Sarah Palin: Mr President, Nuke Russia

[Kitsune]

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/palin ... -stops-bad

Sarah Palin was in rare form tonight at CPAC. The crowd loved her, more than any other speaker. She said if she doesn’t run for President, she loves Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.

Though she gave a rousing rendition of a rage-filled Green Eggs and Ham riff, proving that she is still the Queen of mean girl spite, Palin predictably tripped over reality when she was instructing President Obama on foreign policy. “Mr. President,” she spat, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.”

Translation: Nuke Russia now or else it’s green eggs for you, Mr President! Neener-neener!

First she mocked Obama for being weak with Putin, and backed up her nastiness with a bunch of lies about Obamacare and all of the things Obama promised us that haven’t happened in her Barbie Princess Politics world. Obama promised a perfect world and it didn’t happen!

So we got, “Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.” [...]

Palin’s entire speech can be summed up with “I hate you Barack!”, peppered in with mocking John Kerry’s face and Obama’s pen (which she clearly doesn’t understand is a reference to executive orders, which is the opposite of weak, but whatevs, why is this reality TV wannabe still the highlight of CPAC?). [...]

If you can’t/won’t listen, add a screech and a lot of bitterness into all of the quotes, for which she utilized a teleprompter, and just imagine you’re back in middle school and she’s the really angry girl who used to be popular but no one talks to her anymore. This is her “I don’t care! I really don’t care!” speech, given to the girl now dating her ex, the quarterback. Read on...

[Eulogy]

So very glad she is not the President. Yeah, there'd be hopefully other people to stop her from pressing the button, but the US doesn't need more embarrassment.

[Patroklos]

Perhaps you could find a less misogynistic article?

And as much as I dislike Sarah Palin, no, she did not advocate nuking Russia. I would take it as alluding to the fact that conventional confrontation with the US is not possible because we have nukes, so say parking a US division in Ukraine effectively means no Russian invasion. A non NATO unit would not have the same effect.

Such an action is stupid in its own right, but you don't have to make shit up to highlight Palin's general stupidity.

[Scrib]

However I feel about the Young Turks they definitely seem to be unto something with America's leader envy. I know that anything Obama in terms of foreign policy does is good fodder for politicians to slam him for being weak but I feel as if there's a real desire for symbolic acts of manliness for a certain group of Americans. Even the very same Young Turks,who mock this, couldn't help but be disappointed as Obama announced sanctions because he came off as timid. They know it's not rational, but it eats at them.

It's hilarious.

[Gandalf]

However I feel about the Young Turks they definitely seem to be unto something with America's leader envy. I know that anything Obama in terms of foreign policy does is good fodder for politicians to slam him for being weak but I feel as if there's a real desire for symbolic acts of manliness for a certain group of Americans. Even the very same Young Turks,who mock this, couldn't help but be disappointed as Obama announced sanctions because he came off as timid. They know it's not rational, but it eats at them.

It's hilarious.

Look at it this way; Putin embodies nearly everything about the modern conservative vision of Reagan. He's a tough macho figure who isn't afraid to invade places for the National Masculinity Index national interests, while backing regressive traditional values at the expense of less relevant voting blocs.

[Simon_Jester]

Every person wants to know that, in case of a really serious emergency, their leader(s) would have the courage, discipline, and intelligence to handle the crisis.

All three qualities are vitally necessary. And I think we've felt negatively about our presidents these past 20 years because each of the three lacked (or seemed to lack) one of them.

Clinton seemed to lack discipline; his scandals and good ol' boy persona called that into question for a lot of Americans, including some of the people who voted for him.

Bush seemed to lack intelligence; his administration made it very questionable how well they'd react to a real crisis (i.e. Katrina) or a task requiring long range, realistic planning (i.e. Iraq). If anything much worse had happened on their watch then it could have resulted in total disaster for America.

Obama, frankly, does seem to lack a degree of moral courage. He hems, he haws, he triangulates, and while we can argue that this is "mature..." there's a catch. We also expect leaders to show determination in a crisis, and part of what it means to be a fully competent and assured leader is to know whether it's time to start settlement talks or time to get on the radio and shout "we shall NEVER surrender!" Obama has had few opportunities to display determination during this presidency, and has bungled some of the ones he got.

