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Sarah and Her Tribe (New York Review of Books deigns to notice "Going Rouge")
The New York Review of Books ^ | Jan 14 2010 | Jonathan Raban

Posted on 12/23/2009 9:17:17 PM PST by Brugmansian

. . . Desiccated expertise, of the kind possessed by economists, environmental scientists, and overinformed reporters from the lamestream media, clouds good judgment; Palin's life, by contrast, is presented as one of passion, sincerity, and principle. Going Rogue, in other words, is a four-hundred-page paean to virtuous ignorance . . .

Her sarcophagous appetite for flesh and slaughter goes hand in hand with her scorn for vegetarians—more, it seems, because of their presumed social class and education than because of the food on their plates . . .

Palin showed her form in her first big race, in 1996, when she challenged the three-term incumbent mayor of the town, John Stein, who seems not to have known what hit him . . . In Going Rogue, Stein is described as "relatively new to the community." "He wasn't a born-here, raised-here, gonna-be-buried-here type of hometown guy." Those darned wandering Jews . . .

Most people I know, myself included, can't readily follow the algebraic equations that explain the "Keynesian multiplier," which, in its turn, is needed to explain TARP and the stimulus package. Belonging to a tribe different from Palin's, I simply take it on trust as a matter of faith that Paul Krugman, in his columns for The New York Times, is more likely to be right about such things . . .

For Palin, it's simple. The national economy is a straightforward macrocosm of the domestic economy of the average god-fearing family of four. What's good for the family is good for the nation, and vice versa; and the idea that the family should spend its way out of recession is an affront to common sense, conservative or otherwise . . .


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: palin
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To: Psycho_Bunny

I just reacquainted myself with Jonathan Raban by going to his website. A must read is his piece of the Obama Inaugural Speech, where he meanders on for thousands of words, and manages both to say nothing but also to promote the idea that Obama is a brilliant writer on his own (for DREAMS FROM MY FATHER) and the finest orator of his generation. You can’t read this stuff without both getting embarrassed at the fawning tone of subservience, AND the shock of recognition at how much like tabloid gossip so-called intellectual writing has become.


21 posted on 12/23/2009 9:41:42 PM PST by supremedoctrine
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To: Brugmansian

As long as we’re throwing the word “tribe” around, what about David Muneton’s attackers? Were they a “tribe?”


22 posted on 12/23/2009 9:41:57 PM PST by Steely Tom (Obama goes on long after the thrill of Obama is gone)
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To: Brugmansian

“Most people I know, myself included, can’t readily follow the algebraic equations that explain the “Keynesian multiplier,” ...”
“...I simply take it on trust as a matter of faith that Paul Krugman, in his columns for The New York Times, is more likely to be right about such things.”

An immam might be an expert in Islam, yet I would expect him to have no knowlege of God. So too Krugman might have detailed knowlege of the Keynesian system, which would make him less, not more, likely to to be right about all things economic.


23 posted on 12/23/2009 9:44:20 PM PST by Gil4 (Sometimes it's not low self-esteem - it's just accurate self-assessment.)
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To: FoxInSocks

Really? How abstruse and obscure. My dictionary only had it as the stone thingy that holds mummies. I looked it up, even.


24 posted on 12/23/2009 9:45:16 PM PST by Mamzelle (Who is Kenneth Gladney? (Don't forget to bring your cameras))
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To: Brugmansian
Belonging to a tribe different from Palin’s, I simply take it on trust as a matter of faith that Paul Krugman, in his columns for The New York Times, is more likely to be right about such things . .”

That right there is the problem.
Krugman hasn't been right on anything for decades.
Bill O’reilly schooled the clown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUOFTPbxuWA

25 posted on 12/23/2009 9:45:19 PM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: Brugmansian

I can see Ignint from my back porch. And this reviewer is it.


26 posted on 12/23/2009 9:45:24 PM PST by FastCoyote (I am intolerant of the intolerable.)
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To: Ocarterma

Thanks for posting the photo of the old duck.


27 posted on 12/23/2009 9:49:59 PM PST by onyx
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To: FoxInSocks
OK--I found it in a different dictionary than the one I have on my pooter.

Yeech, what a sssnob. A real sarcastic gus, what? What?

