Palin has the bends
No. No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not it. The First Amendment does not say that nobody can criticize what you say. On the contrary, as a matter of fact – it says that anybody (and everybody) can criticize what you say. And that you can return the favour, and so on, until one of us has to go home for lunch.
It also does not say that people cannot argue that things you say are morally wrong and should not be said. That is not censorship or attempted censorship, it is a moral argument. It is not a violation of the First Amendment. It is alarming that you (of all people) don’t understand that.
Palin told Washington radio station WMAL Friday she is concerned that her First Amendment rights could be endangered by what she called “attacks by the mainstream media” in response to her political attacks on the Democratic presidential nominee…”If (the media) convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” she said, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”
Dear oh dear oh dear. And last week she revealed that she doesn’t know what the Vice President’s job is.
Asked by a third-grader what a vice president does, Republican candidate Sarah Palin responded that the vice president is the president’s “team mate” but also “runs the Senate” and “can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes.”
No.
At this point, are you sure it wouldn’t be a good idea to cross your fingers, just in case?
You bettcha.
Palin is an utter embarrassment. Watching her excruciating TV appearances is like listening to a failed X Factor candidate trying to blag her way through a job interview.
As for her jaw-dropping ability to ignore her own elephant-on-the-table ignorance, a big clue seems to be provided here:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EqXDbAwvBhY
Something about needing to be wired in such a way that one’s sense of reality is completely replaced with one’s sense of conviction (or more likely given Palin’s background, with one’s “faith”).
Of course, it’s unfair to focus only on *her* weaknesses for let’s face it, she’s not the only one on the wagon with, er, cognitive shortcomings:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QnE-YJ—GI
(You’ve probably all seen that one, but what the hell, quality never goes out of style…)
Here’s hoping and “praying” that those charged with corrupting this election are no more competent than Mork and Mindy above.
I’m not sure what is worse, a VP who is truly clueless, or one who pretends to be so as to avoid investigation.
When Cheney used his tie-breaking role in the senate to avoid answering questions I felt the last of my respect for my government die. This is not the country it once was.
No Dave see the thought energy is much more powerful and if you cross your fingers that just interferes with the thought energy. Really. It’s a scientific fact.
Note how she refers to the media disparagingly as the “mainstream media” – she’s the Vice Presidental nominee of the Republican Party. She doesn’t get to call anyone mainstream.
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http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com
Ohhhhhhhh sure she does – she’s a maverick, she’s an outcast, she’s one of the little people, she’s just an ordinary hard-workin’ WalMart-shoppin’ hockey mom like Joe the plumber or Mom the mom despite the fact that she is the governor of Alaska and the Vice Presidental nominee of the Republican Party. She’s no elitist, she’s a barefoot peasant (in Neiman Marcus duds, but never mind that). It’s all these east coast (and west coast, except for Arnie) liberals who are the mainstream, and people like Sarah and John who are the salt of the earth outsiders. Everybody knows that.
In the mid eighties, for me, revisiting the chauvanistic, laissez-faire attitude that had been an even back-bench Labour attitude towards Thatcher’s invasion of the Falklands in ’82 proved a caution. You NEVER know. Keep working until it’s done.
A new variation on the classic “I’m entitled to my opinion” method of silencing criticism.
Anyone who is not utterly terrified by the prospect of a President Palin just hasn’t thought about it enough.
But if you cross both sets of fingers, you can reverse the polarity of the neutron flow…
OTOH, the good news is that, if the Republicans win, we can solve the energy crisis by hooking up dynamos to where the Founding Fathers will be spinning in their graves…
‘…I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights …’
That’s probably true. She really doesn’t.
Hardly a great surprise.
‘Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago — about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct — the teacher said’.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinreligion28-2008sep28,0,3643718.story
In other idiot news:
Palin prank called by ‘Sarkozy’:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7704666.stm
Yeah that prank call is pretty funny in a horrible way. Cruel, to be sure, but then she didn’t have to put herself forward, did she. ‘Ooh and your beautiful wife is so beautiful, you livened up the political scene with your beuatiful wife, ooh.’ Impressive stuff.
Well. Mrs. Governor of Alaska isn’t the only one who gets all whiny and complainy about that dang first amendment. Once upon a time when I was a professor at a football team (which offered a few courses on non-game days) in the U.S. midwest the local newspaper accused university faculty and our ilk of “hiding behind the first amendment.” Seemed ironic at the time that a god damn newspaper thought anyone who didn’t agree with them didn’t deserve the protections of the first amendment.
This week in the New Yorker Margaret Talbot writes about education, morality, and evangelical young mommies. Not sure whether the imaginary thing-in-the-sky hates women but plenty of living-on-the-earth things do:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot
Yeah, like those bastards in Somalia.
[quaking with rage]
BTW, OB, in case you’re not checking the October threads any more: On narrative explanations here’s a good article:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=five-fallacies-of-grief
See the para that starts “Why stages?”
Thanks Dave – will read.
“…Constitution assigns no executive powers to the vice president, in performing such duties he or she acts only as an agent of the president”
The US Constitution assigns no executive powers to ANYONE except the President. It doesn’t even name Cabinet officers. Are we to assume that the Secretary of Defense is not actually a member of the Executive Branch therefore?
And who in their right mind, exactly, would want the pitcher of warm spit such a definition of the post entails?