Sarah Palin is the gift that continues to keep on giving. In her recent appearance on O’Reilly, Palin was asked the “intelligence question,” to wit, the lack of presumed intelligence to be president. Palin responded by explaining that in today’s politics the lack of an impressive education or resume is actually the credential that Americans want in a candidate.
Here is the transcript:
O’REILLY: Let me be very bold and fresh again. Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?
PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the the kind of spineless… a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that has to be me.
Putting aside the uncertain meaning of having “values that are reflective of so many other American values,” Palin actually suggests that a successful background is a liability — what really matters is personality and the lack of such impressive resumes.
This part of the interview occurs around the 7:45 marker on the interview below:
In the parallel world of Palin, educated means spineless and success means elitism. She was able to avoid both liabilities, here.
It seems to be a winning combination of little resume credentials and no impressive educational background:
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives, and conservatives love Sarah Palin because she shows how successful a stupid person can be.
To draw a paralell in legal terms,they say a prosecutor can make a case and indict a “ham sandwhich”.
So therefore the “media” can make anyone a star,if they tell you long enough and often enough,you will start to believe it.
BIL:
To follow up on your comment about the”Tactical Nuclear Penguin”in this case it may have replaced the “kool-aid”.
“A warning on the label states: “This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious author”
Palin is correct, a friend of mine just sent along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report (see link below). It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all. When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15 percent and 19 percent of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet—over 90 percent of its prior experience was in the public sector—is remarkable. Now ask yourself this how many vaccancies remain open in the administration, especially at the federal reserve.
Not alot of people with impressive backrounds in this administration, they just aren’t there.
http://blog.american.com/?p=7572
I am a Fiscal Conservative and Socially Liberal. You can do your sheep leave mine alone.
“At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
–Aldous Huxley
“Hi, you betcha! I’ve never done this job and every indicator shows I don’t have either the skills or basic intelligence for the job but I’m a spanker! When do I start?”
___
“There are three kinds of lie. A lie, a damned lie and statistics.” – Mark Twain
“Only a jackass would claim ignorance as a boon.” – Buddha Is Laughing
Any questions?
It appears that the cloners are so pleased they are making more copies of her and her fans.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-politics-makes-strange-duplicities.html
Is this woman completely insane? I’m dumbstruck by her complete inanity. Does she really think Americans are that stupid? This is not funny any longer. I can’t even grant her the status of being nothing more than a cartoon character or a political diversion. This woman is an outright idiot. As an American voter, I have to say that from this interview forward, I find her continued presence on the media stage insulting.
OY! My head begins to hurt when I try to translate amorphous Palintalk:
PALIN: “And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the the kind of spineless… a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership…”
************
So…what, specifically, IS the “something like that” that the bobblehead of blather claims we Americans are supposedly seeking? This woman so often speaks in incoherent generalities it’s difficult to determine the points she’s attempting to make–that is, if she IS actually attempting to make truly substantive points.
************
Palin smiles a lot. She’s snarky about her opponents. She’s perky. She’s attractive. She’s a creationist. She loves Glenn Beck and FOX. She doesn’t read a lot. She isn’t a woman of great intellect or reasoning. She’s great with a gun. Could the right wingnuts find a better political candidate to warm the cockles of their hearts???
I don’t think I have ever seen a person so proud of her stupidity. One can only hope that she runs for President because whomever runs against her is a guaranteed winner.
There is some truth in what she says, an Ivy league education does not prepare you to be president. In fact a college education does not prepare you to be president. Nothing prepares you to be president of the US.
A consistent belief system is probably what is necessary and the ability to apply principles to situations.
There are many people who have Ivy League educations running our government, they have the intellectual arrogance to believe that they can control an economy the size of ours through central planning and computer models. That is not only arrogant it is stupid.
I wont vote for Sarah Palin because I don’t think she has the same values I have about economics and other things. She is certainly as qualified as anyone else to be president and at least would have a defined value system she would bring to bear.
You may not agree with her value system but you would certainly know where she stands on the issues and could take an informed decision about whether you wanted to vote for her. In that regard she is head and shoulders above the rest of the political class which just blows smoke up our collective a . . . and most of them went to Ivy League schools.
