107 Replies to ““Can I Call You Joe?””

  2. I was only able to catch bits of the US VP debate.
    When Sarah talked she was “looking straight at me, in the eye.”
    Winner. Right there.
    Everytime Biden smiled?
    The wife had to get in front of the TV and keep solid objects out of my reach.

  3. I only saw the last half hour.
    Peggy Noonan is nuts.
    ET is closest to my view.
    All comments about Palin “eating Biden” for lunch are laughably off base.
    She did well, in relation to the low expectations and for a rookie up against a 35-year insider of insiders.
    Two huge boners:
    – More money for school teachers [no Sarah, competition for public schools via vouchers.]
    – Populist demagoguery about greed and corruption on Wall Street [yes, Sarah, but the source of this meldown is marxist governance, in the form of Fannie-Freddie: “To each according to need”. A RIGHT to own a house.]
    That said, I really love the woman and fervently wish we had more of her ilk in government.

  4. Comparing two debates – I know now, what are the basis of anti-Americanism in Canada. They are as simple as inferiority complex. Where in U.S. debate focus is on ‘middle class’, in Canada ‘low income people’ that matters. Then, I turned on the radio and a caller supported one of the politicians, because “he was for the little guy”.
    I think you can easily win elections in Canada with the slogan: “We are the party of low expectations and low self-esteem”.
    Posted by: xiat at October 3, 2008 12:32 PM
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    xiat — that is an incredibly astute insight, one that never dawned on me before. But as I read your post, it was immediately self-evidently true to me. The debates indeed made it starkly clear: Biden/Palin were constantly referencing the middle class in terms of economic policy. The Canadian politicians (Harper excepted) were more concerned about grants to starving artists.
    I believe the U.S. economy is as large and successful as it is (current financial crisis notwithstanding), is that U.S. economic policy has generally encouraged and developed an investor class, which typically is a subset of the middle class.
    Canada has a strong economy as well, but per capita is much smaller than the U.S. economy, and we have much lower productivity that our southern counterpart. I think your statement drives at a main reason for this difference: Canadian economic policy is much more re-distributionist in nature (i.e. aimed at the lower class). Canada does not encourage enough development of an investor class to drive investment in small and medium sized businesses.
    That’s my take on it. xiat – I think you’re onto something.

  5. I hope that the people who are referencing that we have a low standard of people running are not referring to PMSH. If you take the last 2 debates and look at who can handle themselves it was diffidently PMSH. With the 4 lefties coming at him on a constant barrage of crap, he answered sternly, without raising his voice to be heard, intelligently, with credibility, with authority and with class. What more could you want from a leader.

  6. “We are the party of low expectations and low self-esteem”.
    About ten years ago one of the newpapers had a business insert with a cover story about a booming stock market. It was titled: “Are You Rich Yet?”
    Many, many people wrote angry letters, thought it was insensitive and…well, I don’t exactly know what they thought, but somehow it offended them.

  7. manny
    “…while she performed better than people expected, she left a trail of mindless, ill-thought statements that will be continued to parsed and debated. And on Tuesday, none of this will be remembered.
    Wow ET, surprising take from you. You didn’t like the Palin girlie?
    Surprisingly objective… and accurate. Palin has a talent for making one forget what the question was. When she HAS to answer a question, well, like here for instance…”
    Whats your point? This is politics.

  8. “Harper will win with a few more guys on his team but no majority.”
    richfisher
    You may be correct, I think a Harper in a minority will be able to act as a majority, that has been his plan in this election. Some say majority some say minority but in the end the Liberals will have to side with the Dippers and Bloc or abstain from voting on bills again. that is a lose lose situation. Bringing down the government in two years of less will be a lose lose lose situation for the Liberals; therefore, the Liberals may be better off with a Harper majority so the pressure will be off and the Liberals can rebuild.
    All of that being said, I don’t think it would have mattered who the Liberal leader was this time around, Stffi employed the only strategy available to the Liberals short of agreeing with the Conservatives on most issues which would have been worse politically.

