A president elected by Kids! My god...
Rock the Vote isn't going to work this time...
It is good however that Obama has replaced Gangsta Rappers as the Idol of US Teens - even if they dont Vote.
The campaign that Facebook Built....
it has already worked douchey mcdouche, have you not been paying attention? of course you haven't, you're a troll and you live under a bridge. come out and see the world troll.
". . .uproariously praised Palin for her colloquialisms, and being "just like me" or "could be anyone from my town" or "makes me feel like I could do it." That scares me the most. I don't want my neighbor as vice president; I don't want myself, my aunt, or my substitute teacher in politics."
I think this is the (unfortunately) logical extension of the trend toward "entitlement" -- the "everyone's a winner" mentality fostered by well-meaning parents and educators (?) who (for instance) give every kind on the team a trophy, and declare them all champions, regardless of accomplishment.
ah yes, Republicans are all working, which is why they aren't reflected in polls. Of course! How could I forgot.. probably too much Democratic downtime. I better get back to kicking back and not working, and being over-polled...
were all the Republicans working on election day in 2006, eat me? I mean, the good news for all the working Republicans this year is that they've either just been left their CEO positions at their failing banks and are living on a fixed income (of a few hundred million dollars), or they will have been laid off because of the failure of those banks and 30 years of Republican Reaganomics. I wonder which party they'll vote for this November: the one that really fucked them over with their economic policies and promises to continue those policies, or the one that admittedly went along with those policies too much in recent years, but is at least offering alternative policies now. Thanks to the Republicans' economic policies, trolls like eatme aren't the only ones who will be living under bridges.
hate(you mean anger of a unmet need)? i think what the story says what that this group didn't stick up for them selfs because they payed so much money to be put down.
Palin finally took questions on Tuesday from her traveling press corps on her campaign plane. Asked if she thought Senator Obama was dishonest, McCain’s Mean Girl meandered:
“I’m not saying he’s dishonest, but in terms of judgment, in terms of being able to answer a question forthrightly, it has two different parts to this. The judgment and the truthfulness and just being able to answer very candidly a simple question about when did you know him, how did you know him, is there still — has there been an association continued since ’02 or ’05, I know I’ve read a couple different stories. I think it’s relevant.”
Being able to see Russia from your home state doesn't constitute foreign policy experience any more than seeing the moon from my backyard makes me an astronaut.
(I cant take credit - I saw it posted on a different site)
now let's just say that SWIM knows about Obama's associations with Ayers, and let's also say that SWIM thinks that the WU was pretty right-on, as far as domestic stuff is concerned, does that make SWIM a terrorist?
i mean, we're talking about SWIM here, and SWIM really thinks he might actually draw more respect for Obama for not calling out Ayers on activities from 20years previous for which he was under no indictment.
I'm new to this US goverment debate things - but I found interesting facts about Sarah Planin's enemy:
PULL THE HAIR PLUG ON THIS GUY
October 8, 2008
If Sarah Palin had made just one of the wildly inaccurate statements smugly uttered by Sen. Joe Biden in last week's vice presidential debate, there would have been 3-inch headlines in newspapers across America. (I can almost hear Katie Couric asking me, "Which newspapers?")
These weren't insignificant errors, such as when Biden said, "Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie's restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time, and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years."
It turns out that Katie's restaurant, where Biden gets his feel for the average American, closed 20 years ago. The only evidence that he spends any time in Home Depot is that it appears that a pipe wrench fell on his head one too many times.
Palin would surely have been forced to withdraw from the ticket had she said something like that, but most of Biden's errors were not trifling mistakes like these. They were lengthy Lyndon LaRouche-like disquisitions that were pure fantasy from beginning to end.
For example, Biden said about Hezbollah: "When we kicked -- along with France -- we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon." Hezbollah was never kicked out of Lebanon.
He continued: "I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.'" This is madness -- Lebanon is not a NATO country, nor had any NATO country been attacked by Lebanon.
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of foreign policy.
Biden also stoutly denied that Obama ever said he would sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Liberals find it hilarious that McCain can't use a computer keyboard on account of his war injuries, but Biden is apparently unaware of the Internet, because there are clips all over the Internet of Obama saying exactly that during the CNN/YouTube debate last year.
