger you may feel over these types of betrayals feed a bitter resolve that will warm you through the coldest of winters. In that resolve you will find the tools you need to win this war.
As I read through I came out with one word that applies to both “liberal” and “somewhat conservative” folks who voice such unfounded dislike for Sarah Palin: ENVY
I believe REAL CONSERVATIVES love Sarah for all her great accomplishments during her service to the citizens of Alaska, and especially for all she stands for!
She will have no one else to blame but herself.. she is like the chaff winnowed from the wheat.
Jealousy is very powerful. I expect Noonan is developing a meaningful relationship with her Sarah Palin voodoo doll on this Halloween day. She’s a disgrace.
“announce you are becoming a Presbyterian”
Why foist the bitch on the poor Presbyterians? She’s more suited for Wicca, I think.
Yes. In a way I do agree with you. it’s been hard trying to figure Peggy out lately, but I have always thought her highly convicted to her faith. Which has made not looking deeper at her words confusing to say the least. You have nailed it, as far as I see. Which brings me back to something you said, which I have also said and thought all along too- That the issues have been framed for this campaign by the pollsters before the primary, and have continued with the MSM, to take the moral question off the table early on. The Life issue, the highest moral issue, was thrown under the bus because Obama couldn’t win on it. The Republicans didn’t go there because they have this misunderstood perception of what actually does bind us all together, for the most part, as a nation. Faith. They didn’t have the convictions themselves to stand up fight on that most precious of all ties, the one that ties us to our God. In this short time remaining, I am convinced that if more of the American electorate could only see for example, the video that Eduardo Verastegui has recorded on the graphic horror of abortion, that alone would turn the tide; there is nothing more shameful to see or hear. And nothing more horrible to fear. Nothing.
Anyone who calls her a conservative, including herself, should be smacked.
I don’t know if you two read Peggy Noonan... but she has made me mad this election. Anyway, if you are interested in reading this dribble, I am pinging you...
I always like the Catholic Stuff you two do.
Maybe he can haunt her tonight. The Ghost of Freedom Past.
It’s time for the Journal to hand Peggy her pink slip.
What makes Blackwell an idiot? Any time I’ve seen him, he’s come across as intelligent and cogent.
Lock up the screwdrivers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.