  9. Whats your point? This is politics.
    Palin is an empty headed non-entity who is unsuited for high political office.

  10. How did you like our fearless leaders? Did that look like a cage of rats attacking a cat or what?

    Four chihuahuas yapping at the big dog.

  11. FRAUD! Hey- that posting by ‘ET’ at 9:15 wasn’t by me – the real ET. I haven’t posted a thing on this thread. I didnt’ watch any of the debates.
    I did NOT write:
    “Gord Tulk: Bosniaks are Bosnian Muslims. Anyone who’s done any reading about the Balkan Wars would know this.
    At any rate, I think Palin failed to impress, and while she performed better than people expected, she left a trail of mindless, ill-thought statements that will be continued to parsed and debated. And on Tuesday, none of this will be remembered.”
    I would appreciate that whoever wrote the above, should remember a basic ethical creed of blogging. Don’t assume someone else’s name and try to make readers think that you are someone else who posts on the blog. That’s unethical.
    I also happen to like Sarah Palin and I would never have written the above post.

  14. “Name one case where a perfectly competent and capable rookie, who lacks the slickness (and often sleaziness) of career politicians, has been given a fair shake by the electorate? Name one. You can’t.”-TJ
    Ralph Klein when he started out.

  16. Didn’t sound like ET to me at all.  Glad I didn’t take the bait.  😉
    Garth
    P.S.: Right of centre: You’re correct — although I don’t expect Ralph’s feat to be repeated until, oh, say, the heat-death of the Universe.  But the spirit of TJ‘s point remains, methinks.

  17. Palin is totally awesome, an asset to the ticket, and really, really competent to be vice president.
    So let her free. Take her out of Cheney’s undisclosed location and let her campaign. Let her do media interviews. Let her do town hall meetings. Take her out of tightly-scripted environments, shed the McCain chaperon (which is a bit creepy and quite a bit sexist), and “let Palin be Palin”.
    I’m sure she’ll just do great. Because really, all that Palin awesomeness shouldn’t be limited to the single vice-presidential debate. It should be unleashed on the country! If not, Republicans will be deprived of a potent weapon in this final weeks of the campaign.

  18. What Palin offers, almost regardless of herself, is a chisel, a hammer, a means to chink away at the monolithic imperium that is the Washington political structure.
    And therefore, to act as this chisel, she shouldn’t be ‘one of them’; she shouldn’t be able to give the party line. She should, instead, be genuinely puzzled at times; she shouldn’t know the slick answer to everything. Indeed, she should admit that she doesn’t know – and that the slick answer supplied by the bureaucrats may be ‘real’ only in that Washington monolith. But not outside of it.
    We have the same problem here. We’ve set up, via the Liberal regime, an Ottawa-Montreal monolith, based around one and only one particular view of What Is Right – Big Government Socialism. That’s actually a Quebec doctrine, stemming from the post WWII years of centralist Rulership.
    It doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t acknowledge reality – which is that Canada is too large, and ecologically and economically diverse, to be run by a centralist govt with an Ottawa-Montreal perspective.
    Dion and Layton and Duceppe – that’s their perspective. Harper is the only one who acknowledges reality…and it’s not easy getting any structural changes to enable that new reality when you have a majority House, a patronage Liberal Senate, a Liberal civil service made up of two decades of appointments, a similar judiciary, and a sycophantic Liberal MSM.

  19. I quite agree with the chisel concept. It’s going to take a lot of hammer and chisel work to par down the bureaucracy of government. Same with PMSH, he is got a lot of chiseling to do.

  20. “Don’t even ask what newspapers she reads.”
    Manny, that means what, exactly? Given what we know about newspapers, why would anyone of average intelligence or above read one? Do you have so little regard for your time that you feel compelled to waste it thus? Tell us, what papers do you read.
    “Palin is an empty headed non-entity who is unsuited for high political office.”
    So, she’s doesn’t (yet)have her diploma of U.S. Vice-Presidency, huh. I guess being awarded her Governorship cum laude by the electorate doesn’t say much.
    The statement, Manny, makes you a bigot. How do you feel about that?

