Sarah Palin Denial Syndrome?

[carlitos]

re: the list

found it:

I think that part of it is where you bolded the university names and the inherent elitism, and part of it is that, in flyover country, being a mayor of a small town is a real job. You have to meet payroll, you have to get the trash picked up, you have to fight fires, deal with crime, etc.

From all accounts, she was a reasonably effective executive as mayor and governor. That, to me is more important than non-executive experience whether as a State Senator, community organizer, board member, professor, whatever. I have had enough experience with first-time executives, and the Presidency isn't the job for that.

My 2 cents.

ETA - He spent a fair bit of time "community organizing" in the Altgeld Gardens projects. If I may be so bold as to ask you all to take my word for it, that place isn't very organized.

 

[Thunder]

Every time Palin opens her mouth or appears in public, it gives the Obama administration and the Democrats a week to relax.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

ETA - He spent a fair bit of time "community organizing" in the Altgeld Gardens projects. If I may be so bold as to ask you all to take my word for it, that place isn't very organized.

It's organixed, in a way. . .

not in a good way.

It never will be.

like the rest of the housing projects, it needs to be torn down.

 

[tyr_13]

This is it in a nutshell, right here. It has little to do with her qualifications or lack thereof; it has little to do with her intelligence or lack thereof, even her policy positions are secondary. For those people who just can't stand Palin, it is because, as far as they are concerned, she comes from a different culture...she isn't one of them. The jokes about Palin, and many of the derogatory comments (aside from those that sexualize her or otherwise attack her for being a woman) are about cultural traits associated with "being country folk": her hunting, the way she talks, her family, the small town she lives in, the multiple (non-Ivy league) colleges she went to, being a past beauty queen, past sportscaster, etc. She did get a journalism degree, which would normally buy her a pass, but it wasn't from Columbia, it was from the University of Idaho. IDAHO! That's just icky. Idaho is full of hicks, just like Alaska!

That's also, by the way, her big appeal to those who have fallen in love with her, politically. There are significant numbers of people who feel that our political elites (of all stripes) have completely failed this country for the past few decades and on top of it have grown arrogant and complacent. That's Palin's biggest line of attack and the thing that most resonates with her supporters. That's also why there is such palpable anger at officeholders of both parties, from their own party members, but there is even more anger within conservative groups at the Republican party for espousing smaller, less intrusive government and failing to deliver it when they had the chance. Newt Gingrich, for example, probably has policy positions pretty close to Palin's, but for Palin's supporters, he's not one of them, he's one of the political elites.

Sarah Palin is a giant, curltural Rorschach test for America.

So because some people dislike her for what we would consider irrelavent or invalid reasons, that somehow makes the perfectly reasonable and valid criticisms of her better?

As opposed to teleprompters in front of sixth graders?

He used teleprompters in front of a room of reporters while he was giving a speech. While what you said is 'technically' true, it's also a lie of omission, but par for the course when talking about Palin. The technique is to just switch to Obama (usually a still made up point like this one).

 

[leftysergeant]

Barack Obama is a complete and utter imbecile. If we listed all of the people on your list and mine in order, with the biggest imbecile on the time, Barack Obama should be at the top of the list.

Reagan's brain was leaking out his ears halfway through his term.

His judgement prior to taking office casts his native intelligence in a bad light. He closed mental hospitals and then claimed that it was not the fault of government that there were homeless zanies wandering the streets.

The blithering old fool believed in supply-side ecconomics. That Bush and the Shrub and all the major power players in the GOP still seem to think that he was a genius tells me all I have to know about Republicans.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I like Sarah Palin.

I also like Iron Maiden.

Don't see either of them as President, however.

 

[Thunder]

Barack Obama is a complete and utter imbecile. If we listed all of the people on your list and mine in order, with the biggest imbecile on the time, Barack Obama should be at the top of the list.

do you have a Bachelors from Columbia and a Law degree from Harvard, Magna Cum Laude?

Were you the President of the Harvard Law Review?

Did you teach Constitutional Law at any esteemed Law schools???

no? thought not.

oh, and btw:

"Obama's LSAT score was 171 - putting him in the 98.8 percentile of law students. Hi IQ org MENSA accepts LSAT's as grounds for membership - requiring a score in the 95th percentile, roughly equivalent to the 98th percentile of the general pop. Since Obama scored in the 98.8 percentile of law students, he's well over the 95 minimum, and so easily qualifies for MENSA membership. Incidentally a LSAT percentile of 95 - which is comparable to 98 percentile in the general pop - translates to an IQ of about 130. Obama is 3.8 LSAT percentiles above that. A reasonable guess would put him in the 150 - 165 IQ range (150 being higher than 99.7 of the general pop according to stats below, & 160 being higher than 99.9 - or 1 in 1000. To put that in real life terms 140 would've been the smartest kid in your class, 160 would've been the smartest kid in your high school. 140 is the smartest guy in the room, but 160 is the smartest guy in the building. Obama would fall somewhere in between. Now when you get to 180+, you've got a contender for the smartest guy, or gal, in town!"

http://www.obamainspires.me/barack-obama%27s-iq.html

 

[Sporanox]

So because some people dislike her for what we would consider irrelavent or invalid reasons, that somehow makes the perfectly reasonable and valid criticisms of her better?

