From the Politico:
Sarah Palin found some unlikely allies Wednesday as leading academics and even former top aides to Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed the Republican charge that John McCain’s running mate has been subject to a sexist double standard by the news media and Democrats.
Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, who has written best-selling books on gender differences, said she agrees with complaints that Palin skeptics  including prominent voices in the news media  have crossed a line by speculating about whether the Alaska governor is neglecting her family in pursuit of national office.
“What we’re dealing with now, there’s nothing subtle about it,†said Tannen. “We’re dealing with the assumption that child-rearing is the job of women and not men. Is it sexist? Yes.â€Â
“There’s no way those questions would be asked of a male candidate,†said Howard Wolfson a former top strategist for Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The sexism charge was hurled with new intensity Wednesday afternoon by McCain surrogates, all women, at a news conference just hours before made her acceptance speech here – a speech in which she said this about the media and Washington elite: “I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion – I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.”
[…]
A choice that was intended to shake up the race did so with more ferocity than McCain ever intended. The mother of five  with one pregnant teenage daughter and an infant son with Down syndrome  has joined a parade of personalities from Anita Hill to O.J. Simpson to Monica Lewinsky to become a cultural flash point.
This much is true: Palin embodies much of what the GOP wants to embody: fiscal conservatism, small-town values, an independent spirit, and a desire to see merit used as a litmus test for evaluating people. Given the circumstances last evening, many — including many on the left — have conceded that Palin appears to be a natural.
But…
Disagree:
Many conservatives, who spent a generation ridiculing the politics of victimhood and group identity, are now zealously invoking both in the Twin Cities. A common GOP talking point here is that Palin’s gender and experiences as a mother should be counted as an asset among her qualifications. At the news conference, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift condemned “an outrageous smear campaign†against Palin, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said, “The Republican Party will not stand by while Gov. Palin is subjected to sexist attacks.â€Â
Just last spring, Palin herself scoffed when Hillary Clinton’s campaign complained about a double standard in coverage.
A neat rhetorical trick, this, but don’t be fooled: the equating of what the Clinton campaign called a double standard in coverage, which had much to do with Obama’s popularity among the progressive base, driven by an energized netroots looking (as is there wont) to rally around a singular narrative that they can begin to finesse, push, embellish, edit, frame, package, polish, and eventually release in its carefully-orchestrated “organic” form — while undoubtedly driven at least in part by sexism and an appeal to the Bros before Hos demographic — had more to do with marginalizing the Clinton wing of the Democratic party in favor of one the progressivist base could more readily control than it had to do with misogyny: Clinton was an established entity; Obama was ripe for packaging and sale.
What Palin has been subjected to, on the other hand, has been blatant sexism — from the strange mentions by the press and the Obama campaign that Palin’s speech had been written with the aid of a speech writer (were Obama’s speeches all penned by The One? — or did they come down from the mountain on stone tablets?) to questions about whether a mother should “abandon” her children to run for office, even as Obama addressed his own children via teleconference — and has a wife who holds down a high-paying gig that one expects demands she be away from the children much of the time, as well.
Couple this with questions about Palin’s parental “fitness” — she had the audacity to give birth to a girl who grew to be a teenager and then not cover that hussy in a burqua and vaginal Kevlar — and the real double standard becomes clear: Biden’s kids can get into trouble; Obama’s kids can be raised by mansion help. But Palin’s kids are open to greater scrutiny — with the added bonus that, evidently, men aren’t fit to raise children, mothers having, you know, that special bond and all.
And yet it is Republicans who are supposedly sexists tethered to inveterate patriarchal tropes?
So while the Politico wants to parallel the “sexism” launched at Hillary (and there was some, undoubtedly — but not in the same degree or tenor as we’re seeing with Palin, Hillary having already proven herself a strong woman) with the mind-bogglingly blatant sexism aimed at Governor Palin in order to show Republicans, who downplayed the sexism charges from the Hillary campaign, as engaging in a double standard of victimology — BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY! — the two sides of the equation, as any fair-minded and objective assessment would obviously conclude, are worlds apart.
