Debating Sarah Palin

[Che -Guevara]

Listen Joe, Tonite is the big nite.We need to go over few things with you. First you need to understand Palin and learn how to deal with airhead.

 

So Joe you gotta be cool . Don't get into shouting match, they might see you as bully. Don't talk to her about issues and experience, they might think you are condescending. Don't call her Sarah, that give the impression you are sexist- Governer Sarah would be better.Don't bring family value issues into the debate,you would think you are talking her pregnant teenage girl. In fact, don't do anything. Just there and let this Barbie doll hang herself so she could go back to Alaska, push out couple more and watch Russia from her balcony.

[Che -Guevara]

Here's the difference, though, between President Bush's Joe Six-pack persona and Sarah Palin's. For better or worse, George Bush -- and I can't believe I'm writing this -- had attained a respectable level of schooling while also coming from a family deeply rooted in American politics. In other words, be it the fake Crawford "ranch" and his cowboy drag, George W. Bush is mostly pretending. He's "Joe Six-pack" insofar as he's running away from his silver-spooned, cheerleading, Skull & Bones background.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is, by all indications, a bonafide hooplehead -- so dangerously out of her depth and so delusional -- perhaps blinded by ambition -- that she is in total denial about the real-world ramifications of her ineptitude. Instead, she's excusing her embarrassing television interviews and farcical candidacy as an historical breakthrough for "normal Joe Six-pack Americans."

 

Huff

[xiinfaniin]

The Palin Problem

Kathleen Parker

Friday, September 26, 2008

 

WASHINGTON -- If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream -- away from Sarah Palin.

 

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president -- and possibly president -- is to risk being labeled anti-woman.

 

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.

 

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick -- what a difference a financial crisis makes -- and a more complicated picture has emerged.

 

As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

 

Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan's president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)

 

And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she's had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).

 

Finally, Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain's running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood -- a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

 

Palin didn't make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

 

It was fun while it lasted.

 

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

 

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

 

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there. Here's but one example of many from her interview with Hannity:

 

"Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we're talking about today. And that's something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this."

 

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama's numbers, Palin blustered wordily: "I'm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?"

 

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

 

If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

 

What to do?

 

McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

 

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

 

Do it for your country.

 

 

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

[Che -Guevara]

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Ouuuuuch

 

The woman freezes when she's confronted. Keeps on talking without making any sense.

[Miriam1]

I am still dizzy from Biden's little speech on Roosevelt watching television during the Depression !

 

I hope he doesn't give us a repeat performance, nontheless it should be an exiciting debate.

[xiinfaniin]

Alaskan Tropic

by Steven Kurutz

October 6, 2008

 

Of the many things revealed about the Alaska governor Sarah Palin since she became John McCain’s running mate last month, one of the most curious is the fact, reported two weeks ago, that she had a tanning bed installed in the state mansion in Juneau. Obama supporters seized on the news, arguing that private tanning-bed ownership is evidence that Palin isn’t the folksy hockey mom she claims to be, while Republican partisans pointed out that she bought the bed secondhand from an athletic club, and, moreover, that tanning is a reasonable activity, given Alaska’s sun-deprived winters.

 

Taking a charitable view of the revelation was the Indoor Tanning Association, a trade lobbying group based in Washington, D.C. The organization quickly issued a press release extolling tanning as a source of Vitamin D and gave “kudos” to Palin for standing up to those “trying to frighten Americans away from UV light.” Palin hasn’t commented publicly on her bronzing habits, but tanning professionals are nevertheless excited that an avowed tanner is so prominent on the national stage. “Word flew through our industry,” Dan Humiston, the association’s president, said the other day by phone. “They’re all saying, ‘Good news about Sarah Palin.’ ”

 

Humiston was speaking from Nashville, where he was attending the association’s annual trade show. The three-day expo features workshops (“Total Salon Makeover: Saving and Rebuilding a Tanning Business on the Brink”), new products (the CosmoLux 9K90 low-pressure sunlamp), and, occasionally, themed entertainment. “Most tanning salons are owned by females,” Humiston said. “If we have a band, we’ll bring in someone for them to get up and dance. The Beach Boys gave a concert once.”

