McCain staff says SP is a WHACKJOB

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2008
McCain staff says SP is a WHACKJOB
55
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 8:31pm

Maybe someone should remind then it's not nice to name-call.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/palin-a-whack-job-top-mcc_n_138523.html

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 8:55pm

I liked this article that was linked on that page:







I HATE TO pull rank here. But it seems I am almost the only Republican still standing who can criticize Sarah Palin without being accused by my fellow conservatives of suffering from an "elite education. "


Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker and David Frum have all had their heads put on pikes by the self-appointed rulers of Conservatism. As Rush Limbaugh said:


These are the people who are embarrassed by Sarah Palin 'cause she's not an intellectual and she didn't go to Harvard or have a college degree from approved universities and she drops her g's from words like morning and says mornin'. She's embarrassing, and I think something else really bothering these people is that they believe that she may become one of the key leaders of the conservative movement beyond 2008 if she and McCain lose this.

Those with degrees from approved universities are capable of mounting their own defense. But what about those of us who did not go to Harvard -- and yet whose eyes still bug out at the prospect of a Palin vice presidency, let alone the prospect of her as a "key leader"in the future?


In fact, not only did I NOT go to Harvard, I have no education to speak of. Not beyond high school anyway (and it was one of those large, urban high schools from which many of the most successful graduates went on to become garage mechanics). To paraphrase Melville, a tabloid newspaper was my Yale and my Harvard (and yes, it is possible to have read Melville without attending Yale and Harvard. It's Sarah Palin's kind of story, too: lots of huntin' and guttin' ).


My lack of post-secondary education isn't something I'm proud of. Certainly I've never been moved to boast about it in public. Honestly, if I'd had more sense at eighteen, I would have gone to college -- preferably, an elite one. But I grew up in a newspaper family and was eager to join the business. So instead of spending my early twenties engaged in discussions of Keynes and Friedman, I found myself knocking on the metal doors of public housing developments, asking residents for recent photos of their murdered children. I never said "Get me rewrite" because, more often than not, I WAS rewrite. And like Palin, I was raised to disdain anyone who thought himself too clever or above everyone else (usually a reporter from the competing broadsheet). In my world, an elite degree marked you as someone with permanently retarded judgment, a reader of The New Yorker -- the sort of person of whom Orwell would write, "Only an intellectual could say something so stupid."


Maybe it's because of my background that I've been wary of Palin from the get-go -- and more than taken aback by those who insist the only reason a conservative could oppose her would be because of intellectual snobbery.


Don't get me wrong: I love the idea of Sarah Palin. She conforms to an early American (and pre-feminist) ideal of womanhood: rifle on one hip, baby on the other. I love her modern incarnation of this ideal, complete with Sex-in-the-Tundra wardrobe and kick-ass Jimmy Choos (even if they are paid for by the RNC). I love the idea she represents "common sense" over fancy-pants theorizing. I love -- and certainly identify with -- her real world, "out there" experience over her opponents' closed-off years in Washington. Truly, there are few women I'd rather share a beer with.


The problem is that the reality of Sarah Palin does not match the idea of Sarah Palin. It's as plain as day -- glaringly obvious! -- that she's unfit for the job she's running for. We wouldn't expect the best darn regional car saleswoman to be appointed the next vice president of General Motors. We wouldn't fly in a commercial plane piloted by someone with a Cessna license because we trusted her gut. We wouldn't follow a woman into battle because she's a crack shot at moose hunting. Why is it unreasonable -- or snobbish! -- to have expected a better choice from our party for the next potential leader of the free world?


And please don't reply with, "The other side doesn't have experience either!" That's an argument you can make without having graduated from elementary school.


Those of us who came of age as Reagan Republicans expected more from ourselves. Leave the left to its demagoguery and name-calling. We'll make the case using facts, reason - -and yes, common sense.


Now it seems my side are the ones circling the wagons, shouting abuse at dissenters -- determined to lose rather than ask ourselves why we aren't winning.