To try to hammer home their point, though, the Politico pulls a quote from Gov Palin that they believe backs their equivalence / hypocrisy thesis. To wit:
“When I hear a statement […] coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism, or maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, ‘Man, that doesn’t do us any good, women in politics, or women in general, trying to progress this country,”
— Which, that would be instructive, provided we hear Palin complaining about excess criticism.
But in fact, she only glancingly addressed the issue in her speech last evening, and even then dismissed the controversy with a pointed barb about not seeking media approval.
That the Politico confuses other women for Palin — and uses this confusion to form an equation that they believe exposes hypocrisy from the Republicans on the issue of identity politics — just goes to show that, 1) the can’t differentiate Sarah Palin from other women, who she does not necessarily speak for, and 2) they are not particularly interested in making distinctions between complaints of sexist treatment and demonstrably sexist attacks.
Par for the course in this, the age of moral equivalency.
Writes Politico:
Now, McCain’s team is urgently recruiting female surrogates and loudly crying sexism to deflect legitimate inquiries into Palin’s experience, her record, and the last-minute, improvisational process by which McCain chose a small-state governor who was elected in 2006 after serving of mayor of small-town Wasilla, a far suburb of Anchorage.
I confess I have seen no such thing — and if I did, I’d certainly condemn the McCain campaign for it.
But what is not defined here — and it is on this that the Politico’s argument hinges — is what constitutes “legitimate inquiries into Palin’s experience, her record, and the last-minute, improvisational process by which McCain chose a small-state governor who was elected in 2006 after serving of mayor of small-town Wasilla, a far suburb of Anchorage.” After all, the McCain campaign has already gone on record noting that Palin was fully vetted; they are under no obligation to justify their choice of running mate, preferring instead to let her stand or fall on her merits; and the suggestion that the governorship of Alaska is somehow less important than, say, being governor of Arkansas — particularly to a campaign that appears to want to push energy independence as an issue — is yet more of the same kind of elitist sniffing that we’ve already heard from the media prior to Palin’s surprising ability to appear before a crowd and speak in complete sentences, without once stopping to light up a Menthol cigarette and take a swig from a can of Bud Light…
****
See also, Hot Air; Darleen, and Dan — who in addition to providing commentary also provides a nice round-up of reaction.
My litmus stick indicates Sarah Palin should kick off her heeled shoes and bake me a chocolate pie.
one more time, if it becomes about social values, the repubs will lose.
Palin is not centrist.
and she is not a libertarian.
she believes in state ownership of a citizens body, even in cases of incest or rape.
more bullshit, huh Jeff?
Yes, more bullshit nishi. You planning on stopping anytime soon?
She’s a friggin’ fat-assed, horse-mouthed, dish-wiping crap house rag.
Boom: three comments in a row in the space of a minute that by way of their tacit conceding, prove the point.
And you thought this was hard, Jeff…
Excuse me; four. thor.
I had a fairly witty comment, and then I read the first three comments. Sorry, dude. The wit, it fled from the stupidity.
I’ll try again later.
After all, the McCain campaign has already gone on record noting that Palin was fully vetted; they are under no obligation to justify their choice of running mate,
You didn’t see Sally Quinn on O’Reilly I take it.
She said (paraphrase)
The McCain people did not do their jobs releasing her name earlier so that the media could vet her
I kid no.
Incidentally, as I noted in another thread, Palin is a registered Republican, not a registered Libertarian. Which, of course, doesn’t mean she doesn’t incorporate federalist principles and libertarianism into her governing style.
On the abortion issue I’ve answered you numerous times now, nishi; your attempts simply to repeat your charges don’t address any of the points of my argument. Nor, I’d point out, Ron Paul’s. Is he not libertarian enough for you, nishi?
its ur House.
ban me and ill have a clean sweep.
u have no arguement.
the right to ones own body is THE basic principle of libertarianism.
Palin invalidates that.
weasel word it all you want.