 

In 1985, Humiston borrowed four thousand dollars from his grandparents, bought two tanning beds, and opened a salon in the basement of an office building in a Buffalo suburb. Now, at forty-five, he’s the president of Tanning Bed, Inc., a chain with thirty-four locations across upstate New York. Humiston, who appears two shades darker than everyone else in photographs, normally adheres to a regimen of fifteen minutes a week under the lights, but lately he’s been too busy to bronze—he’s running for Congress as an independent in the Twenty-seventh Congressional District. “We were at the pool the other day, and my kids were like, ‘Dad, you got a farmer tan,’ ” Humiston said. “I call it the parade tan—my head and arms were tan but my legs were pale.” He added, solemnly, “I’m as fair-skinned as I’ve been in a long time.”

 

There’s something of a history of tanned politicians—think of Ronald Reagan on his California ranch, his skin as singed-looking as the needle grass, or, more recently, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, like Palin, has been known to stay artificially golden. “I thought she had a healthy glow, even before I knew she was a tanner,” Humiston said. “What I love about it is she’s like a normal person. There’s nothing fancy about it. She bought an old tanning bed and put it in her house in Alaska because they don’t get any sun. She’s probably stressed out, goes and lies in a tanning bed for twenty minutes, and relaxes.” Humiston added, “When you’re governor, it’s probably tough to go wandering into a tanning salon in sweatpants and a T-shirt.”

 

Much of the I.T.A.’s energy is spent clearing up misconceptions about indoor tanning perpetuated by what I.T.A. officials call “the sun-scare industry.” Last year, a bill was introduced in California that would, among other things, ban anyone under sixteen from using a tanning bed. “The sun doesn’t have a P.R. firm to say, ‘Hang on a minute, they’re misleading you,’ ” Humiston said. Of McCain’s melanomas, he said, “I suspect during the time he was held captive in Southeast Asia there were occasions when he was exposed to intense sun.”

 

One wonders if a Palin Vice-Presidency would result in an indoor-tanning renaissance, or mark a period of industry deregulation. Humiston says he wouldn’t lobby Palin on his colleagues’ behalf (“That would be below her pay grade”). Nor does he plan to introduce pro-tanning legislation if he’s elected to Congress this fall, although, he said, “If there was ever a question in the legislative body about indoor tanning or UV light, I’m sure I’d be the person that would be called upon.”

[Aaliyyah]

The debate is on. Enjoy it ppl.

[Warrior of Light]

Im glad Biden found his voice and bravado in the end. As anticipated Palin really doesnt make sense and keeps on circumventing issues.

Mccain must be regreting his choice. :rolleyes:

I still cant beleive I watched it supposed to be studying for an exam.

[Aaliyyah]

^ lol I hear you. I was watching it too, when I should be studying. And, I definitely agree with you Biden did fairly well.

[Pujah]

I wasted my popcorn on this debate last night waiting for someone to show this woman's shallowness. In the end Gwen Ifil was a dissapointment, I expected her to ask follow up questions and demand an answer to her questions which Gov. Palin effectively avoided whenever the question didn't jive with her talking points. Of course, anyone looking for substance will tell you Sen. Biden won the debate but no one can deny Ms barbie doll looked confident while bull sh!ting.

 

=============================================

Klein: Palin Was Fine, But This Debate Was No Contest

 

By Joe Klein

 

She did fine, I suppose.

 

She was animated and confident. She displayed an ability, for the first time since her convention speech, to repeat with a fair amount of credibility, the formulations that her handlers had given her. You knew she was well prepared when practically the first words out of her mouth were, "Go to a kids' soccer game..." She had that folksy thing down—although I did notice, watching the squiggly lines down at the bottom of the CNN screen, that when she tried to get cutesy with her folksiness, it didn't work.

 

She also was allowed to do fine by Joe Biden, who never really challenged her—his criticisms were always directed at John McCain—and never exposed the obvious shallowness of her knowledge on most topics. (He must have been sorely tempted to correct Palin when she called David McKiernan, the commanding general in Afghanistan, "McLellan," but Biden was hard-wired—I imagine his debate prep was a form of electric shock therapy—not to correct her, attack her, disrespect her.)

