Just FYI, but free speech zones aren't a Bush innovation either. Wikipedia mentions free speech zones in use as far back as the 1988 Democratic National Convention. It's not clear when the cages became popular though.
Eh. When something becomes a new norm, that's an innovation.
Fair enough.
To answer your question, it would be nice if Obama's press secretary wasn't a lying weasel. Ari Fleischer is a Bush innovation I could do without. More generally, Bush's relationship with the press is one of the big problems of his presidency, though he's mostly taking advantage of the press's desire for insider access.
He should at least initiate a review of all signing statements and pick a few of the more obnoxious to reverse (especially ones that clearly contravened the spirit of the actual legislation).
Restore the routine declassification of presidential papers as provided by for law. That should declassify the entirety of the Reagan and Bush Administrations and the first Clinton Administration. That would show us, for instance, all the black support provided for Saddam Hussein... and should also tell us exactly what happened in 1990 with April Gelaspie (sp). Amoungst other things.
Revoke all signing statements.
I think it would better to issue a presidential order overturning the various DOJ-issued legal opinions in support of torture, extraordinary rendition and so on. That would take the wind out of Gitmo quite quickly.
Create a committee to locate all unreleased war prisoners and all war prisoners not returned to their home countries. (Not neccessarily aimed at releasing them, but aimed at simply locating them in the first place, so they can have lawyers and status determinations.)
Straighten out the conduct of status determinations.
Commute Cory Maye's sentence to time served (that is, treat it as a manslaughter conviction).
Need a committee to determine how much book-cooking went into Iraq, and also the general neo-conservative worldwide campaign.
Prohibit the create of DoD proganda networks for the dissemination of disinformation in the US.
Need a committee to determine the amount and extent of domestic spying in the last eight years.
max
['You said immediately.']
pick a few of the more obnoxious to reverse immediately.
I despise the concept of a "free speech area", but I also have to wonder: isn't there some need for a balance between letting people hold a function and letting other people criticize it? We've seen this problem, for example, with the Phelps crazies protesting loudly at veterans' funerals. You could argue that if it's on public, not private, land, then anything goes. But is the right to speak freely really a right to shout down and disrupt someone else's free speech? Quite frankly, that is mainly what the "anarchist" groups at the DNC and/or RNC seem to be interested in. They are not content to publish their ideas on the Internet, or in books, and to speak them to interested parties. No, they want to be seen sticking it to The Man.
Should Phelps, an anarchist group, or some other band of protesters, have the right to disrupt, say, Obama's inaguration speech? I am guessing most Americans would say, "Of course not." Surely we should be able to say, "This is an important event, and while you are free to speak your mind, you are not free to ruin our event. The First Amendment guarantees you the right to speak, but it does not guarantee you an audience, so quit trying to steal ours."
But I also think the cages far away from the main action suck. There has to be a happy medium here somewhere.
Also, did you know that YouTube has actually been around since 1985?
As I've said, the most evident partisan hacks in civil service jobs have to be isolated, removed from responsible positions, and closely supervised. IIRC they can't be fired; that's the fiendish thing.
A nationwide, federal-state reversal of voter-discouragement practices is a must. This would include reforming the physical process of voting. Reforming for the better, that is, not for the worse.
Roll back past tax favors as much as possible. Conceivably there is a way to rewrite the tax code to punish the big Republican players, e.g. oil.
I'd favor restoration of the Fairness Doctrine and passing laws to reduce media monopoly. Don't know if this is reasonable even to dream about.
#9: The problem with the Fairness Doctrine -- well, okay ONE problem with the Fairness Doctrine -- is that it assumes there are two sides to every issue. In fact, there are often multiple, if not infinite, sides and different views. Where does the equal time stop? What will happen (and what happened last time we tried FD) is that broadcasters will simply shy away from any and all content that is even VAGUELY political or controversial, and TV and radio will become even more vapid than they already are. No thank you.
More vapid than Fox News? That seems impossible.
Turn "on" all the reporting systems Bush turned "off."
To be informed citizens, we need accurate information about the nation, much of which can only be aggregated at the national level.
Currently, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the only intellectually honest government agency in George W. Bush's Washington. The Executive Branch "owns" all the data about the status of our little bus hurtling through the desert, and Republicans tend to pull the instruments out of the dashboard that say their ideas are failing.
The economists here should be screaming that Bush has stopped publication of fundamental economic indicators -- like the amount of cash that is sloshing through the economy and how much we're printing.
Environmental engineers around me despair that environmental data from NASA and EPA are shelved, the offices that collect them are shut down, that political "owners" of these agencies make stuff up and give it the imprimatur of scientific credibility.
Energy engineers around me despair that Republicans routinely helm the Department of Energy with hacks whose lifetime political efforts have been to eliminate the agency.
LONG TERM: we choose Presidents to run the country based on their vision and ideas. We have an obligation and a right to be able to accurately assess those strategies. We must press Congress to build additional non-partisan data gathering and dissemination structures.
#11: "Vapid" means "lacking or having lost life, sharpness, or flavor". Fox News isn't vapid; it's one-sided. Other networks offer news of a different flavor. With the Fairness Doctrine, all would be a bland mush.
Fox is entertaining, dishonest, inaccurate and biased. That's consistent with being vapid. I don't feel your need for tittllating stimulation inplace of news.
Everything else is already vapid.
Hey, the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble..."
Is there any case law on the government being able to block a group of protesters because they weren't assembling "peaceably"? (Presumably this would apply, for example, to the "Recreate '68" crew.)
#14: I don't feel your need for tittllating stimulation inplace of news.
Watch CCTV9 in China and you will see what vapid news is really like. Trust me, you don't want it.
The laws against disturbing the peace, trespass, vandalism, etc. are still applicable at the point when an actual offense occurs.
#17: Right, but can police constitutionally stop or fence off protester groups before any individual offenses of that nature occur if they determine the group as a whole is not "peaceable"? I wonder if that point has ever been litigated.
Preventive detention of entire groups prior to any actual crime is pretty alien to the civil liberties tradition, though it's common in other traditions. Authoritarians are working on it, though, and I'm sure that police would love to be able to put people in jail at will.
If there's definite evidence of intent and capacity to commit a crime people can be arrested, e.g. for planning a burglary or murder, but there's a standard of evidence.
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Nice to see the weather cooperate with the RNC to allow showboating all round, and avoid the uncomfortable co-presence of Bush & McCain. Palin must be kinda pissed, though, that such pissy weather took away her big moment.
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I suspect Palin is delighted to be where she is.
I don't see why people think that another hurricane helps the Republicans, but I suppose that McCain can go down there and pretend that he's been in charge of the successful response, if the response is indeed successful. Sort of like the guys who horn into group photos and start talking to the reporters, even though they aren't really part of the group. Or people who go uninvited to weddings to get the free food.
pick a few of the more obnoxious to reverse immediately.
When I started typing, there were two comments, dude. I presume LB means immediately in the sense of things that can be reversed by simply signing something. That covers executive orders, fact-finding committees and signing statements. (And personnel appointments, but that's a trickier issue.) A lot of this crud is embedded in law tho.
I'd favor restoration of the Fairness Doctrine
Oppose: 'Congress shall make no law...'
and passing laws to reduce media monopoly. Don't know if this is reasonable even to dream about.
On the other hand, I got no problem with that. Anti-trust legislation needs a round of strengthening anyways, if we're going to have it.
max
['Go for it.']
I'd favor restoration of the Fairness Doctrine
I genuinely didn't know such people existed. I thought that they were conjured up by Republicans to fill the empty space next to flag burners. I'm surprised, Emerson.
What about the Monical Goodling appointees? IMO, the Bush administration has to all extents and purposes planted a number of conservative 'moles' in high-level justice positions that will continue to further its policies long after Bush himself is gone. The current plan is to leave them there, as they are now protected by civil service regulations. There is a Times article from August 23rd that discusses the rate at which these judges denied asylum compared to both the national average and to other judges in their region. The difference is statistically significant, and only looks at one issue. Who knows what other Bush policies they will continue to perpetrate?
Sorry about the lack of links. I will work on my skillz.
That one is important, but can't really be done by fiat -- they've got civil service protections. Emerson has suggested what I think has to happen on that one -- while they can't easily be fired, they can be internally assigned to paper-clip inventory or something; not really something that can be announced triumphantly.
22: pick a few of the more obnoxious to reverse immediately.
My clarification was merely to my comment. Wrote it without seeing yours, which in fact pretty much pwned me completely.
I don't perceive the end of the Fairness Doctrine as having been a great triumph. I understand that there are principled reasons to oppose it, but I'm an eclectic pragmatist. Our media is a disaster, and as far as I'm concerned, is the single most damaged institution in American politics. As someone said recently, in the developed world only Italy has as bad a media as we do.
After I posted, I realized that it wasn't something that couldn't be done immediately. However, a review of all the appointees can be declared, but I guess you have already discussed this.
Also, intents for extents.
Need more coffee.
How about revoking that Bush Order that all of his papers be declared off limits? Wasn't that something that he did?
Right, but can police constitutionally stop or fence off protester groups before any individual offenses of that nature occur if they determine the group as a whole is not "peaceable"?
They can arrest people for crimes committed, or the usual planning stuff, but arresting people for crimes someone else is planning to commit I think goes in the Not Done category.
We used to be able to handle free speech without cages. How'd we manage it? Things like inaugurations & speeches already have security.
This is a Congress thing, but I'd like someone to fix the no-fly list.
to fix the no-fly list.
You're right -- I was thinking of that one and dropped it while writing the post. I think you could do that by Executive Order; the no fly list wasn't created by legislation, it's Homeland Security, which is an executive agency.
Right, but I was thinking that the money to review it might be Congressional.
Other dumb law/policy things: currently, if you are married and have a green card pending, and your spouse dies before it is issued, you're going to end up deported. This would not be an issue except that a) green cards can take years to get if there's a namehit b) lots of spousal green cards are wives of soldiers, so it comes up more often than you'd think. It's not a huge deal, but a) changing the policy so a namehit isn't a bar to a green card* and b) allowing widows to adjust status on their own would make a nice thing to go along with the VA changes.
*What's weird about this is that there's no bar to staying in the country while the FBI sorts out whether you're a terrorist. It just might keep you from working or driving or getting health insurance. It's pure security theatre.
5: I'm pretty sure that the President can only pardon or commute sentences for federal offenses. (""He shall have power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.") Cory Maye was convicted by the state of Mississippi, and so would have to be pardoned by the governor.
Thank you, Bostoniangirl. After a long hiatus, I returned to lurking about 4 or 5 months ago. I would have piped up sooner, but this place is like getting into your first game of double dutch - every time you hesitate the opening is gone, and you're just not sure how you will manage to keep up.
Isn't this whole discussion a little presumptuous? Or, at the least, two months too early?
It's not too early -- we should be ready to lobby for what we want on well before day one. Are we jinxing the election by talking about the possibility of winning? I'm not going to worry about that.
Following 12, this isn't an executive branch matter, but I'd really like to see the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (dismantled by Newt for being too reality-based) brought back to life.
An end to signing statements. An end to weird, half-assed military tribunals instead of obeying either civilian law or the post-Nuremburg structure for dealing with war criminals who broke international law. A return to FISA. A serious revamping of the War Powers Act. De-Pentagon-ize the intelligence structure. Like Emerson says, figure out every sub-par Republican appointee who had civil service law bent to get them into a theoretically non-appointed office, and send them out to study flood plains in North Dakota.
36: Hi there, Dr. Oops! As I've told LB, I've ridden in your Checker. Nice to hear from you.
Not really something i follow closely but hasn't Bush Excutively Ordered some crazy stuff wrt morning-after pills and the international 'gag order' thing?
TSA reform and fast. Imagine the political benefit from the President that made you not have to take off your frackin' shoes at the magnetometer.
He should establish a federal Department of Awesome. It's a no-brainer. The only real question is who the first Secretary of Awesome should be.
44: Mr. T is the obvious choice. Plus then you could get some evangelicals back in the tent.
In no way did I mean to denigrate the ND flood plains. Indeed, it was precisely because of their critical importance that I proposed that they be intensively studied.
I think that Apo would be a good head for the Genitalia Division of the Awesome Department, but he seems to be subtly promoting himself as the Secretary of Awesome, and frankly I don't think that he's up to the task. Heebie would be the opposite choice.
"opposite" --> "obvious". But also opposite, in the sense of "right".
Sure, that's the obvious choice, but this is a change election, Tweety. Who else?
Sure, that's the obvious choice, but this is a change election, Tweety. Who else?
KITT, or possibly Destro. Except I think Destro is a British citizen.
Also, the Department of Homeland Security should be rechristened the Department of Defense, with the current Department of Defense becoming the Department of Kickass.
An end to discriminatory voter identification laws, please.
I'd like to see net neutrality made the law of the land, but again that's more of a Congressional thing (and, really, way down on the list). Can we make Bruce Schneier the head of the TSA? Please?
Dr Oops!
I've said before that there should be two divisions of government, the Department of Bread and the Department of Circuses.
The Department of Circuses would include Defense, NASA, Homeland Security, and any other department involved with patriotic chest thumping.
Enhancing 5.1, my pipedream wish list includes a massive declassification effort across the board, casting light on executive-branch shenanigans by both parties -- a legitimate, wholesale government reform effort aimed toward restoring the concept of shame to political service.
Or people who go uninvited to weddings to get the free food.
Do people actually do that?!
No more extraordinary rendition.
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Well, this just got weird. Poor kid.
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Jesus Christ. What a clown show. The election hinges on a pregnant teenager and the dikes in Louisiana.
The parents-of-a-pregnant-teenager vote is quite substantial.
"Some even with Barack Obama's name in them"?
They're operating under the nebulous theory of assertion, I think.
Oh good lord. Poor, poor kid. Man, I hope she was on board with her mother's decision to accept the VP slot.
Am I becoming a crazy conspiracy theorist if I wonder if the rumors were planted just so they could play "gotcha!" with this news?
I really hope she's not being pressured to marry for the sake of the VP slot.
Jesus, that poor kid. Welcome to the international spotlight.
62: I think by definition, yes, but with this crowd nothing's wholly implausible, is it?
Number 4 should be applied to all government entitlements. First send a check, then check for fraud. Afterwards it should be no problem verifying the claim quickly, then revoking the claim, and of course collecting the fraudulent payments plus fines.
Fox News isn't vapid; it's one-sided.
The problem isn't that it's one-sided, the problem is that it mostly isn't news at all. Certainly a little news is thrown in as window dressing, but it isn't the point of Fox News, and never has been.
62, 64: The timing was too fast for a good 'gotcha'. To a first approximation, no one's heard about the initial rumors -- they never made it into the media at all. If they were doing it on purpose, they would have let it sit longer.
It could be that there was some confused rumor about the daughter's current pregnancy that got garbled and turned into the other rumor, but I don't think it makes sense for it to have been purposeful.
64: I suppose it is crazy, given the accumulating evidence that McCain didn't bother finding out anything about Palin. Anyway, yes, poor kid, and I hope this makes people think twice before making attacks on a politician's family life when attacking on the issues alone is so easy....
The parents-of-a-pregnant-teenager vote is quite substantial.
And think of all those single mom votes! Step 2 in stealing away votes will be to announce that the father is John Edwards.
The no-fly list needs not just a complete redo, but it also needs a sustained and detailed investigation of how each name got onto the list. It's clear that the list has been used as a tool to harass political dissidents. Who is using it in this manner needs to be brought out into the open and the people responsible need to be punished.
Extending the theme, we need to go through the litany of harassment, retaliation, bullying and intimidation the Bush/Cheney crowd used, identify the perpetrators, and punish them. That's inevitably going to be low level people for the most part, but there's still some utility in shutting down the careers of loyal right wing foot soldiers.
Finally, order a full blown investigation of war profiteering. Those assholes are getting people killed while lining their pockets and ripping off the taxpayer. We need to see some CEOs doing hard time.
59: "The despicable rumors that have been spread by liberal blogs, some even with Barack Obama's name in them, is a real anchor around the Democratic ticket, pulling them down in the mud in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change,'" a senior aide said
It does bring into question the whole who and how of pushing the original rumor. Per this Anchorage Daily News blogger earlier today,
It's a version of a rumor - long simmering in Alaska --.(and that article shows the nebulous theory of assertion and some underlying issues with community diary sites when it flatly stated, "The left-leaning Daily Kos posted an item").
Pwned a bit by 62 & 64 & 67. From following some links to some of the Alaska political bloggers it appears that suspected early pushers of this in Alaska (back in the spring) were some of her enemies there (generally mainstream conservative Republicans). Specifically mentioned was Lyda Green, who was the women called a bitch and a cancer (she is a cancer survivor) on shock radio while Palin laughed along. If true it makes this quote from Green read a bit differently:
"It's wonderful. She's very well-disguised," said Senate President Lyda Green, a mother of three who has sometimes sparred with Palin politically. "When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child."