[Gandalf]

Every person wants to know that, in case of a really serious emergency, their leader(s) would have the courage, discipline, and intelligence to handle the crisis.

I think the clause you missed is the phrase "to their satisfaction."

Obama could have summoned Dr Manhattan and Superman to prevent all threats to the US, natural and man made. Partisans would still decry it somehow.

[Mr Bean]

Never forgot Obama famously tossed people in his own administration under the bus when such people were targeted by Glenn Beck. There's such a thing as courage as being willing to stick it out to prove your right in the end. And then there's a touch of intelligence that says "If they spend all their time talking about Van Jones, they don't have time to attack heath care". Obama time and time again has demonstrated he's willing to go along to get along. IE he will trade in political points to avoid having a fight.

In this case Obama has been handling this poorly in not being more certain or more over the top. Here's an idea force Congress on the issue, order an emergency session. Call every senator and Representative back into the White House. Put the question to Congress, either vote me out a resolution authorizing me to do X, or authorizing me to put Y in place if Z happens otherwise our official position will be we don't care.

X,Y,and Z could be next to anything. The special session is a touch of a gimmick but it's a good one as it gets everyone on the record and by making it a closed session it lets history judge but not campaigns in the next cycle punish these senators/reps. Obama could have an existing frame work in place ready to implement depending on how the situation goes rather than reacting to every development... taking a day to talk about it and do show or two then announcing a new statement.

[Patroklos]

Lets be honest here, there was some expectation mismanagement here on the administration side, just like in Syria. There was never any hope of preventing Crimea from going to Russia short of war if Russia wanted it. There was a lot of rhetoric about how the Us could not and would not let this happen when honestly they were powerless to influence events to any real degree.

[Scrib]

Every person wants to know that, in case of a really serious emergency, their leader(s) would have the courage, discipline, and intelligence to handle the crisis.

I think the clause you missed is the phrase "to their satisfaction."

Obama could have summoned Dr Manhattan and Superman to prevent all threats to the US, natural and man made. Partisans would still decry it somehow.

Well...yeah. But that doesn't change the fact that they're tapping into something there. TYT for example are hugely anti-GOP if not pro-Obama and they released a video a short while later with a compilation of all the Fox anchors praising Putin for his strength. They know that this is either a genuine belief for the GOP or just another partisan talking point and they couldn't stop themselves from complaining about the same style-over-substance bullshit.

Every person wants to know that, in case of a really serious emergency, their leader(s) would have the courage, discipline, and intelligence to handle the crisis.

And this is not a problem-when the tools we use to determine this are sensible and not overly concerned with symbolic issues. So if the complaints are about trends, and not just juxtaposing the two leaders, I get it.Though the GOP will have problems with this because Obama needs to be capitulating to someone and it can't really be them if they're going to talk about it.

[General Mung Beans]

X,Y,and Z could be next to anything. The special session is a touch of a gimmick but it's a good one as it gets everyone on the record and by making it a closed session it lets history judge but not campaigns in the next cycle punish these senators/reps. Obama could have an existing frame work in place ready to implement depending on how the situation goes rather than reacting to every development... taking a day to talk about it and do show or two then announcing a new statement.

Isn't that what Truman basically did in 1948?

[Simon_Jester]

Every person wants to know that, in case of a really serious emergency, their leader(s) would have the courage, discipline, and intelligence to handle the crisis.

I think the clause you missed is the phrase "to their satisfaction."

Obama could have summoned Dr Manhattan and Superman to prevent all threats to the US, natural and man made. Partisans would still decry it somehow.

Put this way. There are quite a lot of people who voted for him, myself included, who are dissatisfied with his moral courage and willingness to stick to his guns. If 'partisans' of both parties perceive the same weakness in a man, then it might be that he actually does have that weakness, at least to some extent.

And this is not a problem-when the tools we use to determine this are sensible and not overly concerned with symbolic issues. So if the complaints are about trends, and not just juxtaposing the two leaders, I get it.

I think it's a bit more subtle than that. For example, people have been criticizing Neville Chamberlain for over seventy years over Munich. Why? Not because the Munich accord was an act of weakness as such; there were strong strategic reasons why Britain was not ready for a war at that time.

