Intellectualism & Sarah Palin: Or How The Smarty Pants Set Are Threatened By Someone Who Knows Sense
October 9, 2008 / 10:20 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierSarah Palin inspires vitriol for many reasons among the smug knobby-headed class. The latest unguarded moment came courtesy David Brooks who called Sarah Palin a “cancer on the party” to a group of writers from The Atlantic. (As AllahPundit points out, this outburst is a lot like Peggy Noonan’s opinion, also caught in an unguarded moment. And, of course, it differs little from Barack Obama’s “gun clinging” comment.)
Why do they dislike her so?
- Her state school education and path to power devalues the elite’s Harvard training.
- She’s homespun. Intellectuals despise homespun. They prefer the calculated indifference they’ve worked so hard to master over the years.
- Sarah doesn’t seem to care what they think. Perhaps her most grievous error is that she just doesn’t give a moose turd what David Brooks thinks. Everyone should care what David Brooks thinks. And Peggy Noonan. And the rest of the obnoxious snobs.
Here’s the thing, for those in the elite class, who go to parties and hang in social circles, they spend their time telling themselves a story: the story is that middle America is consumed with the provincial and that the provincial is horrible. It doesn’t occur to them that middle Americans have the same concerns and often discuss some of the same things as the elites, but that middle Americans have what is called a life which gives them a context in which to put these fancy-pants ideals. Many theories sound good in theory, but the small business people, and white and blue collar blokes have to actually live with the consequences of these theories know how they affect life practically.
The elites have no feedback loop and that’s the problem.
Sarah Palin ain’t dense. I don’t think she’s even anti-intellectual. I think she’s smart, actually, and not just politically–in that scrappy, street-smart way. She strikes me as above-average smart. What she has, though, is an understanding of how the theories of DC affect the real person who works, raises a family, and lives a life. She has the feedback loop.
When a person has spent his whole life living theoretically, a person who lives real makes him feel insecure. The DC elites are no different than the actors in Hollywood. No wonder they all pal around together. At a certain point, their lack of concrete contributions and endless pontifications sounds hollow and empty. They want their lives to have meaning so they inflate their contributions in their own minds. No one dissuades them of the notion because they hang around people just like them.
This divide isn’t a matter of Republican or Democrat, or even smart or stupid (because I don’t think anyone is making the argument that Brad Pitt is a genius). The divide is a matter of ideas only or ideas with context. The coastal elites have no context, but they have plenty of ideas of how those people who do should live their lives.
A soldier knows who he is and what his job is and the concrete value of it. A mother of a special needs child knows who she is and what her job is and the concrete value of it. A doctor knows who he is and what she does and the concrete value of it. A welder knows what he is and what he’s making and the concrete value of it.
The fact is, America’s founding fathers weren’t just intellectuals. They were intellectuals who were grounded in real world experience. They had farms or businesses or were inventors or something. The sum total of their intellectual contributions were so profound because the ideas were rooted in an understanding of human nature and the real world.
Sarah Palin comes to the national scene as a business woman, mother and real person who experienced how Washington, D.C. ideas affect life. She has substance while the DC set theorizes. I don’t get the sense that Palin is anti-intellectual, so much as she’s pro-common sense. Intellectual means nothing if the ideas stink and produce unintended destructive consequences.
In order to have the healthy dose of sense, though, a person must see an idea through to fruition and live with the results. Most DC insiders, intellectuals and Hollywood elites don’t have to worry about living personally with the results of their ideas–they will be fine economically and personally no matter how things turn out. They have no feedback loop. Sarah Palin has risen to power and been educated in a most interesting way–she knows the power of government to harm and seeks to limit that power.
It’s no wonder the elites are so threatened.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
30 Responses to “Intellectualism & Sarah Palin: Or How The Smarty Pants Set Are Threatened By Someone Who Knows Sense”
October 9 2008 / 3:45 pm
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I think we’ve seen where regarding expertise as “elitism” has gotten us over the last 8 years.
This is why most scientist see the Bush administration as the worst for science during the post WWII era: the denial of expertise as an appeal to the “folksy” among us. Sometimes there’s no substitute for work and knowledge.
October 9 2008 / 3:57 pm
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Sometimes there’s no substitute for work and knowledge.
Neither of which Obama has.