 

Indeed, Sarah Palin's high-energy performance in the vice-presidential debate was the most glaring demonstration—since George W. Bush's performances in 2000—of how little you can get away with knowing and still survive one of these things, especially if the rules limit the cross-examination as severely as they did in this debate. Her relentless opacity was impressive. She refused to answer the questions where she hadn't been prepped with answers and when Biden pointed out that an early question had been on deregulation not taxes, she flashed: "I may not answer the questions the way you and the moderator want to hear, but I'm gonna talk straight to the American people."

 

Talk straight she didn't, with only a few exceptions. She talked talking points. And when the talking points concerned areas where she didn't know diddly, she didn't talk them very convincingly. Indeed, there were times I got the distinct impression that she didn't understand the points she was talking about (on the vice president's constitutional powers, for example).

 

Joe Biden, by contrast, demonstrated a real knowledge of the issues in question. He made several verbal fumbles—it was Syria, not Hizballah, that left Lebanon—and at times he lapsed into legi-speak, even using plague words like "amendments" and "Liheap" (the winter heating oil assistance program for poor people). But his was a solid, informed and restrained performance—although his best moments came near the end of the debate (when much of America had turned to the baseball playoffs or reruns of their favorite sitcoms on cable). He was genuinely moving when he talked about being a single parent after the death of his wife (he almost began to weep, but held it together); in fact, that moment was more real than anything Palin said all night. He also closed with a devastating point: McCain was, sure enough, a maverick on some things, but not on any of the issues that really mattered in this election—and he listed those issues, and where McCain stood on them, to great effect.

 

It was striking to me—for the second time in two debates—that the Democrat got much the better of the argument on Iraq, especially if you watched the squiggly focus group lines on CNN: it seems clear that people just want the war to end. Biden did marginally better than Obama on the substance of the issue, pointing out that the Maliki government agrees with Obama, not McCain, on the timetable to withdraw U.S. troops (which Obama failed to mention last Friday).

 

The fact that Palin made it through the debate without running off the stage shouting, "I can't do this!" should not obscure the fact that there was only one person tonight whom anyone with any sense—even John McCain, I imagine—would trust as President. Biden's performance was strong and, happily, gimmick free. He used no gotcha soundbites, no consultant-driven silliness—a fact driven home by the lameness of Palin's snark lines like, "Say it ain't so, Joe" and—pace, Gipper—"There you go again, talking about the past."

 

Palin's problem, and McCain's, is that the recent past is crucial in this election. Bush's decisions over the past eight years—to go to war in Iraq, to neglect the war in Afghanistan, to aggrandize the rich and neglect the middle class—created the dreadful moment this country faces right now, and people know that. Fearful for their futures and the nation's, they seem to be looking for something different—and that something involves steadiness, knowledge and some clear ideas about what to do going forward, qualities that Sarah Palin did not display tonight.

 

What she did show was some folksy charm and some energy—qualities that might get her selected for Dancing With the Stars, if not Jeopardy. But that's not enough to change the trajectory of this race, especially since nothing that was said in this debate will be remembered, or remarked upon, a week from now.

 

TIME

[Che -Guevara]

I think the woman was solely talking to me. She keep on winking

[Miriam1]

I almost wish I didn't bother watching this debate and miss our very own Canadian party leaders' debate.

 

It was bore, and Biden irrated me for not making eye contact with the camera. Very obivious that Palin was prepared and rarely answered the asked question.

 

He could have been better, brought Bush into the talk more.

[xiinfaniin]

She is a drag to Mcains ticket. She really is!

 

Kamase xumin!

[Sir-Qalbi-Adeyg]

I must say, sarah palin is very likable and she was a smart debater and she knew who her audience were: middle white working class americans.

[ElPunto]

Sarah Palin is a female Bush. The poor woman should stick to field dressing moose. She was lucky the format of the debate allowed little follow up questions and allowed her to get away with completly avoiding the answers to questions.