Hard News: Go Us
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We sniff panties in a non-partisan way. Priceless!
Hey, careful about throwing about the "sniffing" jibe! In Australia, Western Australia specifically, that's sensitive stuff!
if thats wood - its smokun!!! :)
Sage, lets for a moment assume you've got insight on this, insight from the UK that is, but are you fr'real? "smokun" (do you smoke, I don't so perhaps you're right, smoking's cool again?). She wasn't terrible, she was quite good for her target audience but that's a preppy-wannabee mob; the kind who want to hang in the rougher parts of town but only with a relocated Molly Ringwall-type. Everytime I see/hear Palin, I think of Valley Girl with icebergs.
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and good do simon we agree on something. Air Force one on Ebay - That would be something :)
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thats a dyslexic "good dog" not a good do by the way, should previewed
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American military technological bloat was and still is a major issue, which may be why the a British general called them Teched Up Teletubbies a few years back. But then you have an industrial machine that demands and feeds off that bloat.
Sounds like pork to me. Surely Palin will cut that. And she can replace the F16's with snowmobiles.
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do you smoke, I don't so perhaps you're right, smoking's cool again?.
"do you smoke" - hahahahahahaha - you just so don't get it. Perhaps Simon can help :^)
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sage, put the sherry back... innit earlier in your neighbourhood?
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An attitude to taxes, Iraq, size of government.
No, sorry. Bristol Palin is allowed to have an "attitude" -- she's a pregnant teenager, and hormones get her some slack. Platitudinous red meat thrown at the base by her mother just doesn't cut it.
and good do simon we agree on something. Air Force one on Ebay - That would be something :)
And so would handing around a takeout menu before the next state dinner -- though splitting the bill might be tricky. The stunts and laugh lines are the easy part
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There is an energy policy in there. An attitude to taxes, Iraq, size of government.
Ah, yes, it's all in the attitude. That's what leadership is about, isn't it? Appearing sure of yourself, projecting a certain image, being surrounded by family. A compelling personal story. Attitude.
The reason why Obama's speech was exceptional is that he managed to weave the personal story, the mantra of unity, the attitude towards the social ills of the country, with a substantive political project of reform. He let you know what he was about and how he was going to go about things. It's up to McCain to match that (good luck, bro). But that wasn't Palin's job. She had to tell the country who she was, make the case for McCain, attack Obama. She did all those things, not helped by the fact that Giuliani went over and so they couldn't show her biographical video in time for the prime time cameras.
Within that particular frame, she did brilliantly, I thought. Simon and Craig have accused her to be reading off a prompter the words written by somebody else, but hey, so did Biden, and not half as well. But the convention speech was step one, and in a way the easiest one, where you get to define yourself in front of a friendly crowd; how she's going to front up to scrutiny, the vicepresidential debate, the scandals and indiscretions that are quite legitimately up for debate (troopergate, the bookbanning spree, the earmark boast, the being for the bridge before she was against it... that's not bad in four days!) that's the big question. If she can't do any of that - I doubt she can, at this point - they'll sequester her from the media and use her exclusively on the trail, where she could be moderately useful in some communities. But without a meaningful national media presence, she'll be a drag, as well, a constant reminder that old man McCain doesn't really have a number two.
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and good do simon we agree on something. Air Force one on Ebay - That would be something :)
So this last, most recent, post-before-thinking-moment from you would have the POTUS on a commercial flight?
Victory in Iraq is finally in sight
is a policy position? Seriously? Seriously??
No, it's a half baked platitude that is there simply to get a crowd response. My friend, if you are gonna rant about politics you should at least ground yourself in a few basics.
And she can replace the F16's with snowmobiles.
Now that's policy!
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I had no idea God has legal or constitutional authority to declare way or deploy the armed forces of the United States of America. You learn something new every day, don't you?
It's called Jihad, Craig..our lass from the high country is a trojan it seems. Incidently it seems the church video has been pulled from the site.
Oops, checking before I clicked post, now the whole site has been pulled...
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This discussion is pointless, you're all just venting.
On a lighter note, The Daily Show totally nailed the hypocrisy of the Republican spinmachine:http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card
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fair comment john
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I thought. Simon and Craig have accused her to be reading off a prompter the words written by somebody else...,
Well, to be fair, she might have memorised a stack of 5x7 file cards and if Palin wrote her own speech then someone should clarify the attribution. What worries me is whether she's actually doing her own thinking.
...so did Biden, and not half as well
Perhaps, and I'd say he was solid but unexceptional. (Then again, when you're on the same bill as Obama, Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy, you've really got to go nova to outshine that lot. I loathe Clinton and Kennedy but you'd have to be deaf and blind not to acknowledge they can work a crowd like pros.) But here's what really surprised me about Biden's speech -- because he can throw the knee to the crotch better than Palin when called for -- is that he wasn't auditioning for Innanity and Coma on Fox. Grown up.
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Character. Leadership. Integrity. My mulatto faggot arse.
Beautiful.
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She wasn't terrible, she was quite good for her target audience but that's a preppy-wannabee mob; the kind who want to hang in the rougher parts of town but only with a relocated Molly Ringwald-type
Yeah, their squareness and whiteness never more evident than in the final boogie-down after the speech. Republicans dancing: not pretty.
And I was going to say, hands off Molly! Just because she played the rich princess that one time in the Breakfast Club? But her latest project turns out to be spookily relevant.
We need a new thread, eh? But in the meantime: the speech didn't strike me as wooden so much as hand-on-hips arch and mannered, in the style of a shallow but crowd-pleasing high school debater. And (after racking my brains for a non-sexist adjective) bratty, also in the manner of a high school debater. Lots of barbs and ad hominem attacks and insinuations, but very very short on actual argument.