Biden might have remembered that debate since: (1) He was there, and (2) he later attacked Obama's answer, telling the National Press Club in August 2007: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected president? Absolutely, positively, no."
And that's still not all! Obama's own Web site says: "Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions."
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his ability to remember well-known facts.
Biden also gave a long speech at the debate on vice president Dick Cheney's "dangerous" belief that "he's part of the legislative branch." The great constitutional scholar Biden cited Article I of the Constitution as proof that Cheney "works in the executive branch" and has "no authority relative to the Congress." Biden huffily added: "He should understand that. Everyone should understand that."
Palin would have had to deny that Alaska is a state in the union in order to say something comparably stupid.
Article II, not I, describes the executive branch. Someone tell Biden, who is supposed to be a lawyer. Apart from getting the Articles of the Constitution mixed up, what on earth does Biden mean when he says that the vice president "has no authority relative to Congress," apart from breaking ties?
The Constitution makes him president of the senate every day of the week. I realize that Biden may not be able to count to two, but Article I says the vice president is president of one of the two houses of Congress -- the one Biden is in, for crying out loud -- which is what you might call "authority relative to Congress."
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of the Constitution.
In one especially hallucinatory answer, Biden authoritatively stated: "With Afghanistan, facts matter, Gwen. ... We spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country."
According to the Congressional Research Service, since 9/11, we've spent $172 billion in Afghanistan and $653 billion in Iraq. The most money spent in Iraq came in 2008, when we have been spending less than $3 billion a week. So by Biden's calculations, we've spent only about $9 billion "on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country." There isn't even a "9" in $172 billion.
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of math.
In the same answer, Biden went on to claim that "John McCain voted against a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that every Republican has supported."
The last nuclear test ban treaty the Senate voted on was the one Clinton signed in the '90s. As The New York Times editorialized on the Senate vote a few years later: "Last week, Senate Republicans thundered 'no' to the nuclear test ban treaty, handing the White House its biggest defeat since health care in 1994." Forty-nine Republicans voted against the treaty; only four liberal Republicans voted for it. That's the treaty Biden says "every Republican has supported."
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his ability to function as vice president.
always balancing to have some input from both sides in this forum.
as mfrech points out though, looking to ann coulter for wisdom in this instance is probably a bit like seeking silvio berlusconi's advice on politician's conflicts of interest, or honesty in general for that matter.
i agree, legeuse -- there's got to be some balance. and i think it's important that even though "he's my guy" (a la palin) that if and when biden stretches the truth, it's important to point it out, just as when any politician does.
i think that much of what biden was saying was generally accurate, it's when exact figures get in the way that these things tend to become more glaring. i believe he is correct that we are overcommitted in iraq and undercommitted in afghanistan, and even the figures quoted by ann coulter should give one pause -- $658b vs. $172b (which is a conservative estimate, i'm sure) -- and that is what is more significant, rather than focusing on how he got the numbers wrong.
especially now that the military leadership and the afghani government are all agreeing with the point biden was trying to make, the underlying strategies matter more than the precise numbers.
i'm absolutely for balanced discussions, and noone in charge of people's future and lives should "get away" with lying.
however. the alternative is anti-abortionist, global warming-denialist, keynote speaker at ultra-right separatist conferences, skin-it-alive-cuz-it-makes-a-dashing-coat, completely backwards and in many cases plain stupid person. so quite frankly I couldn't care half as much about what Biden says or does as i care about the fact that across the room stands that same nervously grinning ignoramus, with biology and statistics on her side to becoming president in a few years if republicans win the election in a month.
i agree completely mfrech, numbers you can read off a chart whenever you need them. vision, wit, compassion, intelligence and all the rest you actually need to have.
Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act.
Such impermissible and repeated contacts create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior's displeasure and the possible consequences of such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature.
***
Governor Palin has stated publicly that she and her family feared Trooper Wooten. Yet the evidence presented has been inconsistent with such claims of fear. The testimony from Trooper Wheeler, who was part of her security detail from the start, was that shortly after elected to office, she ordered a substantial reduction in manpower in her personal protection detail ... an act that is inconsistent with a desire to avoid harm from Trooper Wooten or others.
...It is noteworthy that in almost every contact with the subordinate employees, Mr. Palin's comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. His comments were always couched in terms that he was a bad Trooper, that he was not a good recruiting image for the AST, that his discipline amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, that nothing had happened to him following the administrative investigation, and so forth...
