John Hinderaker at Powerline features a quote from the NY Times’s review of Sarah Palin’s book that is worth repeating:
Mr. McCain’s astonishing decision to pick someone with so little experience (less than two years as the governor of Alaska, and before that, two terms as mayor of Wasilla, a town with fewer than 7,000 residents) as his running mate and Ms. Palin’s own surprisingly nonchalant reaction to Mr. McCain’s initial phone call about the vice president’s slot (she writes that it felt “like a natural progression”) underscore just how alarmingly expertise is discounted — or equated with elitism — in our increasingly democratized era, and just how thoroughly colorful personal narratives overshadow policy arguments and actual knowledge. [Emphasis added]
They are talking about Palin, right?
Comments 51
Their long experiment with the unexamined life continues, there at NYT. One sometimes has whiffs of what it must be like to read Pravda, knowing the origin and consistency of what it’s chock full of.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I’m sure she’s glad to see all the publicity being given her book by the clueless bozos at the NYT and the WaPost. I am to. She will deserve every penny of what she makes from it as partial recompense for the hell liberals put her through.
November 15th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
@ Sully:
She’s deserving!
She’s vital!
She’ll earn millions, she will,
Twas worth more than her title.
November 15th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
@ fuster“Vivacious” may be a better word than “vital” for what you’re getting at, and getting at, and getting at, ad nauseam – er, whatever it is.
New line in the anti-Palin playbook: She’s earning millions, millions, she’s a sell-out. Replaces previous entries: “How could she do this to her family?” and “What a Loser!”
Eat the Rich! (except for Pelosi, Obama, Soros…)
November 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Looks like a peninsula?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc
Vitality was your word, CK. I liked it!
November 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I referred to the Newsweek cover as a “picture of pure vitality.” Shakespeare it wasn’t, but I’ll call it good enough for blog work.
“Vital” has other connotations and common usages that make using it as an adjective describing a person awkward. “Vivacious” has a somewhat trivial connotation – suggesting the effervescence or liveliness of a girl – but in my view comes closer to fitting the image of a poised, athletic, self-possessed woman smiling forthrightly to the camera.
November 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
@ fuster:
I’m just going to assume that you’re not simple-minded enough to buy that story for the price it was being sold at. That leaves me with no choice but to attribute your linking it to snide maliciousness.
November 15th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
@ fuster:
To quote a not-so-wise man, leaving the poetizing to Sully.
November 15th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
It was a natural progression, the major projects she wanted to entertain, like the AGIA pipeline, can only be really secured from Washington, the state of the nation’s defense, the defense of life, likewise. Now she would preferred to finish out her term, but these !@#!@$@#% wouldn’t let her, so you know what happens when you torment a momma grizzly
November 15th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
@ Howard Portnoy:
Amen to that.
How’s Troy and who the heck are wearing the Bengal’s uniforms this year?
November 15th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
@ narciso:
Additionally – VP, as understudy to the P, is the next highest executive position that a governor can aspire to. She wasn’t in a position to try out for governor of some more populous state or head of some smaller country’s government.
The odds were excellent that ol’ Johnny Mac would have held out a few months at least – at the end of which period she would arguably have been at least as well-qualified for P as anyone else in the country… unless you’re an NYT or Newsweek columnist for whom being conservative is already pretty much disqualifying, and permanently, signifying as it must a grave deficiency in intellect or conscience.
I suspect that in her soul Michiko Kakutani is unconvinced that George W Bush and Ronald Reagan were qualified to be president either, even by the time they were running for their second terms. GHW might have passed the test because he combined truly long experience with being squishy.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Four(?) Palin posts in one w/e is enough to wear a soul thin.
And I’m surely not fully buying it, but neither will discount it as worthless.
Can’t tell what she’s really got under the hood, but she fully earned all the laughs during the campaign.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Of course he would have, the idea that he was going to croak any minute was ridiculous. AS you’ve probably gathered, I voted for her, McCain just happened to be on the ticket. I realize now however, that the Murphys, the Schmidts, the Wallaces would have tried to marginalize and isolate her at the Naval Observatory, although she probably would have fared better than Quayle, it would have been a knockdown drag out fight all the way.
November 15th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
My heart bleeds for you, a lot, but we’ve got Oprah, Hannity, Limbaugh, Baba Wawa, and opposing armies of lovers and haters all primed to keep the Palinmania going.
If the haters were to hang fire, I personally would be happy to let the story speak for itself.
