Palin Discussion [split]

[Broomstick]

There are these things, they are composed of latex, called condoms they come in both male and female varieties. If other forms of birth control are problematic, they have been shown to be very very effective at reducing the risk of pregnancy if used correctly, and wouldnt you know it, unlike some methods of hormonal birth control, they dont prevent implantation which alleviates some of her abortion anxiety.

Yes, and I am living proof that THEY are not 100% effective either!

It is perfectly OK to be a bit touchy on the subject of reproduction. I am not going to get angry at you over this, as it is... inherently contentions and open to a lot of discussion. My thing is though, people in high risk categories for a wide variety of birth defects, should not be having kids, for the sake of said children.

Right - but you are ASSUMING that she was not practicing birth control when neither you nor I have any way of knowing those details of her private life.

There is the very real possibility that I am abnormally risk averse, comes with being in a high risk sexual category perhaps. Who knows?

I am no objections to risk management, what I'm objecting to is your kneejerk assumption that she got pregnant either deliberately or because she used no birth control whatsoever.

But if a pattern of behavior can be established that points to the idea that she is an irresponsible person, then there are no excuses.

But you have no evidence that she isn't using birth control. The fact she is NOT getting pregnant over and over like the quiverfuls would seem to indicate she does use some sort of birth control.

Look at what she did when she had the kid... her water broke, she gave her speech anyway. Then flew back to alaska, and drove back to wasilla, when she was having a baby significantly prematurely. If she did prenatal testing and knew the kid was going to have downs, then that is an extra layer of irresponsible behavior. If she did not, it is still bad because she is in a high risk category and thus should have.

I am not disputing the poor wisdom of that sequence of events. In fact, I have mentioned it as a negative several times already. How does this support your assertion that she either got pregnant delibrately or stopped using birth control?

Yes, Downs syndrome carries some nasty baggage, but that hardly means it's not a worthwhile life for those who live it, particularly with modern medicine and family support.

Support this one will be at least somewhat deprived of during the min 4 years of moms vice presidency if she wins...

Are you saying the baby's father is somehow incapable of acting as parent? "Family" includes more than just the mother.

But still, we live in a society where we can, one way or another, control our reproduction. Is it responsible to knowingly put yourself in a position where the risk to your child becomes that high? Where they have a 5% chance of having a debilitating disorder? Bear in mind, I am a utilitarian and that determines my answer, which is no. (as utilitarianism forces me to maximize utility, not just...not...minimize it)

But, as I keep pointing out, no birth control is 100% perfect. When it fails, a person who is completely morally opposed to abortion will have that child regardless of defect found in that child.

Unless you are insisting that she delibrately became pregnant I fail to see where she "put" herself in such a position.

My parents did not "put" themselves in position to conceive a child when my mother was more than 35 years old - AND she was known to have heart disease of a sort that would have permitted her to have an abortion in her state even pre Roe v. Wade as it posed a threat to her. They were using birth control, but it failed. And here I am. You act as if this sort of pregnancy is 100% avoidable and it is not.

Of course, back then there was no test for Downs pre-birth. You didn't find out until the child arrived. Apparently, some folks - even an atheist such as my mother (which she was and still is) - will take that 5% risk.

People with disabilities consistently rate their "quality of life" higher than outside observers do. While I would not wish Down's syndrome on anyone, once that person is here I try to be optimistic that they will be one of the lucky ones until proven otherwise.

Self reports are interesting that way. I hate to sound trite, but there are all manner of biases that could go into that which might nullify the results.

Yes, well, living with someone with a birth defect that, when it appears these days, parents are routinely counseled to abort also alters my perspective. My husband's disability impacts him every day of his life and also causes me some inconvenience. Nonetheless, I'm glad he's here and he isn't walking around wishing he'd never been born. He wishes he didn't have that particular problem, of course, but arguably he's had a better life than many of his physically normal relatives.

It is more likely that she had a birth control failure than a deliberate pregnancy.

I will wait to hear back on that. I would love to think it was a failure of birth control (it would restore some of my faith in humanity) but seeing as the chances are good that she opposes reproductive decision making.... I will partially abdicate my position and withhold judgement

A lot depends on her church's stance, or her own (because people don't always follow church teachings, of course). Protestant Fundies tend to be much more open to birth control within the context of marriage than, say, Catholics. Quite a few of them are abstinence-only outside of marriage but have no problems with a married couple using birth control.

The spacing of her other children, and the gap between #4 and #5, would seem to indicate SOME sort of birth control. Thus, my inclination to think it's something along the lines of "the rubber broke".

