Mrs. Veep?
2008 September 4
Two views of Sarah Palin as a VP choice by Washington Post writers:
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I got a note from a Louisiana reader who asks that we pray for all the people heavily impacted by Gustav.
Sniffing out the work of God in the world…
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I used to see the world in black and white, there are several experiences that I can point to that changed all of that.
On abortion, several years ago I volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center. A married woman in her 30s came in for a pregnancy test. She had her two children with her, they were both under 5. She had recently left her abusive husband and was hiding from him. Her pregnancy test was positive, as she already suspected she was pregnant, she had already made her decision. She wanted to put the baby up for adoption. She was already worried about taking care of her two young children, and did not think she could take care of a third. She was then informed by the counselor that her husband, the father of the child, would have to sign off on the adoption. That changed her decision. She decided to have an abortion. She didn;t want an abortion, but she didn;t want to reintroduce her husband into her and her childrens’ lives again. She also suspected that he would not agree to the adoption, just exercise more control over her. She was very scared of him and had been trying to leave him for a long time.
I am still pro life (I’m actaully a member of the same pro life feminist group as Palin), but I see the issue differently. Women who get abortions do so because they belive that it is their best option. Personally, I think the solution is for both parties to make the other options, keeping the child or adoption, a more feesible option for women.
Actually, Keith, you’re the one labeling here. I can’t find any place I’ve defended “big government” anywhere in any of my posts.
But I’m cool with it. If this is the way to play it that’s comfortable for you, let’s play it this way. But please note that you’re also calling for “big government” here: government that interferes (for good or ill) in people’s private lives is the literal definition of American liberalism. Having the government prescribe for doctors and citizens what they can and can’t do in their private lives is thus — by definition — “big government” liberalism. Seriously. look it up in the dictionary of your choice — don’t take my word for it.
Of course, there are a lot of reasons for government to get involved in people’s private lives — stopping crimes, protecting children, ensuring a just society. We’re comfortable with this sort of engagement in a lot of ways, so it’s no earth-shaking acknowledgment that most Americans see benefits to “big government” at some level. (Most people I know who fly, for example — whether they claim to be conservatives or liberals — are very happy that “big government” regulates airplane mechanics). And I, too, think the government has a role to play in issues like this — life, death, war, poverty. It turns out, I’m a liberal. And clearly, you think government has a role to play, too, and thus are also — by definition (though you may be loath to admit it)– a liberal.
So we’re both liberals — by definition — just about different things. Fair enough. But labels like “liberal” and “conservative” and even “big government” have been rendered useless by people throwing them around as pejoratives without really caring about their definitions. So there’s no real point in arguing about these hollow categories. Too often, they’re deployed simply as part of a strategy for those trying to end difficult conversations without really considering what’s at stake, as you seem to be doing in your most recent post. That’s unfortunate. And a bit craven. After all, if life is really so important to you — if truth is important — isn’t “agree[ing] to disagree” a kind of copout?
I think so. So let me be clear: I think life — unborn and born — is too important an issue to consign to an easy-way-out, label-laden dismissal. It’s important and we have to come to terms with it and its implications. So let me give this one last try.
First, as an aside, you should know that the position I’ve been articulating in my posts is the very one John McCain himself articulated back in 2000 (though he has recently changed his position on this, as with so many others of his principled stances, to fall in with the party line… so much for “maverick”). Check out the video footage yourself at . Note that at the time he made this speech, McCain understood that there’s more at stake than just legislation: “if we repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations.” He then goes on to call for a more nuanced and inclusive understanding and treatment of this “unpleasant and terrible procedure” by Republicans (his words; note his consideration not just for the babies but also for the mothers in this phrase) so that together, Americans can work to eliminate abortion. That makes sense to me. And I have to confess that if that John McCain were running instead of the one who sold his entire political soul to Karl Rove and Bush, he’d be a compelling candidate to me.
But here’s the real core issue for me and the reason I’m writing: as amazing as it is — and I mean it’s truly ASTONISHING at this point — you still can’t even type the words “war” or “poverty,” let alone acknowledge that they have anything to do with a pro-life agenda, even in your most recent post. Maybe the keys on your keyboard are broken, though that seems unlikely since the letters in those words appear in other words you’ve actually typed… So I’m stumped about it.