I agree with LB that this was probably not a big "gotcha", but if the McCain candidacy was aware of the pregnancy, I am sure they were of the "switching" rumor was as well, and it may have helped "smooth the way" with the opportunity for some faux outrage directed at the other side for the more pernicious rumors. So more of an assist for damage control than a gotcha.
I have mixed feelings on any assessment of Palin's judgment on preceding with seeking the VP slot. Many factors cutting both ways.
Back to what I said somewhere: shotgun weddings are not really regarded as horrible by Christianists. Gay parents, single parents, loose women, gay parents, gay couples, and gay individuals are horrible. Promiscuous men are not good, but they can repent and rejoin the church without stain. Boys will be boys. Sluts, less so.
Some New Churches are good places to pick up hot chicks. A word to the wise.
Is "nebulous theory of assertion" a technical term?
Both my fundie cousins had knocked up their fiancees before the wedding.
I don't think a premarital pregnancy/postmarital birth would raise an eyebrow in most communities, fundie or not. Seventeen is pretty young, though.
74: Is "nebulous theory of assertion" a technical term?
Ever since Unfogged Cala asserted it in 60 at 10:03 AM (in whatever TimeZone this here site uses) it is. And a very useful and apt technical term at that.
I assumed it was part of fuzzy logic and vagueness theory. A dissertation topic, maybe.
Is there genuinely no way we can avoid dragging her kids into this? Jeebus.
Nothing to be done but to mind our own manners, and try to smack down anyone on our side behaving badly. Man, though, I don't know how this can not turn into an issue.
Is there genuinely no way we canthey could have avoided dragging her kids into this? Jeebus.
Is there genuinely no way we can avoid dragging her kids into this? Jeebus.
I guess not.
79 - She's a proponent of abstinence only sex education, opposes contraception, including condoms, including within a marriage. Her family's situation is a direct consequence of the beliefs she wishes to foist on the rest of the nation. It sucks that a 17 year old girl is caught up in the middle of this, but the price of running on a "family values" platform is exposing your family to a higher level of scrutiny.
I don't support calling her daughter a slut or otherwise shaming her. The mother, OTOH, is fair game and the fact that her daughter's situation is a natural consequence of the policies she supports is also fair game.
82 was so late, the comment itself feared it was pregnant.
So: A mother caring for a special needs baby who has a pregnant young daughter. Gawd knows I've been seen as sympathetic and decent when I've attacked the mentally challenged and pregnant teenagers. And she's got a kid in Iraq. Gawd. Palin really is the mother of all grievance traps. Maybe we could be super-sneaky and not fall into those traps by avoiding talking about Palin except when she's directly brought up, and even then being very, very careful about what's said.
From 82, it looks like Bristol is getting married. This is likely to be a mistake: marriages that young rarely last, and divorce sucks. OTOH, teenage pregnancy on its own is totally managable. There is even some evidence (which I've been meaning to examine) that it is beneficial for a woman's career to get her childbearing done early.
85 is right. With Bristol, we should go a step farther and not talk about her when she is brought up. This will be hard for me, because I love to gossip. But here goes. I'm not talking about her anymore.
I think that's an excellent plan. Poor kid.
Stirling Newberry on the relevance of the Nobel Prize for Charles Dawes.
Yes! Bob's OT commenting habits comes through for us in our hour of "not talking about it" need.
Thinkin, thinkin. What would I like rolled back, besides of course stuff already mentioned?
The BLS statistics/indicator methods to what they were in 1975, so the GDP, inflation and unemployment numbers are more easily compared.
Let's make malicious comments about some more neutral person. Who?
Bob Newhart really pisses me off.
He's entirely in thrall to the bass-playing librarian. I hate to say this, but I think that Ogged has issues.
Newberry's description of macroeconomic events of the last year are in many respects wrong.
Oudemia! Rob! Sorry, wasn't being intentionally rude. I had to troll for free wi-fi in an alien setting. Thanks for saying hi.
Speaking of Ogged, surely someone needs to send him a jersey.
Weird question: what's the likelihood that BLS statistics have been cooked over the past 8 years?
I mean, they're always getting tweaked. I don't know that the stats have been messed with more than usual, but I'm sure they've been messed with.
To go with his Houshmanzadeh jersey?
I would laugh and laugh at this, but I bet most folks think it was written by George Washington or something. Joke, as usual, is on me:
Q: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not? PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance
Weirdest job title ever:
Associate Commissioner for Prices and Living Conditions.
Close second: Associate Commissioner for International Prices.
Both BLS fellas.
BLS & NBER statistcal methods, I guess.
Experience Doesn't Matter ...m leblanc is terrific
Experience Doesn't Matter Michael Kinsley h/t Angry Bear
The whole "experience" debate is silly. Under our system of government, there is only one job that gives you both executive and foreign policy experience, and that's the one McCain and Obama are running for. Nevertheless, it's a hardy perennial: If your opponent is a governor, you accuse him of lacking foreign policy experience. If he or she is a member of Congress, you say this person has never run anything. And if, by chance, your opponent has done both, you say that he or she is a "professional politician." When Republicans aren't complaining about someone's lack of experience, they are calling for term limits.
These people have stolen my ideas, but I'm an Open Source kinda guy. And I realize any post that credits me would lose credibility.
103: Elitist. You went to Harvard like Kazynski, didn't you?
92 +99 + original post + many other comments in this thread: Hey, David Broder, you fatuous little fuckwit, who the fuck has "trashed the place and it wasn't his to trash" now? Huh, huh? Answer me that you obscene little obsequious mealy-mouthed Rove-bamboozled piece of ossified dogshit.
...oh, you said "more neutral person" ... never mind!
107: No doubt. I saw a bumpersticker in TN (NE, up near Lookout Mtn.), that said, "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me."
That's a great post by m leblanc (linked in 105).
broder affects blandness, but he's actually very nasty.
Kinsley jumped the shark years ago.
The BLS has changed the way that it computes inflation in a way that leads to smaller inflation numbers than it did before (and smaller than other countries' numbers, I think). The change is defensible, and all libertarians have been programmed to offer that defense when it's brought up (the "we all have big screen TVs now" defense). But at the same time, the change is mighty convenient for certain forces in our society.
Lately, people have been suggesting that the BLS is actually cooking the books, which is a more surprising charge (Yves at Naked Capitalism made it recently). The most recent GDP growth figures were so out of line with perceptions that people openly scoffed. It would be surprising if the BLS were cooking the books just because Wall Street is completely reliant on government data to know how the macroeconomy is doing. I usually take it as axiomatic that the Republican party won't lie to their corporate masters.
I don't know what Obama should do his first few months in office, but what he will do is make Muslimness mandatory, appoint Louis Farrakhan Secretary of the Interior and buy some leather fist-in-the-air gloves for Michelle.
I think the consensus is that not talking about Bristol Palin's "situation" is the right thing to do, so I'll bow out with this observation: Democrats constantly try to take the high road on this sort of issue. Republicans, at least the ones currently running the party, have no such qualms. It's all well and good to avoid lowering ourselves to their level, but we ought to be aware that doing so risks losing elections. Kerry's failure to go for the jugular in 2004, and Gore's failure to play hardball in 2000 have had real consequences, consequences far more severe than the humiliation of a 17 year old girl. Given that the girl in question is from a wealthy and well connected family, I'm sure she'd be able to get over a little bit of nastiness with little long term harm. The several thousand and quite possibly several hundred thousand who will die due to the policies of a McCain/Palin administration will no doubt understand the importance of taking the high road.
This is why liberals lose elections despite overwhelming support for liberal policies. We're a bunch of fucking weenies.
I'm hoping they'll mail leather fist-in-the-air gloves to everyone anonymously for the inauguration, like in V for Vendetta.
OK, then. Suppose someone asks Palin about abstinence-only. Are we allowed to smirk at least?
117: Eerie. Did you just read the same article I read?
The girl didn't do anything wrong, and we don't need to hurt her to win. It's not just weakness -- refusing to hurt innocent people for political advantage is just as much a matter of principle on an individual basis as it is when we're talking about frivolous military aggression.
This is what I just read. Palin: Objectively Pro-Teenage Pregnancy.
115: I think the consensus is that a seventeen year-old pregnant girl is much more sympathetic than Al Gore or John Kerry, and that the cost of an attack on such is likely to be much higher without nearly as much direct payoff. (She's not on the ticket after all.) And the consensus is right.
No, but I did see something else like that I think.
Like I said, clown show.
I think this is a "let them hang themselves with their own rope" situation. They're going to be frantically trying to spin it, but it's really an uphill battle for them.
One of the less-demented TV preachers sadly recognized that the sexual behavior of conservative Christians is about the same as everyone else's. And as I keep saying, I've known three different guys who cruised Christian groups for hott, clean, enthusiastic chicks.
You know what's going to goddamn happen? At a key moment, Sarah Palin is going to come out as a lesbian, and we'll have them mad at us too.
And as I keep saying, I've known three different guys who cruised Christian groups for hott, clean, enthusiastic chicks.
I don't think the various aliases you offer the young women count as separate people, Emerson.
really an uphill battle
Yeah, I do find it utterly mysterious that they got themselves into this position knowingly. I mean, I get that there's a significant risk that someone on the Democratic side will say something damagingly insensitive or cruel, but that seems like an very speculative political upside in the face of a serious, obvious, political downside.
Sarah Palin is going to come out as a lesbian
A lesbian who struggled for years and finally found her way to turn her back on sin a be a good wife and mother through the grace of jesuschristourlordandsaviour (TM) ?
She'll just say "The flesh is weak, but Jesus has forgiven" me and that will be that.
Y'all have seen the video of her as a sportscaster, right?
"I can't be sure I won't stumble again, but if I do, I know that God is Love".
I think this is a "let them hang themselves with their own rope" situation. They're going to be frantically trying to spin it, but it's really an uphill battle for them.
As I said a couple of days ago, you don't try a crazy trick play from a position of strength.
If I'm stuck here procrastinating at work on labor day, can we at least talk about something more interesting than more Palin rehash?
Yeah, it's a bad topic -- if we keep on circling it, someone's going to say something I won't want to be hosting.
If anyone needs to focus on kids and family but not talk about Palin, they can come over and take care of mine for a while. Maybe clean up the house, too.
What I really need to focus on is a deadline (tomorrow). Hence the (other) natural purpose of the internet.
122 - Talking about the concrete example of the failure of Palin's preferred policies as manifest in her own daughter is different from calling the daughter a slut. She's an unfortunate girl who got bad advice from her mother. It's the fact that the mother is giving bad advice and intends to impose that bad advice on the whole country that is relevant. There's no way to discuss the concrete bad results of Palin's policies without bringing the daughter into it at least by implication.
What's the highest percentage of Freecell wins people have? I guess >85% is supposed to be good, so I have a ways to go.
Well, if someone's bored they could go delete the troll comments in "RNC Protests".
If I'm stuck here procrastinating at work on labor day, can we at least talk about something more interesting than more Palin rehash?
I've just found out that it's a good idea to add a few (washed) eggs in their shells to the pot when one makes rice in the rice cooker. They come out perfectly hard-boiled, with no extra effort or expense.
138: So let it be by implication only, and absent pointing clues. That works for me.
can we at least talk about something more interesting than more Palin rehash?
I have already gotten a "hedonic adjustment" subthread going. And Charles Dawes.
and intends to impose that bad advice on the whole country
I don't think the OVP has much say over local school sex ed programs.
OH GOD CAN WE PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT WHY WE ARE FAILING TO NOT TALK ABOUT THINGS WE SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT TALK ABOUT AND WHY WE SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT TALK ABOUT THINGS WE SHOULD NOT TALK ABOUT
As Cheney has shown us, the VP is a mere figurehead.
As I mentioned, the supposedly terroristic buckets of urine were mere rebuses for Sarah Palin.
And Biden too, of course. Screw him. (These were anarchists, you know).
141: huh. I'll have to remember that. I assume you're washing just before use...
I got an idea for a movie about this high-school girl who gets pregnant. It'll be called Juneau.
[Flees]
141: huh. I'll have to remember that. I assume you're washing just before use...
Yes, I wouldn't want to put unwashed eggshells up against my tasty rice. I also wouldn't want to peel rice-y eggs, but I run them under cold water to cool them off at the end of the process anyhow.
44 and 45 are great. 50 and 53 are good too. Next Will Ferrell movie?
149: You should put dinosaurs in it.
Hedonic adjustments are an issue, but IIRC the big problems recently have been purported deflation in import statistics. The Big Picture had a post on this with useful graphs. (The biggest book-cooking is the birth/death numbers in the unemployment stats, which I think are not quite intentional cooking but instead a crazy decision undertaken well in advance of the downturn that makes reported unemployment absolutely useless.)
150: Yeah, gotcha. I just meant that washing eggs is a bad idea unless you are immediately using them, but can see why you would want to here. Does it change the taste at all ?
The demonstration in the Twin cities is heating up. There's a live feed here: http://www.theuptake.org/
Though as we know, reality "as it happens" is unintelligible.
More links here: http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2008/08/police_at_repub.htm
I think that some people at the demo are saying "Hi Mom" to the camera.
redfoxtailshrub: somehow half of that original comment/question was only in my head, apparently. I know some people wash eggs with a bit of vinegar in the water but wondered if you were just using water (and if not, if it affected the rice at all)
I just wipe the egg off right after it's laid.
134, 135: Something other than Palin? Well, there's this, in case you were feeling too cheerful or something.
I just meant that washing eggs is a bad idea unless you are immediately using them
It is?
OT ("Original Topic"): There were a series of Department of Labor regulations that require every employee of every union to file reams of paperwork as a responsibility to dues-paying members. While the Puck in me would ask for an equitable rule for employees of corporations out of respect to their shareholders, I'd be happy with repealing this regulation back to the only mildly onerous (yet still completely accessible) Clinton-era regulations.
Sir Kraab may be able to state this better. I haven't been a union organizer for many years.
160: Yes. At least, beyond a wipe with damp cloth. Too much friction or soap/solvents can destroy a natural coating and they'll spoil faster (also more susceptable to salmonella iirc). Also, heat is bad (same reason). They're permeable so soaps probably aren't a good idea even just before use.
Too much friction or soap/solvents can destroy a natural coating and they'll spoil faster
Ok, this was from memory and thinking about it makes me wonder if it's bullshit. I poked around a little bit, and what really seems to be going on is that you have a porous surface with a lot of bacteria on it (in the dirt/crap/whatever) and if you don't wash them very carefully you'll facilitate transition inside the shell. Dry eggs are pretty resistant. Problem with soaps etc is they can get inside too.
As i understand it a lot of commercial cleaning is done by friction (e.g. sanding lightly) to avoid trouble with wetting the eggs.
Obama gives an unambiguous and emphatic statement on not talking about what we are not talking about.
"I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us," he said. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I thought there was somebody in my campaign who was involved in something like that, they would be fired."
JP - I think we're allowed to talk about the fake story. The real story is forbidden :-)
BTW, did everyone just get Barack's txt about txt-ing "GIVE" to a certain # in order to donate $5 to the Red Cross? I did it. One then wonders if the resulting news story about the all the money given is positive or negative.
160+ comments and no one's mentioned this? Sexists.
Of course, it's not *yet* enshrined in Health and Human Services' policy that contraception is equivalent to abortion, but we all know that whatever comments that come out of the 30-day comment period will be ignored and that this will become poicy anyway. But Obama's second cabinet appointee (after the new head of the Department of Homeland Security) should be the new head of HHS, whose first act should be to roll this back.
Good lord! McCain is utterly shameless. And the media are quite actively assisting him.
Shame isn't a winning quality for national level politicians here, MC.
Utterly, utterly OT, but has Megan requested that people don't discuss posts on her new blog? I know they disabled comments for a reason, but I was just reading this post and I would be interested in other people's opinion. Particularly on the second half of the post.
I saw that story last night, MC. And at first it made me crazy. But it's bullshit. The scuttling of the Republican convention is a huge blow for McCain. How huge? Well, he needed this time to tear down Obama and introduce the nation to Sarah Palin. The former, the hatchet job, was much more important than the latter. Instead, the nation gets stories of a teen pregnancy -- which is none of our business, I think -- and reminders of Katrina. Bad news for McCain, no matter how hard he tries to transfigure peril into opportunity.
NickS: I just put "The Disciplined Mind", recommended by Megan, on my "to buy" list.
But Giuliani's keynote is still on, yes? That will be the main "rip Obama to shreds" campus.*
That asterisk is, apparently, decorative.
169 - They absolutely have to nail the handling of Gustav. Every effort will be made to spin anything that happens in the most positive light possible. Not only is it a reminder of Katrina, but the new Governor of LA is Jindal, one of the major up-and-comers of the GOP. Bolloxing up Gustav would be a disaster not just ofr the McCain campaign but also for Jindal, who will almost certainly make a run for the presidency somewhere down the line.
Particularly on the second half of the post.
On a quick read, it sounds about right.