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yes, and I am living proof that THEY are not 100% effective either!

Not disputing that.

I am no objections to risk management, what I'm objecting to is your kneejerk assumption that she got pregnant either deliberately or because she used no birth control whatsoever.

Looking at the spacing, you are right. SHe probably did use birth control It takes having sex a few hundred times on average to produce 1 offspring in humans (read: the pregnancy happens as the result of 1 sex act, but to get the timing right, takes a while) but at the typical rate of sex for married couples (after the first few years of newlyweddedness) you would expect 1 spawn every 2-3 years, not every 5-7.

Comments on irresponsibility officially dropped.

I am not disputing the poor wisdom of that sequence of events. In fact, I have mentioned it as a negative several times already. How does this support your assertion that she either got pregnant delibrately or stopped using birth control?

Were the spacing of offspring such that it might indicate lack of birth control, it, along with other things, would establish a pattern of reckless or cavalier behavior toward the health of her offspring.

Are you saying the baby's father is somehow incapable of acting as parent? "Family" includes more than just the mother.

Not at all. But it is much harder for a single parent to raise kids let alone mentally and physically handicapped ones, and given the job description, mom wont be around much. Which leaves a situation which closely approximates single parentness.

If she were to be giving the child the love and support he needs, which is two supportive parents (for best outcome anyway) then she would have turned down the job.

Doesnt mean she cant work or anything, but being Cheney's replacement as the only person in the Execuslative Branch is not conducive to the goal of helping the husband raise the disabled child.

Yes, well, living with someone with a birth defect that, when it appears these days, parents are routinely counseled to abort also alters my perspective. My husband's disability impacts him every day of his life and also causes me some inconvenience. Nonetheless, I'm glad he's here and he isn't walking around wishing he'd never been born. He wishes he didn't have that particular problem, of course, but arguably he's had a better life than many of his physically normal relatives.

Fair enough. But it also depends on the disability involved. Someone with massive cognitive impairment reporting high quality of life does not seem to me to be able to give valid results...

I dont know the nature of your husbands disability, but in order to consent to marriage I dont think cognitive impairment is large or existent am I right?

The point is, self reports are not a very good measure of quality of life, because of all the personal biases that are brought to the table.

Look at it this way. It is not necessarily the body that matters. What is upstairs that counts. So long as a person is not cognitively impaired, they might get frustrated, but all in all if their frame of mind is right, they might report a higher quality of life, if no other reason than because they had to overcome more to get to where they are.

For those that are severely mentally disabled, and I am not talking mood issues, or mild autism, but who have stunted or otherwise deficient cognitive abilities, whole new issues are brought up.

See what I mean?

[Vympel]

One of the most hilarious things to come out of this fiasco is this nonsense, originally posed by that terminal moron, Steve Doocy on Fox and Friends, that Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia.

Utterly retarded, Jon Stewart mocked him with an explicit "You're a moron!" on TDS. Now John fucking McCain is peddling this idiocy.

Other pathetic Republitard talking points being floated are that "she's the commander in chief of the Alaskan National Guard". I mean please.

[Eframepilot]

One of the most hilarious things to come out of this fiasco is this nonsense, originally posed by that terminal moron, Steve Doocy on Fox and Friends, that Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia.

Utterly retarded, Jon Stewart mocked him with an explicit "You're a moron!" on TDS. Now John fucking McCain is peddling this idiocy.

Other pathetic Republitard talking points being floated are that "she's the commander in chief of the Alaskan National Guard". I mean please.

But they have no shame. These are their talking points and they will keep floating them. They have zero respect for the intelligence of the American people. Zero. They really expect people to buy this, as if saying it enough times will make people believe it to be true.

And the most horrible thing of all is that they could be right.

[SirNitram]

Link

No Questions, Please. We'll Tell You What You Need To Know

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads. Here's the exchange:

<Youtube insert>

Click here to find out more!
Swampland, TIME
September 4, 2008 5:07
No Questions, Please. We'll Tell You What You Need To Know.
Posted by Jay Carney | Comments (137) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This


According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads. Here's the exchange:

Wallace's bash-the-media exercise has its merits as a campaign tactic. It certainly rallies the base. But the base won't lift McCain to 50% in November. More importantly, in her smug dismissal of the media's role in asking questions of the candidates, Wallace was really showing contempt not for reporters, but for voters. I bet there are a lot of undecided voters out there who were intrigued by Sarah Palin last night, but who don't yet know enough about her -- what she believes, what she knows -- to be comfortable with the idea of her as vice president of the United States. It's important to them to know if Palin can handle herself in an environment that isn't controlled and sanitized by campaign image makers and message mavens. Maybe she can, maybe she can't. As far as Wallace is concerned, it's none of their -- or your -- business.