October 9 2008 / 4:24 pm
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Neither candidate has talked about science nearly enough. That said, since the Bush admin has been a complete and unmitigated disaster when it came to science issues (and that’s w/o getting into climate change), I’m inclined to think Obama would at least be the lesser of two evils.
When you add Pailn – a creationist young Earther – that becomes an easy call.
October 9 2008 / 7:29 pm
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“When you add Pailn – a creationist young Earther – that becomes an easy call.”
It does, since Palin is neither.
October 9 2008 / 9:45 pm
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So Doctor,
Your opinion on someone showing early signs of labor getting onto an aircraft for an eight hour journey?
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/382560.html
October 9 2008 / 10:07 pm
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Dear Doctor,
Your sentences don’t parse. When I was lad conservatives wrote well. In the National Review I could read William F. Buckley, Evelyn Waugh, Russel Kirk, Joan Didion and Garry Wills. They felt they were defending all that was fine and true about civilization from the onslaught of the masses with their leveling impulses.
They lost.
October 9 2008 / 10:44 pm
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So Palin is now our guide for common sense, and that’s why … hold on, let me get the phrasing just right … smug knobby-headed class. looks down upon her?
How about this: Palin is mocked, ridiculed and tossed aside by even the staunchest defenders of that intellectual giant — George Bush — because she is unqualified to be president of the United States.
Isn’t that a reasonable position to take? She has shown herself to be incurious, nasty and ill-informed, but it’s her political opponents who have gotten her wrong, as opposed to the clear-thinking, always-calm John McCain?
Gotcha. In other words, Palin is unqualified to be within 100 yards of the white House, but by questioning her record, her grasp of knowledge as it relates to the economy, war, international relations, heck, even what publications she reads it somehow belies an elitism of the knobby-headed class.
Oh, and please, I beg of you good Doctor, please show us one example of this — What she has, though, is an understanding of how the theories of DC affect the real person who works, raises a family, and lives a life. She has the feedback loop.
When has Palin, who, as Governor, is tasked with one job, to dole out the tax money the rest of us pay to sustain Alaska, ever explained how her down-homeyness in any way qualifies her to lead our nation.
To be honest, I’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable with our Mayor, a woman who ran a business for 25 years, but hell, even as a regular non-elitist knobby-head, I guess I just don’t see common sense when I see it.
October 10 2008 / 1:24 am
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She has shown herself to be incurious, nasty and ill-informed,
Isn’t it fun, Dr. C, to see the vicious classism from the so-called “tolerant” party? And the snide remarks about AK.
During the Los Angeles County Fair they run an advertising campaign that shows two or three women – refugees from Rodeo Drive – collagen lips, bottle blondes, salon nails – standing near a stall and trying to identify the animal in it. The man in the stall looks at them in amazement… “It’s a cow”. “Oh! A cow!” one female cries, the other looks at it and says “baaa baaa baaa?” He says, “No. It’s ‘moooo’”. “Moo?” The females all look at him as if he is stupid.
What you see here is the equivalent. People so convinced of their own urban superiority that anyone outside of the liberal enclaves of either coast can be nothing but drooling, knuckledragging, incurious, incestuous, godbotherers, good for little else than producing the food, drink, clothing, furniture, homes, of the clearly superior beings.
And what really frosts them is that Gov. Palin, like those of us that identify with her, are HAPPY. How dare Palin be happy? Happy people are SUSPECT, they obviously haven’t come to the intellectually superior knowledge that reality SUCKS, there is nothing to be happy about and disaster lurks around every corner. Only dullards are happy.
That’s why Trig Palin is an affront to them, too, on so many levels. These are the kind of people who glare at the backs of Down Syndrome adults at shopping centers.
They never realize what it reveals about them.
October 10 2008 / 7:44 am
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It’s funny how Edwards with no more experience than Sarah Palin was thought to be qualified to be President when he ran with Kerry 4 years ago.
October 10 2008 / 9:57 am
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I find it amusing that your comment policy is to delete comments that are meant to bait others into a flame war, when that is exactly what this entire post is meant to do. Love all the strawmen you employ. I’m quite sure this comment will be deleted.
PS: Do the patients coming to your chiropractic clinic care about your education? Are they looking for the best, ie, elite care they can find based on your education as well as experience? Or is just seeing the title “Doctor” enough to convince them of your elite training?
