Palin Discussion [split]

[Darth Wong]

I think these lies are all intentional. Remember when Dick Cheney lied about never having seen John Edwards show up in the Senate? And then pictures promptly appeared showing them standing together in the Senate?

The Republicans realize that outright bald-faced lies to the voting public will get the job done. They impress stupid illiterate viewers who can't be bothered to fact-check or read the kind of news source that does fact-checking. When they're caught lying, it has much less negative impact than the positive impact of the lie itself, because the lie gets far more exposure than the correction, particularly among their base which only watches FOXNews. Who cares if they violate every principle of democratic ethics in the process? The Republicans certainly don't.

[SirNitram]

I think these lies are all intentional. Remember when Dick Cheney lied about never having seen John Edwards show up in the Senate? And then pictures promptly appeared showing them standing together in the Senate?

The Republicans realize that outright bald-faced lies get the job done. They impress stupid illiterate viewers who can't be bothered to fact-check or read the kind of news source that does fact-checking. Who cares if they violate every principle of democratic ethics? The Republicans certainly don't.

There's two reasons the Republicans lie like this, I figure.

1) It dominates the 'News Cycle'. True or false, even if it's fact-checked by the media(Pretty Fucking Rare), it will be the day's story. The story will not be about policies. As McCain's spokesman has said, This Is Not About The Issues. They want to avoid Obama talking about issues. They really don't want their looney tunes talking about issues.

2) It pisses liberals off. Frankly, it's become clear to me this is an actual reason for them to do something, just to piss in the cheerios of their opponents.

[D.Turtle]

The thing is, all the lying worked because they were not called on it by the Media (and the campaigns in 2000 and 2004).

The Media is now however really starting to call out McCain and Palin on their constant lies. In addition, Obama and various 527s are calling them out on their lies and placing TV ads in that respect.

If the constant repetition of the fact that McCain and Palin are liars will not have an effect on their chance to be elected, the US deserves what they get.

[wautd]

If the constant repetition of the fact that McCain and Palin are liars will not have an effect on their chance to be elected, the US deserves what they get.

Sure, but sadly they rest of the world has to stuck up with them too

[Anguirus]

If the media reports on McCain's lies more than on Obama's lies, then it just shows their "liberal bias."

Nitram is dead right though, it's hard to make people care about a lie in politics. Investigative journalism now bores people. It's easier to listen to and process a sound bite, and the Republicans have long since learned that they can literally say anything that they think will help them and it won't matter if they are called out.

The only thing remotely resembling a level playing field in this election will be the debates. Flawed as they are, I really can't wait. McCain makes a fool of himself on "The View" and his veep can barely handle a softball interview...they are sweating bullets.

[SirNitram]

Honestly, part of me wonders if the idea that most people disdain investigative journalism and non-soundbite politics is true. Sure, it's how things are run, but shouldn't some attention be paid to those who transmit the soundbites unquestioningly and have declined investigative journalism in favour of cultivating friends on the cocktail party circuit so they can get to be lied to by 'Officials who wished to remain anonymous'?

[Darth Wong]

The decline in investigative journalism is a direct result of 30 years of conservatives poisoning the well on "the media". They started doing this during the Vietnam War and have been keeping up the pace ever since then, to the point that conservatives are always watching and waiting for a chance to pounce on any conceivable sign of what they believe to be "liberal media bias". The media, in return, fears their reaction and tries to avoid angering them, because at the end of the day, we're still talking about a huge marketing demographic.

[SirNitram]

The decline in investigative journalism is a direct result of 30 years of conservatives poisoning the well on "the media". They started doing this during the Vietnam War and have been keeping up the pace ever since then, to the point that conservatives are always watching and waiting for a chance to pounce on any conceivable sign of what they believe to be "liberal media bias". The media, in return, fears their reaction and tries to avoid angering them, because at the end of the day, we're still talking about a huge marketing demographic.

Pretty much. It's a rather devastatingly effective strategy. By first sowing the seed of self-doubt with constant repetition of Liberal Media, then leveraging their own nepotism and persecution complex into a pervasive presense in the media, they rip apart everything they don't like and turn the media into what they do like: Quip-Politics and shallow personal stories. And if you stray, you are denounced roundly as Liberal Media and must be stopped.

When you imagine this happening in a coordinated manner for the past few decades, the end result was inevitable.