It's like they're not even trying..

[Teebs]

Even with the liberal media being a myth, it's still dangerous for Republicans to dismiss the press like that because if you do piss them off too much then they will turn on you.

[D.Turtle]

Thats the single most important thing that the Palin selection means for McCain's candidacy:

He was only selected as the Republican nominee, because of his love affair with the media. He was only keeping up with Obama, because of his love affair with the media. Before his VP pick, his good connections to the media were starting to show a few cracks - the Palin selection, however, blew it completely apart.

Now, just watch the McCain campaign crash and burn.

[irishmick79]

Well, interesting AP story says that Palin apparently went to six different colleges in six years before finally graduating from University of Idaho.

She apparently did two stints at University of Idaho, transferred to Hawaii Pacific University, North Idaho University, and Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer, Alaska.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) _ Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin seems to have switched colleges at least six times in six years, including two stints at the University of Idaho before graduating from there in 1987.

Federal privacy laws prohibit the schools from disclosing her grades, and none of the schools contacted by The Associated Press could say why she transferred. There was no indication any were contacted as part of the background investigation of Palin by presidential candidate John McCain's campaign.


"Our office was not contacted by anyone," said Tania Thompson, spokeswoman for the University of Idaho in Moscow.

Palin, the governor of Alaska, was born in Idaho. Her family moved when she was only a few months old to Alaska, where she was raised.

According to a biography — "Sarah" by Kaylene Johnson — Palin and three friends went to the University of Hawaii at Hilo after graduation from high school in Alaska in 1982. But they left after a few weeks because of the constant rain there, the book said.


The registrar at Hawaii-Hilo has no record that she ever enrolled, school officials said Thursday.

Palin, then known as Sarah Louise Heath, and a friend then traveled to Honolulu and enrolled at Hawaii Pacific University, a private, nonsectarian school. She attended only as a freshman during the fall of 1982, school spokeswoman Crystale Lopez said.

She was in the business administration program as a full-time student, Lopez said Thursday.

"We're trying to track down someone who knew her," Lopez added.

From Hawaii Pacific, Palin transferred to North Idaho College, a two-year school in Coeur d'Alene, about 30 miles east of Spokane. She attended the college as a general studies major for two semesters, in spring 1983 and fall 1983, spokeswoman Stacy Hudson said.

"We were not able to track down club affiliations or anything," Hudson said.

The school identified one of her professors but he did not remember her, Hudson said.

Prior to her selection by McCain, the North Idaho College Alumni Association notified Palin in June she would be the recipient of its 2008-2009 Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award.

From North Idaho College, Palin transferred 70 miles south to the University of Idaho, the state's flagship institution. She majored in journalism with an emphasis in broadcast news. She attended Idaho, whose mascot is the Vandals, from fall 1984 to spring 1985.

She then returned to Alaska to attend Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer in fall 1985.

Then she returned to Idaho, for spring 1986, fall 1986 and spring 1987, when she graduated. Despite her journalism degree, she does not appear to have worked for the college newspaper or campus television station, school officials said. She worked briefly as a sportscaster for KTUU in Anchorage after she graduated college.

The McCain campaign did not have an immediate comment on Palin's higher education record.

Palin's biography on her Alaska governor's website indicates only that she graduated from Idaho in 1987.

A recent profile of her in the school's alumni magazine, before her selection to run on the GOP ticket, listed only Hawaii Pacific, North Idaho and Idaho as schools she attended. She also explained in the profile that her curiosity and love of writing made journalism a natural choice.

"I was always asking everyone the questions, and I still am today," Palin told the magazine.

The University of Idaho is taking advantage of Palin's nomination. A prominent photograph of her is featured on the school's Web site

Quite odd. Transferring around like that couldn't have been cheap.

[Darth Wong]

Odd that no one ever points out how hypocritical it is for her to attack "the media" when her own background is in journalism and she was once a sports reporter.

[irishmick79]

Odd that no one ever points out how hypocritical it is for her to attack "the media" when her own background is in journalism and she was once a sports reporter.

But...but...she's just giving an insider's perspective of the corruption and bias inherent in the media!!!!