I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons.
British Perspective: Flirting her way to victory
Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
Michelle Goldberg, Friday October 3 2008 guardian.co.uk
At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries
put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.
And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.
It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to
pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.
In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the
financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.
There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:
"Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now
doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for
30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate."
Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy
filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?"
None of Palin's children, it should be noted, are heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin'
redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow,
mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.
ya betcha.....smile must have brought here up to the 80's, and of course another goodie two shoes line like....a shout out....to the third graders for watching this evening....
One look at her un-posed lip gives it away. I mean you don't hold such ideologically bigoted views about; womens rights, the environment and other verified facts unless there is a issue of mental deficit.
I predict much like the Anglican church if Sarah ever wants to rejoin the community she will be apologizing for her attacks on evolution among other things like child abuse.
Sarah Palin???
When Sarah Palin sees Russia across the International Date Line, she's seeing into the future!
i live in LA and i can see persians from my apartment...i don't know anything about iran
A president elected by Kids! My god...
Rock the Vote isn't going to work this time...
It is good however that Obama has replaced Gangsta Rappers as the Idol of US Teens - even if they dont Vote.
The campaign that Facebook Built....
Woman Haters!
Breeder Haters!
it has already worked douchey mcdouche, have you not been paying attention? of course you haven't, you're a troll and you live under a bridge. come out and see the world troll.
". . .uproariously praised Palin for her colloquialisms, and being "just like me" or "could be anyone from my town" or "makes me feel like I could do it." That scares me the most. I don't want my neighbor as vice president; I don't want myself, my aunt, or my substitute teacher in politics."
I think this is the (unfortunately) logical extension of the trend toward "entitlement" -- the "everyone's a winner" mentality fostered by well-meaning parents and educators (?) who (for instance) give every kind on the team a trophy, and declare them all champions, regardless of accomplishment.
Isn't it ?
"everybody" knows republicans don't use phones they might get calls from non racists and non rich people who are secular , scary
Ea™e = Emo?
ah yes, Republicans are all working, which is why they aren't reflected in polls. Of course! How could I forgot.. probably too much Democratic downtime. I better get back to kicking back and not working, and being over-polled...
were all the Republicans working on election day in 2006, eat me? I mean, the good news for all the working Republicans this year is that they've either just been left their CEO positions at their failing banks and are living on a fixed income (of a few hundred million dollars), or they will have been laid off because of the failure of those banks and 30 years of Republican Reaganomics. I wonder which party they'll vote for this November: the one that really fucked them over with their economic policies and promises to continue those policies, or the one that admittedly went along with those policies too much in recent years, but is at least offering alternative policies now. Thanks to the Republicans' economic policies, trolls like eatme aren't the only ones who will be living under bridges.
Ea™e is a piece of shit troll so it seems, fun, lets get him to say more outrageous things for our enjoyment
so i hear IAEA is going to start investigations Israel now
Anti is a White-Christian-Woman-Breeder-Hater.
Sorry about that...where does it come from?
dude, kim deal rocks.
Cannonball!!!
hate(you mean anger of a unmet need)? i think what the story says what that this group didn't stick up for them selfs because they payed so much money to be put down.
stereotyped by mccains bigoted view of women
“I’m not saying he’s dishonest, but in terms of judgment, in terms of being able to answer a question forthrightly, it has two different parts to this. The judgment and the truthfulness and just being able to answer very candidly a simple question about when did you know him, how did you know him, is there still — has there been an association continued since ’02 or ’05, I know I’ve read a couple different stories. I think it’s relevant.”
huh?
lesson one from the rove playbook: innuendo will get you anywhere.
TREASON!!!
Being able to see Russia from your home state doesn't constitute foreign policy experience any more than seeing the moon from my backyard makes me an astronaut.
(I cant take credit - I saw it posted on a different site)
But she has never seen Russia from Alaska. No governor of Alaska ever has. Ted Stevens has though.
now let's just say that SWIM knows about Obama's associations with Ayers, and let's also say that SWIM thinks that the WU was pretty right-on, as far as domestic stuff is concerned, does that make SWIM a terrorist?
i mean, we're talking about SWIM here, and SWIM really thinks he might actually draw more respect for Obama for not calling out Ayers on activities from 20years previous for which he was under no indictment.
tell me truthfully - do you hate SWIM?
some white immature woman?
wu-tang
David Brooks: Palin "Represents a Fatal Cancer to the Republican Party"
Maybe he still thinks he's in Vietnam.
