RNATB, on his five-minute mission to seek out new lies and new stupidities…
No, wait. Who needs anything new?
Several posts gave explanations why SP is unread and uninterested in anything outside her monkeysphere. To many people, this is a large sign that she is an ignoramus.
Several posts gave examples of problematic logical and analytical thinking. Another sign.
Several posts gave examples of severe ignorance of basic geopolitical facts, yet another sign.
Miss one or two, perhaps she’ll never make it to Jeopardy! But the overall constellation of overlapping signs of ignorance and inability to absorb new materials creates a fact-based pattern to draw a solid inference. Yes, she’s opportunistic and has the mental acuity to capitalize on her fifteen minutes, but that doesn’t bolster a claim of her intellectual capacity.
Actually, one thing I want to be clear about, I am not a Palin defender. Personally, I do think she is an ignoramus. In fact, the term I usually use for her involves at four to six curse words used as adjectives (the number varies depending on my mood at the time). However, I know exactly why I believe that and what facts caused that belief. I don’t need other people to justify my conclusion with facts, I have already done that.
My complaint isn’t the topic, but that this thread is on the exact same level as if someone posted ‘Help me prove Obama wasn’t born in America’ and got a string people happily providing said reasons. The intellect level on display is the same, as are the logical fallacies. I’m bothered because this is a pre-made conclusion with no proof and a bunch of people desperately trying to justify what was already decided, not by what it is they decided. It’s also rather disturbing that on a board of, presumably, intelligent people that no one seems willing to admit that this is pure intellectual dishonesty.
Well, one would hope history classes in the US would cover this (do not know if you live or were raised in the US).
Granted history is not a big hit with most students and over time if it is not something that concerns you (general “you”) then things get forgotten.
That said you are not running on a ticket to be Vice President of the United States. As VPOTUS one presumes geopolitics is a major part of the job description. Considering North Korea is a nuclear armed state that is bat-shit insane and likes throwing missiles over Japan (a major US ally) among other occasional stunts I would hope whoever is going to be VPOTUS would bone-up on their history of the region…I wonder if she even knew there was a war there with the US awhile back (let’s not confuse her with distinctions of a police action).
I’ve only ever been able to come up with two explanations for that:
1: She didn’t want a Downs syndrome baby, and was hoping to trigger a mishap that would kill him, rather than having an abortion (because abortion is evil!).
2: She wanted to make sure to get back to Alaska before she gave birth, so that when Alaska declares its independence, her son would be a natural-born citizen.
The OP also asked for rebuttals and made the following qualification:
I think the thread title is a somewhat glib way of asking “is my impression of Palin as a moron systematically defensible? What is the actual evidence?” The OP is confessing an a priori bias, asking how defensible that bias really is, and leaving the door open for refutation. The title is glib, but the substance of what’s being requested in the OP is open and fair.
If I went on any of the hundreds of anti-global warming sites and posted a thread asking for proof global warming was wrong, with a brief mention that I’ll also accept proof it may be right, would you consider that open and fair? Or is presenting a question clearly biased towards one viewpoint on a forum not known for having members with a differing view perhaps a debate tactic that may produce a very very biased result?
How about the opposite, then? Can anyone offer evidence of her having a solid, mature understanding of any world or domestic issues? Of leadership qualities other than a superficial charisma? Shodan, whaddaya got for us?
ETA: Never mind, the other thread crossed in the mail.
I am not particularly impressed with Palin’s intellectual chops, myself.
But I don’t agree that her statement about the role of the VP is objectionable.
First, it’s well to remember that her audience (“Brandon”) was a child. Secondly, no less a personage than Lyndon Johnson, former Senate Majority Leader (and thus someone who presumably knew how the system worked) tried to engage in precisely that kind of role as VP.
It’s true that the constitutional duties of the VP are limited to presiding and casting the tie vote, and that even “presiding” is traditionally taken by the President-Pro-Tem (and further delegated to his designates). But Dick Cheney surely showed us that the actual role a VP can have depends a great deal on what his President wants him to do.
So – for those of you hooting over Palin’s foolish answer – was Johnson just as foolish?
Dio just gave the reason the OP is just fine. It is a hypothesis, with a request for evidence for and against. If someone posted a similar thing about Obama, do you think there wouldn’t be any posts giving evidence falsifying the hypothesis? I’d have no problem with such a post, so long as the OP was willing to admit what the preponderance of evidence demonstrates. We haven’t been able to test that here, given the lack of some evidence.
So what is your problem again, besides not reading the OP closely enough?
The only evidence I’d have beyond what has already been given is her college(s) record, which seems to show someone who struggled with not very hard classes at not very good colleges.
No, because Johnson had played that actual role as Senate Majority Leader for quite some time - in the political, not administrative sense. Or are you claiming that LBJ didn’t understand how the Senate worked?
Palin might be viewed as right on this, but only in the way that Chance the Gardener was viewed as being correct.
Bricker, are you seriously suggesting that Palin had your nuanced interpretation of “in charge of” in mind when she made the statement?
Furthermore, what impact does LBJ’s attempts to effect that change in the structure of the body have to do with the accuracy of her statement? Are you seriously suggesting that Palin knew of LBJ’s machinations and was referencing the political dynamic that stemmed from it?
Or was she a broken clock who was right in a technical sense but had no idea what she was talking about?
Look closely enough and you’ll find gaffes and misspoken thoughts from anyone. Look from a good distance and still see more mistakes than clarity, and you’d be hard pressed to maintain the benefit of the doubt that someone that one time had a sophisticated thought behind an otherwise ignorant statement.
Again: either extremely partisan or extremely disingenuous.
Nope. Montreal, all the way. I’ve never been off this island for more than ten months at a time. If, three years ago, somebody had flat-out asked me to summarize the modern history of the Korean peninsula, I’d’ve known about the Japanese occupation prior and during WW2 and the Korean War in the early fifties, but not much about the intervening period in which the peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel.
Of course, my response would have been along the lines of “I don’t have the details on the tip of my tongue, but I can look them up and get back to you promptly.” Such an admission, I gather, is not Palin’s style. In fact, I don’t think it’s common for anyone seeking elected office.
In any case, the woman’s a doof and a tool and Americans are fortunate stupidity didn’t prevail in 2008.