Conservatives Upset :Palin NOT the One

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Registered: 09-08-2008
Conservatives Upset :Palin NOT the One
82
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 3:59am
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/10/04/dumb/print.html
 
The dumbing down of the GOPWhy aren't more conservatives disgusted that their party nominated a person devoid of qualifications for the vice presidency (again)?

By Joe Conason


Oct. 04, 2008 | Sarah Palin's debate performance should signal the beginning of the end of her fad. But for the moment it is worth looking at the meaning of her nomination, without the protective varnish of what conservatives usually dismiss as political correctness.


Why should we pretend not to notice when Gov. Palin's ideas make no sense? Having said last week that "it doesn't matter" whether human activity is the cause of climate change, she said in debate that she "doesn't want to argue" about the causes. It doesn't occur to her that we have to know the causes in order to address the problem. (She was very fortunate that moderator Gwen Ifill didn't ask her whether she truly believes that human beings and dinosaurs inhabited this planet simultaneously only 6,000 years ago.)


Why should we ignore her inability to string together a series of coherent thoughts? As a foe of Wall Street greed and a late convert to the gospel of government regulation, along with John McCain, Palin promised to clean up and reform business. But when her programmed talking points about "getting government out of the way" and protecting "freedom" conflicted with that promise, she didn't notice.


Why should we give her a pass on the most important issues of the day? Supposedly sharing the fears and concerns of the average families who face the burdens of mortgages, healthcare and economic insecurity, Palin simply refused to discuss changes in bankruptcy law and proved that she didn't know the provisions of McCain's healthcare plan.


All the glaring defects so blatantly on display in her debate with Joe Biden -- and that make her candidacy so darkly comical -- would be the same if she were a hockey dad instead of a "hockey mom." In fact, the cynical attempt to foist Palin on the nation as a symbol of feminist progress is an insult to all women regardless of their political orientation.


There was a time when conservatives lamented the dumbing down of American culture. Preservation of basic standards in schools and workplaces compelled them -- or so they said -- to resist affirmative action for women and minorities. Qualifications mattered; merit mattered; and demagogic appeals for leveling were to be left to the Democrats.


Not anymore.


Actually, the Palin phenomenon is the culmination of a trend that can be traced back to Dan Quayle, the undistinguished Indiana senator whose elevation onto the Republican ticket in 1988 had nothing to do with intellect or experience and everything to do with the youthful appeal of a handsome blond frat boy. (That was how Republican strategists thought they would attract female voters back then, which must be why they believe Palin represents progress.) Quayle too was unable to articulate, let alone defend, the policy positions for which he was supposed to be campaigning. He too had to undergo the surgical stuffing of stock phrases into his head as a minimal substitute for knowledge and thought. And in the same sad way, he too benefited from the drastically reduced expectations applied to anyone whose inadequacy is so obvious.


Quayle deserved more pity than scorn, however, because he seemed to know that he was fighting far above his weight class. Palin evokes no such sympathy, with her jut-jawed, moose-gutting confidence in her own overrated "common sense" and her bullying insistence that only "elitists" would question her expertise.


As Biden showed quite convincingly when he spoke about his modest background and his continuing connection with Main Street, perceptive, intelligent discourse is in no way identical with elitism. Palin's phony populism is as insulting to working- and middle-class Americans as it is to American women. Why are basic diction and intellectual coherence presumed to be out of reach for "real people"?


And why don't we expect more from American conservatives? Indeed, why don't they demand more from their own movement? Aren't they disgusted that their party would again nominate a person devoid of qualifications for one of the nation's highest offices? Some, like Michael Gerson and Kathleen Parker, have expressed discomfort with this farce -- and been subjected, in Parker's case, to abuse from many of the same numbskulls whom Palin undoubtedly delights.


The ultimate irony of Palin's rise is that it has occurred at a moment when Americans may finally have grown weary of pseudo-populism -- when intelligence, judgment, diligence and seriousness are once again valued, simply because we are in such deep trouble. We got into this mess because we elected a man who professed to despise elitism, which he detected in everyone whose opinions differed from his prejudices. That was George W. Bush, of course. Biden was too polite and restrained to say it, but the dumbing down is more of the same, too.