That is better than calling people "friends"
At least we know we are all slaves to corporations and if we didn't he informed US.
SWIM = Someone Who Isn't Me
let's see, a republican controlled aslaska state senate runs an investigation into abuse of powers.
after repeated attempts by republicans from outsied the state to derail the investigation...
palin interviews herself, clears herself of any wrongdoing...
can you be any more corrupt? it's like no one knows who mussolini(mooselini?) is...
wtf?
spell check. shhhucks.
welcome to the banana republic.
guilty by association is enough to base a campaign around...or so it seems, but all i see is a pot and kettle
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/
I'm new to this US goverment debate things - but I found interesting facts about Sarah Planin's enemy:
PULL THE HAIR PLUG ON THIS GUY
October 8, 2008
If Sarah Palin had made just one of the wildly inaccurate statements smugly uttered by Sen. Joe Biden in last week's vice presidential debate, there would have been 3-inch headlines in newspapers across America. (I can almost hear Katie Couric asking me, "Which newspapers?")
These weren't insignificant errors, such as when Biden said, "Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie's restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time, and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years."
It turns out that Katie's restaurant, where Biden gets his feel for the average American, closed 20 years ago. The only evidence that he spends any time in Home Depot is that it appears that a pipe wrench fell on his head one too many times.
Palin would surely have been forced to withdraw from the ticket had she said something like that, but most of Biden's errors were not trifling mistakes like these. They were lengthy Lyndon LaRouche-like disquisitions that were pure fantasy from beginning to end.
For example, Biden said about Hezbollah: "When we kicked -- along with France -- we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon." Hezbollah was never kicked out of Lebanon.
He continued: "I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.'" This is madness -- Lebanon is not a NATO country, nor had any NATO country been attacked by Lebanon.
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of foreign policy.
Biden also stoutly denied that Obama ever said he would sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Liberals find it hilarious that McCain can't use a computer keyboard on account of his war injuries, but Biden is apparently unaware of the Internet, because there are clips all over the Internet of Obama saying exactly that during the CNN/YouTube debate last year.
Biden might have remembered that debate since: (1) He was there, and (2) he later attacked Obama's answer, telling the National Press Club in August 2007: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected president? Absolutely, positively, no."
And that's still not all! Obama's own Web site says: "Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions."
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his ability to remember well-known facts.
Biden also gave a long speech at the debate on vice president Dick Cheney's "dangerous" belief that "he's part of the legislative branch." The great constitutional scholar Biden cited Article I of the Constitution as proof that Cheney "works in the executive branch" and has "no authority relative to the Congress." Biden huffily added: "He should understand that. Everyone should understand that."
Palin would have had to deny that Alaska is a state in the union in order to say something comparably stupid.
Article II, not I, describes the executive branch. Someone tell Biden, who is supposed to be a lawyer. Apart from getting the Articles of the Constitution mixed up, what on earth does Biden mean when he says that the vice president "has no authority relative to Congress," apart from breaking ties?
The Constitution makes him president of the senate every day of the week. I realize that Biden may not be able to count to two, but Article I says the vice president is president of one of the two houses of Congress -- the one Biden is in, for crying out loud -- which is what you might call "authority relative to Congress."
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of the Constitution.
In one especially hallucinatory answer, Biden authoritatively stated: "With Afghanistan, facts matter, Gwen. ... We spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country."
According to the Congressional Research Service, since 9/11, we've spent $172 billion in Afghanistan and $653 billion in Iraq. The most money spent in Iraq came in 2008, when we have been spending less than $3 billion a week. So by Biden's calculations, we've spent only about $9 billion "on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country." There isn't even a "9" in $172 billion.
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of math.
In the same answer, Biden went on to claim that "John McCain voted against a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that every Republican has supported."
The last nuclear test ban treaty the Senate voted on was the one Clinton signed in the '90s. As The New York Times editorialized on the Senate vote a few years later: "Last week, Senate Republicans thundered 'no' to the nuclear test ban treaty, handing the White House its biggest defeat since health care in 1994." Forty-nine Republicans voted against the treaty; only four liberal Republicans voted for it. That's the treaty Biden says "every Republican has supported."
Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the Democrat ticket based on his ability to function as vice president.
COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER
interesting post Geoff -- but if you're new to US government debate things...i wouldn't start your media consumption off with ann coulter.
she ain't exactly factcheck.org.
always balancing to have some input from both sides in this forum.
as mfrech points out though, looking to ann coulter for wisdom in this instance is probably a bit like seeking silvio berlusconi's advice on politician's conflicts of interest, or honesty in general for that matter.
i agree, legeuse -- there's got to be some balance. and i think it's important that even though "he's my guy" (a la palin) that if and when biden stretches the truth, it's important to point it out, just as when any politician does.
i think that much of what biden was saying was generally accurate, it's when exact figures get in the way that these things tend to become more glaring. i believe he is correct that we are overcommitted in iraq and undercommitted in afghanistan, and even the figures quoted by ann coulter should give one pause -- $658b vs. $172b (which is a conservative estimate, i'm sure) -- and that is what is more significant, rather than focusing on how he got the numbers wrong.
especially now that the military leadership and the afghani government are all agreeing with the point biden was trying to make, the underlying strategies matter more than the precise numbers.
i'm absolutely for balanced discussions, and noone in charge of people's future and lives should "get away" with lying.
however. the alternative is anti-abortionist, global warming-denialist, keynote speaker at ultra-right separatist conferences, skin-it-alive-cuz-it-makes-a-dashing-coat, completely backwards and in many cases plain stupid person. so quite frankly I couldn't care half as much about what Biden says or does as i care about the fact that across the room stands that same nervously grinning ignoramus, with biology and statistics on her side to becoming president in a few years if republicans win the election in a month.
i agree completely mfrech, numbers you can read off a chart whenever you need them. vision, wit, compassion, intelligence and all the rest you actually need to have.
Spin time for Palin:
From the Branchflower report
Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act.
Such impermissible and repeated contacts create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior's displeasure and the possible consequences of such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature.
***
Governor Palin has stated publicly that she and her family feared Trooper Wooten. Yet the evidence presented has been inconsistent with such claims of fear. The testimony from Trooper Wheeler, who was part of her security detail from the start, was that shortly after elected to office, she ordered a substantial reduction in manpower in her personal protection detail ... an act that is inconsistent with a desire to avoid harm from Trooper Wooten or others.
...It is noteworthy that in almost every contact with the subordinate employees, Mr. Palin's comments were couched in terms of his desire to see Trooper Wooten fired for reasons that had nothing to do with fear. His comments were always couched in terms that he was a bad Trooper, that he was not a good recruiting image for the AST, that his discipline amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, that nothing had happened to him following the administrative investigation, and so forth...
I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins' real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons.
Anchorage Daily News
Just received this:
from the UK Guardian
British Perspective: Flirting her way to victory
Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse
Michelle Goldberg, Friday October 3 2008 guardian.co.uk
At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries
put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.
And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.
It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to
pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.
In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the
financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.
There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:
"Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now
doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for
30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate."
Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy
filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?"
None of Palin's children, it should be noted, are heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin'
redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow,
mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.
Pop Quiz:
How many years would it take before people look at you in confusion and say:"sarah who???" when you ask them if they remember Sarah Palin?
4 months
Let's hope. . .
the problem is too many friends have made anti palin schwag that i fear will be with us for a while
i will upload the graphic tomorrow
she is clearly abnormal. what the hell does bill ayers have to do with anti-americanism when you are cozy with the alaskan independence party?
http://www.akip.org/conv08.html
Sarah Palin's IQ:
whatever. where did you find that?
Buzzfeed.
That is a bit disturbing if its truly valid.
ya betcha.....smile must have brought here up to the 80's, and of course another goodie two shoes line like....a shout out....to the third graders for watching this evening....
i still find that hard to believe. 83 is practically retarded.
One look at her un-posed lip gives it away. I mean you don't hold such ideologically bigoted views about; womens rights, the environment and other verified facts unless there is a issue of mental deficit.
I predict much like the Anglican church if Sarah ever wants to rejoin the community she will be apologizing for her attacks on evolution among other things like child abuse.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.