Is there anything more pathetic than a cry for the ban stick? You could give it to her, since it’s the only thing she craves. You could almost call it the Xtian thing to do, now wouldn’t that be ironic.
And thor, this isn’t exactly the riding-a-decrepit-Norton-across-the-Amazon-basin room, you idiot. If you’re going to wear that freaking Che t-shirt all the time, at least have the decency to wash it at least once a month. And stop tracking in mud.
I was about to just consume, as recommended, Francesca Oregano’s Five Points of Harmonious Light: How snails share wealth but your vibe, it turned me completely off.
Nishi: “one more time, if it becomes about social values, the repubs will lose. Palin is not centrist.”
Neither are the domino set of windbags on the Dem side of the equation. Likewise, those two don’t cut a glorious “paragon” swath through the values crowd.
Nishi, you’re a forty-watt bulb trying to imitate a spot-light. You’re incapable of passing a Turing test, primarily b/c you don’t respond to stimuli, preferring to parrot your same bland, pre-fabricated talking points. Why ban you — it is not as if you’re saying anything.
#11 answers you plainly enough – “Nah nah nah nah I can’t hear you.”
Thanks Jeff for reminding me what I was thinking:
While her personal beliefs regarding abortion and evolution are social conservative, her governing style is not. I think a politician who can look at law and rule accordingly deserves more praise than someone who wants to remake the society as a whole.
That gold-panning moose sucker is a unconscionable fork-tongued morality pimp.
Don’t do what my daughters do! Do what I say the Bibles says!
What gaudy God bunk and church pew tripe she epitomizes. Check her for hands for 6 fingers and/or other signs of the devil.
But don’t mothers do have both a special bond and a special obligation> It think it’s rather clear Palin does herself. I don’t pretend this isn’t true, why should anyone else?
Perhaps, it could be successfully argued her parenting wasn’t ideal. Perhaps more attention directed this way or that would have shaped her daughter’s behaviour in a different way. My position is that this is almost immaterial to her candidacy, and where the real sexism comes in….Palin’s ability to govern is what I weigh, not her ability to raise children. It’s no more relevent in her case than Obama’s or Biden’s or Hillary’s or anyone else’s.
Who said anything about banning?
No, she does not. She defines “life” differently than you, which means she’s saying that the right to one’s own body should be granted not only to those who are in a position to speak, but to those who are alive but cannot communicate their wishes.
Humans have survival instincts; babies / fetuses probably want to live, too.
And as I’ve pointed out (and you have never addressed), as science advances and viability outside the womb increases, the pro-life position begins the pendulum swing toward the true libertarian position.
Ironic, isn’t it, that your beloved science may one day disrupt the libertarianism you claim to champion.
“I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.â€Â
-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
The Vast Leftwing Smear Machine has done that for the Conservative/Libertarian base in the last few days. We need to keep the momentum going for the next 60 days.
Translation: Having utterly nothing to say doesn’t mean I have the self-control to not repeat it forever.
thor, when can I hang out in your library some more?
Because father’s too have a special bond and special obligation. Beyond the breast feeding stage, which often today is given over to formula feeding by nannies or daycare workers, that special bond the mother has is no more important than the special bond the father has.
No one’s parenting is ideal from the point of view of a child’s missteps. But to make any assessment about Palin’s parenting based on what her teenage daughter does is rather dangerous speculation.
Someday, not today, Jeff, I think that “true libertarian position” is something I would like to take up. Because I am pretty sure my perspective on that is very soundly based in law and the tradition of liberty, and I am pretty sure it differs from your own.
u keeep LYING abt wat u rly blieve
i no u just want to maek wemon in2 cudlip babymakrs
popem out eh guys?
u cuplids keep lying & sayin u aernet doin that but
i no the trueth
u dont no wat u rly bliv
ur all STUIPOD!
Try Hobsbawm’s Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, when have some extra time, JHo. It might inspire you to cast even more evil spells on Obama.