October 10 2008 / 1:17 pm
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Intellectuals despise homespun? There’s a strawman if I’ve ever seen one. What the “pointy headed” crowd doesn’t like about her is the act that she puts on as “one of the common folk”. She is not anywhere near “joe six pack”. Her family makes over $300K per year, hardly “homespun” wages to be sure, but maybe in your neck of the woods that’s average. The typical national median income was somewhere around $50K per annum, last time I checked. In fact, many of the “pointy heads” make far less than $100K per year, even with advanced degrees. I would hardly call her “in touch” with the common man. I don’t believe for a minute that she is the rube that the press is making her out to be – I believe it’s an act, just like the shameless wink wink, nod nod crap that she pulled at the debate. It’s a ploy to make the masses believe that she is one of them. She ain’t. I’m about as “joe six pack” as it gets- wife, three kids, fledgling business (especially in the Bush economy). Yes, I have an undergraduate degree, but I’m hardly an intellectual giant. I find her attempts at sucking up to average Americans (that would be people like me) to be insulting – there is nothing genuine about her. I agree with you Melissa, she is definitely smarter than what the press gives her credit for, but in a sharky, manipulative kind of way. Simply put, she is a Trojan horse at the gates of democracy. BTW – I think most Harvard and Yale intellectuals come from republican backgrounds…
October 10 2008 / 5:14 pm
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Maybe “The Smarty Pants Set” are threatened by Palin for the same reason many of us “joe 6-pack”’s are: she doesn’t seem qualified for the position of president:
* She doesn’t think well on her feet; she’s easily flustered. Can you honestly picture her holding her own when negotiating with other world leaders? It will go about as well as the Katy Couric interview.
* She’s not well informed; She’s ignorant of issues
* She doesn’t seem to have any more integrity than the other candidates; She has misled us regarding her involvement with the Bridge/Road to Nowhere and earmarks in general.
* Her performance in the VP debate seemed coached and insincere. She cannot effectively lead the country, let alone the world, if she doesn’t seem to own the message she is delivering.
October 10 2008 / 5:55 pm
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Well Doctor, I’m seeing names here that I haven’t seen before, and guess what? They are ALL anti-Palin trolls.
This seems strange, because such deranged behavior is NOT the way people generally act when they are really winning. (Gee, don’t all the polls tell them they are?)
So, WHY are they so desperate to take time trashing someone who they think hasn’t a chance anyway, when all they have to do is relax and watch it happen?
Is it slightly possible that they aren’t nearly as confident as they pretend to be?
October 10 2008 / 8:51 pm
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So, Paul — Because the polls show Obama is ahead, those of us who are not enamored w/Palin should sit back and let people like this blogger say ridiculous things about us without being challenged? Is that how you guys like to win — try to bait someone, then when they respond say that the very act of responding makes them desperate or deranged. There’s a name for that kind of attack — its called passive aggressive.
October 10 2008 / 9:08 pm
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David Brooks thinks Sarah is a cancer on the Republican Party? This from NPR’s and the NY Times pet “conservative.” Ha!
October 11 2008 / 10:54 am
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Oh dear. Never mind, Mel
October 11 2008 / 11:16 am
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Steve:
“That said, since the Bush admin has been a complete and unmitigated disaster when it came to science issues (and that’s w/o getting into climate change),…”
I applaud Pres. Bush for standing against the fraud of AGW. My colleagues grimace every time they have to write a grant proposal and find it necessary to whore themselves on the alter of “Climate Change” in order to get any funding.
October 11 2008 / 11:37 am
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Chuckles
When your fledging business is successful does that mean your “one of us” card is revoked?
The Palin family IS “one of us”. Palin is sneered at for attending more than one college, but what is ignored is that her parents required all their children to pay for their own college, so she attended when she could (and it gave her an opportunity to travel) and worked in between. That’s also why she entered a beauty pagent, even took ribbing from her own siblings over it. And if working on a commercial fishing trawler isn’t “real work”, I don’t know what is.
The class snobbism of the anti-Palin crowd is revealing. They embrace the prep-schooled, Affirmative Action college pick, Ivy School Leftiest mascot Obama because he’s been issued the Political Aristocrisy card. He’s “one of them” to be paraded as proof of their “tolerance” though The One has other plans with his power and position.
The Hubris runs deep with that crowd.
October 12 2008 / 4:32 pm
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I’ll tell ya what! I’ll acknowledge Sarah Palin as less than perfect, If you all will acknowledge that about Obama.