"I thought that McCain went down to NOLA and did nothing useful in a very masterful, decisive way, and you'll notice it wasn't as fucked up as last time -- only Category 2 this time! I'm going to vote for him!"
The clown show aspect of American politics is bothering me more than usual today.
The girl didn't do anything wrong, and we don't need to hurt her to win.
Moreover, by what Palin believes, the girl is doing the right thing. It's not as if Christian kids never have sex, or end up with babies. The script from there is a) don't abort and b) get married or c) adopt. Bristol's now a Girl Who Made A Mistake But Who Is Taking Responsibility. Palin is the Supportive Mother Whose Daughter Could Trust Her.
What would the Obama campaign say? The most they can do is raise an eyebrow the next time the rightwing goes on about how well abstinence education works. Half an eyebrow, maybe.
I hope you're right, Ari. It's just bizarre how the campaign reports to the media on its strategy to manipulate the media, and the media then feeds this manipulation of itself to the public as the actual story. I just worry that, at the end of the day, what the TV viewer is going to get is: "John McCain looks presidential, does good job handling hurricanes."
But it's true: the scaling back of the convention is pretty bad for them.
But Giuliani's keynote is still on, yes? That will be the main "rip Obama to shreds" campus.*
I suspect that Gustav will force Rudy to shift the focus of his speech from Obama-bashing to the importance of conservative values and service in managing major tragedies and disasters. I can't recall offhead if Giuliani has had any personal experience in dealing with such situations, though.
I can't recall offhead if Giuliani has had any personal experience in dealing with such situations, though.
Heh.
Giuliani will lecture the incompetent NOians on how the control center and emergency supplies for these sorts of disasters should be housed directly beneath one of the levees, instead of in some boring out-of-the-way place.
I don't care what anyone says, from here on out anytime anyone talks about abstinence-only sex education I'm going to mention Ms. Palin.
Abstinence only is great if you expect your kids to get married at 16 or 18 and get jobs driving truck. But people who do that often have difficult lives. I know quite a few people who made it work, but they were mostly born before the Eisenhower adminstration.
how the control center and emergency supplies for these sorts of disasters should be housed directly beneath one of the levees
with mongrammed towels, sweet shag carpeting, and a circular bed.
Better Palin bashing
"Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska's coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.
From Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund
I don't care what anyone says, from here on out anytime anyone talks about abstinence-only sex education I'm going to mention Ms. Palin.
You can, but Obama is rightly distancing himself from this. (And I suspect that it's Palin's Republican enemies in Alaska, rather than Democrats, who have been fanning the rumors.)
The only way Obama can use Bristol Palin as an example is by inference -- if he talks about unplanned pregnancies at all, he should contrast women who do have family support with those who don't, in a context of how government is failing families. Any parallels to pro-life candidates' pregnant teenage daughters should be left as an exercise for the reader.
New Orleans floods pretty regularly. This looks like another bad flood: worse than most, not as bad as some. That's it. Were the breathless media not poised to report the next Katrina, Gustav would have received almost no coverage at all.
And so, inasmuch as the storm is an opportunity to remember the failed policies that brought us Katrina in the first place, and the broken promises in its wake that have made another disaster like that one an ongoing possibility, column inches devoted to Gustav are a good thing. Inasmuch as John McCain has tried to transfigure this hurricane into a photo-op, and the press is abetting his efforts, the whole story is filthy and an insult to the memories of those who died in Katrina and the ongoing travails of the millions of people who are still struggling to rebuild their lives three years later.
I'm starting to think that the moral of the Palin story is "Live by PR, Die by PR". Politicians in general have learned that you can win almost entirely with spin and impression-management, and Republicans have been especially masterful at this. But the people who were promoting Palin within the Republican Party succeeded in spinning the McCain team.
Same way with graft, slush, and pork -- the Republicans had a lot of success ripping off the general public and passing out goodies to their supporters, but now some of them (Abramoff, Ralph Reed, et al) are really ripping off the Republican Party.
The only way Obama can use Bristol Palin as an example is by inference
Very dangerous territory, a little too close to Cheney's lesbian daughter stuff. They've picked someone whose life makes anything Obama/Biden says sound like a personal attack. The disabled, abortion, blue collar workers, soldiers in Iraq, women's rights, etc. They can call almost any of O/B's policy issues a veiled attack on Palin. It's a Hail Mary but a super-obnoxious one.
189: I hope you're right about the severity. If there were levee failures I'm not sure we'd have heard by no.
One of the advantages about not being Obama is not having to treat Palin with kid gloves. She's likes lots and lots of others, and since I don't need their votes I don't have to worry about making them feel bad or about their getting their revenge.
What a pious, self-serving, mealy-mouthed, blind, destructive, happy-face, finger-pointing bitch!
Any parallels to pro-life candidates' pregnant teenage daughters should be left as an exercise for the reader.
Perfect. I was trying to figure out how to say that and couldn't.
John Emerson is the very face of the left today. I anticipate many appearances on FOX News shows, billed as a "strategist".
171, 178: I'm pretty sure Megan's cool with having her blog linked to and discussed -- I don't think not having comments was to avoid discussion of the posts.
And yes, that was an interesting post. I'm not sure what to do with it, but it's interesting. I guess, from the people I know, it doesn't look that hard, but there's something to what she's saying.
They've picked someone whose life makes anything Obama/Biden says sound like a personal attack.
True, but you know that they were going to put spin on *anything* coming out of the Obama camp. At least now he can say, "We had nothing to do with the story and dragging a 17-year old's personal decisions into this is reprehensible, and I've said so before. Now, let's talk about the burden that restricting abortion places on young women who are much less fortunate."
Considering that most of the gossip about the Palin family's fertility situation is old news that came originally from Republicans even more conservative than Palin, I don't think that we need to be quite this skittish.
what i thought
what if the Palin's side wins it'd mean that the general public, the voting masses, has learned to be tolerant, support women etc.
i mean as if the basic progressive values were working in the practice, no?
just if to suppose that the anti-abortion, denying global warming, what was else, not mandatory teaching of creationism alongside evolution etc beliefs were considered just personal like apolitic beliefs
That would be tragic, if general acceptance of progressive values leads to the election of people who think the country needs far less progressive values.
And now Dexter Clark of the Alaskan Independence Party is claiming that Palin used to be a member. Oh mercy.
I think not enough is being made of Palin's Alaska-first agenda, for sure. Before accepting the nomination, all the interviews with her say that she's only interested in national politics insofar as it would allow her to do more good for Alaska. That's a pretty damn clear statement of her interest in pork and pork alone.
what if the Palin's side wins it'd mean that the general public, the voting masses, has learned to be tolerant, support women etc.
Except that if Palin's side wins it'd mean that the voting masses think that the state should exert control over a woman's body at the moment of an embryo's conception, which is not a progressive value.
you missed the second part of what i said
if to suppose that the abortion issue is not a political issue, but something like religion, just a personal belief, preference and is not to be imposed on others
171, 178, 196 - Oh no, NickS. I haven't made any request like that. My reason for not wanting comments was to manage my addiction to my blog. I figured that without frequent feedback, I'd get less drawn into it.
I still want to say things that other people find interesting enough to chat about.
Yes, if we imagined that all of Palin's politics were irrelevant, then her politics would not be a problem.
But the whole idea, read, is that it's a belief that is to be imposed on others, and it's not possible to suppose that it's not a political issue. Am I misunderstanding you?
174 - Yay, Emerson! I have For the Common Good right here on my shelf, on your very good recommendation.
Before accepting the nomination, all the interviews with her say that she's only interested in national politics insofar as it would allow her to do more good for Alaska.
Although I could see it making for a fascinatingly weird administration if she ended up President. Imagine four years where every decision was made through the lens of "What's best for Alaska?" It'd be like the Monty Python Parrot News.
it's a belief that is to be imposed on others,
i think it is not, one does not need to force one's beliefs on others, for example, religious beliefs
it's not possible to suppose that it's not a political issue
really? that's strange, abortion, evolution i think could be a matter of education, of personal choice
again like religious beliefs
and the state can try to regulate those through education again, not legislation imo
210: personal choice
Read -- the position you describe, of leaving religious views, on abortion or otherwise, up to the individual is the liberal view, which is why the shorthand name for the liberal view on abortion rights is "pro-choice". No one on the left is interested, one way or the other, on Palin's personal views on abortion for herself -- the only concern is on what laws she would like to pass to constrain the actions of other people.
Also, in the US the state is not supposed to regulate religious beliefs through education, either. (Non-state entities are welcome to do so.)
what laws she would like to pass to constrain the actions of other people.
i meant why the laws on that matters are needed in the first place, the less the state intrudes trying to regulate those issues the better
thanks for the lecture on the liberalism btw
I'm referring to this:
again like religious beliefs
and the state can try to regulate those through education again, not legislation imo
Whether in the schools or elsewhere, the state is not supposed to promote religious beliefs.
i meant why the laws on that matters are needed in the first place, the less the state intrudes trying to regulate those issues the better
This is a fine view, but it is certainly not Palin's.
read, you can't support Palin if you think that views on abortion should be private (unless you support her for other reasons). Palin is *against* that.
So far that vile an unsourced dkos diary has been a vasty successful ratfuck. Cable news is Gustav and Bristol, Gustav and Bristol. No sign of John McCain, no sign of the convention.
217: I have decided that "vasty" is not a typo, Ã la "vasty main."
I can call spirits from the vasty deep, you know.
God, I fucking hate kittens. That's the one thing that unites me and Dick Cheney.
It's not the kitten's fault. Can we please not talk about this?
Why would Dick Cheney hate the adorable mewling fuzzballs that give him sustenance as he gnashes upon their bones?
Why should he make an exception for kittens?
221, 222: NY Times breaking:
"The despicable kitten smears that have been spread by liberal blogs, some even with Barack Obama's name in them, is a real anchor around the Democratic ticket, pulling them down in the mud in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change,'" a senior aide said.
If I join the Ron Paul party can I say horrible things about Palin?
On topic: Obama already looks set to rescind this executive order on card check, which hasn't even been made yet.
Anyway, I'm not sure even Dick Cheney himself could bite the head off this kitten.
225:
Mr. Obama said the kitte's adorableness "has no relevance to its performance as a house pet or its potential performance as a companion animal." He added that, "my mother had me when she was a kitten. How a family deals with issues and kittens - that shouldn't be the topic of our politics."
Mittens' mittens, made of kittens, are what cost him a chance at the VP.
The Obama campaign needs to show the American people that they respect girl kittens as much as black kittens.
I'm just gonna throw my hands in the air and yell, "Kitties! Hooray!"
I can call spirits from the vasty deep, you know.
But do they answer when you call them?
But do they answer when you call them?
They say "For English, Press One."
Meanwhile, back on the veldt....
"For languages unheard by human ear as they were last spoken by the strange and fetid beasts of the lost city of Ia, please stay on the line. A representative will eat you shortly. [whistle of yog-shaggahoth-calling flutes]"
233, linking to that thread is not going to help us desexualize the word Bristol.
237: It's the golden age of this kind of research. There are a thousands of outcomes with dozens of ways to measure them. There are twenty thousand genes with lots of combinatorial possibilities for their expression. And there are, still, p
Emerson's called-for spirits have gotten to Gonerill. This is a warning to us all.
It's confirmed: Sarah Palin was in 1994 a member of the Alaska Independence Party, which supports the secession of Alaska from the country that John McCain puts first.
238: And this is the hold music.
237 - FTA: In the kind of experiments that cannot be replicated in humans, Young and others also showed that manipulating vasopressin receptors in vole brains can turn loner voles into devoted partners and fathers, and vice versa.
Cowards. If immoral scientific experiments are outlawed only outlaws will conduct immoral scientific experiments.
"Do you want this man to treat the big red button the way he treated his vice-presidential pick?"
246: You mean stand there staring at its ass?
242 - clearly you lack the gene for HTML skillz.
I'm worried about the "big, blowhard doofus" charge. If Rove has evidence I think we're in trouble.
Maybe he made the pick while under the influence of Ambien!
From the link in 243:
The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law."
Hey, at least they value the UN and international law.
McCAIN/PALIN 2008: I AM SERIOUS, AND STOP CALLING ME SHIRLEY
McCain: Actually, I rather like football.
At some point we have to seriously consider the possibility that a certain beloved Presidential candidate whose name rhymes with Svetlana really is the anti-Christ. With the latest revelation Palin is already 80 percent of the way to Eagleton territory, and my SO tells me that on her baby-mama sites everyone is already swooning over Obama's statement declaring Palin's daughter off-limits.
"After a brief period of bliss, the brilliant recombinant DNA researcher's seminal auto-experiment ended tragically when his vole-wife of two years died of old age."
254: Baby mama? That sounds anti-family values to me.
250: McCain + Ambien: Declare war on big hat nice hot soup?
251: The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law."
See, she does too have international experience.
Alaskans are fucking crazy, all of them, worse than Texans.
Best line I've seen so far on the off-limits story: the wedding will be performed by Dick Cheney.
256: I didn't see the McCain quote, but I did see this:
Illinois psychiatrist Bennett Braun is under investigation for convincing patient Patricia Burgus that she had three hundred personalities and a habit of making meat loaf out of human flesh. "I realized there was no way I could be eating two thousand people a year," said Burgus.
John McCain would make a fine President of the People's Republic of Alaska.
"I realized there was no way I could be eating two thousand people a year; I don't even look like Dick Cheney," said Burgus.
That would only be 3 /13 people per personality per year.
Sometimes I think that there's a lack of quality control in some of the mental fields.
I just got a twice-forwarded email from an acquaintance of Palin assuring her friends that, since Palin is governor of Alaska, and Alaska is close to both Canada and Russia, she's "had to deal with them as well."
How come I have to go to the James Howard Kunstler website to see this picture?
(scroll down ~1 page)
Lost his license for two years, plus five years probation. He'll have trouble practicing in Illinois. There are two other mental-type professionals under investigation in the case.
264: Similarly, I understand Rick Perry is good friends with Vicente Fox.
How come I have to go to the James Howard Kunstler website to see this picture?
Because it's a photoshop job?
but still, it seems odd that of all the bizarre website discussions of her, it is only found there. Kunstler is not a man who actually creates photoshops.
but still, it seems odd that of all the bizarre website discussions of her, it is only found there. Kunstler is not a man who actually creates photoshops.
I saw it earlier today linked from somewhere - maybe a Balloon Juice comment?
The fact that she didn't take off her glasses proves she some sort of bookish intellectual.
272
I'm a sucker for librarians. my favorite archetype.
Were the breathless media not poised to report the next Katrina, Gustav would have received almost no coverage at all.
Oh, come on. There was a category four hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast. This is a rare case in which you can't claim the media for making a big deal out of nothing.
WE DON'T CHOOSE OUR EYEWEAR BECAUSE OF ITS SEX APPEAL, YOU SEXISTS. IT'S PURELY FUNCTIONAL.
On topic: Obama already looks set to rescind this executive order on card check, which hasn't even been made yet.
No question he will. And then, assuming we have a filibuster-proof Senate, the Employee Free Choice Act will pass and then corporations will refuse to follow it and will sue for years and years.
Am I the only one who can only see Mrs. Palin as Dr. Melfi? "If you want to truly understand your trade deficit, you have to identify root causes . . ."
It's a lot more convincing than this photoshop anyway.
Sorry to cause momentary confusion. I ban myself
279 ... inflections change through time. women have been the water bearers, the temple tenders of the fire, and through Sophia the steward of all wisdom. before the feminine role as Priestess was finally abolished around 500, women were very clearly the stewards of knowledge of this world and those beyond. the castle and the tower as well as the grail are symbols and archetypes of the feminine. a woman standing in front of a castle library is the very personification of this archetype.
women have been the water bearers, the temple tenders of the fire
Spills always a danger.
I've decided that McCain did vet Palin, and picked her because there are so many things that would normally disqualify her from the ticket that it's impossible to focus on any one (Troopergate? AIP? Family issues highlighting extreme pro-life position? No experience? Creationist? Global warming denialist? For pork before she was against it? Worked for Ted Stevens and Pat Buchanan- are you fucking kidding me?) and therefore no one will know there's actually anything negative about her. That's change we can believe in!
This was sort of the way the Bush administration worked- have so many scandals at once that something that would be shocking under another president is ho-hum.
282: so he created preëptive VP inappropriateness fatigue? That's some kind of genius right there.
Include additional "m" where appropriate.
Hey. I like Pat Buchanan. At least he's honest.
He has an awful squeaky voice for a Nazi though.
Am I the only one who can only see Mrs. Palin as Dr. Melfi?
I can only see her as Tina Fey in the comedy version of this election. I can't wait for the SNL sketch.
Tucker Carlson's take on Palin in his interview with TPM is that McCain knows he's going to lose and thought, like, uh, why the fuck not?
The more I see of Palin, the more I think she's a great character, great story, but a disaster as a VP pick. Even when she's working she does it by undermining McCain's whole narrative as the mature, seasoned, thoughtful guy -- which clearly he didn't want to be at some level.