  21. “Palin is an empty headed non-entity who is unsuited for high political office.”
    This from a guy whose candidate can name only one accomplishment, a bill, requested by President Bush that was written by Lugar and that was passed utterly without controversy by voice vote to qualify him for high office.
    Palin ran as a reformer, threw out a corrupt administration in Alaska and got a pipeline aggreement with Canada that the US really needs and that the previous corrupt gov couldn’t get done, probably having to do with waiting for the highest bidder to grease his palm…
    Who has more accomplishments?

  22. Whew.Thank you. I thought ET had gone of the deep end!! Didn’t sound like her at all. So manny. Just what do you not like about Pallin? That she is literate,and can get right to the core of the question and answer it in laymans terms? That the ordinary “trailer trash” can understand? Or was it that Biden showed just what a Washington insider,ie. a%%hole he is?
    He never did answer one question,just swerved around them. I guess a fresh,straight talking,new face scares the crap out of you lefties.

  23. Actually she had a far more difficult task than Biden last night. Remember, George Bush is deeply unpopular with much of middle America and the large number of independent voters that both sides need to win. Palin had the unenviable task of defending those policies that needed defending while still keeping the ticket at a distance from Bush. The fact that she was able to do this so successfully alone makes this something of a masterpiece. Biden was completely unable to make any of the failures of the previous eight years stick to her and by implication her ticket in any significant way.
    Manny’s reaction is clinically interesting and illustrative. The oil companies, who had the state government in their pockets for half a century in Alaska, found out just how tough and determined she can be when she handed the pipeline contract through bidding to Trans Canada. Despite her brief career, Alaska is littered with politically dead trolls like Manny who underestimated this lady. Manny’s reaction, by the way is very similar to that of the Washington so-called intelligentsia a generation ago to a similar outsider, that time a Democrat. His name was LBJ, and he tromped all over them. Do I have to remind anyone of Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln? All of America’s greatest leaders have always come from outside the Beltway, and they always spoke a simple language that the intelligentsia despised.

  24. As I have watched Governor Palin for the last few years, in awe and admiration,( Alaska is right next door to the Yukon) I was not at all surprised to see Sarah ‘school’ Biden. She has done a lot of teaching up in Alaska, to the delight of Alaskans! Governor Palin has mopped the floor with some of the sleazy politicians and the lucrative relationships they had enjoyed with special interests groups. Governor Palin is astute, intelligent and JUST. She does not curry favor with crooks and fools; she is real and she is truly on the side of the people she has signed up to work for…the msm is way behind Governor Palin…she did a bit of ‘teaching’ last night, I don’t think the media kiddies liked the new classroom rules. I hope the media all drop out or quit so the Governor can teach a new batch of people who are willing to learn.
    American people are furious with their government, Governor Palin is their ‘Help on the Way’. I hope the people take the trouble to save themselves by rejecting the ‘agenda man’ the big 0 and his bidden buddy.
    Here in Canada, in the the ‘free for all’ (it was not a debate!); PMSH was put in a classroom of preschoolers last night and another ‘kid’ was running the show! It was chaos! There was no political debate in Canada; PMSH was the only adult in the room and the kid in charge was hopped up with the ‘power’ he felt he was exerting over the only adult in the room. The rest of the class were off their Ritalin – I was embarrassed for the mini minds that set up our ‘show’.
    At least it should have left no doubt in any adult voters minds: vote Conservative or for a hyper kid.

  25. I was qiit imprussed weth Sarah Palin, that is a womanz who shuld leed, a modrn womanz. Govrmint ov the peeple four theze peeple.