Meg Whitman, who advises McCain on economics (and was one of three McCain cited at Saddleback as a person he admires and who’s council he would seek) made a point yesterday, when asked whether she was seeing sexism directed at Sarah Palin, of answering with a firm no. Perhaps she sees the matter as Palin did in her remarks on Mrs. Clinton.
25 fooled me for a second because it was even more illiterate than usual. Well done.
Women are bonded by brain and blood. Every woman carries part of the immune system of her children in her own body til the day she dies. And I suspect the roots of outward attachment are more biologically based that we give credit. A mother’s obligations and her attachment, are, if everything goes normally, different from a man’s, and that does not diminish a man or a father.
This isn’t to say a man can’t be an adequate or better substitute for any particular individual mother. Individual circumstance trumps all.
No, she does not.
yes she does.
until the j-womb is funtional, an embryo/fetus/nerula/blastula is nonviable without the host uterus, and as such, a part of the host.
it is a parasite.
u know Jeff…….you are one of the best writers in Known Blogspace.
i truly loved u.
but it gets harder and harder…..im so tired. :(
You don’t know any such thing, nishi.
Grow up.
A good griefer would be able to form at least some semblance of an actual argument.
You’re not a good griefer.
I have a fevah, and the only perscription is more Nishi parody.
Don’t have to reveal what it is, I don’t actually want to know, but wipe those stains off my Sergei Eisenstein’s or your banned, buster!
26 fooled me for a second because it was even more self-obtuse and ironic than usual. Well done. thor and
interpretationsmeaningreasonlogicwords are like oil and antimatter.Far from a parasite, isn’t that little ball of cells that mother/father parent’s only hope of advancing their genes into the future? And doesn’t their life as sexual being hinge at least to some degree on the success of that ball of cells gestating, being born, growing up and reproducing successfully themselves?
Have at me.
–Particularly if it happens to be the man doing much on the “nurture” side of the equation.
That would be the special bond that is (theoretically, and in some cases, practically) applicable here. It’s a brave new world. And we’ve come a long way, baby!
Well, it’s non-viable up to a certain point — at which time it most certainly can live outside the womb. And that’s why I say science keeps bringing us closer to the point where the “parasite” can disarticulate from its host and live parasitic to a ventilator. Which doesn’t have to worry about the violation of its body.
That was, in fact, my point — and the reason I remain pro-choice with restrictions. After a certain time, the fetus is viable. At which point the woman can chose to have the baby induced, if the parasite is too inconvenient, or else she can continue to carry what is at that point a viable human, which should, given that it is a viable human, and given our adherence to natural law, be granted the right of life.
As science moves us closer and closer to that change from parasitic relationship to uninvited guest, it moves the pro-life movement closer to libertarianism.
I think the Barack perambulator is rolling down the Potemkin village steps as we speak, thor.
Good one. Your are good for a laugh.
Do your have Enrique Burnisherito’s On The Fallacy of Fallacies too? I’m told that all seven of the firsts came in gilded mahogany.
Boiling it down to the hot topic, i don’t think Bristol getting pregnant at seventeen is necessarily a failure of the parents. I don’t exclude the possibility that parenting can shape a child’s outlook or actions, either. I don’t draw a conclusion, and hold that any I might draw has very little bearing on Palin’s effectiveness as a party leader or executive.
“its ur House.
ban me and ill have a clean sweep.”
It needs the attention. It craves the precious…
To address one of your points, I was expecting Palin to say more about the media attacks last night. However, thinking about it and with what you said above, I think she took the proper stance. She would be accused of whining if she says anything, so I think she will never address the attacks directly. Plus, she looks all the better for for it.
OT, but neat
Alvin Anders | September 3, 2008, 9:11pm | #
I was chair of the Alaska Libertarian Party briefly in the 90’s. When we reached permanent party status by getting 2% of the registered voters to register as Libertarians, Sarah Palin, then mayor of Wasilla, was the only elected official of any party to congratulate us. She did so in person by stopping by our booth at the Alaska State Fair.
http://www.reason.com/convention2008/show/128573.html
Also, the link makes mincemeat of Andrew Sullivan
The maternal bond is created by oxytocin, a powerful chemical that nature uses to create bonding between individuals. It’s especially active in women, whose brains are flooded with it during sexual activity and especially during birthing and nursing. It’s also how ducklings imprint on what they first see when they hatch.