Also, I'm in agreement with 1. Free speech zones were widespread at the end of the Clinton years. The war protests were subject to much less repression than the trade protests, because they were much more popular.
I also think Palin looks like Tina Fey. I can't wait to see what 30 Rock does with this election.
The fact that 289 is meant as a thoughtful, serious comment about a situation that has already degenerated into total farce makes it particularly funny.
This quote back at comment 252 is the definitive statement about the situation. Honestly, there's nothing more to be said about the McCain campaign:
McCAIN/PALIN 2008: I AM SERIOUS, AND STOP CALLING ME SHIRLEY
Tina Fey is also a long-admitted John McCain fan.
293: She made the highly prescient joke in the fall of 2007 that she "would tell all her friends she's voting for Obama but secretly vote for McCain.
Total farce? I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, Walt.
News of teen pregnancy sends evangelicals 'over the moon'.
294: Wasn't it her 30 Rock character Liz Lemon who made that joke?
I'm worried now that McCain and Palin will shrewdly make a play for the massive pitiful fuckup demographic, which when combined with the crazification 27% will easily be enough to win the election.
Wow, MC, the full Norquist quote in that article is beyond parody.
"Before, they were excited about her, with the Down syndrome baby," conservative, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said. "But now with this, they are over the moon. It reinforces the fact that this family lives its pro-life values."
295: that link is great. The whole thing is the born--again winger version of a weepy Oprah episode. The campaign is morphing from celebrity vs. seasoned veteran to dueling celebrities.
Mrh, I can't help wondering if this will become a new informal requirement of GOP candidates. Another of those intangible factors to consider during the vetting process, say (assuming they still have a vetting process). 'Sure, Candidate X served 10 years in the state legislature, and currently enjoys high approval ratings as state governor, but does he have any unmarried daughters between the ages of 16 and 25 who might be willing to show the family living its family values?'
I heard Halperin on NPR tonight, trashing McC for the Palin pick. Losing Halperin, if he's done it, is pretty serious stuff.
Rock and roll came to us from the charismatics, you know.
The Nation says: Ultra-Secretive Right-Wing Group Met In Minn. To Vet Palin
Dobson, has yearned for a conservative female leader like Margaret Thatcher to emerge on the American scene. And while Palin is no Thatcher, "she has not rejected the feminine side of who she is, so for that reason, she will be attractive to conservative voters."
Ick.
It's too bad Roman Hruska isn't alive to help make the case.
born--again winger version of a weepy Oprah episode
So excellent!
217 is a good point.
297 is very funny, unfortunately also a good point.
I can't believe we might need a trillion dollar plus bailout of Fannie and Freddie but all we're hearing about is this baby stuff. Politics is totally surreal.
None of the pollsters systematically poll the pitiful fuckups as such, because they're afraid of what they'll find.
297: I'm worried now that McCain and Palin will shrewdly make a play for the massive pitiful fuckup demographic
I think that's about it. Though I eschew your language there, John.
None of the pollsters systematically poll the pitiful fuckups as such
The initial screening question for identifying the population is very tricky to phrase correctly.
274: It was a Cat 2 storm when it hit land, there will be few or no fatalities in New Orleans, and the city floods all the time. Do you know how many Cat 2 hurricanes have hit the Gulf Coast in the last thirty years? Me neither. But it's a lot. So yeah, there would have been some coverage, but please, you can't really be arguing that the media wasn't breathless, just hoping/waiting for another Katrina. Did you watch Cable news last night? I did. It was a sick joke.
310:
How strongly do you agree with this statement?
"You don't know me. Only God can judge me. You don't know what I've gone through, so mind your own business."
A) Strongly agree
B) Agree
C) Meh
D) Disagree
E) Strongly disagree
Did people see Obama pointing out that his mother was 18 when she had him?
who might be willing to show the family living its family values
Oof, worst euphemism ever.
311: It's clear that the source of our disagreement is that I don't live in the real world. I don't (even) have cable, which saves my sanity, but also means I have a very different media experience from most people. I was really talking about the last week or so, when it was still cat 4 and a real hit on N.O. looked possible and I was reading worried but non-hysterical news. I wasn't thinking about CNN et al.
Now that I realize you're still in the category of People On Unfogged Who Are Usually Worth Listening To, do you think the mandatory evacuation was warranted?
So yeah, there would have been some coverage, but please, you can't really be arguing that the media wasn't breathless, just hoping/waiting for another Katrina.
So, this was the first hurricane since Katrina that was predicted by all prediction authorities to be comparable to Katrina, and it was the first hurricane since Katrina to inspire the governments to mandate evacuation of New Orleans, and consequently it was the first hurricane since Katrina to garner major media anticipation. What would you want the media to do? I fail to see what the problem is.
Whatever you say about Ari, he was completely heebie about Gustav.
But also what Satan Mayo said, with the huge caveat that I don't even watch network news on teevee. If that form of elitism is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
Now that I realize you're still in the category of People On Unfogged Who Are Usually Worth Listening To
Now, now, Sir Kraab...we're *all* worth listening to. Each in our own special way.
317: People On Unfogged Who Are Usually Worth Listening To About Extreme Weather Patterns
319: I'm afraid I'm not nearly that generously nature.
(Although I suppose if I were really ungenerous, I would have pretended I didn't read your post. Some small spark of humanity remains.)
Did people see Obama pointing out that his mother was 18 when she had him?
See it? We've already adducing it as evidence of the larger pattern.
315, 316: No, the mandatory evacuation was the right thing to do. It was a scary storm, with the architecture, as recently as three days ago, of an even scarier storm. It's eye wall, apparently, was nearly perfect, which portends Very Bad Things. My gripe is with the coverage of the last 24 hours, when it became obvious that the city had been nearly entirely evacuated, when it became obvious that the storm was not tracking at all like Katrina, when it became obvious to anyone paying attention and with a modicum of on-the-ground knowledge, that this wasn't going to be a super-super-storm. Even after all that happened, the nets and cable and the GOP kept flogging the story. Why? Because they were there, they could make a buck, or they could burnish their battered reputation.
It was a Cat 2 storm when it hit land, there will be few or no fatalities in New Orleans, and the city floods all the time.
Well, let's see if Hanna continues her indecisiveness, and say a big hello to Ike!
Do you know how many Cat 2 hurricanes have hit the Gulf Coast in the last thirty years? Me neither. But it's a lot.
Shit, now you've gone and got me interested in the question.
max
['Bastard.']
Whatever you say about Ari, he was completely heebie
Will the antisemitism never stop?
What in the hell is Cindy McCain wearing?
It would be bad enough on its own, but the contrast with Laura Bush's elegance is something else.
328: There's a "white-collar" joke in there that I'm incapable of crafting at present.
The weird part is the collar. combined with the tight hairdo, this was the first comparison that came to mind. But in summer colors instead.
Looks like she was just reporting live from out in the storm.
328-thru-331,
I thought Maureen Dowd's job was making fun of what women wear ...
328: It has a '60s sci-fi look to me. Maybe she's an alien, McCain certainly moves and talks like one. It fits them.
"We are not from your planet. We did not wish to harm you. Give us all of your hydrocarbons and beer. Surely you can spare these."
</alien monotone>
217: You say ratfuck, I say honeypot (or at least it is being used retroactively as one by right-wing gasbags on the TV).
But Giuliani's keynote is still on, yes?
Apparently not - tonight's featured speakers are now Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman. Feel the excitement!
335: Based on the reports of McCain's having been talked down from selecting Lieberman, you have to wonder how Joe is feeling about his Repub BFFs right now. But I'm sure he'll be able forge ahead with something truly hacktacular. Character always wins out in the end.
334: yes well, when life gives you a swarm of angry bees, make honey. Or anyhow attempt to, until your airway closes.
Adam Nagourney in the NYT with a dispatch from the Irony Free Zone: Mr. McCain's campaign, which has shown itself adept at handling the news media ...[emphasis added]
Brooks actually has a decent column today. I thought this was particularly true:
The Palin pick allows McCain to run the way he wants to -- not as the old goat running against the fresh upstart, but as the crusader for virtue against the forces of selfishness.
I like both McCain and Palin personally. I think they should get a TV series after they lose the election, a new "Northern Exposure". McCain is the gruff vet down at the VFW post and Palin is the mayor. They get lost during a snowmobile race and end up invading Russia. It totally works.
I mean, I like their bios and media images. I don't know them personally.
"Good" in the sense of "even loopier and more tendentious than usual".
[S]he seems to get up in the morning to root out corruption.
This is exactly right. Brooks is putting a good face on it, but the proportion of truths to reiterated illusions there is pretty low.
"Good" "Decent" in the sense of "even loopier and more tendentious than usual".
A gem from the Brooks column:
He needs a near-equal who can turn his instincts, which are great, into a doctrine that everybody else can predict and understand.
My image is the loopy old mumbling king in The Princess Bride.
Nobody expects the McCain Doctrine!
Get down with McCain Doctrine Overdrive! Takin' care of business with a bombastic Canadian twist on rockin' hits of the past. You ain't seen nothin' yet!
you have to wonder how Joe is feeling about his Repub BFFs right now
Didn't somebody here indicate that Karl Rove told Lieberman to turn down the VP spot preëmptively? Was that a joke? Have I not had enough coffee today?
Joe would've been a disastrous VP pick - as bad as Palin, if for a different set of reasons.
Now THIS is funny -- from the New York Post , quoting from Bristol Palin's boyfriend:
On a MySpace page subsequently taken down, Johnston boasts, "I'm a f - - -in' redneck" who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes."But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- - - and just f - - -in' chillin' I guess."
"Ya f - - - with me I'll kick [your] ass," he added.
He also claims to be "in a relationship," but states, "I don't want kids."
Now THIS is funny -- from the New York Post , quoting from Bristol Palin's boyfriend:
On a MySpace page subsequently taken down, Johnston boasts, "I'm a f - - -in' redneck" who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes."But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- - - and just f - - -in' chillin' I guess."
"Ya f - - - with me I'll kick [your] ass," he added.
He also claims to be "in a relationship," but states, "I don't want kids."
350 is amazing. Having a 17-year-old daughter in an abusive marriage will play even better with the traditional family values aficionados. It's a shame they allowed her to be photographed wearing makeup and short sleeves, though.
The fuckin hick in question. This is probably an often-stated point, but the whole Palin family is reminding me that natalist politicians must not actually speak to their children.
Oh, come on. He's a 17 year old boy -- because his MySpace page talks about kicking ass doesn't mean anything about domestic violence. Cut the kids some slack, at least here -- I don't want to be ashamed of our comments section.
"Relationship". Need I say more?
Palin is the Religious Right's handpicked candidate. She was forced on McCain against his will after they'd vetoed Ridge and Lieberman. At long last will this destroy their credibility? Bloody-minded Armageddon superstition didn't do it, anti-evolutionism didn't do it, homophobia didn't do it, abstinence-only didn't do it, but maybe trashing the Republican party with rogue uteruses will do it.
I don't want to be ashamed of our comments section.
I have bad news.
PGD, I think it's reprehensible to mock young people caught in a difficult situation, and I plan to denounce it every time I see it.
And when I don't see it, I plan to bring it up so I can denounce it.
No, it's not abusive, it's just standard teen braggadocio. That page isn't sinister, it's just hilarious. Does that guy sound ready for marriage to you? This is exactly why people think it's a bad idea to get pregnant in HS.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the Palin family at all, it's just that the pileup of soap opera elements here is (properly) going to have a big effect on the election. Having a wildly inexperienced person trying to learn all she needs to know (everything) while dealing with all this family stuff is just a hilarious image. Hollywood couldn't write a better script for a screwball comedy.
347: Not a joke. Rove was right, of course.
I think it's absolutely correct that we must not imply that the 17 year old, beer drinkin', hockey playin', fuckin' redneck boyfriend of the pregnant 16-year-old daughter of the unvetted vice presidential pick of the eminently wise and un-demented John McCain might ever be anything other than an ideal husband to his high school aged bride, assuming that he's actually agreed to get married to her.
I was mostly talking to Satan -- bringing up the father isn't so bad, it was the random accusation of domestic violence that bothered me.
I was thinking more of the "I don't want kids" statement. But since I felt bad about posting it, I shouldn't have posted it.
Can we carve out some distinctions here, lest humor disappear from this site altogether as a result of this weird self-aggrandizing effort to pre-emptively keep Barack Obama from having to deject and denounce us on ABC? Making fun of hicks is okay; implying that they will beat their wives is probably not.
he's actually agreed to get married to her.
This, I've been fascinated by. No judgment on the teenagers either way, but given the sequence of events I find it hard to believe that there's been a thoughtful buy-in from the father and his family. If not, Palin's announcement that they're getting married is going to look awfully weird.
Even in Wobegonia there are people who would have certain doubts about Ms. Palin. Eastern elitists need not bend too far over backwards.
My sister-in-law informs me that when she was in high school, the Pat Robertson homophobe lady who feuded with my mom at church council meetings was a famous slut. My mom was very forgiving of her, but not everyone in town is like my mom that way. Same for Alaska -- she seems to have lots of enemies there.
364, If everyone in America was like your mom, what would the country be like?
363: Alaska has shotguns, not thoughtful buy-ins.
362: That sort of distinction is perfectly reasonable, and I'm totally on board with PGD's 357 -- it's a terribly funny situation. I'd just rather not be wincing at cruel things said about a couple of teenagers who shouldn't be stuck on the front pages nationwide.
Destroyer is absolutely correct that to imply that domestic violence might be prevalent among heavily armed, hard-drinking, militia-loving cultish fringe secessionists such as current Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, her pregnant, unmarried sixteen-year-old daughter, or her pregnant, unmarried sixteen-year-old daughter's "redneck" boyfriend. That would be wrong.
365: Sexually satisfied, I guess. Oh wait, you mean Emerson's mom?
I was mostly talking to Satan
Be wary of any too-good-to-be true deals he offers.
You know, though, I would really, truly prefer to have Sara Palin as VP to having Joe Leiberman. Leiberman's a neocon nut who believes in the Permanent Emergency/WWIII theory of international relations and can't wait to bomb Iran. Palin isn't any of that. I think that's one reason I like her so much -- before my eyes the election is transforming from grim militarist showdown to cheerful domestic farce.
togolosh,
122 - Talking about the concrete example of the failure of Palin's preferred policies as manifest in her own daughter is different from calling the daughter a slut. She's an unfortunate girl who got bad advice from her mother. It's the fact that the mother is giving bad advice and intends to impose that bad advice on the whole country that is relevant. There's no way to discuss the concrete bad results of Palin's policies without bringing the daughter into it at least by implication.
Exactly. I saw the GOP talking heads just last night trying to say this situation actually helps Palin's case for abstinence only because now she is facing the consequences of a teen pregnancy. I wanted to pull my hair out.
Advocate a policy that does not work and then use the fact that it does not work to show how important it is?!
Obviously the point of dispute is not that there are cases of unwanted teen pregnancy. The point of dispute is whether abstinence-only helps prevent unwanted teen pregnancy and that point shouldn't even be in dispute.
370: I was actually considering a "Retro me, Satanas Mayo," there, but decided it would sound overwrought.
Palin isn't any of that.
For me, the weird subtext of all of this "experience" talk and "hearbeat-away" worry is that I'm pretty sure I'd support Palin for the presidency over McCain, on the theory that whatever random opinions she holds, she's bound to have more sense than McCain.
cruel things said about a couple of teenagers who shouldn't be stuck on the front pages nationwide
Acknowledged: this *should* be a private matter and doesn't reflect well or badly on Palin's qualifications for office; people's kids get in trouble all the time, from parents of all stripes. However, I do think that if my daughter were in this situation, I would have turned down the VP nomination in order to spare her the inevitably harsh and intrusive spotlight. But, y'know, not my decision to make.
I don't mean this question to be trollish, I just haven't read the news: is it clear that this is, in fact, an "unwanted teen pregnancy", or is the first word being inferred from the latter two?
Palin isn't any of that.
How do you know? I'm not sure Palin knows what her foreign policy philosophy is.
"unwanted teen pregnancy"
You mean unplanned?
Palin isn't any of that.
Assumes facts not in evidence. I haven't seen anything regarding her foreign policy beliefs, or even any indication that they exist, but I'm not willing to give her a free pass until I do see them.
Be wary of any too-good-to-be true deals he offers.
Speaking of "thoughtful buy-ins", I wonder if I could interest you in certain fulfillments of certain desires, and all you would consider giving up are certain theoretical concepts representing a debunked notion of the mind-body duality...
379: true enough. But Lieberman already knows his foreign policy, and we know it's awful.
I just mean that it's far too taboo for anyone conservative not to instantly love the lil' pile of cells. There would never be any second-guessing the wanting and loving, I'd think.
378: Brock, I think that the media are willing to give Bristol the benefit of the doubt on this. The suggestion that she intentionally got pregnant is, I think, more damaging than the idea that it was a mistake.
If 380 was to me, I was quoting 373. If 380 was to 373, semi-pwned.
