Sam Harris on Sarah Palin

[_The Dude]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

ROTFL

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

I remember thinking this to myself when baring testimony to an atheist doubter: you cannot blink. Force of will. Make them feel your belief so they too will believe.
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[_antishock8]

Hitchens on Obama's spiritual advisors:

I also absorbed a news item about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the recently retired pastor of Barack Obama’s church in Chicago. Here is the form that the reverend’s “retirement” will take: a $1.6 million home, purchased in the name of his church and consisting of more than 10,000 square feet, in a gated community in Tinley Park, a prosperous white section of the city. There used to be a secularist line about fat shepherds and thin sheep, but the joke here is not just at the expense of a man who never pretended to be much more than a hustler. The joke is on those of the “flock” who tithed themselves to achieve this level of comfort for a man who must be pinching himself when he wakes up every day.

But, then, so must the Rev. Al Sharpton, routinely described by the New York Times as “the civil rights activist,” be pinching himself each morning. By evening, after all, several limos will have arrived to transport him to several studios where he will be flattered and taken seriously. And this enviable existence is watched with avaricious jealousy by more junior practitioners, like the raving Rev. James Meeks of Chicago’s Salem Baptist Church, who may not yet be quite ready for prime time, and by the members of Louis Farrakhan’s racist and sectarian crew, who affect to think that Christianity is a slave religion and that white people are the products of a laboratory experiment gone wrong.

The thing that this gaggle of cranks and parasites has in common is the extreme deference with which it is treated by the junior senator from Illinois. In April 2004, Barack Obama told a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times that he had three spiritual mentors or counselors: Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks, and Father Michael Pfleger—for a change of pace, a white Catholic preacher who has a close personal feeling for the man he calls (as does Obama) Minister Farrakhan. This crossover stuff is not as “inclusive” as it might be made to seem: Meeks’ main political connections in the white community are with the hysterically anti-homosexual wing of the Christian right. If Obama were to be read a list of the positions that his clerical supporters take on everything from Judaism to sodomy, he would be in the smooth and silky business of “distancing” from now until November. And that is why he hopes that his Philadelphia speech, which dissociated him from everything and nothing, will be enough. He seems, indeed, to have a real gift for remaining adequately uninformed about the real beliefs of his “mentors.”

This is a lot sadder, and a lot more serious, than has been admitted. Four decades after the murder in Memphis of a friend of the working man—a hero who was always being denounced by the FBI for his choice of secular and socialist friends and colleagues—the national civil rights pulpit is largely occupied by second-rate shakedown artists who hope to franchise “race talk” into a fat living for themselves.

http://www.slate.com//id/2188414

Seems to me Senator Obama is, at the very least, is in no better position than Governor Palin, when it comes to religion and politics.

[_truth dancer]

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~

[_LifeOnaPlate]

"What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance."

This is pretty much the exact same thing I told my wife, only this is articulated much better.

[_The Dude]

Hitchens on Obama's spiritual advisors:

typical Hitchens rant

Seems to me Senator Obama is, at the very least, is in no better position than Governor Palin, when it comes to religion and politics.

I disagree with you. Obama's associations with these people were a little troubling to me, but since he has cut the ties and has not chosen any of them to be on the presidential ticket with him, I don't see it as similar at all to McCain's situation. I hope some Republican's try and use this comparison, though, to excuse the Palin choice. That would be worthy of a hearty guffaw.

[_Droopy]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1


Consider the source.

That's all you have to do.

[_antishock8]

I disagree with you. Obama's associations with these people were a little troubling to me, but since he has cut the ties and has not chosen any of them to be on the presidential ticket with him, I don't see it as similar at all to McCain's situation. I hope some Republican's try and use this comparison, though, to excuse the Palin choice. That would be worthy of a hearty guffaw.

Possibly, but what's troubling for me determining what's done out of political expediency, and what's true to Senator Obama's heart. I just don't know, and I'd prefer to err on the safe side.

[_Droopy]

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance."

This is much more unnerving regarding Obama than it is about Palin, who at least has significant managerial and executive political experience. Obama's brain goes into standby when the teleprompter quits. He has no foreign policy, executive, or international relations experience whatsoever, and he is running for President.

Working with ACORN to shake down taxpayers to fund government vote buying initiatives among the inner city poor is hardly qualification for the presidency (unless, perhaps, you are a liberal Democrat, in which case, it very well may be). Neither is an I've League law degree or a head stuffed with politically correct multiculturalist nostrums and campfire stories.

[_Droopy]

I disagree with you. Obama's associations with these people were a little troubling to me, but since he has cut the ties and has not chosen any of them to be on the presidential ticket with him, I don't see it as similar at all to McCain's situation. I hope some Republican's try and use this comparison, though, to excuse the Palin choice. That would be worthy of a hearty guffaw.

This isn't even a nice try at defending this poseur. Obama's entire history is top loaded with associations, and very important ones (mentors and teachers) who fall well into the realm of some of the most unsavory human beings one could wish to be associated with.

Obama cut his ties with these people because he got caught publically in those associations. It took Oprah three months to figure out that she needed to separate herself from Reverend Wright's racialist conspiracy factory (which tells us something about the O as well), but it took Obama twenty years to figure out that this individual was a anti-intellectual racist demagogue who is no more a Christian than David Duke. Ayers or Dorhn in his administration? No, of course not. Obama's not that stupid. But his relationship with them has been close, and again, being caught in that relationship, he had to abandon them for his election bid.

If you're going to defend Obama, Dude, at least give it the old college try.

Poor showing thus far.

[_The Dude]

Consider the source.

That's all you have to do.

Thanks for the tip. I'll save tons of time by ignoring the rest of your posts in this thread. :)