I’m begging you, please, help me understand why you can’t even talk about these other issues, can’t even mention them. What’s at stake for you in your amazing refusal even to type the words in your responses to me — even in telling me I’m completely off-base? What would it unlock for you or what would you have to deal with if you even repeated the words in association with abortion? Please. I genuinely want to know. I’ve done everything I can think to do to get you to address them — reasoned, mocked, assaulted, quoted, questioned — and you just won’t do it. Help me understand why you can’t or won’t. Give me any argument — principled or unprincipled, coherent or cockamamie — about why you have to leave war and poverty out of your considerations of what it means to be “pro-life.” Even if you have to treat them as separate issues completely unrelated to your stance on abortion, please do it. Whatever it takes.
Because as it is, it makes absolutely no sense to me, and I’d really like to understand.
The McCain video link got stripped out. It’s at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Trbaufpok8
Keith, before you stand in the place of God in judgment, perhaps a little more study would be wise. The Bible (yes, THAT Bible) distinguishes between causing an abortion and murder. Murder receives the death penalty, causing an abortion incurs a fine.
Fact is, you cannot make the Bible take a stance on abortion, for or against.
I guess I’m just too simple for you, Bill. I can barely make it through one of your posts to tell the truth.
I’m sorry I’m not going to discuss every issue-but I will say that I will fundamentally disagree with your statement that all war is murder. I know I don’t need to go any further than that with you on that topic.
We will just disagree. I see government as providing security and safety, you feel that government’s role should include MUCH more. That’s all.
Quiara, if someone UNintentionally caused an abortion they were punished. That’s enough for me. Abortion is taking an innocent life, period. Whether you believe it’s a tough decision (I would think it would be) or not doesn’t change that. I’m apologize that I spoke too soon when I said you agreed it was wrong. I really got that impression earlier.
I never said it wasn’t wrong, Keith, or a tragedy. I just said the Bible doesn’t call it murder. And no, the only instance of causing an abortion’s incurring a fine is not in the unintentional event. But we are not going to agree on this. You see your friend and how you perceive he was wronged. I see the women I’ve worked with and not your friend. We both have our biases, neither of which will be easily shed.
Keith, I didn’t ever say “all war is murder” (though one might certainly debate that). I said this war is murder. It’s hard to see it otherwise since there’s never been — even now by the administration’s own admission — any rationale for being in Iraq (other than the interests of oil companies and the president’s own misguided desire for self-definition, of course). This war is in conflict with a genuine pro-life agenda. This war is a travesty — and it has nothing to do with the soldiers who are honorably following their orders; it has everything to do with the corrupt and jaded administration that is giving those orders.
But at least you finally wrote the word “war” even if it was only in dismissal. And that’s something, I suppose…
As for being “simple,” that’s not really any sort of virtue here. This is a complex and important issue and it bears serious thought and commitment, study and sacrifice. Many in our country are using “simple” as a refuge to escape from doing the hard intellectual, moral, and political work that is necessary genuinely to confront these issues (one thinks of Palin’s acceptance speech). And that makes claims of being “pro-life” (or anything else, for that matter) into hollow, jingoistic labels that do few of us any good.
We need people to take a genuine stand. Or we need them to sit down. There’s serious work to be done that’s going to have to go beyond lock-step adherence to the partisan ideology and ballistic label-throwing that Bush/Cheney/Rove/Delay (and a host of their media pundit servants) have perfected over these past years and to which McCain is now entirely indebted. We need genuine Republicans, genuine conservatives, and genuine pro-lifers who are willing to go beyond sound-bites and vitriol. The cheap counterfeits that are passing for these today just won’t do.
Quiara- “Will you lose your livelihood if you carry your baby to term?” With that mindset, there is nothing anyone could ever say to you that would be worth the breath needed to say it.(or the energy to type it)
Bill- As long as you people think that “poverty and lack of education” is justification for abortion, then abortion is safe. The left depends on a dependent society for its’ voter base, thus their promotion of poverty. In addition, the liberal teachers’ union has succeeded in ruining our public education system, resulting in a lack of education. You, Quiara, and the rest of the “left” have created an endless cycle of power for powers’ sake. The only problem is, you are aborting millions of potential democrat voters in the process. In which case, nobody wins.
