From time to time, I'll get into a debate with a right-winger about whether Sarah Palin is actually stupid or if liberals are just hopelessly biased against her. They claim this bias comes from the fact that liberals are scared of her electability, her charm, her looks, her femininity, her Christianity, her ability connect to the common man and her overall wonderfulness. So, the theory is that we have all collectively decided that she is the best Republican candidate in some secret liberal meeting and are conspiring against her because we are afraid of how brilliant and electable she really is.
Now, there are a couple of problems with this theory. There are no opinion leaders on the left with Rush Limbaugh-like authority who can command all other progressives to think the same thing and use the same arguments against one person. In other words, we all think she is stupid because she is in fact stupid, not because some liberal cabal told us to think that.
How come we don't call Newt Gingrich stupid? Or Dick Cheney or Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Elizabeth Dole or Dennis Hastert? And the list goes on and on of heinous and deplorable right-wingers who are not stupid. We don't make those charges against those people, because as much as we might not agree with them or like them, we know that they are not dullards. They're all clever in their own way. Mitt Romney is greasy, Michael Steele is a clown and Tom DeLay is dirty, but we don't go after their mental acuity like we do with Sarah Palin because they're not as dumb as her (not even Steele).
So, finally we get to the evidence. I thought I'd just do it here and be done with it. Then I can just point people to this post from now on and end this senseless argument.
Now, there are a million examples of this, but I thought I'd go with three knockout punches here. In the first video, we have the classic Bush Doctrine answer, where she does not know the basic foreign policy of the Republican president at the time. How could she possibly be running for vice president and not know this? The only thing more unconscionable is the sad excuses her supporters make for this terribly botched answer.
In the second video, we have a largely overlooked example of her pathetic lack of foreign policy knowledge. She has no idea what Hamas is or what they have to do with the Gaza Strip. If your next door neighbor or plumber doesn't know this, that's fine, but they weren't running for Vice President of the United States. This should be game set and match for anyone, especially self-respecting conservatives, thinking of supporting her. This is when you have to walk away embarrassed.
But remarkably, they didn't slink away embarrassed after this answer, so we have the latest example of her buffoonery. In this interview with Bill O'Reilly, he asks her if she is smart enough to be president. Her answer has to be seen to be believed. Don't get me wrong, just because you see it won't mean you'll understand it. So, I put a transcript of her answer below so that you can try to decipher it in your spare time.
Bill O'Reilly: Let me be very bold and fresh again, do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?Sarah Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have I believe the values that I think are reflective of so many other American values, and I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the uhm, the ah, a kind of spineless, spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite, Ivy league education and, and a fat resume that is based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership, I'm not saying that that has to be me.
Can anyone really be biased enough to think that was a smart answer? The great irony is that he asked her if she's smart enough to be president and she gave what might be her dumbest answer yet. That answer was so bad it almost made George W. Bush look smart. Can anyone in good conscience defend that answer and say with a straight face that she should be this country's leader?
If you say yes, then there is no sense in talking to one another anymore because we are not operating in the same reality, or planet. We'll never be able to agree on anything if we can't agree that was just about as incomprehensible and stupid an answer as you can possibly come up with. And that settles the debate, because you either live in the reality based world and realize she is obviously not qualified, or in the immortal words of Stephen Colbert you believe that "reality has a well-known liberal bias" and she would make a great president.
TYT Reaches 100,000 Subscribers on You Tube
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
"spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite, Ivy league education"
I defy anyone to create a coherent English sentence that contains the words "that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of " in it, in that order. That's eleven words, ten of them with one syllable, that simply cannot occur in any thinking person's speech. And it did not. $arah said it.
Read the book "Sarah Palin: An American Nightmare," which goes into depth her background during the 1990's, along with other many different things that can prove that Palin is clever at manipulating.
We can all agree that she doesn't know the facts, and that a half-term governor with the experience of running a Petrostate with a lot of pollution (so much that you are more that twice as likely to be born with a defect, sardonically, Trig Palin has down syndrome), shouldn't be our president. She doesn't work in the best interests of women, the middle and lower classes, and would be unable to redistribute oil wealth from oil reserves (something that is done in Alaska which allows for each Alaskan to get a lot of money from the state government for it. Redistribution of wealth...aka good Socialism, something that she blindly attacks on a daily basis.)
This is nothing new with SP -- she wants to be seen as identifying with "ordinary folk" rather than "elites". To some extent, this anti-intellectual Populism has worked for her because there are a lot of ordinary folk who don't like elites because "they think they are so smart but they're not like us".
The "values" point is based on the assumption that the Christian values and morals SP espouses are superior to Obama's or those of Liberals, when in fact her own hypocritical behavior speaks volumes about her lack of integrity and humanity.