378: Mostly inference, although the father's MySpace page did have that line about not wanting kids.
But I can't come up with a "wanted teen pregnancy" story for a Governor's kid that involves still having it secret at five months. Maybe, but I'd think the family would either have announced wedding or non-wedding plans by this point unless they were scrambling to figure things out.
Or, if you're drawing the distinction between "unwanted" and "unintentional", it seems very unlikely to me that it was intentional. How Bristol and Levi are feeling about it now in terms of 'wanting', who knows?
379: her policy on US-Alaska relations calls for a cautious approach, while recognizing that the US remains a major trading partner for the nation of Alaska's valuably despoilable natural resources.
Her Russia policy calls for a new spirit of coöperation, as the once-unified territories work together to set mutually beneficial prices for oil.
Her Canada policy calls for cutting them the fuck out of any pipeline money.
What more could you possibly need to know?
But I can't come up with a "wanted teen pregnancy" story for a Governor's kid that involves still having it secret at five months. Maybe, but I'd think the family would either have announced wedding or non-wedding plans by this point unless they were scrambling to figure things out.
This seems like a fair point. (I really haven't been following the news at all this weekend.)
The biggest shock of all -- it may be that she wasn't Miss Congeniality after all, someone else steps up and claims to have held that title in the year in question.
So, incidentally, it would be utterly irresponsible to speculate that Sarah Palin is lying about how far along in her pregnany Bristol is, in order to cover-up the truth behind the rumors of her four month old's true parentage, on the assumption that the truth wouldn't come out until after the election anyhow. Irresponsible and morally wrong.
It would further be absolutely inappropriate to speculate that news of the "wedding" was as startling to the seventeen-year-old "fuckin' redneck" boyfriend as it was to the rest of the country, and the Palin family strategy is to keep him shut up about it until after the election.
388.1: Yes she doesn't want to upset the lucrative Earmarks for Oil market.
I think that we'd be remiss to ignore the possibility of ursophiliac tendencies. Call me small-minded, but do we really want someone of Canadian erotic tendencies a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
The secessionist thing is weird. Would Alaska benefit, suffer or break even economically? On the one hand, full control of the oil wealth, on the other, the Federal government won't be buying bridges to nowhere anymore.
I bet an independent Alaska would wind up looking like Nigeria. A few people getting insanely wealthy off the oil deals with foreigners while the bulk of the population keeps warm & cooks food using the jets that the refineries use to burn off extra natural gas.
I haven't seen anything regarding her foreign policy beliefs
We have confirmation that Palin regards the US with great suspicion, particularly with regard to her adopted Alaskan homeland, which was unjustly annexed by the imperial American hegemon. I'm reflixively inclined to view anyone suspicious of US hegemony charitably; I admit that Palin challenges that relfex.
If McCain had picked Lieberman then I'd say "Why pick a Democrat-lite? If people want a Democrat they will go with Obama and the GOP base won't like the pick."
and the Palin family strategy is to keep him shut up about it until after the election.
If he wants a no-bid Pentagon contract they're going to have to convince him they'll win the election first - not an easy thing to do.
So did anyone else go to bed Thursday night thinking happily that Obama might have been able to win the election by actually engaging with and out-arguing McCain? This circus is fun, but I miss that feeling.
So did anyone else go to bed Thursday night thinking happily that Obama might have been able to win the election by actually engaging with and out-arguing McCain? This circus is fun, but I miss that feeling.
I thought we were scheduled to have zero head-to-head debates, for some reason. Ergo, there would be no chance of that happening anyway.
Obama might have been able to win the election by actually engaging with and out-arguing McCain
Nobody's won an election that way since when, 1964? Seems unlikely to happen now.
I thought we were scheduled to have zero head-to-head debates, for some reason. Ergo, there would be no chance of that happening anyway.
No, you're right of course--they'll be head-to-shoulder debates, but it's considered somewhat impolitic to mention that.
398: I'm with you, destroyer. If only people would stop taking such childish glee in the obiously unfounded accusation that McCain was so petulant at not being able to pick Joe Lieberman that he leaped headfirst into one of the most massive political blunders in decades, picking a borderline-traitorous intellectual lightweight with a track record of penny-ante authoritarianism, utter ignorance of American history, unapologetic suckling on the federal teat, and a family situation worthy of Jerry Springer on a bad day, we could focus on the issues.
If McCain had picked Lieberman
Given the current tensions in the GOP, I doubt McCain could have gotten away with a pro-choice pick and still gotten much above 40% in the general. Hence, the far more obviously qualified female choices like Kay Bailey Hutchison, Condoleezza Rice, and Christie Todd Whitman get passed over for Governor Who?
A GOP person last night on Larry King first said the Palin family had a 'problem' but quickly changed that to say it was not a 'problem' but a situation.
Obviously the difference is that when an unexpected teen pregnancy happens to a good white GOP family it is a situation but when it happens to a bad non-white Democratic family it is a problem.
Classic double standard. Classic attribution error. Classic GOP BS.
I was way wrong, there will be three debates, all moderated by unbearable members of the extremely elite establishment press. And one vice presidential debate, moderated by an unbearable member of the extremely elite establishment press who happens to be a woman.
Ten bucks says that Bristol and Levi won't marry. One has to announce that the dad is in the picture, but then, with a wedding, so many things to plan, maybe it's best to put it off till after the election, and then Bristol will be seven months along, and that's really close to the birth, and after that, no one cares.
I think now that all this shit is out in the air (or at least some of the big things), it's going to be fairly easy to sit back and watch Palin flounder hopelessly in debates. Not only does she have zero foreign policy knowledge or experience, or even an 11th-grader's grasp on American national politics and government structure; she's also in the midst of about 12 emergency-level family crises that are now public. I get that she's pretty even-keeled in general, but these are the sorts of things that unnerve even the most seasoned national politicians. Dealing with all of this while trying to bone up on stuff Obama and Biden have both been studying for decades (Obama with con law and domestic policy, Biden with foreign policy) is just not going to happen.
The attitude the Republicans seem to have about the McCain ticket is largely that they want to love him, but can't, and they're just trying to get it up for him to avoid Obama. A candidate like that cannot win the undecided/independent. Not even folks in the middle like a wishy-washy panderer whom no one with any ideological consistency can get behind. And Palin doesn't change that. She's a local politician with no apparent ruling ethos, and aside from winning over a few folks like my mom who wants to see more cute pro-life role models, she's not picking up any of the national-security voters or the ideological conservatives.
Meanwhile, the media seems to be having a fun time eviscerating the McCain crew, like Campbell Brown did the other day, and this is a trend no one wants to miss out on. I'm not saying we sit back and let history take its course on its own, but let's be honest; this is the saddest showing Republicans have made in decades. Their convention now looks like it was totally gutted of content so they could do some Louisiana photo-ops that now look like overreaction and self-interest, while the cops are making them look like insane, violent authoritarians. Their candidate is old, grumpy, and misguided. Their totally untested veep is in a perpetual state of personal and political crisis. And we have two of the most intelligent, capable, and charismatic politicians imaginable surrounded by giant, tearful crowds at every stop. All the GOP ads against them look like sour grapes.
he leaped headfirst into one of the most massive political blunders in decades
I viewed the Palin choice from the get-go as a colossal fuck-up, or at best a hail mary. The day of the pick, my 27-percenter co-worker came into work cheering that they were "back on top", and he continues to think her as VP is a brilliant move by McCain. Either there's some incredible self-delusion going on by the 27 percenters, or I really don't fucking get it.
Every unwed mother is a wed mother just waiting to happen. Open your arms and embrace familial bliss, Murphy Browns of our nation's secondary schools. You're never too young to decide you're going to marry the father after all.
As part of his far-reaching educational policy, John McCain will supplement abstinence-only education with courses designed to help our nation's sixth and seventh graders plan their shotgun weddings. Everything from deciding what dress to shoplift at Wal-Mart to finding a grownup to buy beer for the wedding party to what kind of parking lot is best for a traditional religious ceremony will be covered. Special lessons on ethics will teach America's Most Promising Moms how to convince that stick-in-the-mud to put down his Yu-Gi-Oh cards to finally say "yes!" and plausibly mean it.
389 follow-on: ...but this suggests amybe the delayed announcement is just her style, so maybe we shouldn't draw conclusions from it. Quote:
"And she had waited until she was seven months pregnant to make public news that she was expecting a fifth child this year, a pregnancy that was complicated by Down syndrome."
406: What if there is a beautiful wedding in mid-October?
In a way, Palin might be brilliant as a pander to the base—a figure they know they can manipulate, and who can provide some wholesome theater.
399: We're set for three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate.
an 11th-grader's grasp on American national politics and government structure
That's deeply unfair to our nation's 11th-graders.
You've got a lock on this niche of material now, Sifu. But post it at your own blog so maybe you can get on Fox News! You are hiding your light under a bushel here.
all moderated by unbearable members of the extremely elite establishment press
Jim Lehrer isn't so bad.
411: I kinda doubt it. My guess is that they're not going to want to draw more attention to the whole thing. I'm probably generalizing way too much from girls I know, but in the cases where the religious girl gets knocked up and doesn't have an abortion, she *always* plans to marry the dad. Sometimes, this happens. Most of the time, they break up six months later.
I think now that all this shit is out in the air (or at least some of the big things), it's going to be fairly easy to sit back and watch Palin flounder hopelessly in debates.
A report yesterday suggested that she blew off most of the debates in the governor's race, and showed up with note cards for the ones that she did attend.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008151136_palin01m0.html
410: 'Just her style' doesn't really work with accepting the VP slot before the announcement of the pregnancy. Having the story break like this was a mess -- if the pregnancy was wanted (in the intentional sense of wanted, again, who knows how the parents are actually feeling about it as a fetus accompli) it seems implausible that Palin wouldn't have handled the announcement more smoothly from a political point of view.
But who knows. The pregnancy could have been planned by the kids without Palin's knowledge (if we ignore the MySpace page), or Palin could just have handled the announcement really badly.
A grim shotgun wedding in October, with Bristol at seven months and her fuckin' redneck groom playacting at Doin' the Right Thing while trying to signal to his "boys" that he's still gonna put bros before hos, while getting chided by Palin's glare, is not going to inspire America.
she *always* plans to marry the dad
Yeah, I was thinking the more sincere pander might be to adopt the baby out, since pro-life folks love that option as an alternative to adoption. But I realize there's like zero chance of that baby remaining anonymous, which is reason #208 this situation sucks for those involved.
Or it could just be that when you don't research your VP choice, and she doesn't volunteer that her kid is pregnant and keeps her on the bus when she accepts the nomination, anything she does is going to look like scrambling.
Stanley,
incredible self-delusion going on by the 27 percenters,
Google "the authoritarians." Self-delusion and gullibility are nearly the defining attributes of the 27 percenters. Combine that with double fear and triple self-righteousness and there you go.
419: LB, I'm not going to dispute "badly handled", but this (from the link) sounds entirely plausible:
Some claimed that Ms. Palin had not actually given birth to Trig, but that Bristol had, and that the family had covered it up. Various Web sites posted photographs of Ms. Palin in the months leading up to his birth this year, and debated whether her physique might have been too trim for her stage of pregnancy. The McCain campaign said Ms. Palin announced Bristol's pregnancy to stop the swirl of rumors.
379: true enough. But Lieberman already knows his foreign policy, and we know it's awful.
Give me a break. She's worse than Lieberman. Our best evidence indicates she has no foreign policy beliefs, which mean her future beliefs will most likely be constructed by McCain's advisors. That is, psychotic fucking neocons like Kristol, Boot, and Scheunemann. Over his long political history, he might have at least considered alternate theories of the world when the neocons were out of favor. Between now and the election (or the moment she succeeds McCain), neocons will be all she's ever exposed to.
Oh, man, it's not like I wasn't hoping Obama would win the election before on ideological grounds, but can you imagine the next four years for this kid, married to her 17 year old boyfriend, or not married to her 17 year old boyfriend, and stuck on the front pages? If I were her I'd be actively trying to torpedo her mother's campaign, just to get the spotlight to go away.
Oh, I was joking. The Mother-Daughter Moms! photo op will surely be intended for a narrower audience; that sort of thing can only be risked from the White House.
the more sincere pander might be to adopt the baby out
Somebody call Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Or Madonna. They collect foreign babies.
Oh, man, it's not like I wasn't hoping Obama would win the election before on ideological grounds, but can you imagine the next four years for this kid, married to her 17 year old boyfriend, or not married to her 17 year old boyfriend, and stuck on the front pages? If I were her I'd be actively trying to torpedo her mother's campaign, just to get the spotlight to go away.
"Brstl Pln has called a surprise press conference to announce that she is getting several piercings and tattoos, and plans to marry Wesley Snipes."
424: But whether or not the announcement this week was driven by the rumors, Palin would have had to announce it sometime before the election or risk having it leak -- seven months is pretty darn pregnant. At which point I can't see any political sense in doing anything but announcing it before she accepted the slot; anything else would be a big weird story pretty much exactly like it has been.
Also, I'm talking about this as if it's a reasonable possibility, but the idea that a governor's kid, evangelical Christian and pro-life Alaskan or not, planned an unmarried pregnancy at 16 seems terribly implausible. Doesn't it to you?
Come on, LB, she'll age over those four years.
431: Yeah, to 21, which is still awfully young to have your marriage and parenting being taken apart in the tabloids.
risk having it leak
Enough about Sarah Palin's amniotic fluid already.
the idea that a governor's kid, evangelical Christian and pro-life Alaskan or not, planned an unmarried pregnancy at 16 seems terribly implausible
Generation Awesome is teh inscrutable, LB.
430: According to the Times, McCain was still holding out for Lieberman until 2-3 days before he announced. That's right in the middle of the DNC—not the right time for Palin to say her daughter is pregnant. Probably she didn't even consider herself enough of a front-runner for the VP spot to announce before then.
Back on the veldt, 16 year olds needed to plan.
432: I was making a joke, o humorless lawyer.
I just learned yesterday that Palin used to be Catholic but switched to the Pentecostal team. Is out-of-wedlock ugly bumping not as big a deal for Pentecostals? I can see the more Catholic members of my family thinking the sex itself is the real transgression here.
Yglesias said the main vetting was a google search. I don't buy it; a google search would have turned up more. I bet they hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.
If I were her I'd be actively trying to torpedo her mother's campaign, just to get the spotlight to go away.
Does Brittney have any other younger sisters? The GOP needs something to know this off the front pages forever. Something other than natural disasters that demonstrate their incompetence.
430: terribly implausible, yes, if by that you mean only very much against the odds. I just dislike the assumption that teenage pregnacies must be unplanned, much less unwanted. And I haven't seen any real evidence in the news I've read (which, again, I haven't read deeply) to suggest either. Not a single "surprise", much less a "struggle" or a "hardship to bear" from anyone in the family.
438: For most super-protestants, yeah, we live in a fallen world and the fact that Satan gets the best of us is what makes us fall to our knees and realize how much we need Jesus. It's a dramatic life that allows for a lot of gay sex and prison terms and drugs and stuff.
I like AWB's analysis in 407. The flipside is that if McCain gets annihilated in November the right will blame it on the fact that the GOP didn't pick a real conservative, and the movement conservatives will be able to hang on to their grip on the party. That means the next time fortunes favor the GOP we'll have the same crew of neocons, theocons, and crony corporatists running the show.
I believe 442 and 445 are both correct.
442 is to say, we expect much more from this promising young lady. As a true Christian, she should get quite a lot of ground in life from public confessions. It's very tempting. I was always jealous as a teen of those kids who got re-baptized every time they took their physical relationships to the next level. Confess to inappropriate lust. Confess to oral sex. Confess to fornication. Confess to anal. Confess to drugs. Confess to orgies. They got so much goddamn love each time they did their testimony.
442: S/B "and shit", Ms. PhD English major.
There's a revolving door where charismatics and pentecostals go from church to sin and back to the church, and then back to sin, and so on. My very Christian brother called it revival Christianity, IIRC. There's a similar revolving door between gospel music and various styles of sexy music.
442: And the best part is that you can do the Sin-Redemption-Sin-Redemption thing an arbitrary number of times, which is pretty cool if you get off on the whole drama thing associated with confession and abasement before the dungeon master lord. Plus the sinning can be a lot of fun, too.
Indeed, sinners who repent and are redeemed by Big Jeezy-C is a favorite storyline. Heck, coming from a sinful past often gives you more cred than having consistently followed the line.
Kids would publicly confess to anal sex in your congregation, AWB?!?
I just dislike the assumption that teenage pregnacies must be unplanned,
How about, teenage pregnancies are either unplanned or ill-planned?
I don't see what you all are complaining about, the dichotomy of insanity is normal for any normal person with the normal urges and guilts.
Pwned so many times in under two minutes. Ouch.
451: At youth camp, people confessed to all kinds of whatnot, anal included. In "big church," we got to see the adults confessing to hardcore shit, like multi-year sexual affairs at work, abortions, prostitution, homosexual sexing, all kinds of stuff. They were our role models. And the ones who confessed to the "worst" stuff were always the kinda-hot adults.
