Sam Harris on Sarah Palin

[_EAllusion]

Palin's likely role as VP will be ribbon-cutter and a political diplomat to the religious right wing of the Republican coalition. Biden's main job will be the pointman in pushing Obama's legislative agenda through Congress.

[_Some Schmo]

And what makes someone "ready" to be President? Until someone convinces me that there is a way to prepare for such a job, and that serving as a Senator fulfills that requirement, I'm not willing to belittle Palin's limited but exclusive executive experience. There is no consistent, reassuring "preparation" for being the President of the United States of America. Everyone who attains that post takes their own journey, and I haven't seen any evidence that there is some life experience that indicates whether or not a person would make a "good" President.

Really? No evidence at all? Education? International experience? Familiarity with the law? None of that would make a difference for you?

Did you actually read the linked article?

The point was he was making was that a large number of Americans (especially Republicans, I've noticed) seem to favor people in politics who are wholly unqualified for the job while demanding expertise in other fields, like science, medicine, athletics, etc.

It's not a matter of having direct presidential experience as much as it is about transferable skills, and not being a total nitwit going into the job. And Palin is most definitely a nitwit.

[_Sethbag]

You called it "cynical and insulting" to put Palin on the ticket. I'm curious how you see Obama's choice of Biden. Was it "cynical and insulting" as well?

Biden was a great choice, if the criteria is whether a person is qualified to step into the role of President if they need to. Biden is a smart guy, and he knows whereof he speaks. Unlike Palin, he actually has relevant clue about national government, international relations, etc. I don't think that was cynical at all. It was an obviously good choice.

Whether Biden has the same "gimmick" factor as Palin, however, is obviously a problem. The answer is no, he doesn't. Too bad that might come back to hurt him.

Personally, I'd much rather that Biden were running for President and Obama were his VP (if Obama at all). It certainly wouldn't say that for the McCain/Palin ticket.

But this thread was about Sam Harris's article on Palin, and I think he was 100% spot on. I couldn't possibly agree more.

Oh yeah, and Kevin, yeah, Palin's religiosity is part of it. She's inexperienced and ignorant of international concerns, and that's bad, but she's ignorant and confident at the same time, this confidence coming from her belief that Sky Daddy backs America, and that she's doing Sky Daddy's will. That's worse. Ahmedinejad thinks he's doing Allah's will too.

[_The Dude]

Palin's likely role as VP will be ribbon-cutter and a political diplomat to the religious right wing of the Republican coalition. Biden's main job will be the pointman in pushing Obama's legislative agenda through Congress.

Perfect.

Personally, I'd much rather that Biden were running for President and Obama were his VP (if Obama at all). It certainly wouldn't say that for the McCain/Palin ticket.

I also would be as happy to see Biden/Obama as Obama/Biden -- I've thought this from the beginning of the primary.

[_antishock8]

I find it interesting that no one has addressed the latest Biden gaffe. Methinks there's a strong double standard asserting itself. The ticket that clearly lacks experience where it's needed most, and the ticket that clearly is sticking its foot squarely in its mouth is the Democrat ticket. There's no question about that. Partisanship is a funny thing...

[_Brackite]

Excellent article... thanks for sharing this Dude!

:-)

I think there are many women capable of being the President of the United States... Sarah Palin is not one of them.



~td~

Hello Truth Dancer,

I disagree. I believe that Governor Sarah Palin is very capable of being the first female U.S. Vice President. Here is part of an article opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal:

You'd think that, whether or not they agree with her politics, feminists would at least applaud Mrs. Palin as a living example of one of their core principles: a woman's right to have a career and a family. Yet some feminists unabashedly suggest that her decision to seek the vice presidency makes her a bad and selfish mother. Others argue that she is bad for working mothers because she's just too good at having it all.

In the Boston Globe on Friday, columnist Ellen Goodman frets that Mrs. Palin is a "supermom" whose supporters "think a woman can have it all as long as she can do it all . . . by herself." In fact, Sarah Palin is doing it with the help of her husband Todd, who is currently on leave from his job as an oil worker. But Ms. Goodman's problem is that "she doesn't need anything from anyone outside the family. She isn't lobbying for, say, maternity leave, equal pay, or universal pre-K."

This also galls Katherine Marsh, writing in the latest issue of The New Republic. Mrs. Palin admits to having "an incredible support system -- a husband with flexible jobs rather than a competing career . . . and a host of nearby grandparents, aunts, and uncles." Yet, Ms. Marsh charges, she does not endorse government policies to help less-advantaged working mothers -- for instance, by promoting day-care centers.

Mrs. Palin's marriage actually makes her a terrific role model. One of the best choices a woman can make if she wants a career and a family is to pick a partner who will be able to take on equal or primary responsibility for child-rearing. Our culture still harbors a lingering perception that such men are less than manly -- and who better to smash that stereotype than "First Dude" Todd Palin?


(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143727571134335.html)

in my opinion, Governor Sarah Palin is the right Lady, At the right time, to become the Nation's first Female U.S. Vice President.
I will be happy to proudly vote for Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin.