-- By Joe Conason

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 4:55pm
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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-15-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 5:06pm
Still don't know where you got the 82, but it doesn't matter.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 5:13pm
and again ....... I never made the 82% claim in relation to Bush

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 6:00pm

That's where I got my info. He the website lists, in this order, under his Specialties/Areas of Expertise:

Constitutional criminal procedure; environmental law; litigation; prison reform; torts; elderly and infirm prison inmates; environmental crimes; constitutional law; national security; legal history; legislation

Everyone who graduated from law school has written something and learned something about the Constitution. Assuming he truly is a very elite and well-rounded constitutional scholar, while he certainly indicated that he made certain assumptions and suppositions about what Palin said, he made no comment as to what Biden said. I would be interested to hear what, if anything, any constitutional scholars have said about Biden's position--but what is conspicuously absent, at least in my research, is anyone giving it any airtime--despite his obvious blunder in not even knowing the subject matter of Article 1, or the Article which discusses the duties of the position for which he is running.

And Michael Barone states, in his opinion piece in the USA Today: "Biden's performance was by and large acceptable, but he made some significant misstatements, notably on the Constitution. Article I of the Constitution is not about the executive branch, as Biden said, but about the legislative branch, in which Biden has served for 35 years. And the vice president doesn't preside over the Senate just in cases of ties; he (or she) is entitled to preside over the Senate at any time."

I also find it interesting to note that there were many references during the CNN youtube soundbite to the "Bush-Cheney" and Palin abuses of executive privilege, but one may wish to note that the Constitutional Scholar Professor Turley wrote the following:

"Paradise Lost: The Clinton Administration and the Erosion of Executive Privilege." 60 Maryland Law Review 205-248 (2001).

This further illustrates my point that when it comes to pointing fingers at dummies, boo-boos and abuses of power and privilege, there is a conspicuously absent pointing toward all things "scary," "chilling" and "dangerous" that are rooted in the liberals and Democrats, accompanied by disproportionate number of pointing of fingers toward all things "scary," "chilling" and "dangerous" that are rooted in Bush, Republicans and Palin.

That to me is scary, chilling and dangerous. And conspicuous, too, by its absence, is any defense of Biden's "boo-boo", which was a scary and insidious blunder, considering his supposed experience in government AND 35 years as a lawyer (neither of which seems to be worth much when it comes to familiarity with one's own Constitution--which to some, might be trivial, but to me is TRULY chilling).

*****And this just in: Biden has taught CONSTITUTIONAL LAW for 17 years! So much for being a constitutional scholar. He has taught a course at Widener, called "Selected Topics in Constitutional Law" since 1991. I don't imagine one of those topics selected is "Enumerated Powers of the Vice President. Oh, how I wish I had been his student on Friday.
{http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/adjunctprofs/2008/08/more-on-profess.html}

LOVE IT! PRO LIFE Pictures, Images and Photos

siggy1
pregnancy week by week
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 6:07pm
That's exactly what I'm doing - with Obama...
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-15-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 6:27pm

and again ....... I never made the 82% claim in relation to Bush


You are entirely correct, you did not.


I did

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 8:05pm

<>


That is the funniest thing I read yet!

 

 

Guild Member since 2009

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 8:26pm
especially when you consider how the republicans have been literally shredding the constitution for the last 8 years!
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 8:47pm

((I don't need a leader to have a beer with, or who is just like me. I need one who is superior in intellect, education,

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Sat, 10-04-2008 - 9:06pm

"Looks like Larry Craig voted with Bush 90% of the time too. LOL"

Hey, watch it. Are you against freedom of expression in bathrooms?

Liberals don't understand the nature of freedom. And by freedom I mean to say fop freedom, namely the freedom of the freedom-loving Fox-Republican officials and pols (fops).

Fop freedom is the freedom to keep saying you are not gay when in fact a bunch of people think it's quite transparent you are a self-loathing hypocritical sanctimonious homophobe living a lie and attacking people for being just like yourself.

Fop freedom is the freedom to say you are going to resign and then change your mind without any apparent reason other than you want to keep your power at the expense of the public trust.

Fop freedom is the freedom to say anything, absolutely anything, that you think will help get you more power and will screw your enemies.

Long live the fops. Long live freedom!

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