We must always remember that creationism demands one lead a double life. The public life nods and smiles, knowing what words not to use, but rather engaging in code-speak. Her words must always be placed amid the backdrop of “it doesn’t matter because the End is here.”
Because in the private life of (alleged) “faith,” we jettison all responsibility for the present; that people get what they “deserve” from the unjust and unloving gaad; and that there is no reason to learn anything new as this would be completely toxic to this deadly dangerous schizophrenia.
She fails among learned conservatives (all three of them) because her code-speak is raw and merciless. She represents the new American willingness to push civility (much less intellect) .
completely off the table.
Never turn your back on a person like Sarah Palin. Ever.
Ms. Palin is the girl we all knew in high school who was above average in looks—and always ready for a real good time with the right guy—but very much below average in intelligence who started catfights with—or gossiped about—the studious, intellectual girls at the head of the class.
She was the one who tried to dumb-down everyone and everything around her so her own dumbness was not so evident and embarrassing. If every person around you is on one low-level intellectual plane, then everyone can feel good about himself or herself while still underachieving academically. That is why Sarah is the darling of unaccomplished, unthinking people everywhere.
Ms. Palin epitomizes the era when people like her tried to made others believe that it was *not* ‘cool’ to be smart, accomplished, and credentialed. The only “educational” foundation this supreme psychobabbler has from which to refer is the psychobabble of her fundamentalistic christianity.
Sarah Palin exemplifies the myriad flaws of a life based on religious *beliefs* of any stripe and why it is critical for people to think for themselves and strive to get the best science-based education they can instead of relying on faith-based, multifarious supernatural musings.
As long as the world’s societies have other peoples’ gods to blame for their woes, those societies will forever engage in mindless wars while trying to demonstrate that their anthropomorphic man-god is better that the others’ gods.
I agree with Byron! The people running things now have exactly the degrees and resumes that are supposed to mean you are a brilliant person. They may mean you are successful but they don’t mean you’re smart, capable, wise, compassionate or even competent. I present our president and his cabinet as exhibit one and many members of Congress as exhibit number two. Chris Hedges gives a good explanation of how this nation turns out technocrats who are in no way qualified to be intelligent, courageous leaders. Having these ignorant technocrats in power has been a complete disaster.
Sara Palin is no antidote. She has only the same low cunning the others do. But she’s right that our nation tends to confuse prestige with competence. That is a mistake we are paying for dearly.
Byron
“I wont vote for Sarah Palin because I don’t think she has the same values I have about economics and other things.”
She’s not gonna run, if she did it would really prove her stupidity. However she sure is heated the water as evidence, we have a president asking for $500,000 to combat her in a mass e-mail campaign. He obviously has targeted her and considers her a threat.
What is happening, which most here don’t understand is the old saying of “two can play that game.” Palin,Beck,Oreilly have begun the same operation the president did in getting elected, community organizing. Hence the reason for these tours. Coupled with all of the past T-Partiers and Town Hall meetings the mood of the country has over corrected to the far right.
Don’t count this administration out though, very smart in that they intend on releasing the bulk majority of stimulus I in the months prior to the 2010 election and want to funnel more money with talk of stimulus II. The impact of joblessness within the black community is tremendous and it is these people who had hope but now don’t even have any change in their pockets, let alone change they can believe in. The majority of blacks and hispanics are in a trade. There are no trade jobs to be had. Remeber stimulus was suppose to rebuild infrastructure roads, bridges ect. ect. What really are the numbers of jobs saved or created. Whether or not jobs lost went from 600,000 to 300,000 it doesn’t matter the unemployment continues to go up.
Sadly, I think Palin has a point.
It worked for Dubya. Twice.
The stimulus isn’t supposed to have “fixed unemployment” yet this year.
Here’s what I have to say about “prestige” as it relates to education.
I’ve known Harvard lawyers. I’ve known Loyola lawyers. I’ve known LSU & KU lawyers. I’ve known Washburn lawyers. In the Harvard group, some of the guys I know a 1L could kick the snot out of and some of them are loaded for bear. The same can be said for each and every group.