Plus my copy of GOING ROGUE ought to be arriving any day now – yours, too, I presume – so we’ll probably want to “live blog” it paragraph by paragraph, don’t you think? Of course, you do. It will be so much fun!
November 15th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
@ fuster:
Just as Obama is earning all his now.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
@ narciso:
I think you’re right, btw, that she’d have had a hard roe to hoe as VP, at least if she was determined to be relevant, but that’s not so unusual for VP’s, and a lot of it would have depended on McCain himself. The idea of her focusing on energy policy – as well as government reform, and some minor things – didn’t seem like a bad or small thing at the time it was first proposed, when energy was at the top of everyone’s list.
Anyway, it’s all academic, or a consideration for those alternative universes, I’m guessing they’re proportionately small in number, in which McCain-Palin pulled off the upset of the last several centuries.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Will there be sneaker-sniffing, too?
November 15th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Behave, fuster, we’re talking about a lady,after all. A confident, charismatic wife and mother who cares about her country. That’s why she draws crowds from Carson City to Kosovo
November 15th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
@ narciso:
Ha!
What she is, is more open to interpretation than a few other people actually serving their country and regularly derided on this site.
Until Palin overcomes the scornfull laughter that she earned in the campaign, her confidence might be (and certainly deserves to be) quite open to question.
Until she even offers a semi-coherent answer as to why she quit the governorship that she had, her love of country is pretty much suspect as well.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Palin’s a politically incorrect fox
Who popped out of her cold northern box,
After far too few turns of the crank,
For the comfort of New York Times cocks,
Conservative hen peckers rank,
Who dote on their lefty hen flocks,
And fear a fox more than the pox.
She’s just what the Times writers dread,
So they’ve gone out of their heads, and to town,
In trying to push her back down,
So they can close the lid over her head.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
She quit the governorship because it was driving her to bankruptcy and grinding the state’s machinery to a crawl. She stated the issues she wanted to support, and has followed
through. What has Obama done to merit the adulation he was given and still receives. He’s the product of a corrupt Chicago machine, made his mark with former terrorists and rabble
rousing preachers, now doesn’t even stand by
the conflict he said was a ‘war of necessity’
has put forth a stimulus program that hasn’t
worked, have you seen any such work in your
area, besides these ubiqitous signs. Seems
willing to embrace our foes and discard our allies
November 15th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
That’s illogical. Whatever reason or reasons explain why she chose to quit the governorship, unless they involved conspiring with Al Qaeda or Iran, they have no necessary bearing whatsoever on her “love of country.”
I’d recommend that you bring your brand new copy of GOING ROGUE home with you, pull it out of its plain brown wrapper, and skip ahead to the part where she discusses her decision in detail. Until then, you can read my post on the subject, written on the night of the announcement:
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/07/04/what-else-was-she-supposed-to-do/
That was in ancient times, when ZC was at most a gleam in JPod’s eye.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
@ Sully:
Needs a little work, but I sense a major minor classic in the making – hey did you read my e-mail yet and have you noticed your budding feature in the sidebar?
November 15th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
@ narciso:
Could you please show how or why being governor was causing her to become a bankrupt?
I’ve always had the idea that a governorship paid a fair salary and come with some benefits, including food and shelter?
Have other people complained about the economic hardship and resigned?
November 15th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Those twenty ethics complaints ended up costing her a half million dollars in legal feesm including the one about the legal defense fund which was to pay those fees that were leaked right before a final determination was made. There was nothing to them, publicizing them voided them automatically, but it suggested she was corrupt, evil, what have you. In addition to the two million dollars that the state
had to shell out to process thosecomplaints. That was for one year, for a job that pays 125 K, and there was no end in sight. The one time she chose not to challenge the determination, those travel expenses and paid it herself, despite the fact that the relevant department had approved it before
hand, ended up in that AP fact check
November 15th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
@ fuster:
The sheer viciousness with which the abortionist feminist eugenicist omnisexualist libertine leftist alliance went after her was unprecedented even in a country which has seen literal witch hunts before. Self defense against such an assault costs money, time and attention.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
I thought Alaska was a country. Bigger than Africa.
Didn’t she offer to sell it to Al Qaeda or Iran? I thought that the only reason that she didn’t was due to a glitch in the E-Bay bidding process.
(I supposed that simply saying that I wasn’t seriously questioning her patriotism wouldn’t work, as folks here hardly hesitate before indulging in same.)