And, I'd add to all this that, despite it all being very true of the evangels, they maintain a persistent belief that it's the Catholic kids who just sin with abandon and go to confession over and over and don't take any of this shit seriously (which is why they're going to hell).
can i just celebrate the fact that THIS phrase is emerging into routine punditry out of the AIP wrangling: "self-employed gold miner"
alaska is 17 kinds of awesome in its way
451 - kinda makes you want to go to church just to hear the nubile young hotties talking about buttsecks, doesn't it?
Hate to be serious in this context, but it really showed a failure of nerve when the Repubs postponed their convention because of Gustav. That wouldn't normally have been necessary at all. They just could have had a prayer, a moment of silence, the solicitation of donations to the relief effort, and a moderate Republican Party cash offer to the relief effort.
They were obviously afraid of the memory of Katrina, but by flinching so obviously they really reinforced the not-very-distant Katrina memory. In large part because they themselves probably realize that Bush's Katrina response was horrible.
441: Well, yeah, very much against the odds, and while there hasn't been anything explicitly negative about it, if it's a planned happy event, I'd expect that to have been said explicitly, which it wasn't.
AWB's camp sounds way awesomer than mine, measuring simply by the amount of putative buttsecks.
Do they have interpretive manuals for kids who don't understand what "sodomy" means?
"Pastor Bob, that wouldn't work, because the butt is all full of poop".
"Here's how they deal with that, Susie....."
There's a similar revolving door between gospel music and various styles of sexy music.
460: well, despite 441, I was reacting much more to the "unwanted' than to the "unplanned". I don't think I'd have said anything had the comment said "unplanned".
464: Oh, on that front, who knows how she's feeling. There's a whole lot of gradations between "I'm blissfully happy at the chance to be a mother earlier than I'd thought I'd be able to" and "If I can just file through the leg of the bed they have me chained to, I can still get to the abortion clinic." (Latter thought not imputed to Ms. Palin, just intended to illustrate the extreme 'unhappy with an ongoing pregnancy postition'.)
She's somewhere inbetween those two, but who knows where.
AWB's camp sounds way awesomer than mine
Seriously. Mormon kids would make extremely vague references to "temptation" in their public testimonies, but it would have been totally inappropriate to admit anything specific. So none of us knew what pervs we all were, or how far we were falling behind in the sin contest.
465: well, right, which was why it bothered me.
The notion of confessing really didn't exist in my church upbringing. Everybody just put up the facade on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, then went about their regular business the rest of the week.
To be fair, the descriptions from the youth group were a lot sexier while they were still bragging, before they turned it into confession. The adults were much, much better at turning a truly titillating narration into a bawling confession at the end.
It would further be absolutely inappropriate to speculate that news of the "wedding" was as startling to the seventeen-year-old "fuckin' redneck" boyfriend
My thoughts exactly. I figured he might have gotten out of it the way most of his peers do, but now he's facing a shotgun wedding, and the entire Republican establishment has its finger on the trigger. Harsh, child-not-wanting dude. 409 is hilarious, BTW.
About that "self-employed gold miner" thing, Alaska is crawling with self-employed gold miners. The job seems primarily to involve talking about gold mining and forecasting profits, if not much actual mining itself.
Whoa, David Frum is off the reservation: "Ms. Palin's experience in government makes Barack Obama look like George C. Marshall."
There's a similar revolving door between gospel music and various styles of sexy music.
All the best sexy music has very direct roots in gospel. Sheesh, you can even trace specific styles of 'soul' vocal to their gospel originator.
From Claude Jeter to his imitators (conscious or not) -- Sam Cooke, Al Green, et al.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hml-QtINr4M
The Family Stone plays gospel now. I always loved Cynthia Graham. Little Richard spent I don't know how long in gospel in recent decades.
470.3: yes that's kinda what i guessed, that it's like "actor" in the world of new york table-waiting and barkeeping... anyway VERY FEW of them get into political commentary over here in the uk, so hurrah!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN1ts7p2sQg
When Jeter goes into the high tenor/falsetto range from about 50 seconds in, that's the whole history of high the male soul vocal being written out right there.
I should have made the imperative "listen to this!" clearer re: the track on 475.
Oh my fucking God. William Saletan, ladies and gentlemen:
[lengthy summary on previous presidential candidates with daughters] Remember that before you judge or poke fun at Sarah Palin. She's not the candidate whose daughter messed up. She's the candidate who didn't get rid of the mess.
Pace 477, this whole Palin thing delights me so much, I just want to jump up and down and pee like a puppy. Yesterday's TPM roundup is entertaining.
478: exactly how I've felt today.
475 is indeed to be listened too.
this whole Palin thing delights me so much, I just want to jump up and down and pee like a puppy
So true! Remember a week ago, when Obama and McCain were tied in the polls? A week later, after they've both shown the country what they're made of, check out today's polls from RealClearPolitics:
National Gallup Tracking Obama 50, McCain 42 Obama +8
National Rasmussen Tracking Obama 51, McCain 45 Obama +6
National USA Today/Gallup* Obama 50, McCain 43 Obama +7
National Hotline/FD Obama 48, McCain 39 Obama +9
National CBS News Obama 48, McCain 40 Obama +8
All from this morning, after just a few days of exciting Sara Palin coverage! Hooray!
But I do think that after McCain loses the election, we need to arrange some way for the Palin family to stay in the public eye. Perhaps some kind of reality TV setup where they move to Washington? A kind of televised shadow government arrangement?
A week later, after they've both shown the country what they're made of, check out today's polls from RealClearPolitics:
Er, ahem, er, that's after only one of the two conventions.
re: 480
It's hard to believe that record is over 60 years old, too.
481: This is before Palin delivers a solid and moving speech tomorrow night.
She's not *stupid*, people. She didn't defeat the state's last two governors in one election season by accident. She'll give a great speech about her family, the "culture of life" and energy policy, and the pundits will swoon.
I don't (even) have cable, which saves my sanity, but also means I have a very different media experience from most people.
I don't even watch network news on teevee.
I don't think not watching cable news is all that unusual, and not watching network news is DEFINITELY not unusual among the under-McCain's-age bracket. We have cable, but I almost never watch the news networks outside of a captive audience situation -- airports, bars and restaurants, the gym, the lobby of my office building.
I'm sure this qualifies me as a "low information voter" in the Harris polls I occasionally take, because they ask you how many times you've watched the news on TV in the last 30 days. Radio news, newspaper websites (or actual paper newspapers!) and streaming video apparently don't count as news sources.
483: you make a great point. Tonight, the American people get to see President Bush address the GOP convention. That can't help but give 'em a boost. Tomorrow, it's America's Least Attractive Former Mayor, and then it's the overqualified Gov. Palin, followed by ol' Sky Captain Andy Rooney himself, fresh from calling a hundred unfilled sandbags "my friends". I anticipate a thirty point bump.
So they rescheduled Bush? Interesting. I was hoping they wouldn't bump him completely.
She won an election in a state full of crazy people, running against opponents who were one step ahead of the police.
Low info voters are the ones who do watch network TV. Magpie is misinformed.
I'm with Sifu (for once) about the Republican convention. McCain's pick dominated the news cycle this weekend, and this is the result. Anyway, we'll see.
Heck, coming from a sinful past often gives you more cred than having consistently followed the line.
Everybody knows the people who follow the line just don't have the get-up-and-go to sin. Probably they're ugly and unpopular. People definitely prefer hanging out with a former (or current!) sinner to a never-sinner.
Everybody knows the people who follow the line just don't have the get-up-and-go to sin. Probably they're ugly and unpopular. People definitely prefer hanging out with a former (or current!) sinner to a never-sinner.
Indeed, I managed to restrain myself from being in opportunities to sin when I was in high school, not out of morality but out of fear of doing something out of character and disappointing my family. Then it turns out that I have impressed nobody with my forbearance, since "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained."
491: so, you know what's even more astonishing about this clusterfuck? The key thing the Obama needed to do after their convention was keep their candidate from being so overexposed that people would turn on him. It was time to pivot dramatically to attacking McCain, which presumably informed Obama's decision to take it to his opponent in his convention speech. I'm sure they had -- have -- a plan to make the election about McCain, Bush, how the two are connected, and why McCain's a bad choice. But then it was like McCain thought "fuck, these guys are too slow. I'm not waiting for them to take the fight to me. I'm going to make this campaign about my failures all by myself!" Is he working for Obama?
She won an election in a state full of crazy people, running against opponents who were one step ahead of the police.
There we go, that was a quick little fix.
Alaska has about as many people as the far west Chicago suburbs where I grew up. I'm kind of surprised they haven't elected the well-liked local dentist to be the governer yet.
about as many people as the far west Chicago suburbs
LB (I think) threw out Brooklyn borough captain as a comparison to the relative importance of Alaskan governor, so I looked up the numbers. Alaska has about 1/4 the population of Brooklyn (600K vs. 2.4 million), according to wikipedia.
I was talking to my one Washington semi-insider friend (she's one of these veteran types who has evolved "beyond" partisanship, for her it's all about who she knows and whether she thinks they are nice people or not). Anyway, we chatted about the Palin pick, and she said thoughtfully: "usually Cindy stops John when he wants to do crazy things like this. I wonder where she was. I think she's very busy with the campaign."
Alaska only has 600,000 people? Really?
443: Or, God willing, well on the road to the Californianization of the Republican party.
Holy shit, it's closer to 700,000, but still.
Anand's main reaction to her pick was astonishment. You can be the governor of Alaska for only 114,000 votes!
497: Closer to (but less than) 700,000. About a million fewer people than the Raleigh-Durham metro area.
I think Mayor of Oklahoma City is my favorite comparison.
Alaska only has 600,000 people? Really?
More people than Vermont which is kind of surprising to me at least.
Alaska has roughly the same population as Memphis.
Okay, that's not fair. Mayor of Memphis.
I was looking at the stats and shared 505's surprise. Why do New Hampshire have more than twice as many people as Vermont? they are supposed to be interchangeable.
Is it because of all hte Boston-area exurbs in NH near the ocean?
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Don't you think the fucking Attorney General of the Fucking United States ought to know the correct procedures for handling fucking classified information?
Especially an Attorney General who has used the need for state secrecy to justify basically every thing he ever did?
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This deserves its own thread, but here's a GREAT interview with Charles Barkley. Why can't he be VP? I love the guy.
Of course, he speaks up for the Clintons.
Is it because of all hte Boston-area exurbs in NH near the ocean?
That, and the massive expanses of Vermont in the middle of fucking nowhere near the border. The fat part of Vermont is on the wrong end for it to have much population.
they are supposed to be interchangeable
Bite your tongue. But yeah, NH is bigger on the bottom, closer to the eastern seaboard population centers, and has its own actual cities.
That, and the massive expanses of Vermont in the middle of fucking nowhere near the border
Right, plus all the Bennington kids are always hiding in the woods covered in mud and twigs when the census takers come around.
LB (I think) threw out Brooklyn borough captain as a comparison to the relative importance of Alaskan governor,
Actually she mentioned the Bronx (pop. 1.3 million).
Brooklyn's a lot cooler, ben. Everyone knows that.
509: NH has always had a higher population than Vermont mostly due to its less rugged southern/coastal strip area. The disparity ahs grown in the 20th & 21st centuries as urbanization has progressed. (NH was 1.2 times the size of Vermont in 1900).
Brooklyn's a lot cooler, ben. Everyone knows that.
Only if you're a hipster, and hipsters are lame. The Bronx is the cutting edge.
I thought Vermont was for left wing separatist crazies, and NH was for right wing separatist crazies.
Also, is population size really the main factor determining how difficult a state would be to govern? It seems like the way the system is set up would make being governor of a small state very different than being mayor of a big city.
Does anybody else keep reading this post title as "Don't urn, Morganize"?
It is fair to say that Alaska is a state placew with greater significance than population alone would indicate. It is one of the few places where I think the concept of states needing something like a Senate to get adequate representation still makes sense. (However, if you did it logically, NYC is another place that should probably get a specific seat in the Senate as well.)
And Memphis too, JP. The King lived there.
I thought Vermont was for left wing separatist crazies, and NH was for right wing separatist crazies.
Not really. NH is pretty much motorcycle enthusiasts being crowded out by Massachusetts expats these days. The crazies have retreated to (probably) Maine.
When I think right wing separatists, I think Montana. They may be crowded out by leftecophiles there too, so I need to switch my thinking to Idaho, where the large quantity of Mormons will prevent any chance of Democrats siezing power.
NH is separatist only in a fiscal sense. Plenty of anti-tax crazies there.
521: Does anybody else keep reading this post title as "Don't urn, Morganize"?
No I keep reading it as "It would be irresponsible to speculate that when ultimately all of the facts about the opportunistic lies and cynical manipulations originating from both McCain and Palin during this vetting/selection process are made public it will replace 'Eagleton' in the political dictionary."
</homage to the master Sifu>
520: Well, then you just have to consider that the Alaska governorship is basically just a chief state lobbyist job.
No taxes
No bond issues
No revenue raising of any kind
Massive federal grants for almost any infrastructure investment or social welfare program (since rural areas are particularly highly subsidized)
Pretty much the hard "executive" parts are all taken care of. What remains is convincing Congress and the oil companies to cough up yet more dough so the annual refund checks will get bigger.
It is fair to say that Alaska is a state placew with greater significance than population alone would indicate.
Why? Isn't it basically just an overgrown federal enclave with delusions of grandeur?
I swore I was going to turn off the radio during the RNC, and yet here I am with Talk of the Nation on in the background, listening to legions of morons share their uninformed opinions about the Palin pick. Is there a more miserable cunt than David Brooks?
... a borderline-traitorous intellectual lightweight with a track record of penny-ante authoritarianism, utter ignorance of American history, unapologetic suckling on the federal teat, and a family situation worthy of Jerry Springer on a bad day ...
Tweety may actually be understating(!) how gloriously bad the Palin pick is. (To be fair, though, she probably isn't really a secessionist.) So many of her supposed selling points (anti-corruption, anti-pork, fiscal conservative, etc.) are belied by her actual record.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/an-wasillan-on.html#more
So I'm giving serious consideration to a GOP sabotage theory. The only other option left is senility.
Is there a more miserable cunt than David Brooks?
None more miserable. Up to eleven.
Only if you're a hipster, and hipsters are lamestains.
Don't you know how to talk the hep slang, Ben?
The thing about the librarian in the Sullivan link is interesting - "she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed." What books? I ask. Maybe she can be painted as the crazy lady at your PTA meeting who rants about Harry Potter!
My theory, mentioned elsewhere (maybe above), is that the Republicans have become so reliant on spin, PR, and impression-management that they don't realize that there are any limits to how much you can fool people; but on top of that, so many con men and slimeballs have been recruited into the party that they're now scamming the party itself.
This link tells how a college sophomore Young Republican started the Draft Palin movement almost as soon as she was elected, without knowing much about her. Limbaugh and Kristol picked it up, along with someone from the WSJ and a cabal of Christian Conservatives. No one with a reality sense was involved at any point, and the Republicans got left holding the bag.
As I've also said elsewhere, maybe burning the Republicans this way will be the beginning of the end for conservative Christian hegemony over the Republican Party. A lot of people have to be furious.
529: Why? Isn't it basically just an overgrown federal enclave with delusions of grandeur?
At one level, yes (see my "trading Earmarks for Oil" crack somewhere around here), but its size, diversity, resources, location, amount of tourism, challenges of its terrain and climate etc. make it a unique place ot govern.
From the link in 535:
According to his "Blogger" profile, Brickley's interests include politics, Zionism, and "fighting socialism."
"C'mere socialism! I'm gonna kick your ass."
but its size, diversity, resources, location, amount of tourism, challenges of its terrain and climate etc. make it a unique place ot govern.
It's like the Canada of the US, but with a much higher rate of convicted felons.
Truly the best part of this is watching People Who ShouldAre Paid to Know Better defend her. There's the brave face of the convention delegates clutching their talking points (literally); there's the pundits who try to showcase her (purported) tactical horserace appeal but can't help but slip into implications that she's a credible candidate; and there's the sadly self-delusional (eg, Douthout, waltzing it back yet?). The irresponsibility and intellectual vacuity of the GOP is on parade. At long last.
When I think right wing separatists, I think Montana.
All the Montanans I know are very moderate, laid back folk.
Sample bias. The separatists keep separate.
542: Hannah, in particular, is quite staid.
Brickley's interests include ... Zionism and "fighting socialism."
He must have a frightfully tormented relationship with the history of Zionism. Or else he's totally ignorant of the intellectual roots of the Zionist movement--or of the contemporary political economy of Israel, for that matter.
Yeah, of course, never mind.
527: not for nothing that "Palindrome" refers to something gone backwards.
544: Heh.
Every other post at the Corner these days is by Nordlinger. Twas not ever thus. It's like someone's batty grampa just discovered the interwebz.
