“Can I Call You Joe?”

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

1. And one other thing real, in all likelihood the question on the Bush Doctrine was a trap from multiple angles.
   If she had answered in the way you, with your profound knowledge of everything in the universe, felt she should have, then your response would have been “You see, she knows the Bush doctrine, so we’ll just get more of Bush’s policies”.
   It’s pretty clear at this point that no matter what she would have said you would be here rambling on about her ignorance.
   Anyway, I’m still waiting for you to take me up on my offer to ask you a few questions and see how you do.
   You seem to think she’s a complete and utter idiot, and by logical inference you are not an idiot since you are the one making said claim, so let’s see how you do on the hot seat shall we?

2. Hey Et
   The fact of the matter is that Palin couldn’t give a coherent answer to “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” I’m presuming you don’t think she’d have any serious quibbles with any one of the definitions Krauthammer provides (I was aware of them before). Yet Palin’s response was: “In what sense?…you mean his worldview?” She didn’t ask “the third meaning of the doctrine? The fourth?” So even by your own insistence that the term has multiple meanings she failed to answer the question. Yeah, we’re taking about his “worldview”, Sarah.
   As I stated clearly in my post, any of the gaffes she made isn’t disturbing by themselves – it’s the pattern they form which is troubling. You try and state I believe that her inability to name a newspaper alone is a disqualifier. Why you do this when the evidendce is here in the thread that I specifically did not state this is puzzling. Are you trying to mislead people by misrepresenting my views?
   Not a very honest debating tactic. If you’re confident in your case, why do you have to lie to try and make a false defence of it?
   It’s kind of a drag that I even have to say this but it doesn’t matter whether you or I can name a SC decision. We’re not running for VP of the most powerful country in the world. I don’t care that you or anyone else knows anything about performing dental procedures. But I would expect a dentist who’s going to operate on my teeth to know such things.
   The fact that it’s A-okay with you that Palin is ignorant in this case – along with all the other ones that have been cited – shows that your commitment is not to the common good, but to your narrow partisan interests. You have an irrational need to defend whatever your poltical side does, and you do it dishonestly as well, as has been shown here. You’ve shown not only that you have no intellectual integrity but that you are also a liar.
   The saddest part though: your delusion that you can win an argument by misrepresenting my views, a lie which is easily disproven by anyone reading this thread.

3. real – you wrote:
   “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.”
   You said nothing about the other three meanings. So, I’m afraid that I don’t accept your come-by-late assertion that, ah, you knew about the others perfectly well. I go by what you wrote.
   Oh, and they aren’t numbered, so, Palin couldn’t say – do you mean numbers 1,2,3 or 4? She was right to ask Gibson what he meant.
   No, there isn’t any evidence in this thread that you consider that her inability to name a newspaper is unimportant. Nor did I say that you said that naming a newspaper ALONE was a key criterion. I said that your actually considering both of these (newspaper and SC case) as criterion of VP selection is, in my view, trivial. If you don’t consider them important – then why did you keep referring to them?
   “She couldn’t think of a single newspaper or magazine by which she keeps abreast of world events?” Hey, real, you don’t get indepth information from newspapers or magazines. I bet you don’t know that.
   You state that “Palin is ignorant in this case” (about newspapers and SC cases) shows that you place a great deal of focus on these two as criteria for being VP. I don’t.
   Oh gosh, I’m irrational, have no intellectual integrity, am uncommitted to the common good and only to narrow partisan interests –and I’m a liar? Oh, gosh and golly, real – maybe I should go out and drown myself.
   Oh wait – that would only be if I accepted your perception of me. And, real, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But I don’t accept what you say about me. So there. Enjoy your Platonic Cave.

4. real:
   She can be up to speed on the Supreme Court decisions in very short order — in a few hours or days at most. At this juncture, it really is irrelevant.
   She’s not a lawyer. She’s new to the federal scene. Were McCain to die a week after being inaugerated, she would, in due course, have to make an appointment. She will have no difficulty winnowing down the proposed list.
   Honestly, were I assessing a candidate from the opposition I would not consider his/her failure to summon up Supreme Court decisions very important.
   And being now a total non-reader of newspapers and magazines, I wouldn’t give her failure to name the correct newspapers (the liberal “papers of record”) any weight either.
   Get it, real, Couric’s was a gotcha interview. She knew what her job was: not to provide a balanced view of the candidate — her strenghts AND weaknesses — but only to position her as a hick from the sticks, a denizen of fly-over country.
   Finally, always remember you’re getting a edited product here. Unless you were there for the duration of the meeting, you really can’t have a full understanding of what occurred. A skilled editor can make anyone look like an idiot.
   BTW, what newspapers and books does Obama read?
   And think about this: over a 12 year academic career, Obama didn’t write a single scholarly book or article. However, he did take money from his university as funding for a scholarly work on race relations, but wrote a personal biography — before he accomplished anything!
   Finally, MSM is now the “war room” of the Dem party and therefore their interviews ought to be taken with a pound of salt.

5. ET
   You seem reaonably literate, so I’m sure you realize that when I said pre-emption is the “overarching” meaning of the Bush Doctrine, it implies that there are other meanings of the Doctrine.
   I can’t imagine that you believe the fact that I didn’t explicitly name those other meanings means I wasn’t aware of them, when the term “overarching” means that I was aware ofthem.
   The fact is, this is merely another of your misrepresentations. It’s sad that you continue to make them, and sadder that without them, you have no arguments at all.
   The rest of your post is filled with word parsings and unconvincing mental gymnastics that I gather you’re proud of, since they’re inthe service of your irrational loyalty to your party above country and above all common good. But your attempts to dance around and play word games isn’t as impressive as you seem to feel. You really should try to put your abilities into service of the truth, instead of expending so much energy lying, and misrepresenting others’ views trying to score a false ‘victory’ which exists only in your own mind.
   Because the sad thing is, “ET”, even if one isn’t offended by lying on a moral level (as you obviously are not), it simply isn’t practical in the contest of debate. After all,why should anyone consider your views seriously when it’s obvious you don’t care anything at all about maintaining a connection to objective reality?

6. Real your arguments have become boring, tiresome and utterly nonsensical.
   Just face it, you have lost this debate, and you are spinning your wheels.
   When you find the courage to let me ask you a few candidate-style questions, so we can all see how smart you are, just let me know.
   I suspect I’ll be waiting a long time.

7. Wow! I guess even Charlie Gibson didn’t even know there were four “Bush Doctrines”. It showed. BTW,has anyone heard Obama’s answer to this question? Oh, wait! He didn’t actually get any gotcha questions, did he? Has he ever?
   Also, I don’t know who said that our debate was like dropping a bear into a cage full of weasels but it was right on the money!