Competence is not a function of where you went to school but what you learned from the lessons. Not how you apply them as there is always misadventure and luck at play. Everyone knows a lucky idiot who was at the right place at the right time. Just like everyone knows someone who dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s who got blindsided by the unforeseeable. Probably someone in your own family meets either/both description(s).
It’s that whole “rise vs. float” phenomena. Not everyone is in their position because of merit.
Sarah’s a floater.
The world needs less floaters.
A FLOATER IS definitely a turd.
“Former Federal LEO
She was the one who tried to dumb-down everyone and everything around her so her own dumbness was not so evident and embarrassing. If every person around you is on one low-level intellectual plane, then everyone can feel good about himself or herself while still underachieving academically. That is why Sarah is the darling of unaccomplished, unthinking people everywhere.”
=================================================================
That is about as clear, simple, and true a statement regarding Palin’s appeal as I’ve yet to read.
========================================================
An education, no matter what the degree, means nothing unless the student has been taught to THINK. This is no easy task.
My youngest graduated from an excellent public high school but when it came time for college, I insisted that she attend a Jesuit institution.
We are not Catholic but the Jesuits know how to educate in that they know how to teach a student to think and reason. It happens in the classroom and on the campus.
A degree gets one’s foot in the door but success is based on one’s ability to problem solve.
Palin has failed utterly at problem solving. In fact, many of her problems are self-created and then self-propelled to the point of self-destruction. Claiming she has common sense is just self-delusion.
Byron–
I would agree that an Ivy League education isn’t proof that an individual has an expansive mind and is a problem solver. George W. is proof positive of that.
**********
You said: “You may not agree with her value system but you would certainly know where she stands on the issues and could take an informed decision about whether you wanted to vote for her. In that regard she is head and shoulders above the rest of the political class which just blows smoke up our collective a . . . and most of them went to Ivy League schools.”
I would disagree with you on this point. She’s changed her tune on some issues and has not been completely honest about a number of things. For example:
She was FOR the “bridge to nowhere” before she was against it. She changed her position when it didn’t seem to be politcally correct any longer.
She ran for governor as a maverick who was going to change the way things got done in Alaska…then she quit before she finished out her first term. She gave some pretty peculiar reasons for resigning. You don’t really believe she was quitting for good of her state, do you?
People have produced emails that disprove some of the claims she made in “Going Rogue.”
There have been a number of fact checks done on Palin’s book that show she was probably lying about certain people/situations–and most likely wasn’t properly informed/educated about others. I certainly don’t consider her to a bright shining star of truth, justice, and the American way. She doesn’t stand head and shoulders above other politicians–she’s one of them…but I do think she could go to the head of that class. She blows smoke better than most of them. That’s how she got where she is today.
eLAINE M:
I thought she left the governors office because of all the law suits.
What part of the book is lies? In my opinion you would have to be dumber than rat sh . . . to write a book that could be easily fact checked and lie.
Here’s the plan to make sure we don’t end up with people with the wrong views. Re education Universities
http://www.thefire.org/torch/#11316
You know, Pol Pot’s solution for “people with the wrong views. Re education Universities” involved fire and torches but he didn’t have a misleading website.
And look where it got him.
Byron–
“What part of the book is lies? In my opinion you would have to be dumber than rat sh . . . to write a book that could be easily fact checked and lie.”
Those are your words–not mine!
************
I refuse to spend money on “Going Rogue.” I’ll just have to read the fact checks others have done of Palin’s book.
“Going Rogue” Fact Check: Palin’s Book Goes Rogue on Some Facts, AP Says (Huffington Post, 11/13/2009)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/13/palins-book-goes-rogue-on_n_357682.html
************
I have to admit I enjoy reading Matt Taibbi’s books and articles about politics–and his descriptions of politicians from both major parties.
Here are excerpts from “Sarah Palin, WWE Star” by Matt Taibbi (TAIBBLOG at True/Slant, 11/20/2009)
Sarah Palin is the Empress-Queen of the screaming-for-screaming’s sake generation. The people who dismiss her book Going Rogue as the petty, vindictive meanderings of a preening paranoiac with the IQ of a celery stalk completely miss the book’s significance, because in some ways it’s really a revolutionary and innovative piece of literature.