  26. Mississauga Matt :
    It would have been interesting to see Ifill’s response if Palin had asked for the same courtesy (which she should have).
    Your absolutely right, she could have with an attention-grabbing result. She was as smart as a fox in this case not doing the obvious. Look at all the posters that noticed Biden’s behavior & treatment compared to her. I think she wanted it this way. An encore of subjective attacks conducted by the press, showing unequivocally the bias they display without seam or tear in the opprobrium rained on her by them at every turn.
    She rolled over both Joe , the media, right to the American people that has left the personality cult of the media in apoplexy, as the visible water carriers of Obama Messiah.
    JMO

  27. Nice that y’all can quote poll numbers from LGF and Drudge, two whacked-out right-wing smear sites, to ‘prove’ that Palin won last night, but out in the real world the general consensus is that she failed miserably.
    Really guys – mop the flop sweat off your brows and get real. I know that McCain could have selected a ham sandwich as his running mate and you’d all go to the mats defending it.
    But come on. Don’t you have any sense of integrity at all? Do you not take the any of the crises the world is facing seriously?
    Must you keep up this childish, pathetic charade forever?

  28. I don’t know about “flop sweat”, but I know a little desperation and fear when I see it.
    “but out in the real world the general consensus is that she failed miserably.”
    Whatever. What color is the sky in that “real world” of yours anyway?

  29. “Don’t even ask what newspapers she reads.”
    I believe Governor Palin uses the NY Times… it is much better for wrapping fish guts in. The Tor Star on the other hand bleeds red all over everything.

  30. What I thought was telling about the VP debate was the following.
    In a pre-debate interview with a former opposing candidate in the Alaska govenor race, he was asked what Palin had to do to win the debate. This man(forgot his name)said that what Palin had to do was look into the camera at the voters and connect with them He went on to say that when she did that in Alaska nothing else mattered-not facts, not attacks, not anything. He said if she did that it din’t matter what the other side dis.
    AND
    that is exactly what she did.
    Horny Toad

  31. Couric: When it comes to establishing your world view, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read, to stay informed, and to understand the world?
    Palin: I’ve read most of them, again, with a great appreciation of the press, for the media…
    Couric: But what ones specifically, I’m curious…
    Palin: Umm, all of them, any of them, that have, er, uhmm, been in front of me over all these years…
    Couric: Can you name a few?
    No, she couldn’t. Not one paper. Nor could she cite one Supreme court case. Not one. She thinks because Alaska is in geographical proximity to Russia, she has in depth knowledge of geo-politics. She thinks she owes her gubanatorial success to a laying on of hands by her African witch finder general. She believes she is a expert on energy issues because Alaska has a lot of oil and natural gas. Gives your heads a shake, sdm.

  32. Aw, Tim
    Conservative commentators like Charles Krauthammer aren’t in your real world, huh? Mainstream polls of CBS and CNN aren’t the ‘real word’ for you, right?
    Nope! It’s Drudge and fellow racists at LGF for you all the way, right? That’s the real world for you!
    How’s life in the bunker, guys?

  33. manny – you don’t read newspapers and magazines to be informed. Don’t you know that? You have to read articles in journals, and books – written, not by journalists, but by experts in the field.
    So- stop harping on reading ‘newspapers and magazines’. They aren’t a source of knowledge. Maybe you get your ‘information’ from them, but that’s your problem.
    Cite one supreme court case about what? Why is that a criterion?
    What African witch finder general?
    You know, manny, it’s easy to fling insults and opinions around. How about stopping the insults and substantiating your opinions?

  34. David Brooks, The Palin Rebound
    By the end of her opening answers, it was clear she would meet the test. She spoke with that calm, measured poise that marked her convention speech, not the panicked meanderings of her subsequent interviews…
    By the end of the debate, most Republicans were not crouching behind the couch, but standing on it. The race has not been transformed, but few could have expected as vibrant and tactically clever a performance as the one Sarah Palin turned in Thursday night…