[Edi]

If the media screamed "McCain lies again!" every time they do lie and leave the headline at that and just put the details inside, it will very soon start to sink into the public consciousness that McCain is a liar and can't be trusted. It's the same soundbite effect, putting the emphasis on the lying and adding the details in small print in the bottom left corner. I wager it would start getting results.

As long as they just repeat the lie with the word "No" attached to the headline, people ignore the negative and get another dose of the lie. That's the difference.

[SirNitram]

If the media screamed "McCain lies again!" every time they do lie and leave the headline at that and just put the details inside, it will very soon start to sink into the public consciousness that McCain is a liar and can't be trusted. It's the same soundbite effect, putting the emphasis on the lying and adding the details in small print in the bottom left corner. I wager it would start getting results.

As long as they just repeat the lie with the word "No" attached to the headline, people ignore the negative and get another dose of the lie. That's the difference.

I don't think that's any good. They still wind up controlling the headline you see when you glance at the newspaper or flip by a news channel.

[Pablo Sanchez]

It's become enough of a pattern that the Obama campaign is probably working on "McCain is a serial exaggerator" ads. The stumbling block is that this will only work if the networks decide that this should be the story arc for McCain-Palin, like they did with Al Gore.

[General Zod]

This is a good one, and probably one of the more blatant lies McSame's been caught in.

Turns out Palin never really visited Iraq.

(CNN) -- Sarah Palin did not visit troops in Iraq, a spokesperson for the Republican vice presidential nominee confirmed Saturday, as new details emerged about the extent of the Alaska governor's foreign travel.
Gov. Sarah Palin's aide confirmed to CNN details of her foreign travel Saturday.

Gov. Sarah Palin's aide confirmed to CNN details of her foreign travel Saturday.

In July of last year, Palin left North America for the first time to visit Alaskan troops stationed in Kuwait. Palin officials originally said her itinerary included U.S. military installations or outposts in Germany and Kuwait, and that she had visited Ireland.

A Palin aide in Alaska had said Iraq was also one of the military stops on that trip.

The Boston Globe, however, reported Saturday that in response to questions about the trip, Alaska National Guard officials and campaign aides said Palin did not go past the Kuwait-Iraq border.

In addition, campaign aides also confirmed reports to CNN Saturday that Palin's time in Ireland on that trip had actually been a refueling stop.

[Darth Wong]

I still can't believe that they're getting away with touting their "experience", when their judgment has been so often contradicted by subsequent events or data.

• McCain's vaunted "war experience" was in a failed war. Nobody wants to point this out. Kerry eventually realized the Vietnam War was a failure and protested against it, while McCain did not. This makes him a hero to Republicans, but it indicates poor judgment, because Vietnam was a failure, whether people want to hear it or not.
• McCain's second war-related judgment was his declaration that Iraq would be an easy campaign. Today, he claims that he always knew it would be difficult, but that's a flat-out lie. He's on video declaring that it will be easy. This spectacular disproof of his prediction should have given any reasonable person pause. But not McCain.
• Palin is on record supporting abstinence-only sex education, but all of the studies done on the subject show that teens are more likely to get pregnant when they receive abstinence-only sex education, not less. And she maintains this position even in the face of her own daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock: surely no disproof of her beliefs on sex education could be more emphatic or personal than that, yet she stubbornly clings to them.
• Palin is on record denying global warming even though the scientific community has overwhelmingly come to the opposite conclusion. That fact does not make her doubt her own conclusions at all, despite her lack of scientific background and her generally poor academic performance, which would make any reasonable person doubt his own ability to independently and critically assess complex scientific theories.
• Palin is on record saying that creationism should be taught in school. See above.

What's the use of "experience" when it is so abundantly clear that they cannot learn from it? McCain touts his knowledge of "how to win wars" despite never having actually won one. Palin touts her knowledge of education and down-home family issues, despite the fact that she couldn't keep her own daughter from having an illegitimate child. They both make confident pronouncements about complex academic issues such as global warming despite both of them being miserable failures in school. These are people who don't know how to learn from failure. What kind of "experience" is that?

[Tribun]

I still can't believe that they're getting away with touting their "experience", when their judgment has been so often contradicted by subsequent events or data.