[Eframepilot]

Odd that no one ever points out how hypocritical it is for her to attack "the media" when her own background is in journalism and she was once a sports reporter.

Isn't that more ironic than hypocritical? Having a degree in journalism ("earned" over six years in six separate colleges) and having been a sportscaster more than a decade ago doesn't really make one a member of the media.

[Edi]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/3 ... vir07.html

Some record of Palin's tenure as governor:

# Climate change. Although Alaska is ground zero in the crisis of global warming, Palin has done virtually nothing to address the problem except hold meetings and appoint a "climate sub-cabinet" that likewise has done little. Lots of talk, no action. Although in the past two years the Arctic summer sea ice shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, Palin apparently does not believe it is human-induced or cause for alarm. She was asked to establish an Alaska Office on Climate Change, an Alaska Climate Response Fund (based on a tax on Alaska oil production) and emissions reduction targets for Alaska, but has taken no action on those requests.

# Polar bears. This summer, Palin filed suit against the Bush administration over the federal listing of polar bears as threatened, saying that her opposition was based on a "comprehensive scientific review." But when asked to release the scientific review, she refused. The document, later obtained by the public (from the federal government), clearly shows that, contrary to Palin's assertions, the state of Alaska's marine mammal scientists agreed with the federal conclusions that the polar bears are in serious trouble because of global warming and loss of their sea ice habitat, and that they would be gone from Alaska by 2050. Palin clearly decided to oppose the listing in order to protect Arctic oil and gas development, then publicly misrepresented the basis for her decision, and then tried to conceal all of that. Having run for office on a platform of honesty and transparency, this behavior was neither. Her extreme position here puts her to the political right of the Bush /Cheney administration.

# Endangered species. Earlier this year, Palin approved a $2 million state appropriation for a conference on the "economic impacts" of the Endangered Species Act, designed to persuade the public that ESA listings were too costly and unwarranted. Recently she agreed to use the money instead to fund the state's lawsuit against the Bush administration over the polar bear listing -- a likely violation of the state constitutional provisions on appropriation. She opposes additional species listings and other protections in Alaska, where many species are at risk because of climate change and other threats.

# Predator control. Palin approved and expanded the state's aerial predator control program, where wolves are shot from aircraft and bears hunted from aircraft and killed upon landing. This year, her state biologists even dragged 14 newborn wolf pups from their den and, having already shot their parents, then shot each of the pups in the head at close range. Last year, her administration offered a $150 bounty for each wolf killed until the bounty was ruled illegal by the courts. Hundreds of wolves are killed each year by this antiquated state program that has no scientific justification whatsoever, but rather is designed to appease Palin's urban sport hunter supporters.

# Pebble mine. Palin aggressively opposed the "clean water initiative" on the August ballot in Alaska (which then failed), favoring instead foreign mining company desires for fewer government regulations controlling their toxic effluent into salmon streams. She has supported virtually any and all mining proposals that have come her way, even likely the enormous Pebble gold and silver mine proposed in the Bristol Bay watershed. That plan put at risk the largest runs of sockeye salmon in the world, where this summer fishermen caught more than 27 million salmon.

# Oil and gas drilling. Palin has supported oil and gas drilling plans anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the central Arctic, the entire Arctic Ocean, and in fish-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet. On her watch, regulation and government oversight of Alaska oil facilities is terribly lacking, and she has declined to establish a citizens' advisory council to provide more effective public oversight of the expanding oil and gas operations in Arctic Alaska.

# Exxon Valdez oil spill damages. Palin refuses to push Exxon to pay the government for the unanticipated environmental injuries from the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Almost 20 years later, the private case is still unresolved and the governments likewise have yet to collect full payment from Exxon. Shortly before Palin took office in 2006, the governments presented Exxon with a demand to pay $92 million for this additional environmental damage, but her administration has since not pressed the issue nor taken Exxon to court to collect the money. Meanwhile, Exxon reaps record profits from Alaska.

# Trans Pacific shipping. Palin repeatedly has been asked by coastal residents and organizations to enhance the safety of merchant shipping through Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a primary shipping route between Asia and North America, but she's done nothing. Citizens want better vessel tracking, powerful rescue tugs along the route and a risk assessment. While her predecessor funded a scoping study, the Palin administration has not appropriated one dime to improve shipping safety through the Aleutians, and says it will take no further action to reduce risk for several years into the future.

There is not one single redeeming quality in this bitch.

[Anguirus]

^ Let's look at the bright side. If she's elected veep, perhaps Alaska will improve.