  35. Krauthammer? I think he came around on Palin. Do you have a link? I saw him interviewed after this debate and I think you are as confused as Biden apparently was. He started his interview as the “resident Palin skeptic”, but then praised her performance.
    Here, you can read about Biden’s multiple mis-statement of facts here.
    Oh yeah, and if you want to read about Obama’s ties to terrorist Ayers, you can go to Saturday’s (lowest circulation day) New York Times.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
    Here is a gem:
    “[Ayers is ]a guy who lives in my neighborhood” and “somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know.””
    Well, it turns out that Ayers hosted the party where Obama launched his political carreer.
    “Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office,”
    BTW, the above quote was cut and paste from the story earlier, it is now gone. It was edited down the memory hole by Obama’s enablers. Gee, evidence that Obama is a serial liar deleted from the NYT? Who would have thunk it.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

  37. Cite one supreme court case about what? Why is that a criterion?
    It demonstrates that she is an ignoramus.
    She’s also a liar. She claimed to have read “all of them” (newspapers and magazines), yet couldn’t name one.
    She adheres to a truly bizarre set of superstitious nonsense. She’s as deep as a birdbath. She definitely does not belong one geriatric, melanomic heartbeat away from the presidency.

  38. Hey Tim
    Does Fox news exist in your ‘real world’, too? They had Biden at 68, Palin at 31 their poll.
    Those far-left libtards at Fox!

  39. manny – you still aren’t substantiating your opinions. They remain – just your personal, deeply felt, yet unsubstantiated opinions.
    No, you don’t go to the MSM or YouTube for facts, manny. They are presenting opinions as well.
    I can cite supreme court cases in both the US and Canada. Does that mean that I am NOT an ignoramus, manny? After all, you seem to think I am pretty despicable. And, might I suggest that you stop with the insults. I’m too old for talk like that.
    Why does naming a newspaper mean that one is ‘knowledgeable’? I can name lots of newspapers and I bet you can too. Should you therefore be defined as ‘knowledgeable’?
    You still haven’t replied to my question about witch doctors – and don’t present me with unsubstantiated nonsense from YouTube. Now, you are into ‘bizarre superstitious nonsense’. Please explain. Factually. I’m not interested in your personal opinions. Just the facts.
    There’s a difference between facts and opinions. All you provide here are your personal opinions. No facts. No logic. No reasoning. That’s a pretty weak presentation – what you are doing is called ‘sophistry’.

  40. ET, Sarah Palin in her own words, caught in her own lies, demonstrating her profound ignorance, is there for all to see. That is fact, not opinion, whether the venue is You Tube, or anywhere else. Now I wouldn’t call your inability to remove your partisan blinders despicable. Pathetic, yes, but not despicable.

  41. I think when all this sorts out Obama better have at least a 20% poll margin if he thinks about winning this election.

  43. Didn’t see the video, but it can’t be any worse than Rev. Wright. Course, Obama only attended the church for 20 years, was married there, had his kids baptized there, and yet, was unable to see the hatred against America – notably white American that was spewed there. It was only after the Rev. repeated his diatribe at the Press function, for all the world to see that suddenly Mr. Amnesia threw his spiritual mentor under the bus. Guess Rev. Wright’s rung on the ladder had already been used and stepping all over him was politically expedient rather than standing by his spiritual elder. NOBAMA

  44. Hey Tim
    Check out Krauthammer’s requiem on the debate in today’s Washington Post, essentially accepting that Obama will be the next President.
    Hey ET-
    Sorry to disturb the fun you’re having trying out your old “you’re not presenting facts, only opinions” gambit on Manny. I know you believe it’s an unanswerable joust in every argument, no matter how untrue it is. But I think you’ll find that most sensible adults simply tire of you repeating the same statement over and over again in lieu of argument, and walk away bored to death.
    Interesting tactic you utilize: bore your opponent into walking away.
    Fact is, though, for most of us, a person who could conceivably sit in the most powerful office in the world, and who does not know the rationale behind the war her country’s engaged in at the present time (the Bush doctrine), is unqualified to sit in that office.
    For you or me not to know what the Bush doctine is? No problem. For a person who could one day be the Commander-in-Chief not to know it? Problem.
    Many people’s alarm bells were set off by her not knowing more than one Supreme Court judgement. Hey, maybe she just couldn’t think of it at the time. Okay.
    But this, added onto her ignorance of the Bush Doctrine? Problem.
    She couldn’t think of a single newspaper or magazine by which she keeps abreast of world events? Well, maybe she didn’t want to give an indelicate or partisan answer. But couldn’t she have been a bit quicker on her feet and come up with something better than the nonsensical – and preposterous – reply she gave? Don’t we want someone a little more mentally on the ball than that?
    Or maybe she simply doesn’t read newspapers, or can’t remember the names of the ones she does read…? In any case, bizarre.
    Again, this is a gaffe which alone might attract little attention. But along with her Bush Doctrine ignorance, and the Supreme Court question, it forms a pattern which really isn’t pretty.
    You can deny this. But what you are denying is facts – the facts of her repeatedly saying things which point to a dangerous deficience in knowledge. In denying this you’re affriming that facts, and the truth, are of no importance to you. You’re showing that you can’t be trusted.