I don’t know what happens in a man’s brain with regard to his offspring, but I’d be the last one on the planet to claim that it’s nothing special, that kids don’t need it, or that it’s somehow expendable or less valuable.
I just know that both mother and father can be lethal if you mess with their kids.
As for Sarah
ConnorPalin’s mothering skills with regard to Bristol, I’ll just post this link again for those who missed it the first time around, which explains why good parenting and convictions aren’t enough when it comes to teenaged girls.To a degree, of course it is. But as you say, it’s not a precondition of Palin running for office.
Cigars certainly weren’t to occupying it.
Maybe it isn’t important in the big scheme of things, but I was taught that parasitic relationships were species/species sorts of things, inter-, not intra-. I understand that the interests of mother/father/child differ from one another, sure, but there is a hell of a lot of co-incident mutuality involved as well. And doesn’t the fact of that mutuality spread even to the creation of kin, clan, tribe and society?
“but it gets harder and harder…..im so tired. :(”
The power down, you fucking psychopath.
My love for Jeff is unconditional. I’d lick the stubble from his shaving razor, check his undies for spots that need scrubbing, clear his land of stumps, spoon feed him Metamucil when he gets the shits, pretend he’s away when Sarah Palin calls. Anything!
Also, the sexist grenades lobbed at Sarah
ConnorPalin are merely the weapons at hand. They wanted to defeat Hillary in favor of the prettier candidate, they used sexism. If the disfavored candidate were black, they’d use racism. Just as they use agism against McCain.Of course, there’s the class issue there (white trash!) as a bonus.
These alleged feminists are not in the least concerned with the welfare of the Palin children. They just want Sarah
ConnorPalin OUT of the race, because they’ll be damned, literally if necessary, if the eeeevil Rethuglicans get a woman into the White House before they do.BECAUSE OF THE NARRATIVE!
oh. NPR framed their story this morning as Governor Palin attacked the media last night but all they had to back that up was the one line about not going to Washington to earn the good opinion of the media… I thought that was just them being weird but it looks like they want to set her up as just another whiny stupid bitch what should get her ass back to doing housework and stuff. Also, red velvet cake please and why did you make me buy you those Southern Living cookbooks if you’re not going to get off your fat ass and use them?
Has anyone else noticed that Nishi gets less and less literate as she gets painted into a (barely) intellectual corner. It’s kind of like when Astronaut Dave pulled out Hal’s logic chips in 2001.
Daisy Daisy give me your answer do…
Weak. The left has nothing. They have no idea how to deal with Palin. They are sweating big time. If Mccain can decently articulate a policy for the future tonight, the left will come undone.
The left has nothing./i>
The Right has lot’s of snappy Bible quotes when their babies are having babies. At least that’s something.
any good supermodel
Happyfeet – Argghhh
Even when the fetus is not yet viable it is a potential future human being, and not say, a tapeworm. Screaming about abortion rights is too easily negatively compared to Palin who just gave birth to a downs child and her daughter, while young, who is about to become a new mother.
Yes, Americans are pro-choice to a point because lacking the science to tell us when exactly life begins, it is not unwise to lean in the direction of liberty. That said, Americans dig babies.
I apologize for cross-posting this comment in two threads, but it really belongs here:
When Kerry picked John Edwards to be his Vice Presidential running mate in 2004 the sum total of Edwards’ political experience was one partial Senate term, which he had mostly missed as he campaigned to be his party’s Presidential nomination. In other words: He had no relevant political experience at all. Still, the MSM smothered him with gravitas gravy while they treat Sarah Palin, a state governor, as if she is still a small-town beauty queen.
u keeep LYING abt wat u rly blieve
i no u just want to maek wemon in2 cudlip babymakrs
popem out eh guys?
u cuplids keep lying & sayin u aernet doin that but
i no the trueth
u dont no wat u rly bliv
ur all STUIPOD!