[wautd]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/3 ... vir07.html

Some record of Palin's tenure as governor:

# Climate change.
# Polar bears.
# Endangered species.
# Predator control.
# Pebble mine.
# Oil and gas drilling.
# Exxon Valdez oil spill damages.
# Trans Pacific shipping. .

There is not one single redeeming quality in this bitch.

Fundies don't care for the environment. Jesus will come aaaaany day now anyway

[Alyrium Denryle]

# Climate change. Although Alaska is ground zero in the crisis of global warming, Palin has done virtually nothing to address the problem except hold meetings and appoint a "climate sub-cabinet" that likewise has done little. Lots of talk, no action. Although in the past two years the Arctic summer sea ice shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, Palin apparently does not believe it is human-induced or cause for alarm. She was asked to establish an Alaska Office on Climate Change, an Alaska Climate Response Fund (based on a tax on Alaska oil production) and emissions reduction targets for Alaska, but has taken no action on those requests.

In other words, she is trying to stall any and all progress on climate change, all the better for her industry cronies to pillage the last state with any real wilderness left.

# Polar bears. This summer, Palin filed suit against the Bush administration over the federal listing of polar bears as threatened, saying that her opposition was based on a "comprehensive scientific review." But when asked to release the scientific review, she refused. The document, later obtained by the public (from the federal government), clearly shows that, contrary to Palin's assertions, the state of Alaska's marine mammal scientists agreed with the federal conclusions that the polar bears are in serious trouble because of global warming and loss of their sea ice habitat, and that they would be gone from Alaska by 2050. Palin clearly decided to oppose the listing in order to protect Arctic oil and gas development, then publicly misrepresented the basis for her decision, and then tried to conceal all of that. Having run for office on a platform of honesty and transparency, this behavior was neither. Her extreme position here puts her to the political right of the Bush /Cheney administration.

See above. She did indeed base her opinion on a thorough scientific review... or rather on the rejection of it.

maybe McCain is trying to make himself look like a decent human being in comparison.

# Predator control. Palin approved and expanded the state's aerial predator control program, where wolves are shot from aircraft and bears hunted from aircraft and killed upon landing. This year, her state biologists even dragged 14 newborn wolf pups from their den and, having already shot their parents, then shot each of the pups in the head at close range. Last year, her administration offered a $150 bounty for each wolf killed until the bounty was ruled illegal by the courts. Hundreds of wolves are killed each year by this antiquated state program that has no scientific justification whatsoever, but rather is designed to appease Palin's urban sport hunter supporters.

Yeah, in the only state, fuck, the only part of N America that has healthy wold and bear populations, lets eradicate them and make it so that in order to have healthy forests and watersheds, hunters have to kill more... Oh that might well be the point...

As for those biologists... Just following orders eh? Killing puppies... I hope they cant sleep at night.

# Pebble mine. Palin aggressively opposed the "clean water initiative" on the August ballot in Alaska (which then failed), favoring instead foreign mining company desires for fewer government regulations controlling their toxic effluent into salmon streams. She has supported virtually any and all mining proposals that have come her way, even likely the enormous Pebble gold and silver mine proposed in the Bristol Bay watershed. That plan put at risk the largest runs of sockeye salmon in the world, where this summer fishermen caught more than 27 million salmon.

# Oil and gas drilling. Palin has supported oil and gas drilling plans anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the central Arctic, the entire Arctic Ocean, and in fish-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet. On her watch, regulation and government oversight of Alaska oil facilities is terribly lacking, and she has declined to establish a citizens' advisory council to provide more effective public oversight of the expanding oil and gas operations in Arctic Alaska.

# Exxon Valdez oil spill damages. Palin refuses to push Exxon to pay the government for the unanticipated environmental injuries from the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Almost 20 years later, the private case is still unresolved and the governments likewise have yet to collect full payment from Exxon. Shortly before Palin took office in 2006, the governments presented Exxon with a demand to pay $92 million for this additional environmental damage, but her administration has since not pressed the issue nor taken Exxon to court to collect the money. Meanwhile, Exxon reaps record profits from Alaska.

I have but one thing to say about this...

Fuck this raging cunt. I hope she gets hit by a bus.

[Ender]

Palin won't talk to press until given "deference"

Palin Media Avoidance Watch: Day 9 -- McCain Camp Says She Won't Do Interviews Until It Knows She'll Be Treated with "Deference"

September 07, 2008 9:41 AM

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Davis assailed the way the media had discussed Palin and her family in the last week and said the campaign would wait until a less hostile media environment.