  45. Manny and real you two are a bunch of arrogant pricks.
    What you completely fail to understand is that Palin is shaking up the political establishment a bit *and that is a good thing*. Freedom loving people like that. It’s healthy. We’re enjoying watching her do it.
    You think you are so high and mighty why don’t you try running for President, and then we can all make fun of your lack of knowledge? Can I do the first interview, please? How much do you want to bet I could completely stump you on the *very first question*??? Come on, place your bet you little know-it-alls.

  46. well, real, if you are tired of my arguments, then why are you bothering to respond?
    You are the one who is ignorant of the ‘Bush Doctrine’. There are four – got that – four meanings of this phrase. The Bush doctrine can mean unilateral war, or the ‘either-or’ alliance, or pre-emptive war, or, dealing with fascism by enabling democracy. So, real, which one was meant by Gibson? And you? Hmmm?
    I cannot for the life of me think that knowing, on the spur of the moment, one Supreme Court decision, to be of any relevance. Understanding the varied reasons for and against a decision are far more important. What was the reason for such a trivial question? To find out her partisan preferences.
    I don’t think that giving the names of newspapers she reads has any relevance to ‘being qualified’. That’s a silly question and was obviously asked to ferret out partisanship – ie – does she read a leftist or rightist MSM?
    It certainly wasn’t an attempt to explore her sources of knowledge, because newspapers don’t provide knowledge. Palin refused to supply an answer because she refused to be diverted into the real agenda of the question.
    Am I denying facts? No. I’m just pointing out to you that your facts are irrelevant facts. Does naming one’s dog ‘Kyoto’ (fact) mean that the owner of that dog understands climate change? Nope.

  47. Come now, Et
    The overarching meaning and purpose and meaning of the phrase ‘Bush Doctrine’ – especially as it refers to the conflict America has been in for the last 5 years – is the premise that The Us has the right to take pre-emptive action towards threats they perceive from other countries.
    Everybody knows it. You know it. Far from shuffling through the umpteen ‘meanings’ of the phrase, Palin stuttered “what do you mean, Charlie…his worldview…?” She had no clue and you’re showing you have no intellectual integrity by your mealy-mouthed attempts to insist otherwise.
    It’s wonderful that you don’t think knowing a ‘single Supreme Court case’ or being unable to name a single newspaper reflects badly on Palin’s abilities. Apparently, though, Palin herself disagrees, since she readily provided the names of several publications in her later Fox interview of this week.
    Obviously, she – or more likely the handlers who fed her the names of the publications trying to cancel out the debacle of her Couric interview – disagree with you. So you can knock off your gyrating hackery trying to defend her ignorance. She’s already de facto confessed it by trying to walk it back.
    Do you really have no intellectual integrity at all? Many Republican and conservative commnetators have readily admitted they are disenchanted with Palin’s unfitness for office. Yet you’re out here spinning like crazy, trying to defend an ignorance you would attack if a Democrat was spouting it, an ignorance which Palin and her handlers have realized is damaging which is why she was out there trying to repair it, saying in effect, “hey, look I can name newspapers after all”. You are a showcase of dishonest partisan hackery.
    And in your final comment about dogs named Kyoto you slide from dishonesty into ineffectual incoherence. I suppose that’s only to be expected from one who has spent so much time and energy in denying reality.