OK. Thank you for the discussion Quiara and Bill.
I hope you have a great week.
Mr. Cope, I apologize if your thread was hijacked. If the discussion got out of hand at any time I apoligize. Otherwise, thanks for the discussion.
Thanks, Keith, for the discussion. I know we don’t agree, but I do hope that I haven’t caused personal hard feelings in stating my points. I’m passionate about this for myriad reasons, but that’s no reason to lose sight and throw stones at the people behind the comments. If I have hurt or offended you personally, I apologize.
I tried to post a response to Troy, but WordPress is telling me I’ve already said that. (I could make a joke here, but I’ll pass. Insert your own pithy remark and chuckle as appropriate.)
I’ll try again later if it doesn’t show up. And if it shows up 300,000 times, I apologize in advance.
You’ve done no such think Quiara-I promise. I admire your passion and respect you a great deal. Same for Bill.
Bill-one minor correction. Harding did NOT leave Morillton because of anti pacifist pressure. Cordell Christian College in Oklahoma(Armstrong, Benson and others were there around that time)had that problem during WWI. Cordell eventually closed, some teachers moved on to Harpers in Kansas. Harpers merged with Ark Christian College in the 20′s to form Harding. Harding left Morillton because they got a steal of deal on the campus in Searcy. In fact, Morillton sued to try and keep them there. But that’s another story…
If you don’t have time to read my comment, read the article below. If you don’t cry, you’re stronger than me. The comments are particularly revealing to me about how the medical industry might be influencing people to choose abortion for what may be no reason at all.
http://www.neptunuslex.com/2008/09/03/the-last-little-bit/
I think I have been influenced by listening to Dennis Prager but I am primarily against legal abortion because it seems to me to be the result of poor moral decisions. Look at it this way. Would the choice of life ever be considered in and of itself a moral failing. I can’t imagine a case where it would. I would challenge anyone to point to a concrete case of a life lived that was worse than the alternative of abortion. On the other hand, most of the time (if not all, depending on your viewpoint) abortion is a moral failing. I acknowledge that many women struggle mightily with this choice and I’m not making light of that struggle. But at the end of the day, from a Christian perspective it is a moral failing.
I won’t argue about whether we call it murder or not. But I think we can all agree that even in the womb, our culture morally recognizes a fetus in the womb as a person or a baby. Every pregnant woman I’ve ever known has talked about their baby as a person with personality (revealed through kicking or lack thereof). As soon as they know the sex, they refer to the baby as he/she. As much as we might try to escape this fact, in our minds this is a person. I know there are some medical questions about this but I’m addressing morality.
If you acknowledge that as a culture we morally acknowledge fetuses as persons, then you naturally have to refer to abortion as killing a person. I’m not trying to be inflammatory but use language that is morally accurate. Ending the life of a person is killing. Murder is a legal term that has a moral implication. I’d rather stay away from it because using it would be primarily inflammatory and isn’t necessary to my argument.
In my view, abortion is killing (or ending the life of) a person. To me this is in contradiction with the morals of our collective culture. It seems anyone who would disagree with this is doesn’t simply have a different viewpoint but is in denial. I think many agree with my conclusion but the question becomes, should we make a law against it?
If this is indeed the point of divergence, I would say simply that in our legal system, the statutes in their most basic form are a representation of our collective morals. Why would this be different? As much is made of the right down the middle split on this issue, it seems that an overwhelming majority believes that abortion is almost always wrong. The real problem lies in this new view of law as something that is only supposed to protect us from harm. But in fact, laws not only protect us but also shape our culture and promote the ideals of the collective. What is wrong with insisting that our abortion is wrong and as a culture we will not tolerate it.
At the same time, as churches we need to see the call of Christ to adopt children, counsel, support, feed and love those who find themselves challenged by this wonderful and sometimes troubling life circumstance. I have dedicated little time to this need myself and confess that I am falling short. I think I should pray about this in the next days.
Steve, thanks so much. Right you are.
Keith, thanks.