November 15th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
@ fuster:
Well, when you simply say one thing, then simply say the opposite, what are those of us desperately struggling to preserve your remnant credibility supposed to do?
November 15th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
@ narciso:
I have to disagree about there was nothing to them.
There certainly might be some complaints that lacked merit, but I seem to remember that she was compelled to pay up on some.
The one about ordered some guy to be canned for non-job related stuff also comes to mind.
However, can you point me to something listing her personal expenses incurred, particularly expenses not related to actions properly questioned?
November 15th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
@ Sully:
Good thing she’s not president. I imagine she would turn tail in a week or two.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Those two entries were great, Sully, I’m more prose rather than verse, and some say I’m a little long winded (I don’t know where they get
that idea. CK, between you and Dr. Zero, you
should mount a coup to take over Hot Air, or at least the Green Room should expand.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
I haven’t been at my email today or yesterday. I noticed the feature earlier today. In fact it lead me to the bad samoyed poem which was in a comment to the Obamandias one. I messed with that a bit and then put it up on my blog. One of the things I like about the new feature is the idea that I can post things there that don’t feel right for the main page, like the samoyed poem.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Plug that hole in your bleeding heart and keep struggling, Tsar. I’ll try to be either more serious or more obviously not.
In so doing, let me amend my question of her patriotism to be a questioning of her sense of duty and dedication to same
November 15th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
@ narciso:
I’m glad you enjoyed them.
A word about the frog. It’s been speculated that he is CK MacLeod’s liberal alter ego, or his evil twin sister. I don’t think he’s either of those; but some of the conversations that go on between the two of them on the wall through the night can make one wonder.
November 15th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
@ Sully:
That last marathon near skeered me.
That Tsar was all bufotoxined up.
November 15th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
@ fuster:
You’re saying he nearly Nathan Bedford Forrested you?
And that the Tsar was disoriented from licking you?
November 15th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I gave it the old college try, I thought fuster was just ill informed, it’s more orc level troll on a whole host of areas. I don’t know if she’ll run for President, but why is she seemingly the only
figure on the center right political axis, with the exception of Michelle Bachman,that isn’t in talk radio, that systematically challenges the President’s policies. All the ‘front runner’ hem and haw and mumble some objection, but in a half hearted way.
November 15th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
@ narciso:
The other Repubs are keeping a lower profile in homage to the old saw that ‘when your enemy is destroying himself, keep out of the way.’ The long shots for R presidential nomination, like Palin and Gingrich are speaking out most forcefully. The others are biding their time.
That’s my take on it; but don’t bet any money on it. I was sure both Hillary and McCain were going to take down Obama last year, despite the fact that both were problematic candidates.
This country has sure gone crazy. If a cook with a cleaver were to pursue a plucked and cleaned headless chicken with wings through the crowd of reporters at the next White House press conference it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:11 am
@ Sully:
McCain had a shot. The economy killed him.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:29 am
@ narciso:
I’m terribly ill-informed but I’m willing to learn.
Do you want to try showing me that Palin quit because of the damnable expense and that the suits alleging violations were without foundation?
November 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am
@ fuster:
The complaints were all dismissed. If you look into them in any detail you will see how absurd they were – which doesn’t mean they weren’t costly and time-consuming to cope with. She was a state-level official dealing with a national-level attack.
Palin’s decision to quit was overdetermined, therefore not susceptible to a single issue explanation. From a certain perspective, any particular issue in isolation may seem sufficient, but doesn’t capture the reality: All by themselves, the expenses imposed on her might have been manageable. All by itself, the allure of striking out on her own and realizing her political destiny on the national stage might have been resistible. Likewise a felt need to rally opposition to Obamaism as against an implicit commitment to fill out her term in Alaska. Likewise a desire to answer her critics and her would-be character assassins. Likewise a desire to strike while the iron was hot and make several million dollars for herself and her family. Etc.
I’m deeply hurt that you appear either not to have read the piece of mine that I linked or not to have read it with due (that is, rapt) attention.
McCain had a shot, a long one, for three reasons: Energy, Obama’s Extraterrestrial persona, Obama’s left-liberal background as reflected most melodramatically in his personal associations with the likes of Ayers, Khalidi, and Wright.
In retrospect, it’s clear that the sudden rise and even more sudden demise of the energy issue, which in the former instance critically supported the selection of Palin for VP and in the second cut the legs out from under it, themselves reflected the underlying economic contradictions that in turn propelled the financial crisis.