[_EAllusion]

Obama and Biden are fairly different politicians. Here's two major examples. Biden has a lengthy history of being a hardline drug warrior. He is personally responsible for some of the toughest, and most egregious depending on your perspective, anti-drug polices the federal government has passed. Obama has the softest stance on the drug war since Jimmy Carter. Biden is a Clintonian interventionist. Obama appears to adopt a more peaceful approach to foreign entanglements. If you care about either issue, it's hard to like both equally well.

[_aussieguy55]

Now its seems McCains chief of staff has been outed as Gay. How is Sarah and for that matter James Dobson dealing with the issue

Several high profile blog sites reported on Monday that John McCain’s chief of staff Mark Buse is a closeted gay man. According to reports, 46-year-old Brian Davis has come forward claiming he is Buse’s ex-boyfriend. Several other unidentified individuals, including two members of the Log Cabin Republicans, have also made claims Buse is gay. Both McCain and vice-presidential running mate Sarah Palin oppose equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians and are known for their openly stated anti-gay sentiments. http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch= ... =&id=80734

[Anonymous]

Analytics, you said it yourself. McCain's speech came after Falcon revealed Franklin Raines had embezzled millions; Raines, a Clinton boy, was the "frist black CEO" of a major company. So the entire bill was in direct response to this kind of "corruption." So if you think the current crisis has nothing to do with people like Raines, then there is nothing left I can do for you.

I never said the current crisis has nothing to do with "people like Raines". I said the current crisis was driven by free-market policies and forces outside of the GSEs.

You're going to believe what you want, and keep a tight grip on your tiny list of "reasons" why you think the crisis happened, which is designed to excuse Obama's inaction and negate any credit to McCain for his efforts to reform.

That is ridiculous. My "tiny list of reasons" are some the actual drivers that caused this. In no way do they excuse the inaction of Congress, the President, the Federal Reserve, the SEC, or the rating agencies, much less the inaction of the junior senator from Illinois.

I guess a good question would be, if Obama had been President for the last four years, what would he have done to prevent this crisis? There is no evidence that he wanted to change anything.

Frankly, I doubt he would have done anything to change this. Like virtually everybody else (including McCain), he didn't know this was going to happen. Seriously. Who had the political power to go to the investment banks and announce that they would all be required to shut down because their business practices were fundamentally unsound and put the entire financial system at risk?

He sure as hell had no problems with banks giving out loans to poor folks who couldn't pay them back. You seem to deny that this was a fundamental defect in the system which led to the crisis.

Given that this earned two spots on my "tiny list of reasons" (#2 and #5), you saying this only proves that reality and your impression it aren't correlated.

Obama and most democrats were for this; they always have been.

So were most Republicans. Seriously. Which Republicans wanted to interfere in the free market by creating strict regulations that dictated who private lenders could lend money to? Which Republicans wanted to create strict regulations on how Financial Economics could be used to redistribute credit risk among private parties?

McCain's bill would have provided oversight and accountability, so it boggles the mind how anyone could think this wouldn't have at least had a chance at preventing the crisis. Skip the summary and actually read the bill itself...

It gave oversight over the wrong group of people. Don't get me wrong, the GSEs did in fact need more oversight and needed to be held more accountable. For what it addressed, s.109 was a great bill.

But the people who needed to be reigned in were the investment banks, rating agencies, and insurance companies who created the illusion that non-agency CMOs with their so-called "credit enhancements" were viable investments. FNMA and FHLMC were the victims of the current crisis more than the perpertrators of it.

Would have Obama stopped this? No. But at least I'd take some comfort in knowing that the people who profited from this Ponzi scheme with eight-figure incomes were paying higher taxes.

[_Thama]

Let the record do the talking OK? He might have presented himself that way with words, because he didn't want to alienate the conservatives who were buying into Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter's extremist views, which they tell peopl eis the only form of conservatism that matters. Remember, Coulter said she would vote Democrat this year because she though McCain was more liberal than Hillary.

That's what I'm banking on. However, the fact that he has to do this is appears to me as a striking condemnation of the base constituency of the Republican party.

This is just gibberish rhetoric. I have yet to hear a coherent argument from the Palin haters. It insults nobody. He picked someone who he felt was more in tuned with his own demeanor in politics. They are both established reformers. He didn't want a product of Washington, which is what he would have gotten if he picked any other politician. I think it was a bold statement that he was serious about reform and I applaud him. And McCain wants someone to convince him to drill in Anwar, and she is the woman to do it.

It insults the collective intelligence of the nation. It sucks up to the religious right and tries to attract the shallower contingent of Hillraisers. This is a woman who couldn't even run a small town effectively (left $20 million of debt to Wasilla in a single term), and has shown some fairly disturbing fundamentalist tendencies (creationism in science class, censorship in libraries). This is a strikingly different legacy than that of McCain, and although her confrontation of corruption within her own party is to be applauded, she has hardly been scandal-free during her short time in office. Perhaps, despite all of their differences, McCain saw the words "confronts Republican corruption" next to her name and immediately fell in love... but I doubt it.