  48. “The overarching meaning and purpose and meaning of the phrase ‘Bush Doctrine’ – especially as it refers to the conflict America has been in for the last 5 years – is the premise that The Us has the right to take pre-emptive action towards threats they perceive from other countries.”
    Cite your sources please. Because my own personal understanding of the “Bush Doctrine” is the democratization of basket-case ME nations. It is intellectually lazy to cite “everybody knows it” as support for your position. It is, in fact, a fallacy.
    Frankly the original interview question was poorly worded, and likely deliberately to to create a gotcha moment. And, frankly, Palin’s answer was equally covered in weak sauce, and she should have handled the uncertainty better (uncertainty caused, I’d add, by the interviewer).
    However, I strongly suspect had the question been more robustly and honestly presented (i.e. what is your view on President Bush’s doctrine of military preemption of threats to the nation?), a more interesting discussion would have ensued. Perhaps it would have been a discussion that would have further elucidated the viewers. Instead, we get an exchange that has provided much grist for the blogging mill, but has done little to enhance the national debate south of the 49th.

  49. So real@12:137 I can ask you a few questions then in front of 10 million people and see how you do?
    Obviously you seem to have the answers to everything so no chance I could stump you right? Wouldn’t happen right? C’mon. Let’s have a go at it?
    My father reads the news every day, reads the Economist, has two Ph.D’s, sharp as a tack, and you know what? I bet he couldn’t explain what the ‘Bush Doctrine’ is.
    I sure as hell couldn’t. In fact most of the engineers I know couldn’t, but you know what, they would probably do a fine job of running the country.
    Oh but wait, we’re bumbling uneducated fools in your eyes so no matter.
    Do you get the point yet? Probably not, because you are running on pure emotion driven by a burning dislike of Palin (and more likely what she stands for).
    Personally I enjoy seeing her on the scene. She’s a breath of fresh air. The fact that she can’t explain the so-called Bush Doctrine is a positive in my mind. Means she’s an outsider, not part of the entrenched political class.

  50. No, real. You are wrong. And don’t try to ‘argumentum ad populam’ (everybody knows it). That’s a fallacious strategy of argumentation.
    There are FOUR, at least four, meanings to the phrase ‘Bush doctrine’. You can read up on it, since I’m sure you don’t believe me – on Krauthammer’s column in the Washington Post, Sept 13/08, called ‘Charlie Gibson’s Gaffe’.
    It doesn’t mean ‘pre-emptive war; that’s the third meaning. The first, coined by Krauthammer prior to 9/11, was unilateralism.
    The second, was the ‘Either-Or’ doctrine of either you fight against terrorism or support it. No neutrality.
    The third one, in 2002, was the pre-emptive war.
    The fourth one – is the enabling of democracy.
    OK?
    As for naming a single newspaper – do you seriously suggest that IF she had named ‘NY Times’ or ‘Washington Times’ that such a statement is a criterion of being VP? Boy, you sure have some strange criteria, don’t you!
    Same with the Supreme Court decision. I could name a few; that doesn’t make me, in any way, suitable to be VP. Same with you.
    Your assertion that I have no intellectual integrity is spurious and meaningless. I stand by my points that naming a newspaper or a SC decision is not a criterion to be VP of the USA. You claim that both are requirements for the position. That’s you. I have different, and I think, much higher standards for evaluating someone’s suitablility to be VP.
    Equally, that there are FOUR, not one, meanings of the phrase ‘Bush doctrine’. The fact that you don’t know this – is your inadequacy in knowledge.
    I strongly approve of Palin. Why? Because she’s able to confront a rigid, monolithic governing structure -as was the Republican governance in Alaska – and open that structure to democracy. I hope that she’ll be able to do the same in Washington.
    Barack Obama and Biden are both embedded in that monolithic frozen imperium – and Obama, in particular, is a narcissistic oligarch with strong anti-democratic tendencies. I reject both.

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