Troy, sorry I didn’t get back to you for so long. I spent all Monday out perverting the youth of America and ruining the educational system — though it was hard. Even the 2nd-graders kept challenging my attempts at negative influence, noting that Republicans have been in charge 28 out of the past 40 years (they made fractions and then simplified — 28/40 = (4/4)*(7/10) = 70%), making it unlikely that some sort of imagined liberal bogeyman was responsible for all the evils you describe. Then a particularly astute 1st-grader (missing those two middle teeth on top — very cute!) noted that during the beginning of Bush’s term, Republicans controlled the House, Senate, Presidency, and even the Supreme Court, yet all they had actually managed to accomplish was a string of scandals (“Jack Abramoff is going to the place for bad people,” he said guilelessly) and the economic deregulation that’s led to the housing and banking crises of 2008…
They were a tough crowd to convince, I can tell you — though when I told them YOU believed it and showed them all your well-reasoned evidence, they could hardly help but knuckle under. Yep, they all agreed that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, “the left” (we all made a frowny-face when we said the words) must be responsible for all of society’s ills.
Good job, man. With persuasive and analytical prowess like that, YOU could be a teacher yourself.
Kyle, yours is a thoughtful and engaged post that takes the issue seriously. Thanks.
Here’s an excellent article in the most recent Christian Chronicle. It spotlights a professor and a preacher who are supporting McCain and Obama, respectively.
Mike, thanks for posting the link to the Chronicle story. We appreciate it.
Bill- If you are a teacher, then you could not have made my point any better. Please continue with the elitist attitude.
Do the rest of you really want someone with a bitter and elitist attitude teaching your children? What about running this county?
Troy, you’re right and I feel entirely embarrassed to have made your point so well. You absolutely don’t want people who know things to be running your country or teaching your kids… That’s another reason why Palin (cut from the same cloth as W) is a great choice. Okay, so she couldn’t successfully run the car wash she started just prior to becoming governor (she kept failing to submit the right forms and paperwork), and yeah, she inherited no debt in Wasilla (pop 9,000) and 6 years later left it with $22 million in debt, but that shows she’s just regular folks — a woman of the people! — and not some “bitter elitist.” I defer, sir, entirely to your uncanny populism.
By the way, “potential democrat voters” should be “potential democratic voters” since “democrat” is a noun and “democratic” is an adjective, which is called for in this case. You publicans sometimes leave parts of words out.
Doh! There I go again…
Okay. I’m leaving this thread. I’m going to go learn how not to be bitter and elitist by watching recent republican speeches (it’s a highlight when Giuliani and Palin make fun of community organizers!) and listening to O’Reilly, Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Rush.
Wish me luck.
Bill- At the risk of causing you to spontaneously combust, I will say that I intentionally meant to say “democrat.” It is a common slur meant to send you elitist into outer space. It must have worked. (Take an aspirin and don’t respond)
Glad to know Mike gave info about “Two Views” instead of 171!
Bill,
If you are learning how not to be bitter and elitist, might I suggest speeches from Pelosi, Reed, Dean, and Kerry? You can top that off with a dose of Olberman and Franken.
Thanks for reminding me why I decided to homeschool.
I thought the sit down with Rick Warren was fantastic.
If you haven’t seen it it is worth the time to watch it.
I think you can view it on youtube if I’m not mistaken.
Rick Warren did a wonderful job with the questions.
I wonder if he will be the next “Billy Graham” and be the presidental spiritual advisor. What do you think?
I am shocked to learn that evidently a man must give consent for his child to be placed for adoption but does not have to be consulted before the very life of his child is terminated.
There are many, many couples out there whose arms are aching to hold the “inconvenient” and “unhealthy” children some women choose not to have. The goal should be to make adoption more financially feasible and easier for parents who truly want a child – perfect or not.
Intersting take from Camille Paglia-atheist, libertarian and Obama supporter. http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.html
Lies, Lies, Lies
September 12, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Blizzard of Lies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?
These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.
Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.
But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.
Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere, which supposedly gives Ms. Palin credentials as a reformer. Well, when campaigning for governor, Ms. Palin didn’t say “no thanks” — she was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”
Oh, and when she finally did decide to cancel the project, she didn’t righteously reject a handout from Washington: she accepted the handout, but spent it on something else. You see, long before she decided to cancel the bridge, Congress had told Alaska that it could keep the federal money originally earmarked for that project and use it elsewhere.