You convinced me. I am now voting for Barack Obama.
I see where Barry seems to be quite upset by the pick. He’s sending Smokin’ Joe out to reassure the loonies of his base that, yes, we’ll be having purges after my accession to power. Gonna toss all those eeee-vil rethugs inna klink, don’tcha know?
He’s sweatin’ bullets. Trust me.
Ponnuru remarks that the media is launching a more savage attack on Palin than on any previous conservative.
Heres why.
I might have voted for Palin once upon a time,,,,but no more.
Go ahead and bear an raise a downs baby….thats your choice.
but dont try to restrict my libertarian right to have an abortion if i so choose, and dont try to guilt me either.
dont try to impose your religious views on me, either about LIFE! or creationism.
go ahead, let your teenage daughter be a 5months unwed mother when u run for national office…..but dont piss and moan about it when it hits the tabloids.
and dont try to make me believe u can stand up to malevolent dictators when you cant even defend yourself and your family against the American press.
Voting for Barack is easy. Until you draft Michael Vick on your fantasy team to protest his incarceration, you ain’t shit, pal.
“dont try to guilt me either.”
So seeing someone “choose” not to have an abortion makes you feel guilty? Well maybe that should be a freakin clue.
um, link?
Nishi paints herself into a corner because, despite all her self-proclaimed intelligence (I have no way of knowing whether that self-assessment is accurate), she’s not a thinker.
So, nishi, did you seek counseling after you had your abortion, or are you trying to work through the guilt on your own?
And, yes, that probably was a low attack I just made. But, honestly, that’s what I’m hearing from nishi — “HOW DARE YOU NOT VALIDATE ME!!!!”
Aldo said:
When Kerry picked John Edwards to be his Vice Presidential running mate in 2004 the sum total of Edwards’ political experience was one partial Senate term, which he had mostly missed as he campaigned to be his party’s Presidential nomination. In other words: He had no relevant political experience at all. Still, the MSM smothered him with gravitas gravy while they treat Sarah Palin, a state governor, as if she is still a small-town beauty queen.
And the irony is, we know Johnny Haircut spends way more time primping than she does.
Nishit is one the far left side of the distribution curve. I am thinking the lowest 10%. Daddy! Daddy! Look at me!
But Edwards is a lawyer, and a Dem, therefore qualified.
so you won’t be voting for O! either? or was that just one DAMN tasty waffle?
“dont try to guilt me either.â€Â
Do bio-units “do” guilt? Is she programmed for that?
hell, O! couldn’t even defend a position on abortion to that xtianist Warren.
1.Log Cabin says that the left has nothing.
2.Thor responds with some tedious middle-school bitchings about the Bible.
3. ??????????
4. PROFIT!
T
Thor is more like,” Daddy Daddy, look what I made in the potty!!!”
wow.
the proper response when confronted with this good-bad parenting red herring should be along the lines of, “Anything on the police blotter? No? Then what the hell difference does her child’s screw up make to the possible direction of the USA in the next 4-8 years?”
that we are talking about this is a failure of some sort.
sex is pretty much a non-starter as a character flaw in politics in ’08. As long as the person comes clean about whatever, and doesnt campaign as purer than driven snow, the electorate is really forgiving.
the notion that a 17-year old’s judgement lapse can be derivatively applied to the mom…if this is the worst we have to face on the right, then the third week of January 09 will be truly chilling for Dems.
but dont try to restrict my libertarian right to have an abortion if i so choose, and dont try to guilt me either.
Show me where Palin has tried to restrict your “libertarian right to have an abortion”. As to the guilt thing, grow up. If you don’t think there is anything wrong with abortion then why would you feel guilt.
dont try to impose your religious views on me, either about LIFE! or creationism.