Part of the reason this attitude has persisted and Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasement* is that at Munich, Chamberlain went up against Hitler directly and came away looking much, much weaker. I suspect a lot of people went into World War II with their confidence in Chamberlain as a fighting leader shaken by that, even though Chamberlain was certainly willing and ready to enter the war and prosecute it effectively to the best of his ability.

Appearances count too, because appearances affect morale.

*(unfairly, at least in part, if you ask me...)

[Mr. Coffee]

Seriously, anyone want to pitch in on a fundraiser to hire Lex Steele to follow Palin around so every time she opens her mouth he can jam his massive wang in there to prevent her from saying stupid shit?

[AniThyng]

Seriously, anyone want to pitch in on a fundraiser to hire Lex Steele to follow Palin around so every time she opens her mouth he can jam his massive wang in there to prevent her from saying stupid shit?

OK, I can't help it - is this a "rape culture" joke or is it harmless ribbing

[Oskuro]

OK, I can't help it - is this a "rape culture" joke or is it harmless ribbing

Considering Sarah Palin is already an insult to all women, I'm having trouble deciding myself.


I'm personally really bothered by how often people claim that political leaders should be "tough". It's all callbacks to tribal leadership ideals that really rub me the wrong way.

As I see it, politicians are mere administrators whose job is to make the country run properly, not have dick measuring contests.

Obama avoiding confrontation to get his policies underway I think fits what all politicians should be about (regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the specific policies).

I wonder if living in a country where confrontational discourse is routinely used to distract people from how much the entire political system is failing has anything to do with this particular worldview?

[Patroklos]

Seriously, anyone want to pitch in on a fundraiser to hire Lex Steele to follow Palin around so every time she opens her mouth he can jam his massive wang in there to prevent her from saying stupid shit?

OK, I can't help it - is this a "rape culture" joke or is it harmless ribbing

It's just more hypocritical misogyny.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm personally really bothered by how often people claim that political leaders should be "tough". It's all callbacks to tribal leadership ideals that really rub me the wrong way.

What I want isn't "toughness," it's courage. That courage goes with intelligence and discipline.

I want a leader who can know what the proper course of action is- intelligence.

I want a leader who will focus on a crisis rather than fiddling while Rome burns, who will not compromise the viability of their administration with scandals, and who can be trusted to actually carry out an agreed-upon plan to the limit of their abilities- discipline.

And I want a leader who is willing to take some risks and accept some costs to do the right thing. Either the morally right thing, the pragmatically right thing, or both. That's courage.

Now, I don't care if the leader who can do all these things is Joe Toughguy or Caspar Milquetoast in terms of his outward appearance. I don't care if he hunts, rides, whatever. I don't care if he makes bravado-laced statements at random times. I don't care if he pushes around 'enough' small countries to prove how macho he is.

None of those matter- hell, Mussolini was the very image of a "tough" leader in all those respects, and Mussolini turned out to be all image and no substance- he was completely useless to Italy when things got difficult. His country would be a better place had he never lived.

But I do care about courage. And, I'll grant, one aspect of 'courageous leadership' is the ability to maintain in the public eye that you are not weak... but this can be done without constant posturing. A lot of it comes out of actions- don't flinch from a confrontation only because you personally would rather compromise. If you think it is proper and wise to avoid a confrontation and negotiate... fine, but explain this to the public. If you find yourself always compromising that's a bad sign, because not all issues demand or merit compromise. Certainly there are very few issues that demand waffling- never say "this is unacceptable" while secretly being prepared to accept something.

To some extent this ties back into discipline- control yourself, control your words, don't say something you know you're going to regret later.

That's my take on it.

Obama avoiding confrontation to get his policies underway I think fits what all politicians should be about (regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the specific policies).

The problem is that Obama is often avoiding confrontation and not getting his policies underway, or accepting a massive long-term undermining of his position by refusing to confront something. Or saying things that make him look foolish and indecisive, like the "red line" he talked about off the cuff in the context of Syria... and then watched the Syrians cross with little in the way of protest and action.

