I think that when even Peggy Noonan regards her selection as a “cynical” choice, as a “bullshit” political move, as insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchison, then yeah, I do think that Matt Damon pretty much nailed it.
Noonan’s observations also undercut your argument about predispositions towards certain viewpoints - some people are able to think rationally about the matter, and will say as much, at least when they think nobody else is listening.
More to the point, those were serious flaws in Obama, according to Republican talking points, right up and until the moment their side had someone with arguably less experience. If it’s a flaw in Obama, it’s a flaw in Palin. If it’s not, then the talking points were…um…disingenuous. This is simple logic and essentially inarguable (the “executive” experience thing is clearly mentioned only because it works in Palin’s favor…it wasn’t used to disqualify *Senator *McCain, was it?) Admittedly this goes both ways, and I don’t think it’s wise for Democrats to harp solely on her inexperience either.
I’m not at all sure that her perceived toughness, decisiveness and aggression would be an advantage. Simple black/white thinking isn’t always the best way to run the world. People like that are often deceived and even overthrown by subtler thinkers. Hearken back to the days of “looking into Putin’s heart” if you will.
Watching this from afar, the reaction of party political hacks is always a bit hmmm, puzzling? Rather like the Pig & Lipstick thing, this comment was quite reasonable. The faux outrage (I believe there are several Obama supporters who manage the same of course) really is unbecoming, esp. insofar as rational minded right political commentators have said (as cited supra) rather the same.
Doesn’t it get tiresome to play party political hack?
People keep raising the issue of Palin’s governorship as being adequate to qualify her as POTUS would do well to remember that GW Bush was governor of Texas. How well did that job qualify him as POTUS?
T’was not exactly an anomaly. There’s Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rutherford Hayes, William McKinley, James Polk, Andrew Johnson, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler.
I thought his comments were quite funny and more about public perception than Palin as an individual. Pundits and publicists are building a narrative and yes, I do think it sometimes comes across as a faux underdog story with a hefty dose of saccharine.
I’m always conflicted about celebs who sound off about political matters. On the one hand, they’re hardly expert and yet their views get a disproportionate amount of air time simply because they’re actors. On the other, if someone stuck a microphone in my face and asked for my opinion I’d probably answer too. Why should celebrities have to recuse themselves?
So in the end I just ignore them. They get one vote just like the rest of us unless you vote on a Diebold machine oooooooh you did not just go there!..
Actually I think I read somwhere that he thinks it is quite funny.
Exactly, he was asked a question and he answered it. And it hardly seemed like some raving lunitic rant. I suppose he could refuse to answer the question, but why exactly, he isn’t allowed to have a nopinon. He seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
It seems to me what he was saying is “I know nothing about her, except the ‘hockey mom/pitbull’ rhetoric she’s been spewing, and that makes me uncomfortable.”
We really don’t know much about her political record, outside of the vague “ethical reform platform” bullshit that the campaign keeps throwing out there as her crowning acheivement (a claim that stems nearly entirely from her time as Ethics Supervisor on the AK Oil and Gas Commission, which really only means she was just doing her fucking job); she has had no significant accomplishments that were above and beyond the normal daily duties of her positions. If you disagree, please post a cite.
And any claim to the ethical high-road that she tries to make is sullied for me by her disingenuous claims that she opposed the earmarked “bridges to nowhere” (2 of 'em!) when in actuality she supported both from the outset of her term, and continued supporting at least one of them right up until she was picked for VP. I would have less of a problem if she were honest about it. While I felt the projects were a wasteful use of federal funds, a governor has a responsibility to keep money flowing into the state and provide new jobs, which the bridge projects did. But no, she’s now got to try to claim that she opposed them from the start, because the issue du jour is earmarks are bad!
It’s as if they don’t realize that people can find this shit out on Google and Wikipedia these days in a matter of seconds.
And he apparently feels that despite the fact that this is all he knows, he feels qualified to announce that she’s a disaster, a bad Disney movie, etc.
I could understand it much better, and IMO he would have been more in keeping with his statement to Conde Nast Traveler, if he had simply said we don’t know anything about her (though see below) and (in keeping with his lib/Dem politics) that so far I don’t see anything that leads me to believe she’s qualified for the job of vice-president.
But no, instead he goes off on a testy, chin-quivering tirade about what a disaster she would be.
Thats just it, buddy. They don’t expect people to do anything but take their word for it. Saves money on spin control I guess. I’d really like to hear how McPalin justifies the earmark issue. I probably will never hear it, and I’m sure they have spin control working on it. Fuckers.
I know who she is though I haven’t read what she’s saying. I imagine she must be questioning Palin’s background and suitability for office, but I’d be surprised if she’s declaring that Palin would be a disaster; a bad Disney movie; etc.
The thing is, a great deal can be learned about her on the internet. Damon, IMO, has chosen to take the view that nothing is known about her other than than that she’s a hockey mom (which is disengenuous to say the least, given that she has a record of accomplishment that would be shouted to the heavens were she a feminist of the liberal stripe), and that she would therefore be a disaster.
And I reiterate, as little executive experience as her detractors like to say she has, she still has more than Obama does.
This leads me back to an observation that I’ve been pointing out more and more often recently: that these talking points don’t really matter in the main; they’re merely excuses to try to get people do to what you (and I) want them to, which is to vote for the candidate that we feel will most accomplish what we want in a visceral sense. A secondary motivation is to keep the other side from gaining ground.
Which is especially stupid because earmarks are a tiny fraction of the budget. Eliminating them would do almost nothing to curb spending in Washington. You know what takes up huge chunks of the budget? Paying the interest on the national debt, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid.
Crappy is a subjective term that only proves my thesis above. Dems claim she’s crappy; Pubs claim she’s great. The truth of the matter probably lies somewhere in between.
What I do know, and which is pretty much undeniable, is that she’s tough, attractive, charismatic, inspirational, and an Obama-quality speaker with at least slightly more executive experience.
And unlike Obama who may suddenly be thrust into the most powerful executive position in the world, she’ll have time to learn on the job. Damon says that actuarial tables show a 1 in 3 chance McCain won’t survive his first term. That not only means there’s a 2 in 3 chance he’ll survive, but also that Palin will likely have ample time to learn the ropes even if he does die, as it’s highly unlikely he’ll die early into his first term.
So, in terms of experience, attractiveness and inspirational ability combined, Palin seems to have a slight edge over Obama, and unlike Obama she won’t be starting at the top on day one.
