(Fully expecting this to be lobbed over the cubical wall into Great Debates) My impression of her, based on the media’s portrayal, is that she was a back-woods electee with a trainwreck of a family that was picked for the veep seat without, perhaps, proper coaching, who then bailed on her elected position to go hit the talk circuit for money, fame, and Teaparty. Unfortunate phrases like ‘Drill baby drill’ and ‘I can see russia from here’ flit about as easy targets, but like Bush’s quotes of the past.
I then found a rather staunch republican co-worker that says that Palin is mis-represented by a liberal biased media and is actually a smart, amazing, person that really is all that and a bag of political chips.
Can that really be possible? Can this thread be debated in a fair and sane matter? Or will it just become opinion, based on the poster’s political leanings?
Well, I think I’ve established myself, if not universaly agreed to be a mounumentally fair and sane poster, certainly universally agreed to be a poster who generally sides with Palin’s side politically.
And I do not believe it’s fair to call her smart. “Amazing,” can mean many things, but to the extent it’s being used to desribe Palin as a gifted orator, gifted analyst, or gifted theoretician, I would reject those as well.
Oh, one guy of her political persuasion says she’s smart and amazing. That should be all you need to know.
Palin was flummoxed by the gotcha question, “What newspapers do you read?” She flogged the “death panels” line all through the healthcare debate, despite there being no truth to it. She complains about the president using a teleprompter, when in fact every president from at least Reagan on up (I’m not doing the research on that to determine if it goes back further) used them. She wrote notes on her hand to help her during an interview, and they weren’t even notes for TOUGH questions. She is a proponent of teaching Creationism in schools, and thinks dinosaurs and man co-existed on our 6,000 year-old planet.
Is this a whoosh? I’ll give you that’s she’s smart enough to quit office halfway through her term so that she could parlay her fame into a great deal of money.
One person (opinionated, outspoken, female) said she was misrepresented…it was enough for me to post a question…it wasn’t enough for me to break out some hard-core research as ‘politically motivated’ parts of the internet are worse than the most perverted rule 34 sites you can possibly imagine.
Is anyone completely accurately represented in the media?
Palin put herself in a position waaaaay over her head, fell flat on her face, and established a narrative about herself that she’s going to have to live with for a long time. She may be capable of becoming, eventually, a knowledgeable commentator on the political scene, but she’s also locked herself into an ideological cul-de-sac, so that’s going to be extremely difficult.
Say what you will about someone like Pat Buchanan, there is no doubt the guy is well educated and knowledgeable. Palin comes off as neither.
She’s not as stupid as the media will sometimes portray her, but she is more ignorant than average. I doubt you’d think much of it if she was just another person, though. I definitely know (and have been at least casual friends with) plenty of people that are stupider than Ms. Palin.
So…Did she get a divorce (the ‘Ms.’ above jogged a memory), I thought I’d heard she had, but the person I had a conversation with seemed to disagree and I’ll be damned if google was helpful. It shows she is and isn’t.
Are you an American? If not, I apologize for the assumption, but if you are, one would think that her being a serious candidate for Vice-President just a couple years back would have been enough to motivate you to do some “hard-core” research. Don’t take my opinion on it. Don’t take anyone’s opinion on it. You have a question. Check a variety of sources, find out what she’s said or done, make sure quotes are not taken out of context, and base your decision on that. This country has far too many ppl listening to others about what to think. Most of the reasonable sources of news you should check should not resemble “perverted rule 34” sites. True, many don’t resemble news sites either, but they haven’t gone full *Idiocracy *yet.
It may have been a bit pessimistic, but PART of my evalution for the past presidency WAS who would be president in the case that the Vice President ascended to the throne due to aging out or lead-poisoning. I was not impressed with the Republican choice in Veep then, she seemed a last-minute choice to get ‘the woman vote’ away from Hilary Clinton when there was thought she’d be Obama’s choice for veep.
The fact she’s still managed to be, if not relevant, at least SEEN in the Political spotlight after that is what instigated the OP.
Idiocracy: The saddest funny movie I’ve ever seen.
The media doesn’t portray her as stupid. All her damage is self-inflicted. The media hasn’t invented any of her inane statements or lies. The media just shows her as she is.
She’s the Paris Hilton of politics. She’s famous and wealthy, yet she has no apparent special talents or abilities. Yes, she was a VP nominee, which merits some attention, but that’s not typically a path to stardom (quick, without looking, name the last 3 losing VP nominees prior to Palin). Like Paris, there’s a good degree of talent, I guess, for marketing or PR in that she’s produced a lucrative career out of essentially nothing. She’s now famous for being famous, and is cashing that in for every nickel she can get (I’d do the same).
As to the media, they’ve actually softballed her for the most part, like they do most politicians any more. “What newspapers do you read” isn’t really hard hitting journalism.
I typically lean right, but I’m not much of a Palin fan. I think she’s more of a follower than a leader. She just goes along with whatever is currently getting right-wingers riled up. She doesn’t have any new, original ideas. She’s not a great speaker. She’s not the most intellectual person. She’s got a long way to go to convince me, and I suspect most of the R party, that she’s worthy of being on the 2012 ballot.
Palin has a great talent for identity politics. She is the right wing version of Jesse Jackson, in that she has a base that loves her and a sizable portion of the country that hates her. Like Jackson, the fact that part of the country hates her is part of what endears her to supporters. They feel that the reasons she is looked down on by the coastal elites are the same reasons they are looked down on. Groups of people deemed inferior are generally very loyal and protective to their own, so the more she is attacked the stronger she is. Her inablity to get beyond her base will probably doom her presidential aspiration, but she will be a force in politics as long as she wants to be.
Because her appeal or lack there of is wrapped up so completly in group identity it is impossible to have a rational discussion of her. For instance many seemingly intelligent people think she actually said the “See Russia from my house” thing.
I’ve said this before, and I haven’t changed my mind: I think Sarah Palin is very intelligent and a clever politician. I also think she’s highly incurious about the world and has allowed her religiosity to cloud her judgment. Why bother learning about policy when you can just pray and let god help you decide what course to take? She is the living embodiment of the concept of truthiness, and an attitude I find extremely dangerous in American politics.
FWIW, I used to think she was just a moron. My new opinion is largely drawn from the book Game Change.