Even a good bureaucratic administrator knows that there are times when the facts are on your side, the law is on your side, and when that happens you push, assuming you actually want anything to happen.

I wonder if living in a country where confrontational discourse is routinely used to distract people from how much the entire political system is failing has anything to do with this particular worldview?

Personally, I think that the failure of our political system has a great deal to do with breakdowns of courage. Politicians are declining to say "no, I will not take your bribe," and declining to make a point of this in the next election cycle. Politicians are declining to say "I am prepared to break with the extremists of my own party for the sake of passing bills that will allow the country to run." Increasingly the lunatics are being permitted to run the asylum on the right, due to (in my opinion) a lack of both intelligence and courage in the senior leadership on the right. And this state of affairs has been tolerated to a surprising degree by the left- very few attempts to call shenanigans except in the middle of each individual crisis.

[TheHammer]

I'm personally really bothered by how often people claim that political leaders should be "tough". It's all callbacks to tribal leadership ideals that really rub me the wrong way.

What I want isn't "toughness," it's courage. That courage goes with intelligence and discipline.

I want a leader who can know what the proper course of action is- intelligence.

I want a leader who will focus on a crisis rather than fiddling while Rome burns, who will not compromise the viability of their administration with scandals, and who can be trusted to actually carry out an agreed-upon plan to the limit of their abilities- discipline.

And I want a leader who is willing to take some risks and accept some costs to do the right thing. Either the morally right thing, the pragmatically right thing, or both. That's courage.

Now, I don't care if the leader who can do all these things is Joe Toughguy or Caspar Milquetoast in terms of his outward appearance. I don't care if he hunts, rides, whatever. I don't care if he makes bravado-laced statements at random times. I don't care if he pushes around 'enough' small countries to prove how macho he is.

None of those matter- hell, Mussolini was the very image of a "tough" leader in all those respects, and Mussolini turned out to be all image and no substance- he was completely useless to Italy when things got difficult. His country would be a better place had he never lived.

But I do care about courage. And, I'll grant, one aspect of 'courageous leadership' is the ability to maintain in the public eye that you are not weak... but this can be done without constant posturing. A lot of it comes out of actions- don't flinch from a confrontation only because you personally would rather compromise. If you think it is proper and wise to avoid a confrontation and negotiate... fine, but explain this to the public. If you find yourself always compromising that's a bad sign, because not all issues demand or merit compromise. Certainly there are very few issues that demand waffling- never say "this is unacceptable" while secretly being prepared to accept something.

To some extent this ties back into discipline- control yourself, control your words, don't say something you know you're going to regret later.

That's my take on it.

Obama avoiding confrontation to get his policies underway I think fits what all politicians should be about (regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the specific policies).

The problem is that Obama is often avoiding confrontation and not getting his policies underway, or accepting a massive long-term undermining of his position by refusing to confront something. Or saying things that make him look foolish and indecisive, like the "red line" he talked about off the cuff in the context of Syria... and then watched the Syrians cross with little in the way of protest and action.

Even a good bureaucratic administrator knows that there are times when the facts are on your side, the law is on your side, and when that happens you push, assuming you actually want anything to happen.

I wonder if living in a country where confrontational discourse is routinely used to distract people from how much the entire political system is failing has anything to do with this particular worldview?

Personally, I think that the failure of our political system has a great deal to do with breakdowns of courage. Politicians are declining to say "no, I will not take your bribe," and declining to make a point of this in the next election cycle. Politicians are declining to say "I am prepared to break with the extremists of my own party for the sake of passing bills that will allow the country to run." Increasingly the lunatics are being permitted to run the asylum on the right, due to (in my opinion) a lack of both intelligence and courage in the senior leadership on the right. And this state of affairs has been tolerated to a surprising degree by the left- very few attempts to call shenanigans except in the middle of each individual crisis.

I guess I've never really bought into this being a "crisis" of any real proportion. Jingoisitic dick waiving aside, I'm going to agree with and paraphrase Ron Paul when I say "Who gives a fuck?" aside from Ukraine as to who owns Crimea. It only becomes a Crisis if Russia doesn't realize that moving beyond Crimea would cause people to start "giving a fuck" and demand a far more serious response.