• McCain's vaunted "war experience" was in a failed war. Nobody wants to point this out. Kerry eventually realized the Vietnam War was a failure and protested against it, while McCain did not. This makes him a hero to Republicans, but it indicates poor judgment, because Vietnam was a failure, whether people want to hear it or not.
• McCain's second war-related judgment was his declaration that Iraq would be an easy campaign. Today, he claims that he always knew it would be difficult, but that's a flat-out lie. He's on video declaring that it will be easy. This spectacular disproof of his prediction should have given any reasonable person pause. But not McCain.
• Palin is on record supporting abstinence-only sex education, but all of the studies done on the subject show that teens are more likely to get pregnant when they receive abstinence-only sex education, not less. And she maintains this position even in the face of her own daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock: surely no disproof of her beliefs on sex education could be more emphatic or personal than that, yet she stubbornly clings to them.
• Palin is on record denying global warming even though the scientific community has overwhelmingly come to the opposite conclusion. That fact does not make her doubt her own conclusions at all, despite her lack of scientific background and her generally poor academic performance, which would make any reasonable person doubt his own ability to independently and critically assess complex scientific theories.
• Palin is on record saying that creationism should be taught in school. See above.

What's the use of "experience" when it is so abundantly clear that they cannot learn from it? McCain touts his knowledge of "how to win wars" despite never having actually won one. Palin touts her knowledge of education and down-home family issues, despite the fact that she couldn't keep her own daughter from having an illegitimate child. They both make pronouncements about complex academic issues such as global warming despite both of them being miserable failures in school. These are people who don't know how to learn from failure. What kind of "experience" is that?

Very easy.
Tell an idiot often enough "X is not X but Y" and he/she/it will believe that X is indeed Y.

[Darth Wong]

It's really too bad Obama has declared Palin's family off limits, because her refusal to adjust her policy on sex education even in the face of such profoundly personal disproof of its effectiveness is excellent proof that she is not a person who is good at learning from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, but I would think America has had enough of an administration which never learns from them.

McCain fought in a losing war and never figured out that it was a failure, or why, so he endorsed a very similar mistake 30 years later. Palin pushed abstinence-only sex education and never figured out that it doesn't work, even when her own daughter got knocked up out of wedlock, so she'll repeat this mistake at the national level. It's unbelievable that these two are actually the darlings of the American conservative movement right now; they should be a goddamned embarrassment.

[Sea Skimmer]

McCain's vaunted "war experience" was in a failed war. Nobody wants to point this out. Kerry eventually realized the Vietnam War was a failure and protested against it, while McCain did not. This makes him a hero to Republicans, but it indicates poor judgment, because Vietnam was a failure, whether people want to hear it or not.

You often learn more from losing then from winning quick and easy, which just creates a short victorious war mentality that leads to fiascos (Gulf 1 leading to Gulf 2, Japan defeating Russia, then taking on the whole world ect…), we’ve seen that over and over again in history. A much better reason to doubt his war experience would be simply that he was a freaking attack plane pilot with zero input in strategy and only limited influence on how even his own squadron flew its missions. As far the most he commanded in combat was a flight of four aircraft counting his own. One thing he did write and speak about from Nam however was the utter idiocy of expecting to micromanage a ‘clean’ war from the Pentagon and White House. No such thing can exist nor succeed.

[Darth Wong]

McCain's vaunted "war experience" was in a failed war. Nobody wants to point this out. Kerry eventually realized the Vietnam War was a failure and protested against it, while McCain did not. This makes him a hero to Republicans, but it indicates poor judgment, because Vietnam was a failure, whether people want to hear it or not.

You often learn more from losing then from winning quick and easy, which just creates a short victorious war mentality that leads to fiascos (Gulf 1 leading to Gulf 2, Japan defeating Russia, then taking on the whole world ect…), we’ve seen that over and over again in history. A much better reason to doubt his war experience would be simply that he was a freaking attack plane pilot with zero input in strategy and only limited influence on how even his own squadron flew its missions. As far the most he commanded in combat was a flight of four aircraft counting his own.

True, but I wasn't exactly going after his claim to have war experience, as flawed as it is. I was going after his inability to learn from mistakes. We're talking about a guy who literally got shot down and tortured during this fucked-up war and then, when the chance came 30 years later to throw his support behind another war with similar flaws, said "Hell yeah, this will be great!" Now that is a person who is too fucking stupid to learn from mistakes.

One thing he did write and speak about from Nam however was the utter idiocy of expecting to micromanage a ‘clean’ war from the Pentagon and White House. No such thing can exist nor succeed.

He must not have understood his own writings then, because 30 years later he decided that it was possible to wage a "clean" war of liberation in the Middle East, despite having personally suffered so greatly the last time they tried. As I said, he shows every indication of being a reeeally slow learner, which fits with his abysmal academic record.

