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:
A FLOATER IS definitely a turd.
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.
The stimulus isn’t supposed to have “fixed unemployment” yet this year.
Sadly, I think Palin has a point.
It worked for Dubya. Twice.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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???
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.
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
“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?
“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
I am a Fiscal Conservative and Socially Liberal. You can do your sheep leave mine alone.
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
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”
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.
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.