I think there are two reasons why people are critical of Palin doing this:
(1) It immediately followed Palin herself being critical of Obama’s teleprompter usage. Thus showing *her own *hypocrisy. People aren’t necessarily giving Obama a free pass for his “reliance” on a teleprompter, they just don’t like hypocrites. And by the way, I agree with your point that it’s much more authentic to give a speech with only few notes than it is to just read it off the teleprompter, which does weaken the above argument.
(2) it’s not so much the notes as it is the hand-written nature of them. You’ve got to admit that its a little hokey, and If Obama did the same thing, he’d get no end of people making fun of him for it.
(3) She appeared to be relying on her notes during the “Q&A” portion. Prepared speeches meant for dissemination are one thing, but depending on notes during an “interview” with a friendly audience are another, and appear to show either:
A: how manufactured the whole thing is.
B: Palin’s troubles with speaking on things she hasn’t prepared for.
She sounds like an idiot because she was governor of a state. She is smarter than the average American, but dumber than the average governor – so much so that I can’t understand how anybody could seriously consider her presidential material.
Well, I hope that he comes back to clear it up. I would hate to think that I had taken note the first time Sam Stone ever came in and confidently made a false statement.
Even granting the point that Palin’s remarks were instrumental in healthcare reform running off the rails…it says more about the idiocy of the American people (who fell for the ‘death panel’ comment as containing anything remotely like the truth) and the spinelessness of Congress, than it says about any gravitas that Palin brings to political debate.
I was using the last numbers I had seen in December, where Palin was at 47%. And this most recent Marist poll had Obama at 44%. However, now that I look at it again, I see that’s job performance. His approval rating is at 50%. So yes, he’s still slightly more popular than Palin (or not - the difference looks to be within the margin of error). He should be WAY more popular.
The good news anti-Palin types is that so far, her increased popularity hasn’t translated into an increased desire for her to run for President, which is still very low.
Why exactly should he be way more popular? He is leading a large country with a diverse, vocal demanding population thru the worst economic times we’ve seen in most peoples lives or memories. He stepped into the middle of two, count them two unpopular wars started by his predecessor. He is dealing with a minority in the senate who are willing and able to hold up any and all legislation until doom’s day.
Palin on the other hand just continues to play to her base, mug for the camera and moan about how people are dissing her and her family. I sincerely hope the following is not what you consider valid political discourse:
That’s about as likely as her being able to fly like Superman, so the question is pointless. She cannot and will not “run a brilliant campaign.”
Cite that eother HCR has either been “derailed,” or that Palin’s idiotic
“death panels” accusation had anything to do with it? The biggest obstacle to HCR is the insurance industry, plain and simple.
This is complete horseshit.
The significance of this is what, exactly?
The teabaggers are not a “grassroots” movement, and they aren’t “kicking” anybody’s “ass” except for the elected memebre of their own party who are now afraid to go against the racist, hysterical hate mobs whipped up by Fox News and talk radio. Maybe you can’t tell all the way up there in Canada, but the teabaggers in the US are perceived a something of a national joke, not a serious movement.
Cite?
She is not growing in either popularity or clout. Her fan base, if anything, has shrunk, and it never expanded beyond the backwards, racist, Bible thumping, paranoid, uneducated rump of the electorate that adored her during the election.
There is no battle here, just a PALATR moment, and the noting of a little hypocrisy. No one thinks it’s an outrage that she wrote her little simpleton bullet points on her hand, believe me. What’s amusing about is not that she was prepared, but that she accused Obama of relying on teleprompters (just as Palin herself does), then had to write cheat notes on her hand to be able to handle a scripted Q&A from the friendliest audience possible.
Let’s see your precious Sarah do what Obama did at the GOP retreat. Let’s see her take 90 minutes of unscripted, hardball questions from a roomful of hostile politicians grandstanding for their own constituents.
Yes, she is that fucking stupId. She doesn’t know why there’s a North and South Korea. She can’t name a Supreme Court decision besides Roe. She’s afraid of witches. She thinks Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. She is not craftily concealing a razor sharp intellect.
The new book, Game Change says that John McCain’s own staff became terrified at the possibility of Palin becoming President, saying it would be a “disaster,” and telling Mccain he would have to relegate her to the most ceremonial of roles if he was elected.
Sam, can you provide a cite for the assertion that Palin is somehow uniquely or primarily responsible for the current situation of healthcare reform? That assessment sounds to me kind of like saying that Al Franken “derailed” Bush’s Social Security privatization efforts because he made fun of them in a popular book.
Well, Kanye West at the MTV Awards also made a bigger media splash than Obama’s SOTU address. I don’t think that the mere ability to attract media attention proves anything about intelligence or qualification for high office.
So did, for example, John Edwards in his most recent presidential campaign. Again, I don’t think you’d necessarily regard this achievement as an indicator of high intelligence or Presidential fitness in somebody who wasn’t Palin.
