<hijack continuation> she’s certainly going to learn about the Revolution and the years that followed in other classes, and from other sources. Teaching 1850 onwards is a really good idea, in my book, because it’s stuff that may not be covered again (except the Civil War, obviously)>
I was actually waiting for someone to say this.
Gold.
[a little more hijack] Where I went to school, we had U.S. history up to the Civil War in 8th grade, then the Civil War through the Cold War in 9th grade. 10th grade history covered National, State & Local government. After that, you could choose from a bunch of different classes, including Medieval History, World History, Psychology, Sociology, etc.[/I’m done]
Palin IS an idiot. If “the people of Alaska, Republicans, and Conservatives” are so upset that it gets said, they need to grow a thicker skin. She’s a fucking moron.
I recently finished listening to the audio book of Game Change, and was surprised that I came away with a more positive impression of Sarah Palin than I previously had had. She comes off as an astute, clever, and capable politician. At one of her speeches, her teleprompter malfunctioned and was ahead of her speech the entire time - and she never screwed up once.
However, she also comes off as incurious about the world, and so deeply religious that she seems to have accepted the offer of the VP candidacy because it was all part of god’s plan. The idea that people were going to challenge her constantly didn’t seem to have occurred to her, and she fell into a deep depression for part of the campaign because it ended up being so much harder than she expected. (Her son was deploying for Iraq at the same time, which probably had something to do with it as well.) Apparently she made up hundreds and hundreds of flashcards about world politics and events that she carried around with her in giant stacks, essentially cramming for her “finals”.
So I don’t think she’s actually stupid. I’m sure if she cared, she could read some history books and give a perfectly decent explanation of the factors behind the Korean War. But she doesn’t seem to care. Frankly, I would prefer my leaders to not only be smart, but actually knowledgeable and interested in the world around them.
Basically, she’s not dumb. She’s ignorant. And she doesn’t care, because she has faith, which is more important than knowledge. She’s basically the living embodiment of the concept of truthiness.
Palin’s VP answer is about as right as Cliff Clavin’s Final Jeopardy answer, while it is technically right, it is most assuredly not the answer that is needed in the situation. When the student asks what does the Vice-president do, that is not the kind of answer that she should be giving and would almost certainly not get you much credit on a Civics exam.
No matter, there are plenty of other ways to refudiate her intelligence.
That’s what scares me the most. Not that she wasn’t capable of painting a happy face on it, but that she was incredibly over her head. Chrissakes, any person on the Dope could pull that shit off if he put his mind to it. I mean, if you plucked me out of my cushy job in middle-management and said, Jack, you’re running for Vice President this year … I would be fucked without an stack of index cards. Who the hell knows the Prime Minister of Fuckcrackistan of the top of their head?
But it’s the fact that she’s ridden that wave of utter hysterical praying that she didn’t fuck up, into a bumper crop of drooling followers who would eat their own shit if she told them that Obama didn’t want them to.
OK, what’s the answer needed in that situation?
Well, considering Cheney was VP at the time, the correct answer probably should have been “Drink the blood of infants to keep his evil heart beating.”
And now that she’s commanding massive amounts of money for her appearances and speeches, and throngs of adoring fans, and the appearance of being a political kingmaker, she has even less reason to care. She’s playing to a crowd that loves her just-plain-folks image, and the less she comes across as educated, the better it is for her. She won’t go away until the Tea Party goes away.
I think she appeals to people who believe, like she does, that faith in god’s will is more important than facts from books. The Dope tends to have a low opinion of these people, but there are a lot of them and they have political power. Denigrating them as morons and idiots isn’t going to help, IMHO.
Neither is anything else. You can’t reason with people who reject reason.
But maybe if we weren’t all so quick to fling insults, we wouldn’t have such a fucked up political environment.
I know, it’s a fantasy. And I’m a hypocrite, I had to ban myself from Facebook for a few fays back when health care reform passed because I couldn’t refrain from having an online screaming match with a Teabagger friend.
That also is not what she said.
She didn’t “not know what reading material” she herself read, she sniped out an answer based on Kouric’s snarky question. If someone asked you a question which implied that you didn’t read, would you innocently spout your top 5? I wouldn’t, I’d tell them to sit on it and spin. But you can’t do that on nat’l TV as a VP candidate can you?
HOWEVER, She’s spent the last 18 months becoming more and more immature and whiny, and I’m heartily SORRY that she ran for VP. She is not who she once was, or at least what she once worked hard at. She saw that old spotlight and went purely BONKERS. I wish now that she’d stayed governor. And yes, she WAS doing things that most of us wanted done before she lost her mind and went after the public spotlight. Some of the policies she set in motion are still being supported.
“Troopergate?” if she “overstepped her boundaries” she didn’t go far enough, the man is a public menace and should be locked up. We have a lot of excellent troopers and police up here, but there is a lot of corruption as well, particularly in the State Troopers. There’s NOTHING wrong with what she did there.
