No it didn’t. It gave them ammunition to paint their critics as nutbags. “Death panels” was a gift to the Obama administration.
No, the person making the moronic accusations is in trouble. No one believed the “death panel” garbage but retards. It didn’t hurt Obama any, it just made Palin look stupid.
It proved what? In what way did she “make a splash?” What did she actually SAY that was significant? Who was impressed by her that was not already impressed?
The media paid attention for the same reason that it followed Paris Hilton’s car on her way to jail. Morbid, prurient fascination.
Cite?
Pandering does not require intelligence. Palin’s driving characteristic is narcissism, not political cunning. She insulates herself from any real press, and does little pole dances for a very narrow, closed little audience of the least intelligent people in the country. She isn’t gaining in any popularity outside of her little established, teabagger fanbase.
Cite that they had anything to do with the Massachusettes election? You DO know that the Republican elected there was a liberal, pro choice, pro government health care Republican, do you not? In what way does he represent the teabaggers?
Your statement about Obama being on a “bipartisan spin cycle” has no truth in it at all. On the contrary, despite the smug expectations of the Reoublicans and the right wing media echo chamber, Obama flatly refused to back off HCR or make any concessions to the Party of “No.”
Obama is the only one who has EVER tried to be bi-partisan, by the way. The Republicans in Congress are too terrified of Rush Limbaugh and the teabagger base to tell Obama hello. They’ve offered no alternative health care plan at all. You can’t refuse to sit at the table at all, then accuse the other side of not being bi-partisan.
Okay. You listed it along with a bunch of factual assertions such as Palin’s having a bestselling book and raising millions of dollars, so I somehow managed to get the impression that you intended it to be accepted as a fact.
I never said you did. But you were asking whether a “brilliant campaign” would increase her perceived presidential fitness:
So I pointed out that most of the accomplishments you listed weren’t actually based on demonstration of ability but rather merely on celebrity status.
Neither would I. But I don’t think that his fundraising capacity really says anything about his intelligence, any more than Palin’s fundraising capacity is a meaningful indicator of her intelligence.
I don’t think anybody here is really arguing against that position. Nobody’s saying that Palin isn’t sharp enough to look out for her own interests or find a schtick that will be profitable for her personally. We’re just noting that she seems to be uninformed and uninterested about the actual substance of the political issues that she uses as her vehicle for seeking money and fame. If so, then that’s a kind of intelligence that she doesn’t have, and it’s a pretty important one for a politician.
Yeah, I hate when brash know-it-all women just repeat soundbites from the media with more conviction than their actual understanding warrants.
If you’re asserting as a fact that the Tea Party movement is responsible for this, could you provide a cite? Or if you’re stating it as your opinion, could you explain why you think this is true?
Show me in the LA Times where it says her popularity is at 43%. Hint: it doesn’t. You attempted to continue to compare her favorability to his approval rating in what seems a very odd attempt at deception, given that you acknowledged the two are in fact different less than two hours before.
Trust me, I’m always going to demand cites when you come in making deceitful and false statements. Don’t like it? Stop doing it.
I live in rural East Texas, and they are called programs and shows here. “Avatar was a cool show” - if you are younger. “We are going to miss the feature/program” if you are old. Guess what, Biden’s like a million years old.
Oh, and I really don’t give a shit either way. Just saying. Anyway, carry on. Just because I haven’t seen Sandra Bullock naked, doesn’t mean it never happens, SA. You are trying too hard on this one, there is no possible way you could be that dense. If you have a real point, don’t trot this crap out around it, because it makes you seem dumb and I am really sure that you are smarter than that. I mean, you post here. (No sarcasm meant)
It’s easy to laugh at the incoherent and misdirected white rage, represented so well in characters like Palin. However, the notion that these people are uniquely blinkered or hypocritical in their protest is wrong.
For example, Democrats (and many non-Dem progressives) are technocratic managerial utopians who truly, truly believe that if only the right people were in charge, things would be fine.
Yeah! I mean no! I mean, what? Is it the claim of the teabaggers that the Democrats are technocratic managerial utopians? I don’t remember seeing that on any of their signs.
