The question wasn’t really what the countries in North America are, though, was it? I thought the question is, what countries are part of NAFTA? Not all the countries named are part of that agreement. Although a candidate for office should have a very good grasp of geography, it’s also important to focus properly on the question. Although not knowing anything even basic about NAFTA would be a failing in a candidate.
The problem with his theory is the paper isn’t written all by the same guy. I consider the St. Paul Pioneer Press a decent newspaper (if a bit conservative and too obsessed with local issues) but would read the articles with little skepticism, I will however never agree with Chris Hewitt’s moronic movie reviews.
No, but GD was responding to a post that said “countries in North America”, not “countries in NAFTA”. He responded to clear that up, and I gave him his point back.
Incidentally, anyone who thinks North America doesn’t include Central America is wrong.
And as I noted in a parallel thread, she doesn’t bother to indicate which allegations are false or how they came to that conclusion, which I would be interested to know.
Well, this is the problem. We don’t know what the question was, or how Palin allegedly failed in answering it. As things stand the accusations are absurd. Which isn’t to say they couldn’t be true, but we have no particular reason to believe that they are. It beggars belief that a state governor wouldn’t know which countries are party to NAFTA, but if the question were about which North American nations have free trade agreements with the US then not knowing the answer would hardly be surprising. I know that there are some trade agreements with other American nations, some of which I presume are north of Panama, but I couldn’t give you a list or much indication of how broad the agreements were. I wouldn’t expect any national politician other than congressional reps and senators serving on relevant committees to have that sort of information at their fingertips.
I do have to say that the mind boggles at the viciousness of these attacks so soon after the election. Apparently no one wants to take responsibility for their failures - except, notably, the senator from Arizona who in defeat has demonstrated a great deal more character than he did while campaigning.
I thought it was to have Alaska secede and form its own nation altogether?
Oh, and ETF, Huckabee alarms me-from what I recall, he’s more like Rick Santorum. I was extremely relieved when he dropped out of the race.
-He supports teaching creationism
-He opposes both gay marriage AND civil unions, AND gay adoption as well
-He doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about SOCAS
Keep him as FAR away from the White House as possible, as far as I’m concerned!
The story about Palin and Africa was supposedly from her aides. Her staff has started coming out with these type stories. There are more. You can attribute it to the repubs savaging her to make her go away. You can believe it and use it to flesh her out. But you can not blame dems or the evil liberal media.
For the purposes of this thread, it really doesn’t matter if its true or false. The McCain campaign is throwing her under the bus - and Fox News is riding shotgun. As anyone who has tried to defend the “Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet” meme knows, or has said “actually, Jerry Ford was pretty athletic” - it doesn’t make any difference.
Michael Crichton must not have been – and by extension you must not be – familiar with the phenomenon known as “confirmation bias.”
Given the shitty science in his novels, the former does not surprise me.
Regarding the latter, I don’t recall your having spoken much about science on these boards, so a passing ignorance is equally unsurprising. But you have the advantage of not being dead, so you at least have the chance to be educated.
Too good not to share: the Conservatives continue to eat themselves.
I can imagine this dialog (the response is attributed to Harry Truman)
“Fox News??!! I thought they were my friends!!”
“If you want a friend in politics…get a dog.”
Wow, the GOP’s immune system has gone nuts.
This round’s on me!
The far right talking point fax seems to be spewing out that Palin’s problem was an unfair and elitist media. Here is Ruben Navarette today.
Charles Krauthammer had something almost identical. It seems it is elitist to expect that a candidate for VP knows fuck-all about national and international affairs.
They’re throwing sarah under a bus, but I don’t care if they backed it over her a few times. She is upset about people slinging mud at her and says they are taking things out of context.
Kinda like what she did with accusing Obama of palling around with terrorists.
Huh?? What? I’ve been asleep. Long election week for me.
Yes, I am unaware of any legal involvement in ‘off the record’, ‘background’ and such. These are professional ethics issues that don’t involve any specific legal requirements.
On the other hand, I’ve known reporters (and fired some) who have lost everything by breaking that rule. In the industry it’s supposed to be as sacrosanct as confession for the Catholic Church. It can frequently lead to asking the right questions of others but it should not, under any circumstances, lead to the reporter sharing that information with anyone other than the top editor at whatever news outlet for which you might work.
This.
That explains the shower and towel.
I’ve seen Huckabee’s name on a list of possibilities for chair of the RNC. That’s what worries me–he could be the GOP’s Howard Dean. (Whatever you thought of Dean as a candidate, you can’t argue with his success as DNC chair.)
From Voyager’s link:
I don’t think she got nearly enough shit about her decision to get on an all-day flight after having premature rupture of membranes in her high-risk pregnancy. I would have thought much better of her if she had just turned out to be covering for Bristol.