The problem is that to you, even mention religious view that is different than yours is seen as imposing it on you. It’s because you just ain’t right. Once again, grow up. People are entitled to their opinions, and they have a libertarian approved right to express them.
go ahead, let your teenage daughter be a 5months unwed mother when u run for national office…..but dont piss and moan about it when it hits the tabloids.
Her child isn’t running for national office. Previously, targeting the children of candidates was agreed upon as out of bounds and in generally poor taste. Unsurprisingly, the part of the left taking these shots didn’t really mean it, because they don’t really believe in things like principles.
and dont try to make me believe u can stand up to malevolent dictators when you cant even defend yourself and your family against the American press.
Is it even legal to invade the offices of Newsweek or US Weekly. Because if it is that would be, like, awesome.
I know, sort of a waste of time to respond.
Y’know, nishi, little as you and your fellow thugs like it, neither mayors, Governors, nor Vice Presidents rule by decree in this country. Sarah Palin has declared that her preferred version of the law would be pro-life, but her performance in the offices she has held included upholding the law of the land as presently written, including conformance with Roe vs. Wade.
Thor and Hubris, especially, have assured us that a man whose every utterance prior to the “triangulation” phase endorsed zero-sum, Leveler socialism, and whose every known associate is either a known or suspected crook or a vocal advocate of that same socialist meme… will, and has promised faithfully to, actually govern as a moderate centrist. This, we are assured, is not in question.
Now: given that whether or not they retain or enlarge their minority, Democrats will have, at worst, a strong presence in the Congress regardless of who is elected President and Vice President, and that such a strong Democratic presence is pretty well a sovereign anodyne against any major disruption in abortion law but is virtually certain to strongly endorse movement toward a socialist-influenced, Leveler philosophy — what the Hell are you shrieking about? Whatever Palin’s desires they aren’t likely to be realized, and you have plenty of people to oppose such realization.
Bah. As several people have said, the whole bit reeks of fear and denial.
Regards,
Ric
but dont try to restrict my libertarian right to have an abortion if i so choose, and dont try to guilt me either.
dont try to impose your religious views on me, either about LIFE! or creationism.
go ahead, let your teenage daughter be a 5months unwed mother when u run for national office…..but dont piss and moan about it when it hits the tabloids.
I’m sure you are aware of the psychological theory of projection. The behavior you describe sounds very much like your stereotype of xtians, but it does not match anything the real-world person named Sarah Palin has said or done. How does her choice to give birth to a Down syndrome baby restrict your rights?
As a matter of objective fact, Palin has not done any of these things you listed, nor would she even be in a position to overturn Roe versus wade as a Vice President with a Democrat-controlled congress. There is a toal disconnect between your rhetoric about this politician and the politician herself. I think you’ve been drinking too much dKos Kool Aide Nishi.
I think she defended herself just fine. “I’m not running for your good approval.”
Says it all, really.
Nishi: ” might have voted for Palin once upon a time,,,,but no more.
Go ahead and bear an raise a downs baby….thats your choice.”
Uh-huh… I think Nishi skipped a groove… or else one of the other voices in her head just grabbed the wheel. Just as mendacious, but with a veneer or reasonability.
Nishi: “but dont try to restrict my libertarian right to have an abortion if i so choose, and dont try to guilt me either.”
Gee — did abortion become illegal in Alaska under her term and no one noticed, Nishi? Abortion is an abstract issue, insofar as it hasbeen removed from the political realm and placed into the judicial / Constitutional. Thus, the influence any politician has is limited, yea verily, even that of the President. The only “real” way to make abortion illegal would be a Constitutional amendment, which has the same chances of a snowball in hell.
As for guilt, Nishi, if you feel guilty for what you say you believe is right, it sounds to be far more of a personal problem you’re projecting upon someone else. But this should be a null set for you, Nishi — you believe in SCIENCE! and claim to be beyond such things.
Nishi: “dont try to impose your religious views on me, either about LIFE! or creationism.”