That is just such crap. No one wants to micro manage the market it’s some stupid meme spread by astroturf marketing companies. There weren’t massive new regulations put in place during the Clinton years. In fact, he was pretty laissez faire. Regulations are put in place during a crisis and then when we forget why they were done we loosen them until the next crisis.
Yes ,you are on record as being completely wrong. She has indicated she will consider a presidential run in 2012. She is the front runner. She believes if it is gods will for her to run, she will just have to answer the call.
I can not imagine anyone saying she is smart enough for the office. It is impossible to compute. she has no interest in politics, but if she can make money she will run. Her ego loves campaigning. But she does not like the job. She quit the Alaskan governorship. Who does such a thing? Who can actually accept that as OK?
Bro, you know me and I had about as much input on THREE international bestsellers as she did on her single, purely-local one. Do you think that qualifies me to be president?
I didn’t think so. I know I don’t think so, though I may toss my hat in the ring to me the Illinois Democrats replacement candidate for Lt Governor. I’m at least as qualified as the guy who just dropped out.
First, you will stop accusing other posters of dishonesty in Great Debates.
Then, EVERYONE will back off from attacking posters and their motivations in this thread. (Although Hentor has been the far worst offender, there have been other unnecessary shots, here, as well).
Stick to discussing the issues and leave your (collective) impressions of what other posters believe out of this thread.
As a matter of comparison, for the folks who have been around a while, how did Reagan come across to the Democrats of the time? He was clearly (to me) an infinitely better communicator than Palin, and had been a Governor without quitting. So a) did Reagan get derided at the time for his intellect, adjusting for the absence of the internet and b) if so, was the general sense among Republicans that the abuse was because people on the left feared him and his success at connecting with people?
Now, clearly in retrospect Reagan was wildly popular for a good deal of his time in office. I am asking about the, for lack of a better term, extreme reactions to Reagan- those who thought him Near A God and those who thought he was a farce. Are there parallels to Palin?
From my perspective, most of Palin’s defenders are hard-pressed to really advocate for her, they simply seem compelled to defend her against media transgressors but that is about where it stops. Palin’s popularity mystifies me, but I consider myself fairly hard left at this point- was there a similar sense about Reagan?
On average, he wasn’t. In the concurrent “Reagan’s Birthday” thread, Diogenes pointed out:
Reagan was very well liked by his supporters, which was a change from recent trends in American national politics, when even Republicans weren’t enthusiastic about Ford and even Democrats weren’t enthusiastic about Carter.
His opponents thought of him as a polished speaker, but policy-wise somewhat out-of-touch and largely guided by his handlers, willingly delegating most substantial issues to aides. “Disengaged” was the common term for his style of governance.
The way the left perceived Reagan’s speaking style was that he was someone who was a polished and telegenic performer who wasn’t really all that in touch with the issues or the public.
As time went on, especially during the last few years of his Presidency, it was becoming increasingly clear to the public at large that his facilities were declining. During one of the Presidential debates with Mondale, he was especially bad, with long pauses as he reached for words, lost his train of thought, stammered and hemmed, etc. It was very uncomfortable and disquieting to watch. I voted for Reagan in that election, but I was still dismayed by that debate.
By his last couple of years in office, it was a standard meme that he was doddering and forgetful. When his Alzheimer’s was finally made public, it was a surprise to no one.
I should probably mention that even most lefties never really hated the guy. He was seen as kind of an amiable codger, as being probably not all there during his second term, and presiding over an administration that ran amok while he napped in the afternoons, but he was not viewed as malicious or evil.
Partisan politics in general had not yet become as vicious and intractable as they are now. That more or less started with the election of Bill Clinton (and the advent of right wing talk radio).
Yeah. His Cabinet members came in for more direct animosity, especially Edwin Meese, James Watt, and Caspar Weinberger.
Reagan himself was often viewed as stupid or ideologically blinkered, especially when he said things like calling the Nicaraguan contras the “moral equal of our Founding Fathers”, or claiming that there were more oil reserves in Alaska than in Saudi Arabia, or saying that trees were the worst source of pollution, and all that stuff. But IIRC those things produced more contempt than hatred. Even his most adamant opponents believed that ultimately he just didn’t know any better, rather than that he was nefariously trying to deceive the people a la Richard Nixon.