Sarah is a more palatable choice. Because at no time has she looked down her nose at the common voter.
Maybe if McCain wins, she can show Barry O there’s no hard feelings. She can get Dick Cheney, and take him out for a duck hunt.
Joking Melissa!
Though I’d never vote for anyone that would describe a bloc of voters as “Angry and Bitter”. Gee, If he thinks they’re like that now, does it augur well for their representation in his putative administration.
October 12 2008 / 10:05 pm
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Former Post: Sometimes there’s no substitute for work and knowledge.
Neither of which Obama has.
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So, you consider graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School isn’t a sign of having a certain degree of knowledge? I have the feeling that most of the people who are attacking Obama have never taken the time to learn about him. They just listen to people who lie, distort,and insult him and take that as the truth.
Challenge: Look into Obama’s credentials and see what he’s accomplished. Don’t be brainwashed by propaganda. Do your own research. Then decide.
October 13 2008 / 1:08 am
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Jeri
What has Obama accomplished? Getting a college degree? How did he get it? What grades? Where’s any scholarly writing he did as a “professor”? Where’s any article he wrote while on the Harvard Law review? What did he accomplish…something TANGIBLE as a community organizer?
He’s good at strong arming banks into giving loans to people who can’t repay them, and he’s good at voting “present” so as not to leave any record of his true stance on things, but
what has he actually ACCOMPLISHED with his life?
Gov. Sarah Palin has done far more with hers.
October 13 2008 / 6:26 am
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COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS:
Obama holds assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans’ Affairs, and he is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
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As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In August 2005, he traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The trip focused on strategies to control the world’s supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a first defense against potential terrorist attacks.
Following meetings with U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq in January 2006, Obama visited Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.
He left for his third official trip in August 2006, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. In a nationally televised speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke forcefully on the influence of ethnic rivalries and corruption in Kenya.
Obama worked with Russ Feingold (D–WI) to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress and require disclosure of bundled campaign contributions under the “Honest Leadership and Open Government Act”, which was signed into law in September 2007.
He joined Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in sponsoring S. 453, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls, as witnessed in the 2006 midterm elections.
Obama also introduced the “Iraq War De-Escalation Act”, a bill to cap troop levels in Iraq, begin phased redeployment, and remove all combat brigades from Iraq before April 2008.
Later in 2007, Obama sponsored with Kit Bond (R-MO) an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges, and calling for a review by the Government Accountability Office following reports that the procedure had been used inappropriately to reduce government costs.
joined Chuck Hagel (R-NE) in introducing legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.A provision from the Obama-Hagel bill was passed by Congress in December 2007 as an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill.
Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to provide one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries. After passing both houses of Congress with bipartisan majorities, SCHIP was vetoed by President Bush in early October 2007, a move Obama said “shows a callousness of priorities that is offensive to the ideals we hold as Americans.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
THESE ARE BARACK’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN THE U.S. SENATE TO DATE:
** First legislation, the HOPE Act, which increased Pell Grants to $5100, and later joined Senator Kennedy on the Higher Education legislation that passed July 20, by a vote of 78-18. That legislation also included funding for Predominantly Black Colleges to assist with counseling, tutoring and other needs of low income students. It also creates the Teaching Residency Act which will create a school-based teacher preparation program in high needs schools to provide each teacher with a mentor, content instruction, classroom management skills, a master’s degree and state certification, and a 2 year follow-up program.
**The Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006
is an act that requires the full disclosure of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2007 on a website maintained by the Office of Management and Budget.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Funding_Accountabi...
**The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act
Authored by U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL), the Lugar-Obama initiative expands U.S. cooperation to destroy conventional weapons. It also expands the State Department’s ability to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction.
Signed into Law on January 11, 2007.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/chrisblas...
**The 2007 Government Ethics Bill
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/53_17/news/19664-1.html?...
http://www.commonblog.com/story/2007/9/14/164837/331
** The “Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-2125
** S116 – Summer Learning demonstration project to provide summer learning grants and encourage new teaching methods.
http://www.pasesetter.org/demonstrationPrograms/nasd.ht...
and this one, moved out of committee just a few days ago:
Obama’s Global Poverty Act of 2007, passed out of committee just a few days ago
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) today hailed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s passage of the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), which requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive policy to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief, and coordination with the international community, businesses and NGOs. This legislation was introduced in December. Smith and Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) sponsored the House version of the bill (H.R. 1302), which passed the House last September.
http://obama.senate.gov /
Amendments, that have all passed:
S.Amdt.159 to S.Con.Res.18 – To prevent and, if necessary, respond to an international outbreak of the avian flu.