545: a kibbutz is just the free market at work, okay?
So, am I the only one who misread "Fishing" on this?
Pardon my epiphany about what is an obvious point but the response to Palin's upcoming grandchild shows very clearly that for Evangelicals it is not about the sex, it is not about the pregnancy, it is not about the welfare of the child, it is about making sure that sexually active unmarried females pay the price for sex.
Punish unmarried females who have sex. Period.
And I totally agree that confessing to jaysus is an instant "get out of hell free" card. Sin, repent, sin, repent. There is no place for learning from your mistakes in a guilt-free cycle like that. I can see how that is very attractive to some people.
The irresponsibility and intellectual vacuity of the GOP is on parade. At long last.
Oh yeah, just right, but my glee is tempered by my gnawing worry that even so there is a large block of people who are just not 'getting it' and who are eating up every little phony shred of an excuse, picking the raisins from the turd and asking for more.
Well, we can stick a fork in this election. It's done. I just talked to my neighbor, America's Swing Voter (he voted for Gore and Kerry, but just barely chose them over Bush, and was not happy about it), and he announced that he's removing McCain from consideration.
549 would have at least had the potential to make some sense if I'd posted it in the right thread.
America's Swing Voter (he voted for Gore and Kerry, but just barely chose them over Bush, and was not happy about it)
Umm...
552
Walt - from your mouth to God's ear.
A part of me desperately wants to believe you but I've been a long time Vikings fan and I know very well how hurtful dashed hopes can be. I'm gonna stay cynical for my own mental health but a rational person would probably be pretty hopeful about now.
538 should be the new mouseover text.
And I totally agree that confessing to jaysus is an instant "get out of hell free" card. Sin, repent, sin, repent. There is no place for learning from your mistakes in a guilt-free cycle like that.
I think the idea is that once you confess (not just to Jesus but to your fellow Christian), you are left with the knowledge that they know what you did and, at the very least the suspicion that they will be keeping an eye on you such that your guilt and shame should keep you from backsliding.
I've been a long time Vikings fan and I know very well how hurtful dashed hopes can be
Just think, McCain could have put Daunte Culpepper on the ticket.
If he had put Randy Moss, I know at least one vote McCain would have picked up.
... eating up every little phony shred of an excuse, picking the raisins from the turd and asking for more.
Occasionally reality will out (see Iraq).
All the Montanans I know are very moderate, laid back folk.
Everyhting you need to know about Montana is here. Montana history stopped on March 29, 1996 or thereabouts.
557: The problems being that: (1) you also know what they did, and (2) they might be up for doing it again!
558, 559
You two are the most hurtful people I have ever known! I finally share my deepest concerns and vulnerabilities and you make jokes out of them. I was talking about football! Have you no decency at all?
Di,
they will be keeping an eye on you such that your guilt and shame should keep you from backsliding.
That is kinda what I thought too but from interviews I've seen with authoritarians they think if their faith is strong enough in jaysus they should feel no further guilt or shame about what they did. They sin, feel guilt and/or shame, repent, and the guilt/shame are gone. The repentance to jaysus is private and may happen right away. The public repentance is more for show or something.
559: My favorite Randy Moss moment was after the NFL fined him $10,000 for pretending to moon the crowd after a touchdown, and a reporter asked him something about writing the NFL a check. His response (may not be an exact quote, but as close as I can recall): "I ain't writing no checks. I'll pay that shit in cash. What's ten thousand dollars? Ten grand ain't shit to me. Maybe next time I'll wave my dick at them."
If Randy Moss was on a presidential ticket, I might start watching TV news again.
557: The problems being that: (1) you also know what they did, and (2) they might be up for doing it again!
Oh yeah. It was pretty well known in high school that once you had a girlfriend you became more attractive to the other girls. I think that public repentance about sexual misdeeds by the fairly hot Evangelicals is merely the adult version of the same thing.
"Look at me, I'm hot and I fooled around with someone. Don't think of me as sexually attractive and available. Don't. Don't!"
I think the idea is that once you confess (not just to Jesus but to your fellow Christian), you are left with the knowledge that they know what you did and, at the very least the suspicion that they will be keeping an eye on you such that your guilt and shame should keep you from backsliding.
This is a pretty fundamental difference between the RC tradition and most of the offshoots of reform (Calvinist-descended) protestantism. If you confess all your sins in private to the priest, you enhance the control of the institutional church, which knows everyone's secrets. If you confess in front of the congregation and submit to congregational discipline, you enhance the control of the community of believers.
The Anglican tradition, characteristically, splits the difference by confessing in public, but only to unnamed transgressions "in thought, word and deed; by what we have done, and what we have left undone". As a get out of hell free card, it's much more convenient than the alternatives.
565 - dick waving has been pretty much the main plank in the GOP platform at least since Reagan.
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On the pledge thing, argh. When are we going to have a national politician who, when asked "Are you offended by the phrase 'Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance?", doesn't reply with some silly horseshit variation of "yes" or "no", but instead comes right out and says, "I'm offended by the entire goddam idea of a Pledge of Allegiance."
Because I think that person will have my vote.
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The problems being that: (1) you also know what they did, and (2) they might be up for doing it again!
There's the time-worn joke about the kid who goes to confession and confesses to getting a handjob from a girl. The priest begins to ask for specifics:
"Was it Katherine O'Sullivan?"
-"Father, I cannot say, I promised her."
"Mary-Jane Kilpatrick?"
-"Please, Father, I cannot say."
"Ann Fitzgerald?"
-"I cannot say, Father. I won't."
The kid walks out of the church where his friend is waiting. The friend asks, "What did you get?"
To which the kid replies, "Ten Our Fathers and three good leads."
but instead comes right out and says, "I'm offended by the entire goddam idea of a Pledge of Allegiance." Because I think that person will have my vote.
I'm sure Mr. Dukakis will be gratified to learn that Brock would have voted for him, had he been old enough in 1988.
Oh yeah, Randy Moss. When the Vikes drafted him was just about when I started noticing that the press has a 'narrative' and the narrative has a life of its own. Sure it was about sports but similar things happen in politics.
They had Randy pigeon-holed and everything he did was seen through that pigeon-hole lens if pigeon-holes had lenses or if I was a better writer who could find a better analogy but you know what I mean.
If he had put Randy Moss, I know at least one vote McCain would have picked up.
Oh damn, that would've been awesome. Put Moss in the old purple uniform, throw the Helga Hat on him, and say "If we're going to throw a Hail Mary for America, shouldn't we have the very best guy running the fly route?".
I'd consider it. I really would.
573 makes me glad the Po-Mo is not a McCain staffer. If McCain had done that, he'd have sealed the election right there.
How come our kids must recite the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag but our armed forces and elected officials get to vow an oath to uphold the Constitution?
Aren't our kids good enough for the Constitution?
I'm watching the Ron Paul convention, Lew Rockwell is speaking and getting applause with lines like:
"it is time for all right-thinking Americans to admit that conservatism is a greater threat to our liberties than left liberalism"
"what does conservatism stand for today? War, torture, government spying, oppression..."
"The leaders of the Republican party are telling us that the only real alternative to the socialism of the Democrats is the facism of the Republicans."
"Bush did not betray American conservatism, he brought to fruition the tendencies that were first made evident with the emergence of Bill Buckley and the National Review in the 1950s"
wow...sorry for the thread derail. I find the Ron Paul movement interesting.
573 575 - Brilliant, and they could make the announcement over at the Metrodome with highlight clips showing on the jumbotron.
Now that is theater. That is pageantry. That is a show.
So, after the endless media storm about Jeremiah Wright, I assume we'll now get the same treatment of Sarah Palin's pastor, right? Right? CNN, hello?
Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war "contending for your faith;" and said that Jesus "operated from that position of war mode."
My theory, mentioned elsewhere (maybe above), is that the Republicans have become so reliant on spin, PR, and impression-management that they don't realize that there are any limits to how much you can fool people
I think, Emerson, that there is something to that. But I now suddenly worry that it might be a particularly useful skill in this election. Palin energizes the base. If she picks up disaffected Clinton voters, great, but I don't think that's the point. The McCain spin has been terrible, but all they really want to do is not lose people because of the pick. The various people who don't want to vote for Obama for reasons never made explicit just need something--anything sentence--to justify their decision in the face of the Palin pick. It need not be very credible. It just has to make internal sense.
580: did he mention any uncomfortable truths about America, Apo? I'm not sure I see the story here.
Dukakis? Not exactly.
Dukakis would never say "goddamn", naturally, but otherwise that was pretty much his rationale for vetoing a bill in the Mass. legislature that would have made pledge recitation mandatory in schools. A good case can be made that Dukakis lost the 1988 election because of it. (That, and his answer to the "Kitty Dukakis raped and murdered" hypothetical, and that time he got in that tank).
577, 578: Wow, thanks PGD. That's just cheered up my day. Now if only Ron Paul would announce a national presidential run, I'd be humming.
580: He's a white guy, so it's not an issue. Everyone has known a crazy pastor or two. Not everyone has known a crazy black pastor. (This, to me, is another example of the Mormon problem.)
the facism of the Republicans
I'm sure they picked Palin for reasons other than being pretty.
583: Yeah, I'm well aware of all that. But he hid his veto behind arguments about constitutionality. He didn't forcefully reject hte idea as fundamentally un-American, that' I'm aware of.
This is really off-topic. I just read the question in Soem Palin article, and got irritated all over again.
Holy crap, Kalnins is a Latvian name. He's not connected to this crazy church network, is he?
...upon further investigation, it seems not.
This Ron Paul thing is a wild political event. Tucker Carlson just introduced Bill Kaufmann, who started off his speech with a shout-out to Wendell Berry and then swung into:
"As we speak, McCain is thumbing through the world atlas looking for new countries to invade."
"McCain cares more about the Georgia of Joseph Stalin than he does about the Georgia of Ray Charles"
583: Don't forget Willie Horton. And the fact that he might be the only politician on earth who is less charismatic than GHWB. There are always reasons.
Tucker Carlson is at the Paul Convention as a participant?
The econometric models predicted that Bush I would beat Dukakis easily. We should worship econometrics like it is a pagan god.
580 - Sarah Palin's pastor
If you didn't have the desire or time to read "The Authoritarians" then read apo's link.
That piece accurately describes what authoritarians think, what they believe, and what they feel.
This is not hype, this is not fringe, this is the 25% GOP base. Seriously.
Tucker Carlson is worshipping Ron Paul as if he were a pagan god?
Tucker Carlson is at the Paul Convention as a participant?
He appeared to be the MC, he was introducing speakers.
Grover Norquist spoke a few speakers ago, he tried to give a "big tent" pitch.
Obviously, I don't think much of Carlson or Norquist, but I actually think it's healthy they are interacting with the Paul crowd. If the Paul movement gains real traction among the Republican grassroots, that would be an extremely positive development.
||
If anyone will be traveling to Italy in the next few months and would be willing to purchase some quite-common Italian candies which seem to be unavailable in the U.S., please email me.
|>
577, 578 - It continues to... well, not surprise me, at this point, but disappoint me because they're such delightful nuts that I'd like to hear more about them... that the news media have decided that the genuine formation of a significant cult of personality around Ron Paul is less interesting than disgruntled Hillary supporters.
MC Tucker Carlson represent on the mic at the rEVOlution! Hype the bow tie, white people! Throw 'em high!
We should worship econometrics like it is a pagan god.
Those of us who know the power of GARCH to transform an utterly random string of numbers into a seemingly semi-deterministic time series already do this.
Regular sacrifices of virgin CBO employees and burnt offerings of tick-by-tick trade data help keep my p-values low and my residuals free of impure autocorrelation or non-linear effects.
Carlson is so amazingly dweeby that I can't imagine anything he'd do that would make me think better of him. He's by far not the worst of the wingers, but even if he agreed with me he'd give me the creeps. The feeling is like homophobia, except against dweebs.
wow...sorry for the thread derail.
This thread started out as an eyes-on-the-prize, focus-on-the-issues discussion of post-electoral strategy, and very quickly turned to teen pregnancy, gestational conspiracy theory, and the question of whether or not an 18-year old hockey goon is likely to make a good husband. And you're apologizing for the thread derail?!
Ok so I'm reading Greenwald & Hamsher and watching Amy Goodman videos and keeping up on the Minnesota police riot stuff...and I am getting a bad feeling about this. A very bad much-worse-than-1968 feeling about this. Shouldn't be an assumption that the billionaires & fascist are fucking idiots, rather the question should be:"Under what scenario would the selection of Palin make sense?"
Maybe somebody picked Palin for McCain. Maybe there's a plan to make Palin President really fast. Someone suggestible, someone who won't need much nudging. Bad sign that they no longer care at all what the MSM thinks. 1968 never got that bad.
Maybe we should pray for Obama, not that you can petition the Lord with prayer. We are like nowhere near prepared for worst-case scenarios.
In this armpit of a nation, just when progressives think the momentum has really turned, when thing seem to be going really well...bang.
MC, the Palins are not going to disappear. You're trying to deny us our rich ancient culture. They are a mother load of snark openings.
I like when events make mcmanus all extra skittish and weird.
Bob, what I see is that the Republican machine has disintegrated. Dubya had better people working for him than McCain does. A lot of people must have jumped ship.
The Twin Cities police state is right on the trend line, I think.
603: In other words, you like mcmanus?
We got Tshirt smart spam on the other line, responding to something posted here in April.
605: I like mcmanus at the inflection points. Once he finds his note it gets a little old.
603, Sifu,
Some of us are paid to be extra skittish and weird even when things seem fine. I've never met a piece of technology that can't fail at the worst possible moment. And I find social dynamics to be even less fault tolerant, and social systems in general to fail less gracefully.
I like when events make mcmanus all extra skittish and weird.
I've got a great premise for a sit-com: After the election of Obama, McManus ends up joining his cousin, a right-wing Militia survivalist, at a remote hideout in Idaho, each believing that the apocalypse is eminent, but for different reasons. (The details of how they end up there together is a topic for the pilot episode: I'm thinking that they both had to travel to the reading of their great aunt's will or something.) One of the running gags is the constant tension over whose books to extract pages from in order to start fires.
He could have meant eminent, ben.
610: To you, the apocalypse is lowly? Iconoclast.
what I see is that the Republican machine has disintegrated. Dubya had better people working for him than McCain does.
even with a healthy party, the talent pool tends to get a little drained after two straight Presidential terms. A lot of people have moved back to the private sector or whatever, high-level executive branch jobs are draining and frustrating.
And the Reps are not a healthy party right now.
608: are you mcmanus? No.
And I actually don't think IT people get paid to be skittish and weird. They are skittish and weird, and get paid to wear the beeper and plug in the new router. But hey, whatever you tell yourself.
One of the running gags is the constant tension over whose books to extract pages from in order to start fires.
My Taleb will be the last to go.
But all my reading is electronic anymore. Can't even eat or burn CD's.
If this wasn't my country and this wasn't my world I'd enjoy watching just how screwball things can get before kabloohie but it is and it is and I know enough history to know that things can get really screwy so I'm having a hard time enjoying the show but my God this is a show. So this is what people do to amuse themselves when they ban circus animals? Son of a gun.
I actually don't think IT people get paid to be skittish and weird
We don't have to be crazy, but it helps.
So this is what people do to amuse themselves when they ban circus animals?
Don't forget public hangings.
Now former Reagan administration official and Heritage Foundation fellow Bruce Fein is giving a great speech -- wow, this guy is a fantastic orator. He thinks Congress abrogated its responsibilities in not impeaching Bush. Who knew the Republicans had so many wild-eyed radicals among them? This is great.
On the other hand, there don't seem to be a hell of a lot of people there -- maybe a few thousand.
We don't have to be crazy, but it helps.
Helps like a poster of a kitten dangling from a branch.
Bob, what I see is that the Republican machine has disintegrated.
The Revolution need not be centralized. President Sarah wouldn't necessarily worry about Austin if she controlled Dallas & Houston.
Maybe they have developed a plan based on experience gained in Iraq & Afghanistan. Just control the moneymaking resources, arm & provision the wingnuts and set them free to do some ethnic/ideological cleansing with a Blackwater badge.
The important scenario is a President Sarah after an Obama tragedy. Would we really "burn shit down?" If so, Homeland Security has a justification.
I am also worried about Georgia/Ukraine.
Bruce Fein closes by drawing the parallel to the decline of the Roman Republic and quoting Tacitus -- "The worst crimes were dared by few, willed by more, and tolerated by all".
This is like all the fire-breathing shit we couldn't get at the Democratic convention.
Will there be an RNC thread? I'm ambivalent. I was determined to tune it out, but it's perversely compelling.
Update from McCain campaign: people who disagree with Bush economic policy are not just whiners, but also "economically illiterate".
Also, McCain has cancelled a CNN appearance to protest one of the network's rare instances of practicing journalism. Does he really want to pick a fight with reporters?