At any rate many of the “facts” that people use to call her moronic aren’t either untrue, or not proof of idiocy.
Down homey sayings that are dorky aren’t moronic. Silly maybe, but not proof of idiocy.
Policies and beliefs that don’t agree with others’ policies and beliefs is also not proof one is “moronic”. Wrong perhaps, but if wrong = moronic then every human on earth has been, or is moronic.
Not knowing all facts about every subject, also doesn’t constitute “moron”.
Not even saying stupid things makes one a moron. If it does, each and every one of us is a moron. Saying stupid things on a national level? Shortsighted, immature, and arrogant. I mean after all, what about Obama’s 57 states and so on and so forth?
She’s not going to run for office, not even as dog catcher, she’s going to continue to be the guest speaker/journalist wannabe she turned into almost immediately after the election, so I don’t get where all THAT scaredy-cat nonsense is coming from. She’s DONE already, she’s turned into a ridiculous caricature, even of her former self, but certainly into a snake oil salesman, chatty cathy, avon lady kind of semi-lebrity. Why does anyone even care anymore?
I agree with you. Like I said above, I don’t think Sarah Palin is a moron, or stupid at all. She is, however, not knowledgeable enough about world events or politics to be the second in command of the country. I don’t think that’s a major insult. Most of us fit into that category. I’d be fucked if I were asked some of the questions reporters asked her, and I’ve actually taken graduate level courses called Foreign Policy and International Security. I’d like to have a VP who doesn’t need a flashcard to understand why there are two Koreas, you know? It bothers me that a lot of people seem to excuse her ignorance by saying “well, hell, I wouldn’t know that either.”
BTW, here is the original statement about Alaska’s proximity to Russia, complete with context:
I don’t think it’s that stupid or bad of a point, actually. She’s just saying that Russia is close to Alaska and it’s important to maintain good relations with a neighboring country. I don’t think she’s saying that the proximity gives her any special knowledge of Russia, although it looks like Charlie Gibson tried to get her to say something to that effect.
Where is the snark? 
Of course, the thread most in solidarity with the correct people’s view on this, that’s the one that goes to the Pit. But one about proving the silly twat’s worthy of presidential power, that one goes behind the velvet rope, where they hold petit bourgeois “debates” about bacon salt and lolcatz.
Pretty clear whats going on here.
Hey, luci, can we not use misogynistic language, please?
eta: or am I being whooshed? Sometimes it’s hard to tell with you, dude. 
That’s exactly what she said. She gave that answer in direct response to a question about what she knew about foreign policy, then reiterated it it when she made those inane, gibbering comments about Putin “rearing his head” above the Alaskan skyline.
What was “snarky” about the question. Asking her what she liked to read was a softball question. It was fluff. It’s the kind of question interviewers ask to make their subjects feel comfortable. Couric didn’t know that Palin was going to be stymied by it. Nobody else at that political level would have been. Even GWB was able to give an answer to a very similar question when he was running in 200 (he was asked, “what book are you currently reading?” he answered, “a biography of Dean Atcheson.” No one ever made anything out of the answer). Would you get huffy and pissy if someone asked the same question of Barack Obama? Would you cry and sob and play your violin?
There was absolutely no such implication. That is total, paranoid fantasy.
From what I remember, it was also in the context of her explaining her role in the military presence in AK. There are a ton of radar sites around the perimeter of Alaska (and I’ve been to a bunch of them personally, not sure it that’s a “cite” or merely anecdotal). So we can “see” Russia from where we live. She allowed herself to get too nervous while answering questions, and didn’t give herself time to answer them thoughtfully. This resulted in stupid “SOUNDING” answers. Being from here, I knew what she meant, but yes, it did come out sounding like “I can see Russia from my house”.
And I agree, she is not suitable material for that office. She is much too thin skinned for one thing and I’ve said that nearly from the beginning. I was happy she was selected, but disappointed pretty early on. Her heart was in the right place, but sadly, she’s just not electable. And, as I said in my post, she’s since NOSE-DIVED into this weird celebrity figure.
To RNATB, it was Katie’s tone, not the text. Sarah’s non-answer (also kind of snippy right back) was from lack of interview experience, not that she didn’t actually read mags or rags.
You could see the wheels turning “what do you mean which ones do I read? What? You gonna start dissing my newspaper choices now? You’re gonna pick apart which ones are too “rightie?” Okay fine! You wanna play it that way, I’ll just give a vague answer…all of them…”.
Look, I agree, she has devolved into a platitude spouting goofball. It’s too bad, because though the hype has made it impossible for anyone, particularly on the left to see this, she did do good and was making good things happen for our state (some will disagree, there were two head-bashing sides to the whole pipeline debate here in our great state).
But as to what she is now, so what? She’s out of the picture politically speaking. There is no way in hell even her own party will put her into any sort of office.