And quite frankly, I think judging any Presidency in "real time" is a fools errand. There are things he knows that you don't, decisions he has to way you have no comprehension of. It's only when the Presidency is consigned to history, and more information comes out that we can accurately evaluate a President's legacy. FDR, Lincoln, Kennedy, all considered "Spineless fools" or worse at one point or another by their contemporaries, yet only now that we know more about the issues they had to resolve, and how they resolved them both in public and in Private, do we really see the big picture they were dealing with.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

I guess I've never really bought into this being a "crisis" of any real proportion. Jingoisitic dick waiving aside, I'm going to agree with and paraphrase Ron Paul when I say "Who gives a fuck?" aside from Ukraine as to who owns Crimea. It only becomes a Crisis if Russia doesn't realize that moving beyond Crimea would cause people to start "giving a fuck" and demand a far more serious response.

This. What business does America have with over there? Someone said something about putting a division in the Crimea; how exactly is that going to happen when Ukraine is not part of NATO? They'll get invaded because we have to kill them to save them from Ivan? And besides (serious question, forgive my ignorance): who in Crimea wants America to swoop in and save them?

I've coined a new phrase. It goes like this: "Cold War's over."

[Simon_Jester]

I guess I've never really bought into this being a "crisis" of any real proportion. Jingoisitic dick waiving aside, I'm going to agree with and paraphrase Ron Paul when I say "Who gives a fuck?" aside from Ukraine as to who owns Crimea. It only becomes a Crisis if Russia doesn't realize that moving beyond Crimea would cause people to start "giving a fuck" and demand a far more serious response.

It's not that this is a crisis, it's more about whether 'small' events give us insight into how a leader will handle large ones.

The great crisis of Obama's administration has been domestic, not foreign policy. In foreign policy everything is either... call it, either "under control," or "irrelevant."

But meanwhile we have an ongoing slow collapse on the domestic front- the economy is turning into something very alien to the economic structure that made America strong in the first place, and our political system is becoming so dysfunctional it can barely even govern. This is where Obama's virtues are really needed. And this is where some of his virtues are revealed, and other virtues appear to be found lacking.

However, we can still watch his performance in other areas and see signs of virtues being displayed or not displayed. Every event gives us an opportunity to assess someone.

And quite frankly, I think judging any Presidency in "real time" is a fools errand. There are things he knows that you don't, decisions he has to way you have no comprehension of. It's only when the Presidency is consigned to history, and more information comes out that we can accurately evaluate a President's legacy. FDR, Lincoln, Kennedy, all considered "Spineless fools" or worse at one point or another by their contemporaries, yet only now that we know more about the issues they had to resolve, and how they resolved them both in public and in Private, do we really see the big picture they were dealing with.

I refuse to wait twenty years to even form an opinion about current events.

For that matter, how are we to make informed decisions at the voting booth if we don't at least try to assess the quality of people currently in office. Are we supposed to just... mindlessly support incumbents and hope history reveals that they did a good job?

I guess I've never really bought into this being a "crisis" of any real proportion. Jingoisitic dick waiving aside, I'm going to agree with and paraphrase Ron Paul when I say "Who gives a fuck?" aside from Ukraine as to who owns Crimea. It only becomes a Crisis if Russia doesn't realize that moving beyond Crimea would cause people to start "giving a fuck" and demand a far more serious response.

This. What business does America have with over there? Someone said something about putting a division in the Crimea; how exactly is that going to happen when Ukraine is not part of NATO? They'll get invaded because we have to kill them to save them from Ivan? And besides (serious question, forgive my ignorance): who in Crimea wants America to swoop in and save them?

I've coined a new phrase. It goes like this: "Cold War's over."

Personally I'm speaking in generalities, because I was responding to people who were making general criticisms. It may well be that in this particular situation, the proper response is "do nothing, let the Russians act as they please, it is no concern of ours." If that's the right move, then Obama should not be condemned for making it as long as he handles the affair well and does not disgrace himself by the way he speaks about it.

But there have been other times and places where Obama did show faults in a lot of people's eyes, and I think it's reasonable to criticize him for doing so. I don't want him to get into a macho-ing contest with Putin or anything; I just want him to handle our affairs with common sense, determination to serve American interests, and a healthy serving of dignity.

