No less baseless than yours, except then you go and prove my very point with this statement:
(My emphasis.) This is not at all what she said (other than the point about being able to see Russia from Alaska). Here’s the transcript:
Please point out where she says she “knows all about Russia” in that statement? You have just proved my point: liberals (like conservatives) are more willing to believe the negative “facts” about their opponents even if they aren’t true. Even when they say they think they know the facts! Tina Fey made fun of Palin and you bought into it.
And they get repeated; ABC Nightline news repeated the false quote even though the original debate aired on ABC! Sheesh.
Palin isn’t the only vice-president candidate to say something stupid. How about the quote in this interview:
*“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here’s what happened.” *
That was Joe Biden, who apparently didn’t know that the greatest Democratic president wasn’t in office when the market crashed; nor did he know that TV wasn’t being used outside of experiments.
And for those who say Obama was just as partisan, this was one week after Obama went out of his way to meet George Will, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and David Brooks for dinner at Will’s house.
Fey’s versions (actually written by Amy Poehler and Seth Myers) were actually formed of coherent sentences, unlike Palin’s. SNL did her a favor by actually making her look smarter.
From the very same fucking interview you quoted:
“I can see Russia from my house!” is actually smarter.
says Obama is trying to bring about the rapture[/spoiler]
Do be so kind as to provide us with some comparable material from Ms. Waters (or, really, some other Democrat). Just two or three comments that are as breathtakingly jaw-dropping.
*obscured for those of us who are not fond of re-runs
You’re moving the goal posts. Besides, if you want dumb-ass quotes from vice presidents you can include Biden:
“Look, John [McCain’s] last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the No. 1 job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.”
or
“You got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” (cite)
In 2003 she complained that storm names were too white. She demanded that “all racial groups should be represented” and asked the weather officials to “try to be inclusive of African-American names.”
…claimed in a speech that US is 400+ years old (“we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not”).
…claimed in a speech that there are two Vietnams today - North and South: “Today we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working. We may not agree with all North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace. I would look for better human rights record for North Vietnam, but they’re living side by side.”
… and of course she, when in her role as the Congresswoman that is sitting on the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics she visited the JPL she asked the guides if the Mars Rover would be able to show “the flag the astronauts planted there before”.
Which his office later claimed to be deadpan humor.
Pretty trivial displays of historical ignorance which have little bearing on policy. I am not clear on how her view of Viet Nam would make any real difference to current US relations with them.
Bachmann’s blorts are specifically targeted toward significant changes in policy, or, in the case of subsidies, represent willful ignorance of her own hypocrisy.
Curious that both of those left-wing goofballs are A-As.
Maxine Waters held an open forum for people to speak out about the CIA smuggling drugs in to Los Angeles. CIA director John Deutch was there.
Waters conducted herself mostly professionally, but the accusations from the audience were…astonishing. Many people complained about all the CIA cocaine that was being distributed in L.A. One guy claimed to have been part of the pipeline, although when Deutch asked him for specifics, the guy refused to answer because he was (he said) likely to be killed for talking. Deutch suggested he should go the the L.A. Times.
It was an interesting example of what can happen when people are able to speak freely without any ground rules or requirements for validation or verification. At very least, it allowed a lot of people to vent.
Of course he did, which illustrates another bias: you’re willing to believe a viable excuse if the person making the stupid statement has beliefs like yours. If a Republican made a similar statement you wouldn’t even seek out the excuse, let alone believe it. Then we can conveniently claim that conservatives are dumber than liberals.
Utter nonsense. What is the convenient excuse for Bachmann thinking Obama is ushering in the end-times?
If you honestly think that the Dem vs. GOP insanity meter’s needle is anywhere but buried deep in the red, you haven’t been paying attention.
One guy might, maybe, think that Guam floats or is on a thin pillar of rock. Great. The GOP has idiots taking secession seriously. They think that Obama is gonna steal Texas!
Bachmann heaps it upon herself. She and Saraħ Palin seek attention and insist on blorting with impunity. But if you comb through the SRIotD thread, you will not find women to be over-represented or subjected to more abuse than the males.
Nonetheless, he walked it back, whether or not he was actually joking. Right-wing stupid seems to be much more resilient and unwavering than that, possibly because it tends to be rooted in irrationality and/or severe paranoia.
