Posted on 07/02/2009 3:25:42 PM PDT by RobinMasters
Oh yes, he went there. We’ve been having a running debate on Twitter this afternoon about Sarahcuda and my contention that criticism of her is verboten among righty blog readers, HA’s included. This thread will be an interesting test case. Most of the heat Kraut takes will be for his contention that “You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you’re running for the presidency.” Didn’t Captain Hopenchange do exactly that? Well, yes and no. Granted, the most memorable line he uttered in 18 months on the trail was “Yes we can,” but he’s done countless policy interviews, debated Hillary 20 times and McCain three, and held numerous press conferences. The TOTUS jokes are fun but The One’s perfectly capable of straying off script when need be. Is Palin? She seems at ease when discussing energy or life issues but the jury’s still out on most everything else, which is why Kraut feels comfortable asserting that she hasn’t (yet) brushed up on national policy the way we all thought she would.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
jla, getting warm, or still cold?
I will never forget how I felt when it was announced that Sarah Palin was McCain's VP pick. I was so ecstatic! I was overcome with so much excitement...I thought: man! He really does want to win this thing! I loved her from the moment she took front-n-center stage in Ohio. I thought she was so much "the real deal." She was one of us...she wasn't the product of elitist inbreeding...she wasn't Ivy league...she was just a down-home, honest-to-God real American...and that's why I loved her so much....just a down-to-earth, one-of-us Americans. All I can say now is "God love her." Thank you Sarah! God speed to you and your family...wherever He leads you in this life. Thank you for risking all that you have endeavored to achieve in your life for the better good of these United States of America. I'm with ya...YOU BETCHA!
I probably should have picked 8%. I don't even think unemployment was at 8% when GHWB's approval rating tanked from a near 90% approval after Gulf War I.
If unemployment is at double digits, as you predict, Obama might not even carry California. You can "shine on" on the public for only so long. When one in ten Americans is out of work (that actually want to be working), that's not a political crisis, that's political immolation.
No way would Obama survive double-digit unemployment in a campaign, no matter how badly the media would shill for him.
If Sarah continues to connect to the people and can show that she has Reagan’s innate understanding of conservative principles, as she seems to have done in Alaska, then she can bring in all the policy wonks later.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Game Over. We have a winner !!
Well that is clear enough, thanks.
I have great hopes for Palin, and would like to think she will show the polish necessary to meet your approval.
All in all, I believe if God is still interested in keeping this country free, she will measure up. I don't see anyone else I trust as much as her, not because of her skill, but because of her heart. Policy people are a dime a dozen, they are for hire, but true character is not for sale, if she begins to fall short there, she will forever be a joke
That's ugly and uncalled for. Maybe you should follow the advice in your own tagline...
Salvation comes about through change in individual lives
Cold. But this is for your eyes only, jla, since I remember you from the old days. IMHO, Palin is fine and would make a good candidate except for the fact she comes off a little ditzy sometimes. This is fixable and I bet she is already boning up on stuff. But you know when somebody asks you about euthanasia, you shouldn’t talk about the kids in North Korea.
parsy, who is ducking for cover!
Important to note, Mara Eliason was the first to bring up the lack of foreign policy experience and Sarah’s unwillingness up to this point to address it by moving a team of advisors to AK.
Fred Barnes agreed with Mara before Krauthammer.
That was yesterday.
My point it is not just Krauthammer, Barnes was on point with this foreign policy from the Neocon perspective - Mara, well she’s an NPR liberal.
I know. I think she can pull it off, too. But the first step in fixing a problem is recognizing you have a problem. And what with all the hero worship she gets from a certain conservative website ...
parsy, who is poking his head out a little bit...
Cheap shot; unfair and I'll add, beneath you to say, parsifal.
For your eyes only I will, with pleasure, repost the Sowell article.
jla, reaching out to those who have doubts about the grand lady of Alaska
"Not One of Us"
Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
If Barack Obama has been the most remarkable phenomenon of the recent political scene, Sarah Palin must be second. The emotional responses to each-- especially by the media and the intelligentsia -- go beyond anything that can be explained by the usual political differences of opinion on issues of the day.