And I can't believe people try to excuse his pitiful 894/899 student ranking by saying he was a troublemaker, as if he would have done well if he'd applied himself. In my experience, the troublemakers acted like that because they knew they lacked the talent to actually perform if they tried. So they didn't try.

The McCain/Palin ticket is America's tribute to slow learners. It's a sad statement on America that a lifetime of shitty grades and horrible academic performance isn't even a blip on the radar. It's less of a liability than a single politically incorrect off-hand remark, or bad photo-op.

[Ender]

Palin has been anointed a prophet by evangelical leader

Sarah Palin and the Deborah Anointing

After 49 million abortions since 1973, America needs a bold, Holy Ghost-filled woman to model pro-life values in the White House.

Just one week before the Republican Convention was scheduled to kick off in Minnesota, most evangelical Christians I know were (1) half-heartedly supporting John McCain; (2) flirting with the idea of voting for Barack Obama even though they disagreed with his policies; or (3) considering not voting at all. But the political mood shifted abruptly on Sept. 3, as if something from the mountains of Alaska sent seismic shockwaves across the nation. The earthquake hit when a little-known female governor appeared on the national stage with a baby in one arm and four more of her kids sitting in the audience.

Gov. Sarah Palin, who has kept an infant swing in her office in Juneau since April, has changed everything about the 2008 presidential race. Nobody—including McCain, no doubt—had any idea how much Palin’s candidacy would electrify the nation.

Evangelicals and other social conservatives were so ecstatic about “Sarah Barracuda” that the left-leaning media began a mad dash to discredit her. Animal rights activists complained about her bear rugs and her father’s fondness for moose hunting. Hypocritical feminists questioned whether Palin has time to run a country with all those kids. (So they think only liberal women can govern?) Democratic pundits claimed she lacks foreign policy experience. (If McCain had selected globetrotting Condoleezza Rice for the job, would the Democrats have approved? I don’t think so.)

Palin’s enemies will poke around for the next two months to find her weak spots, but I have a feeling the tough-talking hockey mom from Wasilla will hold up just fine under scrutiny. They are underestimating this woman’s Christian faith, which has shaped her anti-corruption policies, her pro-life convictions and her refreshingly humble servant-leadership style.

There’s a lot to like about Palin—including the fact that she has been a courageous whistle-blower in Alaskan politics and that she has creative ideas about energy policy. But what excites me most is the fact that she is a working mom with solid Christian values. We are way overdue for a conservative mother’s touch in the White House.

Our country has been in a protracted debate over abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have argued for decades about whether it’s OK to kill a baby in the third trimester or whether parents should have any say-so in a minor’s decision to abort a child. While the good ol’ boys ran Washington, more than 49 million babies were killed in 36 years.

Some women politicians got themselves elected to powerful positions in Washington a few years ago. Unfortunately, many of them sold out to the establishment before they got there. These women failed us. They traded their birthright at the altar of liberal feminism and betrayed the essence of motherhood.

Thankfully Palin doesn’t have all the years of experience her critics say she needs on her resume. If she had breathed the noxious air in Washington for 15 years, she might have compromised her values too. As it stands, we have a woman with backbone who can stand up to the death lobby.

We need Palin’s perspective. Here’s a woman who didn’t sacrifice her family for her career and who didn’t abort her fifth child, Trig, when she found out he had Down’s syndrome. Here’s a woman who told the audience at the Republican Convention last week that Trig is “perfect”—and pledged to be an advocate for parents of special needs children. Here’s a woman who, when confronted with her 17-year-old daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, gracefully encouraged her to keep the baby and marry the father.

Talk about a role model. Palin’s life is a prophecy to America. She doesn’t have to preach against abortion. She and her family, even with their flaws, are the embodiment of the compassionate pro-life values America desperately needs to adopt.

When McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate, I was reminded of the biblical story of Deborah, the Old Testament prophet who rallied God’s people to victory at a time when ancient Israel was being terrorized by foreign invaders. Deborah’s gender didn’t stop her from amassing an army; she inspired the people in a way no man could. She and her defense minister, Barak, headed to the front lines and watched God do a miracle on the battlefield.

In her song in Judges 5:7, Deborah declares: “The peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose, a mother in Israel” (NASB).

Sometimes it takes a true mother to rally the troops. I hope that Palin, a woman who believes in prayer and is filled with the Holy Ghost, will take her hockey stick and smash the glass ceiling in American politics once and for all.
J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma and author of the book 10 Lies the Church Tells Women. If you have not seen the video of Sarah Palin speaking earlier this year at Wasilla (Alaska) Assembly of God, click here.

