Is Sarah Palin dumber than Ronald Reagan?

One for each Heinz flavor.

Somebody at work said he visited 7 states twice. Why he would say “states” when he meant “stops”, I’m not sure. I do know I’ve never made a stupid mistake.
Let’s impeach the fool! Now that Hillary’s showed us that she has the chops for it we can put her in. We will have to excuse her occasional little pootie.
Let’s just hope Obama doesn’t get confused, or mis-speak, and bomb South Korea.
That would be awful.
Hillary '16!

Fair enough.

You are now my favorite 'Doper. That was a thing of beauty. Elegant, yet understated.

Yes, it is obviously a slip of the tongue, but it is also a great indication of her vacuousness. This was the question she was asked:

“You’ve said in the last few days that you are considering a run for President, and polls show that you would probably win the Republican nomination. How would you handle a situation like just happened in North Korea?”

That’s a pretty simple question that could be answered in a number of ways. It’s not a trick question, and anyone who thinks themselves Presidential material should have an answer for. Her answer, in summary, was “Obama sucks.” That’s all she’s got.

Oh, c’mon, that’s just potatoe, tomatoe.

“Obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies. We’re bound to by treaty.”

ETA: never mind, someone already posted this.

Yeah, I was thinking more or less the same thing. The only reason this particular quote got any airplay was because of the gaffe, but even had she correctly said South Korea her answer is pretty much profoundly devoid of substance. “We’ve got to stand by our allies” and “what’s the President doing about this?” isn’t exactly insightful commentary.

But to be fair, it’s the closest she’s ever gotten to insightful commentary.

You’re sweet. And me thinking it was kind of a cheap shot. :smiley:

Reagan had a heck of a lot of memorable and apt lines. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” isn’t Shakespeare, but it was sharp and timely. Reagan was called The Great Communicator for a reason.

The comparison between Reagan and Palin is fucking crazy, to be honest. Reagan was not the smartest man to ever sit in the White House but he was no imbecile. He also, whatever you might think of it, had a vision and an idea of what he wanted to do as President. He did so some positive things, too, and he was able to articulate his positions reasonably well, even by the standards of high office.

Palin has never, that I can remember, put three sentences together that sounded interesting, pertinent, or intelligent. Not once. She has never in her time in the spotlight said anything extemporaneously that suggested an IQ of three digits. She doesn’t sound educated, smart, insightful or curious in any way whatsoever. She isn’t nearly as intelligent as Ronald Reagan was and she has no vision at all.

The South Korea / North Korea flub quote is very telling. Of course Palin knows North Korea’s the bad guy and South Korea is the ally, that’s just a slip of the tongue and means nothing. But if you simply ignore that flub, and concentrate on the content, she’s just completely, utterly vacuous. She hasn’t a fucking clue what her administration would do, or what its position would be. “We’ve got to stand by our allies” is tautological and a complete non-answer.

And this was not some blindisde question. This is the biggest story in the news and the biggest foreign policy crisis to come along in years. If you don’t have an answer ready for that, why the hell are you running for President?

Also, we’re allied with some shitty, shitty people–we’re going to stand by all of them equally no matter what, or we’re going to pick and choose which ones to defend on an issue by issue basis?

What specifically do you think she can say? She isn’t in office, she isn’t getting briefings and advice from advisors and lawyers knowledgeable in foreign affairs and treaties, and at this point she has no idea what her options would be. Neither would anyone else. What has happened in reality is that she has shown herself to be unpolished in giving the types of non-answers that would be coming from a more seasoned politician.

Now, having said that let me say I’m only defending Palin from specious and/or hypocritical criticism. I do not think she is suitable for the office of president. In fact, if it came down to Palin or Obama, I would very likely find myself voting for a Democrat for president for the first time in my life. But a lot of the criticisms she comes in for here are simply incorrect and to let them go unchallenged only serves to lend them a credibility they don’t deserve.

Oh ferchrissake, two years ago she exceeded Obama in experience, and now she’s too ‘unseasoned’ (despite a run at the Vice Presidency) to be expected to offer platitudes that are at least geographically correct. Give me a fucking break.

Well, instead of shit-stirring and getting her base all riled up, she might say something like “since I’m not in office, and not getting briefings and advice from advisors and lawyers knowledgeable in foreign affairs and treaties, I’m going to express my support for the President and hope he’s able to do right by the U.S. and our allies”–that wasn’t hard, and I’m not especially well versed in politicians’ stock responses. But then I’m not a crazed demogogue running for office, either.

If she’s too lazy to master a few stock responses, what makes you think she’s going to do more than try to wing it when we finally elect her President?

Well, we can’t have that, now can we?

On a board supposedly devoted to fighting ignorance, I would hope not.

I bet you give no women respect. Except for 3 seconds. You know what I mean. And I’m sure countless others do too.

Well I’m not getting “briefings and advice from advisors and lawyers knowledgeable in foreign affairs and treaties”, I just read the press reports. If I had pretensions of federal leadership, I’d have certainly predicted a question like

and I would have prepared something like the following:

But then what the hell do I know -I don’t possess the towering intellect of Palin.

Given the perception of her, she could at least, besides supporting the president as others have said, have shown that she understands the history of the conflict and what has been done (like sanctions) which haven’t worked.

Actually, he did. Quayle’s knowledge of foreign affairs was never given enough credit, especially after the potato incident.