So the whole story of Ms. Palin’s alleged heroic stand against wasteful spending is fiction.
Or take the story of Mr. Obama’s alleged advocacy of kindergarten sex-ed. In reality, he supported legislation calling for “age and developmentally appropriate education”; in the case of young children, that would have meant guidance to help them avoid sexual predators.
And then there’s the claim that Mr. Obama’s use of the ordinary metaphor “putting lipstick on a pig” was a sexist smear, and on and on.
Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.
They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”
Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.
One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.
But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.
I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, and, in the case of the emerging Interior Department scandal, coke-snorting and bed-hopping proof to the contrary.
I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.
And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?
What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.
Couldn’t say it better than Garrison Keilor: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0910keillorsep10,0,7101227.column. “The Bums Try for an End Run.”
Amos- Not to worry. I’m sure that Krugman and Keilors’ messiah(Obama) can cast the demons out of McCain and Palin. He’s just waiting until after the election.
Troy, the election is when we, the people, get to cast the “demons” out of our own government (they’re not really demons, of course… just corrupt politicians with especially bad ideas that benefit the few at the expense of the many). And don’t you worry. We’ll do just that come November.
But in the meantime, you keep being the defender of those McCain/Palin lies, and you keep believing W is the best thing to happen to America since sliced bread. And screw the $10 million a month we’re burning in Iraq for nothing. Because it’s awful cute when you do.
If bitterness had the power to inspire, I WOULD be worried. Keep it up.
Troy, dude, if bitterness had the power to inspire, you’d be king of the world.
And you got no reason to be bitter… Your boys have had the whole enchilada for years and they’ve done nothing but feather their own nests.
I got two words that describe the “new” policies (bonus points if you can name EVEN ONE of them — and remember you gotta be specific) of Sarah Barracuda and Maverick Johnny: EPIC FAIL.
Listen, you keep working on being our inspiration, man. You’re the wind beneath my wings at the very least. And you’re still awful cute — in the way flat-earthers, Dick Cheney, and petrochemical lobbyists are cute.
Bill, that’s kind of over the top isn’t it? I mean, Troy’s clearly already pretty worried, and then you go and confront him with the fact that even the Republicans don’t like McCain (Ha! Dobson) and nobody can deny that Palin was an act of desperation, and you do come across as pretty bitter in that last comment…
77, It’s the utter surrealism that gets to me. People on the right pretending that it’s all a meaningless game when we face genuine problems in our country, people pretending that the faux conservatism of Bush & Cheney is enough, people like McCain who cynically portray themselves as agents of change when they’re following the same policies that have been destroying the country for 8 years.
It’s the win-at-all-costs but do nothing substantive or constructive with your victory attitude of Bush/Cheney/Rove/McCain that strikes me. It’s the privatize profits, nationalize losses greed that dominates what’s being called “fiscal conservatism” that I can’t figure out.
You’re right, I am bitter, and I can’t figure out why more people aren’t after the Republicans have mortgaged our future, destroyed our economy, wasted $30 billion (and counting) that could have been spent on real change, and distracted everyone with pettiness, of which Palin is only the most recent example.
And why can’t Christians who are pro-life acknowledge — even a little bit — that the war should be taken seriously as a life issue? Why won’t they admit even a bit that poverty is a life issue — that poor women are far more likely to choose abortion because they have far fewer resources?
It’s all astonishing to me.
I merely wish that America would live up to its slogans, but given the naive Right is always right rhetoric, it seems increasingly unlikely.
September 13, 2008
Editorial
Gov. Palin’s Worldview
As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.
If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.
It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.
What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.
The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.
One of the many bizarre moments in the questioning by ABC News’s Charles Gibson was when Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, excused her lack of international experience by sneering that Americans don’t want “somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state.”
We know we were all supposed to think of Joe Biden. But it sure sounded like a good description of Mr. McCain. Those decades of experience earned the Arizona senator the admiration of people in both parties. They are why he was our preferred candidate in the Republican primaries.
The interviews made clear why Americans should worry about Ms. Palin’s thin résumé and lack of experience. Consider her befuddlement when Mr. Gibson referred to President Bush’s “doctrine” and her remark about having insight into Russia because she can see it from her state.
