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:
And FYI, I really don’t like retro uniform games.
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.
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.
I have wondered why John Connally switched parties?
Nothing good politically has ever come out of Texas or a johnson for that matter, but especially LBJ.
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.
cough cough cough Glass-Stegall cough cough cough
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.
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.
AY,
After two straight days of shopping, I’m not sure I can spell potato without an “e”.
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”?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/28/sarah-palin-quits-turkey_n_372818.html
At least she’s consistent.
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.
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!
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!
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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
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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.
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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.
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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/
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.
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
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.
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.
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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.
“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.”
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That is about as clear, simple, and true a statement regarding Palin’s appeal as I’ve yet to read.
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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.