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/mccain_cancels_cnn_interview_a.php
On Topic,
I'd like to see the new President (who should be called that), in his role as Commander in Chief (and not called that but rarely) of the Armed Forces suspend all use of spent-uranium munitions until some kind of full review can be made of their actual necessity in normal theater combat. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.
Can we not take on teenagers in pajamas armed with $50 rifles without laying waste to cities with radioactive heavy-metal munitions -- cities that are then so poisoned they should be bulldozed into the ground and covered with concrete and never lived in again?
Spent uranium rounds start to superheat and oxidize while still in flight to target, and burn quickly upon impact to form uranium-oxide, a heavy-metal dust that is mind-bogglingly poisonous, spreads quickly by winds and water, is easily taken up by other atoms in subsequent interactions that displace the oxygen, and then eventually disintegrates because it's, you know, radioactive. It's uranium, just not the isotope that goes "bang" when you throw slow neutrons at it, and its a side-product (originally considered a waste product) of the cycle that peels out the bomb-making isotope. But we didn't know how to sequester it safely, no state wants it, there's vast quantities of it, and it's simply unequalled for kinetic-energy weaponry. So the DoD has tons and tons and tons of it.
Even setting aside the radioactive component of this weapon, imagine having several hundred tons of a heavy metal poison distributed in your home town in the form of a light dust that swirls in the slightest movement of air.
626.2
Apparently the answer is no.
teenagers in pajamas
There's a retro turn of phrase.
614, Sifu,
IT in the U.S. government covers a lot of ground. End nodes include satellites in low earth orbit, NASA vehicles millions of miles from home, remote radar stations, unmanned combat platforms, the encrypted security systems that connect them, failsafes and redundancies beyond your wildest imagination, and more.
Not that I'm saying I know much about IT, but do you really want somebody in any of those jobs who doesn't worry all the time? Even in her sleep?
Is this the RNC thread? It just dawned on me that if the 2000 election hadn't been stolen, it's very likely we'd now have Candidate Lieberman on the Democratic ticket. Would this be a disaster, or would the Lieberman who spent eight years as Gore's VP be somehow different, and better, than the Lieberman that is?
No way to know, of course.
Huh. There's a thought. But who's to say he would have been nominated?
Do you think the country could have endured the combined vocal stylings of Gore and Lieberman for eight years? I think not.
And no, I can't imagine Lieberman as the nominee.
631: history? No way to know, of course, but odds are good.
re: 629
I suspect Sifu may know a little bit about IT and security. Just sayin'.
629: Watch your tone, ehj2, or Sifu's killer robots will cut you!
re: 635
The 2.0 models are all about robotized jin power.
635, I always hoped it would be the killer robots that would get me. They, with their clean precise digital thoughts, even if sent by crazed corporatists (not you Sifu), would be a far more honored adversary and ultimate dispatcher than those silly wetware creatures with discordant dreams of greed and fear.
It's OK to call Sifu a crazed corporatist around here, Ehj2.
I didn't even know Sifu was an IT person. I certainly wouldn't call him by my highest epithet until he started spouting Chicago jibberish about how the market takes care of everything and it's okay to vote for Palin because she won't perturb the natural system that works perfectly if you don't disturb it, in the falling light, with the boats in the water, and all of that ...
I certainly wouldn't call "anyone" by my highest epithet until "that person" ...
Is Talking Points Memo down? I can't seem to get it.
Hat tip 3quarksdaily.
George Carlin's last interview.
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/brainstorm/200806/george-carlins-last-interview
Re: 641, it's back now. Sorry. Must be a very busy day there.
I think that if Gore had been rightfully seated in 2000, the GOP probably would have won in 2004. No way to prove it, of course, but four in a row is hard to do.
Inadvertantly watched a bit of RNC coverage. Styx is Republican.
Of course, Blue Oyster Cult is playing county fairs.
644: yeah, I thought of that, and it's probably right.
This is what I was talking about in that post NickS linked: Bazelon and Lithwick comparing themselves to Supermom Palin. That's when my overly-simplistic rule about the early parenting years being impossible for two adults to pull off makes my thought process easy. If it requires superpowers and looks utterly daunting for Gov. Palin to be a full-time governor and parent a young infant and four older children and cook every meal and run her household, that's because it is impossible. If it is impossible, then that isn't what is happening.
Instead of Bazelon and Lithwick wondering why they can't do it and rueing that it never worked for them, they should look for other explanations. A full-time housedaddy. Staff. From the way she cradles Trig, my money is that B. Palin or maybe both older daughters do an awful lot of parenting. That brings you up to (more or less) four adults in the household, which sounds more likely to me than a supermom idealization of Gov. Palin.
So yeah. I agree with those authors that Gov. Palin apparent household-running skills shouldn't be evidence that we don't need social programs to support families in that stage. I just wish Bazelon and Lithwick hadn't fallen for the concept that a nuclear family can manage all that and the accompanying guilt when their families didn't.
(Since I'm throwing out the rash guesses about the Palin family, I'll say two more. When we have my 13 and 15 year old sibs in the house, taking care of the 2 and 4 year old nephews is a breeze. They chase the babies; one adult can get ahead on meals and laundry.
Now that I have this theory, I'm a trifle more surprised at Bristol's pregnancy. I know few women who were the oldest of several siblings, and the attitude that they've raised all the kids they ever plan to is common among them. 'Course, they have access to birth control.)
I think that if Gore had been rightfully seated in 2000, the GOP probably would have won in 2004.
And it would've been...McCain?
647: Around here many people (perhaps 1/3) of my generation have 3+ siblings, but only a very few had 4+ kids. High fertility depends on the unanimity of all social structures supporting and coercing the parents, especially the mother, so that big families seem normal, inevitable, and wonderful.
And it would've been...McCain?
Hard to say. The circumstances would have been entirely different.
I can't get over how well the 10-15 year split works. Older children! Run after the babies and keep them out of the parking lot! I'll be here, nursing my gin and tonic. They do the diapering and bedtime story reading, too. They seem to all enjoy it for the length of a long weekend. I don't know how long it lasts past that.
My mother and her little brother are an eleven year split, and the impression I get is that while it wasn't particularly oppressive from her point of view, that she certainly did a lot along those lines.
Is anyone else watching the RNC? Boehner has such a voice, and that's such a flag.
I'm 16 years older than my youngest brother and one result is that I really like babies and toddlers. I had a fair amount of responsibility but it was split with my two sisters.
My sil more or less raised her two younger brothers, for about five years starting when she was about 8 or 10, because her birth father was absent and her mother was working, She likes kids OK but it was a terribly painful and draining experience.
Yeah, I'm most of the way towards believing that the older kids like it. I especially like the older boy-little boy pair, because it looks like it meets the insatiable demand for wrestling.
I'm 19 years older than my brother. I did a fair bit of childcare until he was about 2 and I moved away. I didn't find it a chore at all, although I suppose it might have been if I'd been a bit younger or had to do it for longer (or it might not, I don't know).
I am a dab hand at nappy changing and all that stuff, and not scared of babies, which I suppose is a useful thing.
A second benefit of having younger siblings is that you realize that babies aren't very fragile, so you worry less.
This can be carried to extremes, of course.
655 - See that's the one-(half)adult, more-than-one-child model, which violates my child-raising philosophy that adults must outnumber the children. Your poor sil. It sounds exactly like you said, painful and draining for anyone, and moreso for a child herself.
re: 658
Yeah, learning that they are robust little things is good.
I am a dab hand at nappy changing and all that stuff, and not scared of babies, which I suppose is a useful thing.
Indeed it is. Buck did a lot of baby-cousin child care as a teenager, and had a niece when he was seventeen who he spent a lot of time taking care of, while I had had very little contact with babies before I had one. (I babysat as a teen, but rarely for infants.) I figured it out pretty quickly, but having someone with baby-wrangling chops around when Sally was a newborn was immensely reassuring.
I'm the oldest of 5, 11 years between me and the baby. (awww! the baby is going to college now! Also he can totally beat me up). My mom always claimed the last two were "birth control" for the older ones but I'm not so sure that really worked. I don't have any kids yet, but I still like them and everything. Probably I like them more than most of my friends do.
someone with baby-wrangling chops
What's so hard? I thought you just set 'em to the Spin Cycle and go make the morning cocktails. Have I been mislead here?
Mostly what Emerson and ttaM said about their not being terribly fragile. And the basic rule that there are only about six things an infant can possibly want: food; diaper change; warmth/cool; attention and cuddling; soothing motion; or relief from pain. If you just keep on cycling through those six things, that should solve everything.
that should solve everything
Except when it doesn't. Which is when Stanley's cocktails come in handy.
Mostly it does. The babies that get you are the ones with a problem that's on the list but that you can't solve, like colic keeping them in pain, or with an insatiable appetite for being soothed so you can't get any rest.
And the basic rule that there are only about six things an infant can possibly want: food; diaper change; warmth/cool; attention and cuddling; soothing motion; or relief from pain. If you just keep on cycling through those six things, that should solve everything.
You know what I learned last night an infant does not want? Its mouth held shut to make it stop crying. Also, not very effective. Also, I should probably go to jail now.
663: VERY wrong. You gotta train the BABIES to make the cocktails. this will help
Oy. Poor you.
And once again, this too shall pass -- they'll be a big kid before you know it.
668: One of my earliest chores was to "Mix Daddy a Rusty Nail." I've forgotten the proportions -- three fingers of Scotch and two of Drambuie?
But I was a big girl, maybe nine or ten.
Is anyone else watching the RNC?
watching US Open, Federer/Andreev. After four+ years of effortless invulnerability, Federer is suddenly very human. His baseline game has deserted him. But he still has tremendous will to win.
with an insatiable appetite for being soothed so you can't get any rest.
My brother hated being left alone to sleep. He wouldn't sleep unless you let him hold your finger and he'd grip it in his solid little fists [he was one of those 10lb monster babies that looked like he'd been weightlifting by the time he was a few months old]. If he was sound asleep he'd wake up the second you slid your hand away. Ditto floor board noises as you crept towards the door, etc. I must have developed a dozen comical gaits to step between his cot and the door without waking him.
You didn't have any chores before you were nine or ten?
Poor President Landers. I've been near that exasperating edge more than once. But they can be so damn cute the rest of the time.
Also, not very effective.
Yeah, it only pisses them off more. But we've all been there.
Styx is Republican.
Is it any wonder I'm not a criminal? / Is it any wonder I'm not in jail?
Yeah, that works. Also:
Oh Mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law / Law man has put an end to my running and I'm so far from my home / The jig is up, the news is out / They finally found me...
Not a lot. Keeping my own room clean, washing dishes as I bickered with my sister, but that was about it.
I honestly had no idea till right this minute that the McCains had an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Don't know how I missed that one. (Not that it matters one way or the other; just an odd thing to slip past me.)
Yeah, she was the kernel of truth underlying the ghastly "McCain has an illegitimate black daughter" smears in South Carolina in 2000.
How does an adopted daughter from Bangladesh lend a kernel of truth to "McCain has an illegitimate black daughter" smears? You must meausre truth in much smaller kernels than I do.
One of the very nice details about Mad Men this season has been the Draper daughter's bartending. She looks to be almost six.
681: Dark skin, not conceived in (the McCain's) wedlock.
682: No spoilers! I'm waiting for season two on DVD.
The McCain kids have been very absent, Bridget (the adopted Bangladeshi girl) especially. Rumor has it that several of his featured "family portraits" are missing her.
You know the rules, Brock. She's obviously not Mexican.
Can someone please tell me why every time I see the name of this thread, my mind sings out: "Don't Orn! Morganize!"
687: No, but 521 says you're not alone. Not sure whether that should make you feel better or worse.
688: Zounds! I did not see that. But no, I've been reading it that way since comment 1. I think Apostropher has found the answer.
The tumor is probably pressing on my Assonance-Spoonerism center.
The smallest unit of truth is, coincidentally, named the Brock Kernel, called 1 Brock by convention.
The truthiness that the Republicans care about the environment (no matter how often they invoke Teddy) is measured at 1 virtual Brock, meaning that, like virtual particles, this is a virtual truth that comes and goes randomly and quickly, and even when it's there, it don't amount to nothing.
I just noticed 683, and am just dumbfounded. You really think it's fair to say those qualities lent a "kernel of truth" to the smear? Come on.
Or was 683 a joke? I'm not getting much sleep these days, and could be misreading.
684: It turns out that Roger Stirling supported the Bridge to Nowhere.
Kernel of truth meaning that a low-info racist voter might find the rumor plus a Xeroxed photo believable.
693: This is the actual infinitesimal, which is smaller than anything else whatsoever, actual or possible.
Huh. That's not how I'd use that phrase. I wouldn't say that smear was "true" in any measurable sense. It was a bald lie.
(Because in the sense in which truth matters, it is easily measured.)
McCain just hired Tucker Eskew for his own campaign. Eskew is the guy who led the "McCain has a black baby!" charge in 2000 for Bush.
The smallest unit of truth is, coincidentally, named the Brock Kernel, called 1 Brock by convention.
Small to you and me, but when converted to utils at a ratio of u=tc^2, a single 1Brock packs the utilitarian force of a mouse orgasm.
The smear wasn't true in any way. But the daughter exists, and using her as the basis for the smear made the smear much more effective than one without such a basis.
I think it's fine to say there's no moral distance between the two, just one of political efficacy.
702: Orders of magnitude are no big deal, so KR is more oir less right. It pisses me off when people get all huffy about formalities like orders of magnitude.
McCain just hired Tucker Eskew for his own campaign. Eskew is the guy who led the "McCain has a black baby!" charge in 2000 for Bush.
I eagerly await the "Obama has a black baby!" rumours.
The smear wasn't true in any way. But the daughter exists, and using her as the basis for the smear made the smear much more effective than one without such a basis.
Can this really be true? There is zero correlation in anyone's mind between an adopted daughter from Bangladesh and an "illegitimate black baby", and anyone bothering to investigate even the most basic facts would clearly see this claim was garbage.* This smear wasn't targeted at low-information voters, it was targeted at zero-information voters. Given that, I think it would have been just as effective if McCain had all white daughters, or all sons, or no children at all. It was just a bald lie. And anyone that would be misled by the xerox could be as easily misled by a cheap photoshop.
*Unless they believe in a grand conspiracy and cover-up, in which case, again, the facts don't matter at all, and they could just as easily believe a cover-up occurred if McCain's official bio said he was childless.
Unless they believe in a grand conspiracy and cover-up
Cindy McCain faked the pregnancy?
I think that "plausible pretext" is what someone above meant by "kernel of truth". McCain has a dark child in some photos.
706, Brock,
If you remain persuaded that Republican political combat has any measurable relationship to "facts which matter" I invite you to Google "College Republicans" with a relaxing beverage that will keep your head from exploding. What matters is what wins if you can get away with it. And this is carefully targeted so it will be something different in every interest group, and generally implemented without clear fingerprints. Many people in remote counties are indeed motivated by a campaign brochure found under their windshield wipers after an early evening sermon. Or a short message with coded content on a fundamentalist radio station.
ehj2, Brock is perpetually on the verge of his head exploding. It's just a thing he has.
706: This article from the Boston Globe is a good recap of the "black baby" smear. Basically they did it via push polls (and parking lot flyers). Since McCain's very dark daughter was photographed or filmed with them, it gave enough a hook to get the "maybe it is true" thoughts started.
Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black.
And read the role of the one Bob Jones University professor if you want to see how disgusting McCain's subsequent kowtowing to that institution has been.
712: Er, this article, "Anatomy of a Smear Campaign".
Brock suffers from bonus eruptus cunctatus. A terrible condition, in which at any moment the skeleton might leap from the body.
I'm not disputing anything in 710 at all; I was just noting that the "illegitimate black baby" smear had no grounding whatsoever in truth, and to claim that it did have some grounding in truth because McCain adopted a baby from Bangladesh strikes me as nonsensical and perverse.
I think Emerson gets it right in 708.
I don't know what 711 is about. Have I ever discussed premature ejaculation on this blog?
715, Brock,
it is nonsensical and perverse. And it works, because the margins for election victory are so small in so many counties. And over and over again, we lose because we can't believe nonsense and perversity can possibly prevail.
The 2004 election almost killed me. Every periodical in the country endorsed Kerry; even the American Conservative had to fudge and run endorsements for every serious candidate to cover the fact that Bush was a disaster even for conservatism. Bush's home town paper panned him. And yet Bush won. Nonsense and outright lies win.
These guys have the largest deficit in history, and the largest hidden "off the books" deficit in history, and they're telling people (and the base is believing it) we make no sense economically.
What did Arnold say at their last convention? Oh yeah, "we're girlie man" economists. What kind of an argument is that? But you couldn't stop the applause.
Sorry, "kernel of truth" was a bad way of putting it, of course describing the smears as true in any way was wrong. The fact that McCain's daughter really is Bangladeshi by origin provided a hook that let the smear artists make their lies look more plausible to people who weren't paying attention.
Oh, I knew what you meant, LB. I was just procrastinating at work.