Palin — and there’s just no way to deny this — is a supremely gifted politician. She has staked out, as her own personal political turf, the entire landscape of incoherent white American resentment. In this area she leaves even Rush Limbaugh in the dust.
************
Rush is no Einstein, but the man does research. It may be fallacious and completely dishonest research, but he does it all the same. His battlefield is world politics and most of the time the relevant action is taking place in Washington. As good as he is at what he does, he still has to travel to the action; he himself isn’t the action.
Sarah Palin’s battlefield, on the other hand, is whatever is happening five feet in front of her face. She is building a political career around the little interpersonal wars in the immediate airspace surrounding her sawdust-filled head. And in the process she connects with pissed-off, frightened, put-upon America on a plane that’s far more elemental than the mega-ditto schtick.
************
With Going Rogue, the 2012 reality show has already begun. As brainless political theater, she can’t be topped. It’s just too bad for conservatives that she happens to be unsustainably divisive and, as Newsweek points out, a really good bet to permanently marginalize the Republican party by reducing it to a pissed-off, semi-coherent mob that repulses independent voters on a visceral level.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/20/sarah-palin-wwe-star/
In a country that has voters who consider Reagan/Clinton as Great Presidents and a character like McCain as a hero , then I guess palin and those voters deserve each other!
Faraz,
I could not agree with you more. The exception being Clinton, the choices were BushI. You take you choice. See what W did and we did not even get to Z.
Why in the hell anyone can think that an unemployed actor. He could not get work as an actor. The reason being he was what most would call a rat, a fink an informer on Communism sympathizers for none other that Joe McCarhy. He turned in more actor for subversiveness. All the qualifications I think you need to be president.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/28/sarah-palin-quits-turkey_n_372818.html
At least she’s consistent.
Buddha,
Stupidity? Palin like no other. Cannot be out done unless Dan Quail is around. Kinda reminds me of the guy off of Wheel of Fortune.
At least Vanna can turn letters, she may not be able to spell. Do you think Sarah can spell Potato without an “E”?
AY,
After two straight days of shopping, I’m not sure I can spell potato without an “e”.
And for all you shoppers out there . . .
If you don’t have your act together any better than to have to write a check for $2.40?
STAY HOME. You’re getting in the way of all the people with basic life skills. And no pointy objects for you.
Faraz and AY
In re Clinton
I’ve always been amazed with people’s adoration of the man. Clinton was competent and adequate, but he’s not the mac daddy some think he was. Despite the good he did in office, the way he handled the Lewinski deal was simply amateurish and said a lot about his character. It was almost as amateurish as trying to impeach a President for not keeping his johnson in check while letting a President guilty of war crimes and so much more roam the streets of Dallas terrifying small children with his chimp-like howling.
Quality of Presidents?
It’s all been downhill after Jefferson. This is simply the fact. But if you look at the above statement, the true problem seems not to be the President, but rather the Senate.
The obstructionist, graft swilling, myopic, criminally retarded Senate. If you want to talk about quality work? Go ask Ford because Quality is Definitely Not Job #1 in the Senate.
So we got that going for us. Which is nice.
cough cough cough Glass-Stegall cough cough cough
So whats your problem with a man and his Johnson. Remember LBJ was from Texas. So is or was Billy S. Estes, JJ Pickle, John Connally to name a few. The only one that did not cross LBJ was Pickle. Not bad for a Security Guard at Texas Employment Commission to become a US Representative.
Nothing good politically has ever come out of Texas or a johnson for that matter, but especially LBJ.
I have wondered why John Connally switched parties?
Buddha,
Take that back, we had Sam Rayburn from Bonham, Texas. D.D. Eisenhower from Denison, Texas and Do not forget Sully, he was from the forbidden place as well .
People always talk about the cream of the crop. Exactly, what is the cream. It is the dross that most people throw away. Some make Rum other make Vodka. Have you ever made chicken soup? Nasty looking on top, but strain it enough times and it looks pretty good.
Lets see up in Kansas besides people who cut baby’s out of wombs you have a Texan up there. He owns that Pro Football team that used to be called the Texans, now what is that guys name? I am hunting for it now.
AY,
I must confess to forgetting Eisenhower. He was the last real conservative Republican before they went all fascist. A good President over all. But that’s easy enough to explain.