The problem with this kind of populism is the inherent destructiveness to the prosperity of ordinary folk of the policies SP advocates, i.e. free unregulated enterprise and tax cuts. The masses that support her don't even see how they are being sold a bill of goods to benefit the wealthy, all wrapped up in the flag with a cross. So, it's not surprising that SP has so many followers among stupid Americans.
can you imagine our country being run like our local school board and out neighborhood association?
yikes !!!!
The problem was not what she was trying to say, shallow and meaningless though it may have been. The problem is her overwhelming inarticulateness and her lack of ability to speak coherently in English. Language is thought. What we hear in the "I'm smart enough" clip is a disorganized jumble of half-chewed ideas and stale talking points. Thin gruel indeed.
Your summary was coherent and well expressed. But the fact that she cannot properly present her own "ideas" (even with hand-writing) disqualifies her for a leadership position, in my opinion.
/ɪˈliːt/ n [C + singular or plural verb]
the richest, most powerful, best educated or best trained group in a society From the Cambridge Online Dictionary.
elite
The choice part . . . a superior group: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but do we not want the best trained, the best and the brightest, the most well-educated, the smartest people running our country? What do conservative have against education, and electing the best people to office? Franklin Roosevelt was a member to the elite, as were Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, et al.
Is there a reason why the Republicans want our country to be run by the dullest and the dumbest. In the past eight years we've seen the result of that, as we did during the Reagan Administration.
Is Barak Obama a member of the elite? You betcha, and I for one am glad he is our president, and if the dullards on the right will allow him to do his job, I am confident he will lead us out of the quagmire in which the last administration has mired us.
Elite is not a bad word; It's not even a four-letter word.
elite is not necessarily the superior skilled group.
elite in society and politics has the connotation of class structure. elite are not necessarily superior in intellect/intelligence, but are in a superior position with power. this could be through birth or through cronyism, or some other non performance based method.
in our "free market" based social structure the idea exists that we always have to compete and always have to perform.
the best could later not be the best and can coast on success. and potentially coast for many many years on sub par performance
a multi millionaire senator based on selling his votes regularly may have been well educated, smart and hard working for his people before, but at some point he gave in and realized that he can live the rest of his life through his status
or shrubie, he is elite because he went to a top university and got his degree and then executive jobs and came from a extremely wealthy family. but is he the superior skilled and intelligent person we want running the country? but he is definitely a member of the elite
it is impossible to separate class structure from elitism. if you try to separate the ":best" people it will eventually end up including the ugly side of elite because who is judging who is elite and not ?
I want the best and brightest to run my country, not the richest or those from the so-called "best families."
Nixon at least had a brain.
repeated time and again. The Democrats portray
their opposition as legitimately stupid while the Republicans
labeled their opposition as morally handicapped.
Democrats seemed sure they are intellectually superior and
Republicans know the “Other party” hates America, God,
and apple pie.
The MSM parroted the Democrat daily line and the
Internet and FM radio provided the only opposition.
Only once recently, at 911, did we act as a united country.
We need more togetherness and without a national disaster.
Maybe that's what Palin was trying to say in her third example above. But she's not clever enough to be simple and humble, and her ego is far too big.
1) If we just ignore Sarah Palin, she will go away. These articles do nothing but help her popularity.
and
2) All this attention to Sarah Palin must mean she's got something going for her. We wouldn't bother writing or commentating if she wasn't a worthwhile political figure.
Well...
1) She won't go away. She's proven that. And she shouldn't be ignored--her fans won't disappear just because her detractors are sick of her. Her popularity is harmful to American political discourse (like most polarizing personalities), and her activities should continue to draw criticsm.
2) I pay attention to SP the same way I pay attention to icy patches in the road--they represent danger, and I want to avoid them. If I can, I will also warn others that the roads are bad.
she is photogenic and an amusing story, so she gets coverage. but the reality is that her fans are at most something like 25% of the population. i challenge anyone to find any real evidence or poll that her fans or the tea party types are more than that
we should let her be and let her rise to be nominated for the presidential race. they can't win with her.
they think they can win with her, but they are fooling themselves. her numbers were already not enough. but her recent antics, the ethics stuff, the quitting, and all the rest has permanently damaged her with the extra 20% she needed to be competitive.
i want her to stay prominent and successful. as long as she is, the repubs will keep losing elections.
I personally think nothing can top her Resignation as Governor speech, but then she has suprised me before.
Regards
i'm glad to hear she has party support
she needs to stay prominent and popular so she gets nominated for the 2012 race.
she has no chance of winning. absolutely none. they are fooling themselves. and we can help them fool themselves
show me one poll or any piece of evidence that suggests she has the numbers necessary to compete in national politics. no more than 25% of americans and tea party types and i'm being generous with that number
what national race have the repubs won since she has been on the scene. she lost the prez race for mccain. she quit the gov job. she lost the ny rep race when she got involved.
they can't win with her. she gets 25% excited, but she turns of another 20% of the population that may be open to voting repub. combine that with dems that can't stand her and you get republican losses all around
DO NOT FEAR !! ........ sarah is here !!! ....... for us dems !!!