No, I don't think so. Why would it?

 

[carlitos]

So because some people dislike her for what we would consider irrelavent or invalid reasons, that somehow makes the perfectly reasonable and valid criticisms of her better?

That's a fair point. It's almost the converse of my POV - I like Sarah Palin based on her executive experience and that she comes from a more libertarian Republican state. The fact that some people like her for her religious views, that doesn't make my evaluation any less valid. Oh, and I don't see her being President either. I just don't get the silly criticism like this topic.

ETA @ Sword of Truth - Bruce Dickinson can't produce his US birth certificate, but I think he'd be way better than Sarah Palin.

 

[leftysergeant]

Monolithic... No.
Conspiring... Almost certainly not.
Ever-present... Annoyingly so.
Biased to the point of dishonesty... does anyone even deny this anymore?

I will gladly attribute such baseness to any media outlet owned by a certain immigrant fascist twit with more money than is good for human civilzation, but otherwise, have to take issue with you.

The only "dishonesty" that I have seen associated with the treatment the press has given Caribou Barbie comes out of the mouths of the more moronic Faux News blathermeisters who promote her as a viable choice for president.

 

[Thunder]

I like Sarah Palin.

I think she makes a fine....Mayor. In Alaska.

 

[MikeMangum]

When Sarah criticized Obama for being a "community Organizer" what was the cultural significance of that?

To her fans, what “community” was she talking about?

Actually, that is a very good illustration of what I was talking about. Blue collar and rural voters see "community organizer" as analagous to "self appointed social worker cum political wannabe" where the actual social work is questionable because a community organizer isn't accountable for ever delivering anything. There are many "community organizers" amongst the group of people who support Palin, the difference being that they engage in that activity as unpaid work after their day job, without political motivations, and they generally do their community organizing by directly delivering services themselves instead of petitioning the government for those services.

But the people who can't stand Palin for the reasons I mentioned above can't even see that.

ETA: to sum up, being a community organizer is seen as not being a "real job".

 

[AvalonXQ]

["Hey look, he's an academic!"]

Thanks for the pep rally.
Barack Obama is an imbecile.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

ETA @ Sword of Truth - Bruce Dickinson can't produce his US birth certificate, but I think he'd be way better than Sarah Palin.

Palin hunts, fishes and in the words of Senator Fred Thompson "is the first vice presidential candidate who knows how to field dress a moose".

Bruce Dickinson owns and drives a T-34 tank (40's heavy metal meets 80's heavy metal) and flies stranded civilians out of war zones.

Solid hands down win for Dickinson in the "cool factor" race.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Why can't we all just agree to vote for Harrison Ford?

 

[MikeMangum]

So because some people dislike her for what we would consider irrelavent or invalid reasons, that somehow makes the perfectly reasonable and valid criticisms of her better?

Oh, I'm not even saying that those are invalid reasons, I'm simply pointing them out because many people seem to not recognise it. It is entirely normal for people to want to elect leaders who are "one of them" and prefer not to be led by a person who has a completely different philosophical outlook than they do. I just think that people are using their instinctual dislike of Palin (and vice versa) to vastly overblow how smart/stupid, etc. she is because they aren't even aware of the unconscious reasons for the dislike or affinity. She either draws out raving disdain or hagiography, and I believe the general reason is what I outlined above.

If her actual policy positions were written down and delivered to people without them knowing the source of those policy positions, people would either agree or disagree, but would not have the visceral reaction that they do to the mere mention of Palin. Of course, that visceral reaction is a significant part of what makes a politician either popular or unpopular. Bush Jr.'s swagger, Cheney's sneer, Clinton's lip biting, Gore's stentorian self righteousness. We respond on an emotional level as much or more than we rationally evaluate a candidate's qualifications, temperament and policy positions. It's just that with Palin, people's response to her seems to be almost nothing but visceral reaction.

 

[Thunder]

Barack Obama is an imbecile.

Harvard Law School, Magna Cum Laude.

yet you think he is an imbecile.

fascinating.

 

[Thunder]

Why can't we all just agree to vote for Harrison Ford?

he didn't graduate from Harvard Law, Magna Cum Laude.

and he didn't score 171 on his LSATs.

 

[carlitos]

Why can't we all just agree to vote for Harrison Ford?

I hear he's got a skeleton in his closet.

 

[dudalb]

Why can't we all just agree to vote for Harrison Ford?

Because I prefer Morgan Freeman.