So when will she subject herself to questions?

"When we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it," Davis said, praising a Fox News Channel profile of Palin that ran last night.

Why is she scared of answering questions? Wallace asked.

"She's not scared to answer questions," Davis said, "but you know what? We run our campaign not the news media."

Wallace said inappropriate intrusions into Palin's family and personal life aside, there are legitimate questions about whether she is prepared to be vice president.

"Sarah Palin will have the opportinity to speak to the American people," Davis said. "She will do interviews, but she'll do them on the terms and conditions" the campaign decides.

In fairness, an Alaska TV reporter did get to ask Palin a question Thursday, something along the lines of

"Governor, we feel like we're losing you - are you still going to be there for Alaska?"

- jpt

Yes, who are these peons to think that members of the government should answer to the populace?

[Metatwaddle]

Fundies don't care for the environment. Jesus will come aaaaany day now anyway

I can't stand fundamentalists, but if evangelical = fundie, then this statement is not completely true. The old guard (James Dobson, etc.) is still being assholes about it, but younger and/or more educated evangelicals are starting to turn. In early 2006, Rick Warren (the guy who talked to McCain and Obama at a forum earlier this year) and other evangelical pastors joined with evangelical college presidents and Christian charity directors (including the person who runs the Salvation Army) to sign a statement to the effect that global warming is happening, it's caused by humans, and it's going to disproportionately affect the poor if we don't do anything about it. To be fair, James Dobson immediately responded by making his own letter to the National Association of Evangelicals and getting a few of his own signatories.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Was Palin not also a guest voice in Captain Planet? These people often come off as comically evil.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Was Palin not also a guest voice in Captain Planet? These people often come off as comically evil.

The voice of Dr. Blight? I must confess I do see a superficial resemblance....

[Metatwaddle]

Was Palin not also a guest voice in Captain Planet? These people often come off as comically evil.

It would be pretty funny, but IMDB doesn't have it.

[Darth Wong]

Odd that no one ever points out how hypocritical it is for her to attack "the media" when her own background is in journalism and she was once a sports reporter.

Isn't that more ironic than hypocritical? Having a degree in journalism ("earned" over six years in six separate colleges) and having been a sportscaster more than a decade ago doesn't really make one a member of the media.

Yes it does, because she claims to be "qualified" for the job of vice-presidency, which implies that her educational background is actually worth a damn. What other qualification does she have? Being Queen Earmark?

As for her environmental record, it's not just Doomsday Theology that makes fundies act this way. They also tend to believe that God will simply not allow certain things to happen, and that the power of humans is insignificant next to the power of God's Creation. Perhaps the power of one human is, but the problem is that there's 7 billion of us.

[SirNitram]

Link

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Davis assailed the way the media had discussed Palin and her family in the last week and said the campaign would wait until a less hostile media environment.

So when will she subject herself to questions?

"When we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it," Davis said, praising a Fox News Channel profile of Palin that ran last night.

Why is she scared of answering questions? Wallace asked.

"She's not scared to answer questions," Davis said, "but you know what? We run our campaign not the news media."

Wallace said inappropriate intrusions into Palin's family and personal life aside, there are legitimate questions about whether she is prepared to be vice president.

"Sarah Palin will have the opportinity to speak to the American people," Davis said. "She will do interviews, but she'll do them on the terms and conditions" the campaign decides.

In fairness, an Alaska TV reporter did get to ask Palin a question Thursday, something along the lines of

"Governor, we feel like we're losing you - are you still going to be there for Alaska?"

So everyone understands now. You aren't allowed to question. You're supposed to be obedient little drones and automatically respect any Republican, and even show them deference. I suppose you thought it was a democracy. No. She must be fete'd as your new viceroy.

[Vympel]

Oh come on. Greenwald hit the nail on the head with this phony "Palin won't speal to the press" bullshit. It's a completely phony propaganda ploy - hide her from the big, bad, scary, American press (:lol:) until such time as anticipation is at a fever pitch, then put her in front of one of the many sycophantic, power-worshipping bootlickers that qualify for a media star in that country and marvel at how deftly she handles their softcock questions. Pahlease.

They've already offered the first interview to Charlie Gibson, for fuck's sake. Put her in front of PAXMAN, because you're not going to find any "media star" in America worth jack shit.

[Elfdart]

Jesus' General sums it up pretty well:

[CJvR]

Saw that the latest opinion poll had Mc/Pal in the lead.
Big comeback from the poor position earlier.