As Orwell once might have said...


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 9:46pm

Why do I find the critics of Governor Palin so shallow, as to put her down, thinking it will improve their own self image.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 10:26pm

"Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker and David Frum have all had their heads put on pikes by the self-appointed rulers of Conservatism."

Palin was also harshly criticized by George Will, Buckley Jr., McClellan, Powell and so many others. The next stage will be to blame the guy who deserves it: John McCain, the guy who never should have picked someone so unvetted.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 10:36pm

I write this in response to those Republicans who say about Governor Palin:

"Sarah Palin will be a strong role model, and leader for many conservatives for a long time to come."

Interesting. I guess you all know her better than the folks who have to try to work with her every day. Because they just called her a "whack job" on the record during the key final stretch of the election. They must think she was pretty awful to sacrifice the campaign to say that. And that was after they called her a "diva" and a "rogue".

Is it any wonder? In her short term as Governor she already has been found guilty of abuse of power in one investigation while a second is still pending. In Palin's few interviews with reporters, she has given uninformed silly answers way too many times, to the point where her campaign won't let her talk to reporters anymore.

I don't blame her. I blame John McCain. He picked her without vetting her. It was a flail to revive a sagging campaign. If you want to know what was really going on, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin It goes into detail about how while McCain was criticizing Obama this summer for visiting Europe behind the scenes the McCain campaign was freaking out about how well Obama was doing and how McCain needed a gimmick to get some attention back. Well, they took their flail and whiffed.

Ultimately here's what I think about Palin and those like her in the Republican Party and closely linked Fox News media who are not particularly smart and very quick to appeal to people's worst instincts. They could splinter the Republican Party right in two. The smart, traditional Goldwater, small, well-run government side may split right away from the Fox Republican Palin radical incompetent populist side. And that could mean the end of the Republican Party within the next decade.

I hope it doesn't come to that. It would not just be bad for the Republicans to see their party go down the tubes with Palin and Fox. It would be bad for America. I hope they can turn off the Fox "not news" Network and pull themselves together.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2008
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 10:56pm

" If any humble stupid dumb ordinary woman with limited quality of education, and mother of five, with Christian faith can rise to the position of Governor, then why can't most of the women critics on this forum, be found running this country?"

I'm not sure who you are calling a humble, stupid, dumb, ordinary woman with limited quality of education? Is it us or is it Sarah Palin? I can assure you I am not a Sarah Palin supporter but I am not a 'stupid, dumb woman with limited quality of education' I am a mother of three with a strong Christian faith and I do NOT aspire to 'rise to the position of Governor' which may explain why I have not done so.

"If the elite Ivy league educated snobs, don't use the opportunity to better themselves as Governor Palin: they should be looking in the mirror and ask themselves, why have I screwed up."

I may not be an Ivy League educated snob - but I have 'bettered' myself and therefore do not have to look in the mirror and ask why I have screwed up - because I haven't.

"Sarah Palin will be a strong role model, and leader for many conservatives for a long time to come."

Sadly this is probably the only part of your post that has any truth and it is not necessarily a good thing.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 10:59pm

That's all fine and good, and the Republican party needs to shake off those who only flirt with conservative values.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Tue, 10-28-2008 - 11:10pm

Just another sign of the continued dysfunction of the McCain campaign. As a Democrat, I look VERY forward to the prospect of Palin actually running for President in 2012.

Will be a fine test for the GOP, will they return to their once true-conservative roots, or continue on this path of cultural divide. Bush rode the cultural divide all the way to the White House in 2000, on the premise that government cannot work then spent 8 years proving it.

Yeah, bring on Palin in 2012 and show us once and for all the GOP is broken.

================================

Reward Republicans for 8 years of failure? No way, No how, No McCain!

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:06am

I bet this moose would agree that Palin was a whackjob...before HE got wacked that is... (GASP)


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:26am
Actually I hope the base of the Republican party embraces Palin and purges the party of any moderates.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Wed, 10-29-2008 - 12:46am
lol.

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