[Superman]

snip

lol

They must need a prophet to battle the messiah that Obama has turned into.

[Metatwaddle]

Hypocritical feminists questioned whether Palin has time to run a country with all those kids.

Hypocritical feminists? I wonder if this asshole has examples of that. The only people that have asked that question, that I've seen, have been men - including some on this board, I'm sorry to say.

Actually, Glenn Greenwald tackles that particular lie nicely. An AP reporter, Tom Raum, said liberals have been asking if Palin should be taking the position with a Down's Syndrome kid. When a blogger asked Raum to back up that assertion, he came up with nineteen examples, except only one of them mentioned a conflict between Palin's kids and her ability to govern, and it came from a conservative man.

[Patrick Degan]

McCain's vaunted "war experience" was in a failed war. Nobody wants to point this out. Kerry eventually realized the Vietnam War was a failure and protested against it, while McCain did not. This makes him a hero to Republicans, but it indicates poor judgment, because Vietnam was a failure, whether people want to hear it or not.

You often learn more from losing then from winning quick and easy, which just creates a short victorious war mentality that leads to fiascos (Gulf 1 leading to Gulf 2, Japan defeating Russia, then taking on the whole world ect…), we’ve seen that over and over again in history. A much better reason to doubt his war experience would be simply that he was a freaking attack plane pilot with zero input in strategy and only limited influence on how even his own squadron flew its missions. As far the most he commanded in combat was a flight of four aircraft counting his own.

True, but I wasn't exactly going after his claim to have war experience, as flawed as it is. I was going after his inability to learn from mistakes. We're talking about a guy who literally got shot down and tortured during this fucked-up war and then, when the chance came 30 years later to throw his support behind another war with similar flaws, said "Hell yeah, this will be great!" Now that is a person who is too fucking stupid to learn from mistakes.

And to top it off, voted for the Military Commissions Act, essentially legalising torture in Gitmo. That goes far beyond failing to learn from one's mistakes and those of others, it's endorsing them wholeheartedly.

[Darth Wong]

Hypocritical feminists questioned whether Palin has time to run a country with all those kids.

Hypocritical feminists? I wonder if this asshole has examples of that. The only people that have asked that question, that I've seen, have been men - including some on this board, I'm sorry to say.

Please tell me, Little Miss Perfect: how many infants have you raised? What the fuck do you know about how difficult it is, or how much time and attention it requires, particularly if the child has special needs? Where do you get off contemptuously dismissing such concerns as if the people saying them must be dumbshits who exaggerate the magnitude of the problem?

If her snowmobile-racing husband will stay at home and take care of the kid that might help, but I somehow have trouble seeing a guy like that as a stay-at-home dad. And regardless, that kind of child requires divided attention. Even when I had a stay-at-home wife, I still had to rush home to deal with child-rearing situations on occasion. I scaled back working hours so I could have more time available for the kids. But hey, I'm just a parent; what would I know about raising kids? You're soooo much more the expert on such matters, aren't you?

As I said before, I think it's a questionable choice at any time, but when it comes from one of these "family values" idiots, it's also downright hypocritical.

[General Zod]

Hypocritical feminists questioned whether Palin has time to run a country with all those kids.

Hypocritical feminists? I wonder if this asshole has examples of that. The only people that have asked that question, that I've seen, have been men - including some on this board, I'm sorry to say.

I seem to recall a number of female posters questioning it on CNN blogs, but I'm not sure if they'd necessarily count as "feminists".

[Darth Wong]

I only know one couple in real-life who had a Down's Syndrome child. It forced them both to make major changes in their lives. But ohhh no, it's just misogynist conservative troglodytes who think that having a Down's Syndrome infant should have any impact on your decision to take a new job thousands of miles from home, right?

[wautd]

I think these lies are all intentional. Remember when Dick Cheney lied about never having seen John Edwards show up in the Senate? And then pictures promptly appeared showing them standing together in the Senate?

The Republicans realize that outright bald-faced lies to the voting public will get the job done. They impress stupid illiterate viewers who can't be bothered to fact-check or read the kind of news source that does fact-checking. When they're caught lying, it has much less negative impact than the positive impact of the lie itself, because the lie gets far more exposure than the correction, particularly among their base which only watches FOXNews. Who cares if they violate every principle of democratic ethics in the process? The Republicans certainly don't.

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."