But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.
Ms. Palin talked repeatedly about never blinking. When Mr. McCain asked her to run for vice president? “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission,” she said, that “you can’t blink.”
Fighting terrorism? “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”
Her answers about why she had told her church that President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq was “God’s plan” did nothing to dispel our concerns about her confusion between faith and policy. Her claim that she was quoting a completely unrelated comment by Lincoln was absurd.
This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.
In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.
Amos, these articles are spot-on. While I don’t normally consider Deepak Chopra an authoritative choice, here’s another one:
Obama and The Palin Effect
From: Deepak Chopra | Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008
Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)
I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palins message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.
Look at what she stands for:
–Small town values — a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
–Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
–Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be heeded.
–Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
–Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
–”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.
Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.
Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.
I would imagine popular opinion would welcome back the Reagan years. In actuality, demoralization = Bill Clinton.
And Bill – who is saying that Christians don’t acknowledge war as a life issue? Almost everyone I know and converse with dislikes war and sees it as a life issue. Aren’t all wars a life issue? I mean lives are at stake in war. Of course, wars are also fought because of the lives at stake. Thus the most difficult discernment – when to put lives at stake to save those lives at stake.
Bill- You are farther removed from reality than what I first suspected. Your elitist mentality is your own worst enemy. You continue to misjudge me, just like your side misjudged W. You have been outsmarted twice by the dumbest guy on the planet. To add insult to injury, it is your side that has put forth a candidate that cannot string more than three words together.
Secondly, abortion is your sides baby. The leaders on the “left,” who are behind the abortion movement, promote, push for, and insist on abortion in every case. They don’t want their “daughters punished with a baby,” or any other woman for that matter. ABORTION IS THEIR SOLUTION TO POVERTY, NOT THE RESULT OF IT. Not to mention, their answer to global warming and the oppression of women. For all of the rest of you, on the “left,” who place the blame for abortion on anything other than your leaders, you have been misled.
C, if you read through comments above, you’ll see that Troy (among others) wasn’t even able to say the word “war,” let alone admit it is a life issue. It would have been comical if it weren’t so perverse.
Yes, I see. But, I’m also afraid to through those comments!
Bill- War is not about life, it’s about DEATH. It’s as close to hell on earth as we can get. You, and all the other liberals are responsible for reducing it to “issue” status. You have reduced war to an ISSUE the same way that you have reduced a human baby to TISSUE! You are the ones that need to be defeated.
I praise God that He is able! I’m going to leave it up to Him.
Troy, man, for someone so “pro-life,” you ought to get yourself one. Good jingoism, though.
I just LOVE the way troy and other conservatives pull the elitist card whenever they don’t like the views of someone different than them. Some congress member used that on Obama a few weeks ago. Somehow, calling someone an elitist allows me to crawl back in my narrow-minded, self-absorbed shell and remind me that everything is going to be okay.
I bet Jesus was called an elitist too when the Torah-thumpers didn’t like his new ideas…
Elitist, quit using terms like “conservative”, “elitist” and “liberal” that Troy clearly doesn’t understand… Of course, then you’d also have to leave out “congress,” “views,” and “minded,” and that would sorta gut your message.
Plus, I gotta say your message lacks the sheer poetry of the “issue/tissue” meme, which has the beauty of dehumanizing and oversimplifying even as it complains about dehumanizing and oversimplifying.
But at least if Troy leaves things in God’s hands, it will come out okay. After all, God’s gotta be pretty upset that W swore an oath before him to protect the Constitution and then shredded it instead. And God’s gotta be tired of folks who squirm out of the war debate by claiming it’s a “death” issue and thus not part of a discussion of what it means to be pro-life. And the cherry on top has gotta be the refusal to see poverty and justice as relevant in all this, especially since Jesus talked SO MUCH about poverty and justice but never mentioned abortion, gay marriage, or gun rights.
Clearly, Jesus is a liberal elitist. And thank God for that!
You’ve got to love this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ral-zByaSU4
And enjoy this. As Colbert always notes, “facts have a liberal bias.”
http://www.mccainpedia.org/index.php/Count_the_Lies
September 17, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
‘Barbies for War!’
