You will recall the frenzied responses American conservatives and the rest of the fascist/racist world indulged in when Obama picked his vice-presidential candidate. Yes, the car-burnings, the suicide bombings, the killing of helpless small animals with large calibre guns. Well, Now it's time for the Left to show us how civilized people conduct themselves in public life. Reason. Yes, that concept developed in Modernity since the late 18th century, what we say we respect, Reason: here's the Left to show us all how it works.
I watched with the eye of a seasoned observer the body language of John McCain as his VP nominee made her speach and I could see he knew that he had made a mistake.
John, Lisbon, Portugal
Videos show that she is carting her four-month old Down syndrome baby with her out in the heat of the campaign trail. Unaccustomed as we are here to seeing children used in a campaign, that seems to be going way too far. I'm not sure if it is cynical, irresponsible or cruel.
mary rose gliksten, windsor, UK
A gun toting member of the National Rifles Assoc. to go alongside the war-mongering Bush supporter. Forget America. God help the rest of the world.
jack , London, UK
Prior to this I thought McCain was a dangerously cagey opponent the Democrats ought to fear. Now I see him as a ridiculous figure. Absolutely laughable. Pathetic. The short term political gain of Palin's pick will not out weigh the damage he's done to the Republican brand.
Gavrielle LaPoste, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
I'd say the choice of Palin was an insult to the intelligence of the American voter, but since (slightly less than) 50% of them/us voted twice for the biggest imbecile ever to demean the office of President, I'd probably be wrong. McCain looks more unhinged by the day. Read the Time interview?
Keith, Milwaukee, WI, USA
She was mayor of a town so small that it didn't have a garbage service or a school district. It had a police dept. and a public works dept. That's it. It was a part time job. Alaska has less people than the city of San Francisco, only 683,000 people. Her "executive" experience is irrelevant.
Diego Tecpatl, San Francisco, USA
She was a small town mayor and served a couple years as a governor of a sparsely populated, one-dimensional state.
Beyond that, her chief experience has been as a sportscaster and beauty queen contestant.
Ron S, Atlanta, USA
Clearly McCain picked her because he knows he can't win, but wants to go out as a "maverick". I just hope that there aren't any women out there voting for McCain simply because he picked a woman as VP. Her views are scary...! I, for one, would be petrified if she became President.
sandy, boulder, usa
I am appalled by this choice. The woman only has a undergraduate degree in journalism with a minor in political science. No foreign policy experience or training at all. A callous, transparent ploy showing that McCain is not a maverick - he has become a slave to the religious right.
Mary, Chicago, USA
Why should we rather vote for Osama Barka? Well, as one woman commenting in the Washington Post put is: "Obama is going to bring us all home again."
Tough choice, huh?
4 comments:
The depth (or should I say shallowness?) of the broad-brush painting of these commenters is breathtaking.
Not to mention the hypocrisy. If Palin did NOT have five children, people would accuse her of being "out of touch" with ordinary women. Because she does, and takes them on the campaign trail (gasp! A mom wants to be with her children) she's "cruel."
My guess -- and, partly my hope -- is that she's more than above all this idiocy. The woman simply knows how to lead.
In an interview with someone (Ludlow? Beck?) she expressed doubts that the vice presidency would be a showcase job, and she clearly wants to spearhead projects. Ludlow? Beck? assured her that as an insider in Washington politics, the vice president is no understudy, anymore. Witness Cheney.
There's plenty of scope for Palin to do amazing things under McCain's presidency.
I only hope Biden doesn't trip her up in their debate(s). She's got common sense on her side, but he's a slick wordsmith extraordinaire, and could manage to leave a bad taste in ordinary people's mouths. So, here's hoping for the best.
I love this girl. She's the moms from my old hometown, every good mom I ever knew. I could weep from sheer joy at the sight of Sarah Palin.
That so many people have such banal and as often evil things to complain about makes me ashamed for them.
I hope there are enough people left in America to see her as he is and themselves as they are to know Palin is America, and that we should all strive to be American again rather than self-indulgent Euro-wanna-bes. I hate Europe. America is Not Europe, and we should be thankful for that forever. Those who would slag Palin haven't got a clue. She is Mrs. America. I cheer all moms like her. American Mom!
What struck me was the last comment.
apparently if one has not gone through fifteen-twenty years of the educational system, one's intellectual merit is next to zero...
much like the patronization that Mark Steyn recieves, because he did not, in fact, finish high school. Apparently, according to some, that means that he is not qualified to do the number crunching that he ( or his assistants ) have done.
It sickens me. And pretty soon, even a minimum of college education isn't going to count for anything, with the large amount of people carrying around degrees and looking for jobs. Bachelor's Master's, PHD, professor, what are the criteria going to be heightened to?
Rejecting someone because they don't have what you consider as the right amount of institutionalized education under their belt ( I'd say raising five kids is pretty damn good training for diplomacy ). Talk about elitism.
When we encountered one of the Muslim sock puppets at the McLeans hearing recently, one of them has a Ph.D. in something pomo on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." She was, to be blunt, not particularly bright.
Many of her lot among professional jihadis won't publicly debate Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, because he, unlike they, does not have a Ph.D., and is therefore, according to them, not a serious person.
Dr. Johnson, creator of the standard English dictionary, held up his work till the university finally relented and gave him his B.A. He was smart enough to blackmail the nation till he got his piece of paper.
Recently, I read a doctoral thesis on Adam Smith, a work written about a hundred years ago in the economics department at Yale, I think. It was written at a high-school level, but was a Ph.D. thesis nonetheless. And interesting and informative, I might add.
Socrates and Jesus, on the other hand, never worte anything.
Cruden, compiler of the Concordance, spent much time in mental prisons, madhouses, and still did Cruden's Concordance.
And looking at Simon Winchester's Professor and the Madman, we see a poor guy who really was nuts, and he contributed vastly to the O.E.D.
Sami al Arian is in prison for being a jihadi. The Muslim Brotherhood, in fact, is nick-named "The Engineering Brotherhood," because so many have Ph.D.s in engineering.
Just a handful of examples that show one need not have the paper to make oneself a genuinely accomplished person. Sarah Palin has more going for her than some party hack whose sat for 35 years collecting tax-payer money in the Senate. Has he ever in his life made a profit? How many fish in the can? How many cans on the shelf at the grocery store? How many diapers changed while the phone was ringing and the mail man was delivering bills to pay?
"Educated fools" comes to mind.
Compare Sarah Palin to Bernadine Dohrn. Compare a woman with no experience to one with a Ph. D. Coming up soon.
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