But the most THAT says is that Palin was unaware of LBJ’s performance as Vice-President during the period January 1961-November 1963.
Certainly that’s something I’d expect a well-informed candidate for national political office to know, but not knowing that is a far cry from not being able to correctly answer, “What does the VP do?”
Palin answered that question precisely as LBJ would have answered it in January, 1963. You can’t say her answer proves she’s ignorant about the office without also claiming that LBJ was ignorant about the office.
However, you CAN claim (correctly) that Palin was obviously ignorant about LBJ’s time as Vice-President.
Did LBJ say that’s what the VP did, that that’s what his predecessors did in office? Or was he describing what he was going to try and do in the office and his aspirations?
Your own earlier example shows how absurd your statement is. Applying that, the above quote would have you saying:
You can’t say Calvin’s answer proves he’s ignorant about capital of Poland without also claiming that Susie Derkins was ignorant about the capital when she answered correctly one period before.
Palin made a statement that was patently wrong, and is only “correct” in a very esoteric and nuanced way. There is ample evidence that she did not have this sophisticated analysis in mind. She was, regardless of the relatively obscure trivia of LBJ’s statements and attempts, flat wrong.
This is an example completely in line with the OP–an example of Palin-speak that reveals her ignorance. That she was a broken clock and got lucky does not affect the question of whether or not she was ignorant.
This isn’t a rant. It’s a discussion of *evidence *of the ignorance and/or stupidity of an American politician. To me, that says GD, GQ, or maybe IMHO. But not the Pit. Reporting this post to ask it to be moved again.
LBJ might have observed that she’s right: what the VP does every day is highly dependent on who’s sitting in the oval office. As the joke goes, when Churchill died in 1965, and LBJ couldn’t attend the funeral, someone suggested they send Hubert, and he supposedly replied, “Hubert who?” Hubert Humphrey was LBJ’s Vice-President. [sup]*[/sup]
And LBJ didn’t live to see Dick Cheney’s role as a Vice-President, a polar opposite to LBJ’s own treatment of Humphrey.
So what she’s saying there makes perfect sense to me, and is an excellent answer (except for her idea that as VP she’d want to keep Alaska in a privileged position somehow). But the gravamen of what she’s saying is right on the money: I’d want to know what kind of role the President envisions for his VP.
[sup]*[/sup] As a side historical note, the “Happy Warrior” was absolutely squashed by his role as VP. He was a liberal anti-war guy that couldn’t bring himself to criticize LBJ’s Vietnam efforts. He showed his courage in earlier times by standing up to the bigots in his own party on civil rights as a senator, but his record of backing Johnson to the hilt hurt him in the '68 election and he lost to Nixon.
Yes, and a handful of monkeys is a troop of gibbering idiots, even if they happen to type out “To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles dlsuosxj fsd odsoa …”
Was it a grand soliloquy? Was it insightful? You certainly can’t call the monkeys ignorant without also refudiating Shakespeare!
Just because there is a tortured nexus between her words and LBJ’s views doesn’t diminish the ignorance of her statement—particularly when it’s part of a vast web of such ignorance. The question isn’t whether or not the VP is in charge and what that means, the question is whether or not SP starts from a position of simian ignorance.
I’m sure LBJ would have been describing his own aspirations.
And I’m sure Plain was describing HER own aspirations.
Right. Exactly right. To say Calvin was ignorant, we needd to peer into his mind to see what he was thinking. We can do that, thanks to Bill Watterson. But you can’t similarly peer into Palin’s mind.
Miss Wormwood had to mark Calvin’s answer correct. You have to mark Palin’s answer correct.
This is simply untrue. How is it patently wrong? There are two claims:
in charge of the U.S. Senate
It’s YOU who must rely on nuance to claim this is wrong. Legally, the Vice-President is the presiding officer of the Senate. And legally, he is entitled to show up there every day and bang the gavel. By traditon and Senate rule, this does not happen, but neither tradition nor Senate rule can flout a Constitutional command:
The Constitution clearly says that the Senate’s President Pro-Tem exists to act in the Absence of the Vice President.
So a VP can, if he wishes, exercise his constitutional duty and never give the President Pro-Tem a day in the chair. As a matter of simple word meaning, it’s not wrong to say, “In charge of the Senate.”
…if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes…
John Adams was particularly vocal, advocating for a number of legislative goals as VP. I guess you don’t remember Garret Hobert’s huge, Cheney-like role in the McKinley administration. It’s evident from your remarks that Charles Dawes lived in vain, too, since you evidently don’t recall the contentious matter of the McNary-Haugen so-called “farm relief” bill, passed by Dawes’ vigorous support and ultimately vetoed by Coolidge.
And I’ve mentioned LBJ enough that his example hardly needs reiteration here.
So from a historical perspective, she’s not wrong either.
She is, in other words, PRECISELY in Calvin’s position. She said “Krakow,” and “Krakow” is the right answer. Stop calling it wrong.
Stop calling it wrong. How much more evidence do you need. It’s not wrong. She may have been THINKING something wrong, but she didn’t SAY anything wrong.
Which even you implicitly acknowledge:
If it’s 12:18, and I look at the clock, and the clock say 12:18, THE CLOCK IS RIGHT.
You’re continuing to desperately cling to a painful partisan line.
I’m acknowledging that the broken clock was right. Have at that all you want.
The question wasn’t whether or not she was right. Get over it.
The question was about her ignorance.
That we can’t actually get into her mind is irrelevant–it fits into a massive pattern of similar prattle.
The OP asked for examples of ignorance. This is one of them. In most cases she’s a broken digital clock, a blank void of ignorance. In this special case she happened to be a broken analogue clock. Right, sure, whatever. But ignorant. Painfully ignorant.
I got the impression that she got this idea from someone else. I don’t think she actually read the legislation and came across a caluse and said "Oh My God, they’re going to convene DEATH PANELS!!! I’ve got to tell the American public!!!
I think she was just spouting as fact what she heard someone say in rhetoric.
I don’t know how much of what we saw was ignorance and how much was stupidity. If it was just ignorance, you can fix that. But you can’t fix stupid.
I don’t think Palin will ever run for office again. She will stay right where she is where she can deliver scripted speeches to people even stupider than she is for thousands a pop.
I disagree only with one sentence above. This is NOT one of them. It’s as though you used the 12:18 example to prove the clock was broken. That’s the one example you can’t use. Yes, she’s wrong all over the place. You’ll notice I’m not defending any of those. How could my defense be partisan when I happily concede she’s an idiot?
But not based on this example. Based on this example, she’s right. Pick other examples to prove your point, because this one doesn’t do it.
<hijack>My daughter’s American History class is STARTING at Dred Scott, so they can make it through to modern era by the end of the school year. Somehow, this does not make me feel warm & fuzzy about her history teacher. :dubious: </hijack>