You can try to imagine a world in which Lehman Brothers collapsed a couple of months later, but to do so you need to ignore all of the reasons why it collapsed when it did. As usual, the folk sensed conspiracy, where the economists eventually discover conjuncture.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:47 am
@ CK MacLeod:
I think that I read about ten paras last night. I’ll give another try.
I don’t wish to hurt you inadvertently.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:56 am
@ fuster:
I started to have doubts about whether McCain was electable when a fairly conservative cousin down in Florida referred to him as the mummy just after the convention. I suppressed those doubts; but the fact is that the guy was a terrible candidate whose woodenness was only emphasized by those stiff shoulders of his, however they were gained.
After the mummy remark I put foolish trust in Palin to take him over the top because I couldn’t believe 50% of the country would vote for someone as extreme and as inexperienced as Obama. Palin helped, but after she muffed the Couric interview there was no way she could pull enough independents and women for her to help enough.
That Couric interview was stupid on many levels; but hopefully it taught Republicans at least one thing. Never interview with a liberal except under rules that the single camera remains focused on both parties and runs continuously through the encounter. That’s the way Obama interviewed with O’Reilly on Fox, because his advisers were smarter. Palin could have named any terms she wanted for that interview with Couric. She didn’t and she became toast.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:14 am
@ Sully:
McCain came across as much more human than Gore.
So, if Gore could pull enough votes to be elected president, I’m sure that McCain could have.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Meanwhile an economist friend just told me on the phone that he feels good about this year and perhaps next; but thinks another financial reckoning is coming. Perhaps in the form of a squeeze on physical gold which blows its price sky high and results in a Rooseveltian seizure cum call in of gold at a fixed price in preference to a complete dollar rout.
He pointed out that the number of futures contract holders who demand physical delivery rather than rolling over their contracts is rising and that there have already been ripples of trouble when the guarantor banks have had temporary trouble acquiring the physical gold fast enough.
I wish RCAR were around.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:23 am
@ fuster:
Hardly a high standard, sort of like an emperor being more glib than Clau. . . Clau. . . Claudius.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Nobody ever went broke underestimating….
November 16th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Yep, and we’re paying for it. Clearly she could not dictate the terms, even though the crowds and even the opposition treated her as the candidate, but the campaign team played it like the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
As to Lehman Bros and the circumstances of it’s collapse, is it just a coincidence, that the main competitor to the firm of the Secretary of the Treasury, which bet the other way on commodities, would collapse 60 days before an election, triggering this once in a lifetime ‘psychology of the crowds
‘ that would catapult Obama into the Oval Office
November 16th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
@ narciso:
To the extent that it can be called conspiracy rather than conjuncture, confluence, or, weakest, coincidence, it would point all the more to severe internal contradictions in the system, and lead you eventually to the same place, albeit by in a more volatile manner.
Though McCain-Palin did briefly lead in the polls, I’m not convinced at all that they would have won without the financial collapse, though it obviously made things harder if not impossible for them. One of these days, I’ll make a point of reading up on the high finance blow-by-blows of Summer-Fall ’08, but I seem to recall that, though Lehman surprised the world, the events did not surprise those intimately involved in finance.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I don’t believe anyone was or is smart enough to have manipulated the whole shebang; but it is startling just how well Goldman Sachs and some other banks came out of this thing, as opposed to others who didn’t come out quite so well.
And it is a fact that a lot of Goldman alums have been active throughout in government circles, in both administrations.
Just sayin. . .
Probably nothin’ here but us chickens like the friendliness and service of the Bush’s to the Saudis and Kuwaitis bearing no relation to their primary wealth generator being oil.
But if someone was smart enough to influence things even a little bit on how the bailout was structured it would have been worth a whole lot of thought and planning because there has been a whole lot of moolah being tossed around down there, and up there, and over there.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Well I think that Bush was right to have two industrialist, instead of financiers, for his two Treasury Secretary, in O’Neil and Snowe and they did pretty good, specially considering the options and derivatives scandals of the early O0s.
Now the extent to which the Bush administration was friendly with the Sauds is overstated to say the least. They surely didn’t want 1/3 of their countrymen in the original Gitmo pool, hence the public relations campaign directed through blue chip law firms like Holder’s Covington & Burling to free them. a Shiite regime on their
doorstep, just right off the mark
November 16th, 2009 at 7:11 pm