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Carly Fiorina, the woman John McCain sent out to defend Sarah Palin and rip anyone who calls her a tabula rasa on foreign policy and the economy, admitted Tuesday that Palin was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.
That’s pretty damning coming from Fiorina, who also was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.
Carly helpfully added that McCain (not to mention Obama and Biden) couldn’t run a major corporation. He couldn’t get his immigration bill passed either, but now he’s promising to eliminate centuries of greed on Wall Street.
The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state. You can’t contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus. To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls,” a poy-son could develop a cold war.
The latest news from Alaska is that the governor keeps a tanning bed in the Juneau mansion. As The Los Angeles Times pointed out, when Palin declared May 2007 Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska, the press release explained that skin cancer was caused by “the sun and from tanning beds.”
I sautéed myself in Sarahville last week.
I wandered through the Wal-Mart, which seemed almost as large as Wasilla, a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake.
Wal-Mart has all the doodads that Sarah must need in her career as a sportsman — Remingtons and “torture tested” riflescopes, game bags for caribou, machines that imitate rabbits and young deer and coyotes to draw your quarry in so you can shoot it, and machines to squish cows into beef jerky.
I talked to a Wal-Mart mom, Betty Necas, 39, wearing sweatpants and tattoos on her wrists.
She said she’s never voted, and was a teenage mom “like Bristol.” She likes Sarah because she’s “down home” but said Obama “gives me the creeps. Nothing to do with the fact that he’s black. He just seems snotty, and he looks weaselly.”
Ten Obama supporters in Wasilla braved taunts and drizzle to stand on a corner between McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. They complained that Sarah runs government like a vengeful fiefdom and held up signs. A guy with a bullhorn yelled out of a passing red car: “Go back to the city, you liberal Communists!”
At gatherings in The Last Frontier, pastors pray for reporters, drilling evokes cheers and Todd Palin is hailed as a guy who likes to burn fossil fuels.
I had many “Sarahs,” as her favorite skinny white mocha is now called, at the Mocha Moose. “I’ve seen her at 4 a.m. with no makeup,” said manager Karena Forster, “and she’s just as beautiful.”
I stopped by Sarah’s old Pentecostal church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, and perused some books: “The Bait of Satan,” “Deliverance from PMS,” and “Kissed the Girls and Made them Cry: Why Women Lose When They Give In.” (Author Lisa Bevere advises: “Run to the arms of your prince and enter your dream.”)
In Anchorage Saturday, I went by a conference conducted by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and supported by Sarah’s current church, the Wasilla Bible Church, about how to help gays and lesbians “journey out” of same-sex attraction.
(As The Times reported recently, in 1995, Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues she had seen “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelf of the library and did not approve. The Wasilla Assembly of God tried to ban “Pastor, I Am Gay” by Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in nearby Palmer.)
Anne Heche’s mother, Nancy, talked about her distress when her daughter told her she was involved with Ellen. Jeff Johnston told me he had “a struggle” with homosexuality “for a season,” but is now “happily married with three boys.” (Books for sale there included “Mommy, Why Are They Holding Hands?” and “You Don’t Have to Be Gay.”)
I covered a boisterous women against Palin rally in Anchorage, where women toted placards such as “Fess up about troopergate,” “Keep your vows off my body,” “Barbies for war!” “Sarah, please don’t put me on your enemies list,” and “McCain and Palin = McPain.”
A local conservative radio personality, Eddie Burke, who had lambasted the organizers as “a bunch of socialist, baby-killing maggots,” was on hand with a sign reading “Alaska is not Frisco.”
“We are one Supreme Court justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade,” he excitedly told me.
R. D. Levno, a retired school principal, flew in from Fairbanks. “She’s a child, inexperienced and simplistic,” she said of Sarah. “It’s taking us back to junior high school. She’s one of the popular girls, but one of the mean girls. She is seductive, but she is invented.”
Interesting to hear Bill Bennett, Mr. Moral Values, say that the lies coming from the Palin camp are “small beer.” Turning down the bridge to nowhere. Cutting out earmarked funds for Alaska. The “trip to Iraq.”
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2008/09/15/sarah-palins-iraq-trip–all-the-way-up-to-the-border.html
I don’t guess I can remember so many comments launched by such a short post!