And secondly: I really want to see that list of library books she wanted banned. Somebody find the librarian!
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__Character. Leadership. Integrity. My mulatto faggot arse.__
Beautiful.
Indeed.
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On a lighter note, The Daily Show totally nailed the hypocrisy of the Republican spinmachine
Brilliant, John. "In Dick Morris' defence, he's a lying sack of shit."
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Meanwhile, here's one for Sage. A correspndent for that well-known lefty organ The Evening Standard takes a look at the "Sarah Palin = Margaret Thatcher" line, and 's he's not impressed:
For a start, (and many forget this) Thatcher had been an MP for a full 20 years before she became Prime Minister. Furthermore, she had also been a Cabinet minister for four years and then spent a further four years as Leader of the Opposition before entering Number 10. Palin has been governor of Alaska for two years. Prior to that her political experience comprised being a local councillor and mayor of Wasilla - population 9,780. Yes, you read that right, population 9,780.
Moreover, we now learn, was a member of a fringe party demanding independence for the state. For all her Euroscepticism, can you imagine Maggie as a member of UKIP? Never.
Second, Palin shows no record of Thatcher-style rigour on policy or tax-cutting instincts. The Telegraph's Alex Spillius has revealed how nervous some Republicans are about her claims to be a low-tax conservative. Palin famously told the convention that she was proud to have cancelled the "bridge to nowhere" linking parts of Alaska, implying it was a Washington-style waste of tax dollars. Yet the truth appears to be that she had previously lobbied hard for Congress cash for the project. Worse still, she backed hefty taxes on the oil industry.
Sage?
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Meanwhile, here's one for Sage. A correspndent for that well-known lefty organ The Evening Standard takes a look at the "Sarah Palin = Margaret Thatcher" line, and 's he's not impressed:
The Harry Truman comparison they cooked up for Palin was duff too. Truman might have come from a small town, but he spent 10 years in the Senate (busting war profiteers, among other things) before FDR tapped him as veep in 1944.
I'm actually quite surprised by how many of the money lines in the speech were demonstrably bogus.
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Now she's stonewalling on the Troopergate investigation.
If there's anything the Democrats can hammer her on, it has to be this.
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The Harry Truman comparison they cooked up for Palin was duff too.
And the comparison to Reagan.
And the comparison to Teddy Roosevelt.
My God, why doesn't someone just say she has the wit of William F. Buckley, the holiness of Billy Graham, and the economic acumen of Milton Friedman and finish trashing the conservative pantheon?The Harry Truman comparison they cooked up for Palin was duff too.
Meanwhile, David Frum is much more impressed by Palin's speech than I was, but he's still not recanting his "anxieties" about Palin.
the whole post is worth reading, but the sting truly is in the tail:
If the Palin choice was first and foremost about John McCain, it is also about us - us conservatives that is, about the way we think and act.
One of the great and important themes of Rudy Giuliani's speech to the convention was the importance of executive experience and crisis leadership. We are all mindful I think that over the past eight years, the record in this area has not been consistently outstanding. Rich Lowry months ago predicted that competence would become a big issue in 2008 - and certainly that was the issue that inspired me to support Rudy Giuliani in this year's contest.
Yet when the hour of decision arrives, it turns out that many conservatives care as little as ever about administrative skill and executive accomplishment. Our party and our movement overwhelmingly respond to symbolic cues.
Sarah Palin is exciting and appealing. But what kind of executive is she? None of us have even the remotest idea. We don't know whether she takes advice from a wide circle or a narrow one, whether she tends to decide quickly or slowly, whether her budgets are realistic, whether she is calm or excitable in a crisis. We have no idea whether she is decisive or vacillating, prompt or procrastinating, curious or incurious. These things matter enormously in a president. Yet they do not matter much to us. And that's a big problem.
And it hurts because it's true. McCain-Palin: Putting Country and Competence Last. And the GOP let them do it.
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If there's anything the Democrats can hammer her on, it has to be this.
Book banning, book banning, book banning. Extreme views on abortion. Creationism in schools. She's not a politician, she's a pinhata.
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I didn't think the Palin speech was wooden but it lacked something, umm perhaps her own voice. I didn't get the impression that I was really hearing anything from her, it was all spin and attack from the speech writing machine of Dubya. It appealed well to the group that it was intended for - but what is going to happen when she faces the media and has to meet voters who don't cheer and clap on cue. That will be the real test.
Despite the praise coming her way for that speech, it simply, in my mind anyway, raised more questions than answers.
I don't think I know her any better today, than I did yesterday.
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Book banning, book banning, book banning. Extreme views on abortion. Creationism in schools. She's not a politician, she's a pinhata.
Woah... Sexist - Hillary will be disappointed! :) And to be coldly cynical about it, that's all stuff that upsets the "liberal media" and "cosmopolitan elitists". Trooper-gate? Well, she stood up in front of the world and claimed that she is part of a reform ticket, has a record of standing up to corruption in her own party and will do the same in Washington. The simple question is this: Is she a hypocrite and a liar, who abused her gubanatorial powers in pursuit of a very personal agenda? Is the Republican Party's great white hope little more than Bill Clinton in Hillary's cast off pants suit?
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@ Frum
So: a great success. Palin revealed one of the sharpest political talents the Republican party has seen in a generation. She electrified the hall and added a powerful asset to a troubled ticket.
Wha?? Obviously, he's pusing a party line. Either that or we didn't watch the same speech.
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