That liberals would be thrilled by another liberal is not surprising. But there are conservative Republicans who voted for Barack Obama, and other conservatives who may not have voted for him, but who are quick to see in various pragmatic moves of his since taking office an indication that he is not an extremist.
Anyone familiar with history knows that Hitler and Stalin were pragmatic. After years of denouncing each other, they signed the Nazi-Soviet pact under which they became allies for a couple of years before going to war against one another.
Pragmatism tells you nothing about extremism. But the conservative intellectuals who seize upon President Obama's pragmatism to give him the benefit of the doubt are obviously bending over backward for some reason.
With Governor Palin, it is just the opposite. The conservative intelligentsia who react against her have remarkably little to say that will stand up to scrutiny. People who actually dealt with her, before she became a national figure, have expressed how much they were impressed by her intelligence.
Governor Palin's "inexperience" is a talking point that might have some plausibility if it were not for the fact that Barack Obama has far less experience in actually making policies than Sarah Palin has. Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.
Governor Palin's candidacy for the vice presidency was what galvanized grass roots Republicans in a way that John McCain never did. But there was something about her that turned even some conservative intellectuals against her and provoked visceral anger and hatred from liberal intellectuals.
Perhaps the best way to try to understand these reactions is to recall what Eleanor Roosevelt said when she first saw Whittaker Chambers, who had accused Alger Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union. Upon seeing the slouching, overweight and disheveled Chambers, she said, "He's not one of us."
The trim, erect and impeccably dressed Alger Hiss, with his Ivy League and New Deal pedigree, clearly was "one of us." As it turned out, he was also a liar and a spy for the Soviet Union. Not only did a jury decide that at the time, the opening of the secret files of the Soviet Union in its last days added more evidence of his guilt.
The Hiss-Chambers confrontation of more than half a century ago produced the same kind of visceral polarization that Governor Sarah Palin provokes today.
Before the first trial of Alger Hiss began, reporters who gathered at the courthouse informally sounded each other out as to which of them they believed, before any evidence had been presented. Most believed that Hiss was telling the truth and that it was Chambers who was lying.
More important, those reporters who believed that Chambers was telling the truth were immediately ostracized. None of this could have been based on the evidence for either side, for that evidence had not yet been presented in court.
For decades after Hiss was convicted and sent to federal prison, much of the media and the intelligentsia defended him. To this day, there is an Alger Hiss chair at Bard College.
Why did it matter so much to so many people which of two previously little-known men was telling the truth? Because what was on trial was not one man but a whole vision of the world and a way of life.
Governor Sarah Palin is both a challenge and an affront to that vision and that way of life-- an overdue challenge, much as Chambers' challenge was overdue.
Whether Governor Palin runs for national office again is something that only time will tell. But the Republicans need some candidate who is neither one of the country club Republicans nor-- worse yet-- the sort of person who appeals to the intelligentsia.
And read this one too:
Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin
I know Maggie Thatcher. The two women have a lot in common.
I think you are right, but then again FDR won three times while unemployment was over 15%
Also actual UE is near 15-16% and rising with no end in sight. i think if we get any recovery, IE Unemployment spikes at 12% in December/January And slowly stabilizes and falls to 9.5% in spring 2011, the MSM will canonize him because he has Green Shoots. Look at what they did today. 467,000 people loose their jobs and and it is good news because unemployment is only 9.5% instead of 9.6%
Doc, I can name several presidential candidates, present and past, both major parties, who I consider less serious individuals than Sarah Palin. Including the incumbent.
Is she a serious Presidential candidate at the moment? No. As such, I agree with Kraut. But, she can be. It is up to her. But she needs to decide soon.
I read both your posts. Thank you. From the second:
Things like that change your mind about a girl. But they also take time, during which she had to turn her instinctive beliefs into intellectually coherent policies against opposition inside and outside her own party. Like Mrs. Palin this year, Mrs. Thatcher knew there were serious gaps in her knowledge, especially of foreign affairs. She recruited experts who shared her general outlook (such as Robert Conquest and Hugh Thomas) to tutor her on these things.
That’s all I said, plus ask a few people to go to youtube and review things. And you’re right. I made up the euthanasia thing. I was still repressing anger about the worms.
parsy, who OK, jla, I made up the worm thing too. There, are you happy.
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