Does “having” (i.e., co-authoring) a best-selling book necessarily imply high intelligence or Presidential fitness either? Paris Hilton also had a best-selling book in Confessions of an Heiress, for example. Just because a lot of people buy your book doesn’t necessarily mean you have something important to say.
What do you mean by “kicking the ass of”? If you mean that the Tea Party movement is enjoying its belligerent anti-government posturing, I agree with you. If you mean that the Tea Party movement is actually accomplishing something in opposition to “Washington”, what is it you think they’re accomplishing?
The things you’ve come up with here are evidence only that Palin is a media celebrity on political issues. Well, sure; I don’t think anyone’s denying that she’s a media celebrity on political issues. But so is, for instance, Al Sharpton, and I don’t think you’d consider that celebrity and media attention a reason to take Sharpton seriously as somebody who has the ability to be President.
So, it was one point in December, then I saw the new Marist poll showed Obama at 44%, and I thought - “Wow, Palin’s actually more popular than Obama now.” But it turns out that in the interim, her popularity has dropped back to 43%, so he’s still got a lead.
Not that I think this means a whole lot - and it’s a lot easier to be popular when you don’t have to actually make the tough calls. But her popularity was much lower after she quit her job as Governor, so she’s been slowly building it back up.
I did note, though, that this hasn’t translated into people wanting her to run for President. That’s still a very low number, even among Republicans.
At 5:45, you expressed a comprehension of the difference between approval ratings and favorability ratings.
At 7:05, you’re back to trying to confuse the two again.
At what cost integrity? If this incident from Palin is not worthy of our mockery, is it worthy of your disingenuous defense of her? How much time are you going to spend on these posts with their childish constructions and misrepresentations?
A trivial matter, and all I’m doing is pointing and laughing about it.
This compares Palin’s favorability rating to Obama’s job approval. Those are two different things. Obama still leads Palin in favorability by double digits.
How am I supposed to give you a cite for that? It’s not a citable fact. It’s an opinion. It’s an opinion fairly widely shared, though - her ‘death panels’ comment put the Administration on the defensive, and as more than one wag has said, any time a politician has to start a debate on his policy by promising he won’t kill your grandmother, he’s in trouble.
Well, it proves something. Maybe it just proves that she’s got some brilliant people hiding behind her in the shadows. But so far, everything has turned up roses of Palin. She’s now a kingmaker, worth millions of dollars, she’s had Fox build a TV studio in her home so she has a pulpit to preach from whenever she wants (and get paid for it, while other politicians pay for airtime), and the Tea Party movement is smitten with her. For a dunce, that’s pretty impressive work in a few months.
Are you saying that John Edwards isn’t intelligent? I certainly wouldn’t. So he’s a pretty lousy example to bring up. John Edwards, in fact, might be a good example - a pretty-boy populist who went a long way on charm and innate brains, despite having many serious flaws.
Stop adding ‘presidential fitness’ to everything - I never said she was fit to be president. I don’t think she is. Look, Palin clearly has some kind of intelligence. It may not be analytical intelligence - it might be emotional intelligence, or a gift for reading the mood of the public, or something. But she seems to keep pushing exactly the buttons that her followers want pushed. She has a long track record of doing that. Maybe she’s just well tuned in to the zeitgeist. Whatever it is, she seems to have it. There are an awful lot of politicians who have tried to build themselves up to her level - even populist ones with the same kind of message, and they keep failing. She succeeds. I don’t know exactly why.
I’ve come to dislike her more as time goes on. As I said in my first message, there’s something about her that sets my teeth on edge. She comes across as one of those brash know-it-all women who just repeats the soundbites she hears from the TV, but with way more conviction than her actual understanding should warrant. That sounds horribly sexist, but I’ve known women like that, and I’ve never liked them - even when they’re on my side. Maybe especially when they’re on my side.
So far, they’ve accomplished the destruction of the Democrats’ supermajority, and they’ve put Obama on bipartisan spin cycle. That’s quite a lot, actually.
I don’t take Al Sharpton seriously as a candidate for President, and I don’t at this time take Palin seriously, either. But would you deny that Al Sharpton is smart? From what I hear, he’s very smart. So is Jesse Jackson. So are almost all the populist demagogues who have risen to high levels of popularity.
I’m not saying any of this to support Palin. She wouldn’t be much choice for President. I’m saying this as a suggestion that maybe you all stop sniggering about her and her hand-printing, and starting thinking of her as a serious threat.
Hentor, it was the Los Angeles Times that made the comparison. I simply cited it as my original source for my memory that they had been within one point of each other.
And you’re right - it is a trivial matter. But you’re the one who demanded cites and then starting picking nits with the trivia so you could somehow work in your never-ending tiresome thread-hijacking ad-hominem attack dog schtick.