[Scrib]

And this is not a problem-when the tools we use to determine this are sensible and not overly concerned with symbolic issues. So if the complaints are about trends, and not just juxtaposing the two leaders, I get it.

I think it's a bit more subtle than that. For example, people have been criticizing Neville Chamberlain for over seventy years over Munich. Why? Not because the Munich accord was an act of weakness as such; there were strong strategic reasons why Britain was not ready for a war at that time.

Part of the reason this attitude has persisted and Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasement* is that at Munich, Chamberlain went up against Hitler directly and came away looking much, much weaker. I suspect a lot of people went into World War II with their confidence in Chamberlain as a fighting leader shaken by that, even though Chamberlain was certainly willing and ready to enter the war and prosecute it effectively to the best of his ability.

Appearances count too, because appearances affect morale.

*(unfairly, at least in part, if you ask me...)

When I meant the leaders I meant cosmetic personal traits like the ones the GOP want people to bang on about: Putin is assertive, Obama is dull, Putin rides horses, Obama rides bikes. Putin invades countries, Obama sits around and claims that this is an act of weakness, takes military options off the table immediately etc.

It's hard because one the one hand you can understand why people use this as a heuristic -politics is hard and people think their gut feeling (based on vastly less complex experiences )is some magical line to Truth- and there will be some value to it sometimes ,Presidents aren't machines running utility maximizing algorithms after all, but it can easily spiral into becoming this over-simplification based on an understanding of power that seems very...tribal. To some degree you have to play the game and be about appearances if only to prevent them from becoming reality but a lot of these current complaints don't seem to be based on a rational assessment of that.

It's difficult to pin down just when this goes from acceptable theorizing to meaningless general truisms like it's some football game with hack pundits. It's a bit like pornography that way: you know it when you see it.

[Grumman]

The article quoted in the OP is stupid, but Palin failed to notice one very important problem: the nuclear deterrent only deters acts that could actually trigger the use of nuclear weapons. Since any President who actually tried to start a nuclear war over Crimea seems likely to be dragged away in a straitjacket at best, all she's doing is turning this into her own "red line" incident, without even becoming President first.

[Scrib]

The article quoted in the OP is stupid, but Palin failed to notice one very important problem: the nuclear deterrent only deters acts that could actually trigger the use of nuclear weapons. Since any President who actually tried to start a nuclear war over Crimea seems likely to be dragged away in a straitjacket at best, all she's doing is turning this into her own "red line" incident, without even becoming President first.

A clear example of why a lot of these truisms about "acting strong" and not taking anything off the table (can Russia not factor in nuclear weapons into their calculus?) are like the sort of depth-less comments people make of football teams and vague things like their "hunger": they're easy to spew and at worst will get someone to come around and give technical details while a lot of people will nod along because it sounds vaguely sensible. Is it sensible? Depends. So you get to hide among the actual competent people making such claims.

[Aasharu]

I guess I've never really bought into this being a "crisis" of any real proportion. Jingoisitic dick waiving aside, I'm going to agree with and paraphrase Ron Paul when I say "Who gives a fuck?" aside from Ukraine as to who owns Crimea. It only becomes a Crisis if Russia doesn't realize that moving beyond Crimea would cause people to start "giving a fuck" and demand a far more serious response.

This. What business does America have with over there? Someone said something about putting a division in the Crimea; how exactly is that going to happen when Ukraine is not part of NATO? They'll get invaded because we have to kill them to save them from Ivan? And besides (serious question, forgive my ignorance): who in Crimea wants America to swoop in and save them?

I've coined a new phrase. It goes like this: "Cold War's over."

Budapest Memorandum from 1994. Ukraine agreed to give up their nuclear weapons, as long as the US agreed to come to their aid if, down the line, Russia decided that they wanted to grab some of their territory back. Oh hey, Look at that.

[Siege]

It's called the Budapest Memorandum because it's a memorandum, not a treaty. No US administration has ever seriously considered providing military aid to Ukraine in case of unpleasantness with Russia. Furthermore, the Memorandum only mentions a "commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance", so it's not like anyone could ever have seriously thought that the 10th Mountain would be dropped in at the first sign of trouble.