S.Amdt.390 to H.R.1268 – To provide meal and telephone benefits for members of the Armed Forces who are recuperating from injuries incurred on active duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom.
S.Amdt.670 to H.R.3 – To provide for Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) refueling capability at new and existing refueling station facilities to promote energy security and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
S.Amdt.808 to H.R.6 – To establish a program to develop Fischer-Tropsch transportation fuels from Illinois basin coal.
S.Amdt.851 to H.R.6 – To require the Secretary to establish a Joint Flexible Fuel/Hybrid Vehicle Commercialization Initiative, and for other purposes.
S.Amdt.1362 to S.1042 – To require a report on the Department of Defense Composite Health Care System II.
S.Amdt.1453 to S.1402 – To ensure the protection of military and civilian personnel in the Department of Defense from an influenza pandemic, including an avian influenza pandemic.
S.Amdt.2301 to H.R.3010 – To increase funds to the Thurgood Marshall Legal Educational Opportunity Program and to the Office of Special Education Programs of the Department of Education for the purposes of expanding positive behavioral interventions and supports.
S.Amdt.2605 to S.2020 – Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should immediately address issues relating to no-bid contracting.
S.Amdt.2930 to S.2349 – To clarify that availability of legislation does not include nonbusiness days.
S.Amdt.3144 to S.Con.Res.83 – To provide a $40 million increase in FY 2007 for the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program and to improve job services for hard-to-place veterans
S. Amdt 41 to S. 1 To require lobbyists to disclose the candidates, leadership PACs, or political parties for whom they collect or arrange contributions, and the aggregate amount of the contributions collected or arranged.
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Barack has Written a total of 890 Bills and Co-sponsored Another 1096 since he started serving in the U.S. Senate.
October 13 2008 / 12:32 pm
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Challenge: Look into Obama’s credentials and see what he’s accomplished. Don’t be brainwashed by propaganda. Do your own research. Then decide.
I have and it comes to this: 1) Ghostwritten two bad novels? Check. 2) Rabblerousing in corrupt Chicago? Check. 3) Graduated college (like millions of Americans) Check. Not exactly Presidential material. Thanks but I’ll take the patriotic fellow that fought and almost died for me and mine.
October 13 2008 / 12:55 pm
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Dawnsblood,
I think Jeri “met the challenge”.
October 13 2008 / 11:05 pm
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Thank you, Jeri.
Question.
If Palin’s so smart – why won’t she do a simple press conference? It’s amazing – she would potentially be Vice President of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Yet she can’t be trusted to answer a few questions? Biden has done almost a hundred such events.
Some of them didn’t go so well, either.
But Biden wasn’t locked up in a back trailer and trotted out for fundraising events and photo sessions.
Apparently, McCain agrees that Palin is loopy and is best kept under wraps. How cynical for him to have nominated that poor woman for this position.
How outrageous.
And how dangerous that a four time cancer surviour would causally place this incompetent one 72 year old heartbeat away from the Presidency.
November 3 2008 / 7:42 am
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I’m not concerned so much with Sarah Palin’s education and intelligence quotient. I am more concerned with what appears to be her inablilty to clarify her views and past experience. I have been looking for some consistent and logical viewpoints. I am looking for some complete paragraphs, a strong vocabulary, as well as some integrity. I feel as if she is not being straight with the American people. In all of her confidence, there is an underlying distrust of all that is outside of her comfort zone. She reminds me of Bush in this regard. I would say that she is naive in some respects.
January 10 2009 / 8:27 pm
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There has always been a populist strain of anti-intellectualism in the American consciousness, and it’s usually a good thing. But this time it wasn’t. Palin appealed to the “You ain’ gooder ‘n me!” voting block and it failed. Much of what she said was code to these people. To the Republican base not reading any newspapers and not knowing any Supreme Court decisions is a badge of honor. I don’t want someone like that in charge of this country. You want an elitist doctor to operate on you. You want an elitist soldier defending this country. You want an elitist electrician to wire your house. And I want an elitist politician to run this country, not a person proud of being ignorant.
March 19 2009 / 10:08 pm
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