28 posted on 12/23/2009 9:50:27 PM PST by Mamzelle (Who is Kenneth Gladney? (Don't forget to bring your cameras))
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To: supremedoctrine
re: You can’t read this stuff without both getting embarrassed at the fawning tone of subservience, AND the shock of recognition at how much like tabloid gossip so-called intellectual writing has become.

What you said.

29 posted on 12/23/2009 9:52:09 PM PST by Mamzelle (Who is Kenneth Gladney? (Don't forget to bring your cameras))
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To: supremedoctrine

Your post was quite well written.


30 posted on 12/23/2009 9:53:57 PM PST by Aria ( "The US republic will endure until Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the people's $.")
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To: darkangel82

Jonathan Raban strikes me as a snooty ‘journalist’ who primarily writes his stuff for the reading pleasure of his fellow faggot journalists.


31 posted on 12/23/2009 9:54:42 PM PST by onyx
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To: Brugmansian
Most people I know, myself included, can't readily follow the algebraic equations that explain the "Keynesian multiplier," which, in its turn, is needed to explain TARP and the stimulus package. Belonging to a tribe different from Palin's, I simply take it on trust as a matter of faith that Paul Krugman, in his columns for The New York Times, is more likely to be right about such things . . .

He admits his stupidity, and that of his associates, right there.

Besides, I can explain Krugman's math right here. It was used by the University of East Anglia's Hadley CRU:

Cheers!

32 posted on 12/23/2009 9:54:58 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Brugmansian

Boy, he used an awful lot of words to get across his simple message, which is, “Anyone who doesn’t think just like I do, and like Paul Krugman does, is ignorant.”


33 posted on 12/23/2009 9:55:40 PM PST by La Lydia
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To: Brugmansian

I think Raban has a crush on Sarah.


34 posted on 12/23/2009 9:56:44 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
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To: matt1234
I’m REALLY going to enjoy watching these effete elitists languish under President Palin.

Spiro Agnew's term for the MSM of his day does come to mind now and then: "An effete corps of impudent snobs." I believe William Safire originated that.

35 posted on 12/23/2009 9:59:17 PM PST by Will88
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To: Gene Eric

More likely Todd.


36 posted on 12/23/2009 10:03:56 PM PST by Snurple (VEGETARIAN, OLD INDIAN WORD FOR BAD HUNTER.)
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To: Brugmansian
What's good for the family is good for the nation, and vice versa; and the idea that the family should spend its way out of recession is an affront to common sense, conservative or otherwise . . .

I've got an idea for you, Raban.

Let's sh*tcan your sorry ass, and then see if your charging a set of breast implants for her, (or a penile implant for him, if you're homosexual, as so many New York "sophisticates" are) and an Escalade for you, while you are unemployed, brings the family finances right around, mmmkay?

There's a little word which is probably above your feeble little mind, since you like to pretend that name-dropping a Nobel Prize winner, in the same sentence in which you admit you cannot follow his work, demonstrates your intelligence.

It's called "empiricism."

And to back it up, here's a quote from a different Nobel laureate, who *finished* his PhD (in theoretical physics) (from MIT) at the ripe old age of 21.

See if you can guess who it is after reading the quote:

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

Cheers!

37 posted on 12/23/2009 10:04:48 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Brugmansian

So she’s a racist, anti-semite, xenophobe Repub imbacile how cliche. What a braindead lib.

Mary Christmas


38 posted on 12/23/2009 10:07:00 PM PST by bray (What ya in for Son? No Health Insurance.)
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To: Brugmansian
at least he read the book.
too bad he didn't read ann coulter's recent column "In Other Words".
39 posted on 12/23/2009 10:08:02 PM PST by stylin19a
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To: Ocarterma
How delightful.
He embodies the gravitas of a christmas goose:

SNIPPET . . When, at 8:01pm, Pacific time, CNN called the race for Obama, we collapsed in one another's arms. Even my dry tear ducts did their job, and, for a few moments, the room swam out of focus. The champagne, whose presence in the fridge I had thought to be ominously bad karma, was opened. No toast. Just "Thank God, thank God, thank God", spoken by four devout atheists. There was little triumph in our emotion, only an overpowering wave of relief that, after eight years of manic derangement, America had at last come to its senses.

Predictable putrid prose from a Seattle sophisticate

40 posted on 12/23/2009 10:11:45 PM PST by skeptoid (You may lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.)
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