How the hell could I have “bought into it” when I was well aware of the Gibson interview (can’t remember if I watched it or just read the transcript, but I was certainly aware of what was said, as well as Palin’s disastrous fiasco of an interview with Katie Couric). And I was an avid follower of SNL back then and saw the Tina Fey skit live, so I sure as hell know the difference.
What you’re doing here is struggling to win an Internet argument by insisting that the person in question must be shown to have used the exact words that I loosely paraphrased from memory or else the argument has no merit. Nonsense – my point was that Al Gore was ridiculed by conservative media for associating himself with the development of the Internet, when in fact, as I pointed out, he really was a major contributor, and has been rightly honored for his vision. Whereas Sarah Palin was ridiculed by just about everyone for being a blithering imbecile, and she is. Do you see the difference between the two situations? The misrepresentation of Gore was a deliberate and politically motivated deception, much like the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry and the later attacks on Obama; the misrepresentation of Palin arose from confusion with a parody of her idiotic claims. There is not even the remotest equivalence between the two situations.
It was Palin who brought up, on her own, at least twice and I believe three times, without being asked, the subject of how close Alaska was to Russia, as if that meant something. Which is why Gibson asked, using polite words, what the hell that has to do with anything. Her statement plumbed the depths of almost unbelievable vapid stupidity; Gore’s statement was essentially correct.
“As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States …” Thanks for that, I’m starting to forget all the wondrous quotes from Palin’s heyday – comedy gold! That inspired at least one cartoon (I’m sure there must have been many) of Putin’s gigantic head, tethered by a string like a helium balloon, roaring into American airspace!
Ok, so quote the part that could reasonably be paraphrased as “knows all about Russia”. Because that is the point the Deeg is making-- we’re all handicapped by our political biases. You might think you’ve “loosely paraphrased” SP, but someone else sees that as a complete misstatement.
So… prove your point. Quote the part that could reasonably be paraphrased (loosely or otherwise) as “knows all about Russia” and then we can all judge how unbiased your analysis is.
Well, first of all Gibson reached exactly the same conclusion. Palin mentions the proximity to Russia no less than three times in a row …
… that very narrow maritime border [with Russia] …
… They are our next door neighbors …
… They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor …
Why does she keep nattering about it? What is her point? Gibson wonders, too. He asks what insight that proximity gives her, since she’s clearly implying that it does. And her response? The imbecile repeats the same claim a fourth time! …
… They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska …
Which prompts Gibson to repeat his question yet a second time. He never does get an answer.
But there’s more. Palin herself later, in the famous interview with Katie Couric, explicitly acknowledges that being able to see Russia from Alaska somehow imbues her with foreign policy expertise:
Couric: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?
Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don’t know, you know … reporters.
Couric: Mocked?
Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.
Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.
Palin:** Well, it certainly does**, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…
Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?
Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.
So let me sum up my points:
[ul]
[li]Al Gore: distinguished political leadership in the establishment of the modern Internet[/li][/ul]
This has nothing to do with Al Gore. It’s about your willingness to hand wave away a gross mischaracterization of someone not on your side. So, here we go:
Maxine Waters claimed that CIA agents were selling crack cocaine on every street corner in LA. Hey, don’t give me any grief for paraphrasing what she said.
Show me what mischaracterization I made, let alone a “gross” mischaracterization. I’m genuinely curious how you could possibly be seeing this. This is what I said in #100:
Palin’s actual claim was in response to a question about her foreign policy credentials, of which she has none. So she claimed that she knew all about Russia because she lives in Alaska, for heaven’s sake, and there’s an island in Alaska from which you can actually see Russia! Tina Fey turned this into “I can see Russia from my house” in a satirical skit on SNL.
So you don’t like my casual phrase “claimed that she knew all about Russia” because claimed she could see it? How about I substitute “claimed that it enhances her foreign policy credentials with regard to Russia”? Because that’s precisely what she told Katie Couric. And you consider that a “gross mischaracterization”? You’re usually better than that,** John**.
ETA: I should add that I had conflated the Gibson and the Couric interviews in my recollection, but it hardly matters – the imbecile said the same things in both interviews, and nicely doubled down on the idiocy in the second one, when Couric challenged her directly on foreign policy.