Born in Dennison< Texas but raised in Abilene, Kansas.
I stand by the bulk of my original statement. If you want to talk music, I'll say some very nice things about Texas, but when it comes to BBQ and politicians, the Lone Star State will get no slack from me.
And FYI, I really don’t like retro uniform games.
Buddha,
The problem with Eisenhower is that he was too honest. There was no such thing as a presidential retirement/pension until after Harry S. Truman. If memory serves correctly, he went back to his Mother-In-Laws house to live. She reminded him that he would never amount to much.
If memory again does not fail me, a private foundation was going provide about 25k a year as a pension. Although Ike was in Office it was first proposed in 55 but not totally passed until 58. Maybe nal can check me on this.
“Not alot of people with impressive backrounds in this administration, they just aren’t there.”
Nick,
Do you mean private sector backgrounds like Wall Street, Investment Banks, Automobile Corporations, etc.? Perhaps you mean someone who successfully launched NASDAQ like Bernie Madoff? Then too there are those people with private sector experience in energy corporations like ENRON, or LILCO, perhaps you mean them?
The assumption that making money in the private sector makes someone intelligent, competent or honest is a false one. The report you cite as evidence is silly and your premise is ridiculous.
Mespo,
Huxley quote perfect. amen.
“Ms. Palin epitomizes the era when people like her tried to made others believe that it was *not* ‘cool’ to be smart,”
FFLEO,
Nailed it!
AY,
Texas is also the home of Brown and Root, which became Haliburton and was a chief Rayburn and LBJ supporter.
“I have wondered why John Connally switched parties?”
Southern Strategy perhaps? Crookedness, probably.
Buddha,
“cough cough cough Glass-Stegall cough cough cough”
Part of why I despised Mr. C and it had nothing to do with sex.
How about DADT, Welfare Reform, NAFTA & CAFTA? As far as Kansas goes Bill James comes from Lawrence, so it has to have merit.
Mike Spindell,
Texas is also the home of Brown and Root, which became Haliburton and was a chief Rayburn and LBJ supporter.
Now don’t forget Hughes Tool, Electronics etc.
_________________________________________________________
“I have wondered why John Connally switched parties?”
Southern Strategy perhaps? Crookedness, probably.
How about a side winding bullet that hit him when it was meant for JFK? And LBJ was behind it all along…..
Doesn’t anyone remember Anne Richards or Molly Ivins? They were two Texas women who were not conservative.
Barbara Jordan, too!
If Swarthmore mom can name Molly, I can name Bill Moyers.
And do not forget Joanne Herring……
“…people who have Ivy League educations running our government, they have the intellectual arrogance to believe that they can control an economy the size of ours through central planning and computer models…”
Citations, please: who are these people who are urging we “control” the economy through “central planning” and “computer models”?
“How about a side winding bullet that hit him when it was meant for JFK? And LBJ was behind it all along…..”
AY,
Hard to disagree with that and by the way I love your icon.
Also one of Palin’s greatest credentials:
Asians make her “uncomfortable”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/palins-father-she-left-ha_n_381724.html
Education without experience creates a nebbish who thinks he knows it all, unable to even understand the failure of his remedies much less acknowledge them. This is Obama. Sarah Palin has education, common sense and off the scale intelligence. If she decides to run for president, Obama won’t know what hit him.
Insert Spit Take Here
Sarah Palin is a full-flushing moron. If she runs for President, she’ll waste a lot of money and then she’ll quit.
Just like the last job she held.
I have to agree with you on that one Buddah. Unfortunately the creditials Sara Palin has are that of a Liar, Quiter and not a very educated person if she thinks she could past vetting to become the president of theses united states. Now if Texas suscedes from this union; then maybe.
wildmom251–
“Sarah Palin has education, common sense and off the scale intelligence.”
***************
Her intelligence certainly is “off the scale.” She doesn’t have enough gray matter to register more than an ounce or so anyway. She probably thinks “neurons” are subatomic particles. In addition, she has a superficial knowledge of most “weighty” subjects.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/man-throws-tomatoes-at-sa_n_383451.html
He should have been using wrenches. To paraphrase Rip Torn in “Dodgeball”, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a tomato.”