You’d only have slept through that part like the way you slept through the rest of civics class, so no worries there.
Nishi: “go ahead, let your teenage daughter be a 5months unwed mother when u run for national office…..but dont piss and moan about it when it hits the tabloids.”
Nishi, this has got to be you at your most mendacious. The only reason that the matter even came up was the fevered imaginings of your fellow-travellers that Trig wasn’t her son. Your whiny little attempt at boot-strap levitate this notion is weaker than usual, even for you.
Nishi: “dont try to make me believe u can stand up to malevolent dictators when you cant even defend yourself and your family against the American press.”
As opposed to who, Barry “Fifty-Seven states” Obama who doesn’t even realize that Russia holds a veto in the UN Security Council and his side-kick, Joe “lets give the Persians 200 million dollars so the Arabs don’t think we want to destroy them” Biden?
Get this weak crap off the court and come back when you have some game, Nishi.
Edu Guy – Did you see Megan Kelly absolutely vivisect the Senior Editor from US Weekly?
“Her child isn’t running for national office. Previously, targeting the children of candidates was agreed upon as out of bounds and in generally poor taste. Unsurprisingly, the part of the left taking these shots didn’t really mean it, because they don’t really believe in things like principles.”
EG I have the feeling some of this stuff is shaping up in to the 2008 version of the Wellstone Memorial.
“…the notion that a 17-year old’s judgment lapse can be derivatively applied to the mom…”
Actually, mcgruder, I’m not sure we have enough information to confidently assert the pregnancy is a lapse of judgment, at least from the teenager’s point of view. Though I don’t reckon it likely, the possibility yet remains that her pregnancy went according to her own (and even the boyfriend’s) intentions. Without their testimony to the contrary, we would be jumping at any conclusion now.
Ya know, the funniest thing is the folks screaming about “privacy” and “reproductive choice” are the ones trying to barge into Bristol’s business.
don’t make me say it, Crawford.
Oh, go ahead, mk, make the joke.
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!
you’ll have to pick which side that applies to in this case.
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!!
it’s like an ourobouross
Challenge laid! Let’s see what the nishi-bot has to say:
Challenge declined!
How I interpret nishi’s response is something like this: a woman ought to do whatever she chooses with her body. Same applies for a man, naturally, so I can take this body part, here: my foot, and jam it all the way up your ass. That’s freedom to do what you want with your body, encapsulated.
Oh, you say, it’s not that simple. The bodies of others are also involved, here. That complicates things a bit. But nishi can’t deal with that sort of complication, so while she’s pretending that we’re all universes of one, I’m going to jam my foot right up her ass.
but dont try to restrict my libertarian right to have an abortion if i so choose
So explain to me how Obama’s Libertarian National Healthcare System is going to guarantee your right to an abortion?
[…] to readiness. After all, of the two tickets, one appears to be, at least from the perspective of giving importance to experience, completely inverted. The Democrats are running a man for President who barely outpolls the GOP […]
I am not sure it is hypocrisy more than the same assholes who went after Hillary “in the name of progressivism” will go after Palin. And Palin is in double trouble because she is much younger and much prettier than Clinton so she MUST BE STUPID. And sexists feel some sort of entitlement to tell women what the fuck to do with themselves, their families and what grows and issues forth from their wombs. Amanda Marcotte and Jill over at Feministe have talked about this a lot. Sexists are sexists and crying progressive does not negate that one bit. As a matter of fact, the sexists on the left seem to think their progressiveness gives them cover. Sarah Palin exercised her choice to do what she wished with her body and the contents within her body, she has balanced her family with her career (and NO if she stayed home it would not have made her daughter more chaste). I admire Palin but I also strongly feel that some of the evangelical wingnuts she runs with are practicing exceptionalism when they admire her. Her career and family balance is fine for HER because she is important to the party. However, for the average woman trying to balance family and career ambitions, there is much tsk tsking because she should not be getting involved in a demanding career when she has small children.
Hopefully, seeing a conservative woman with small kids be a great mom and a badassed political force will change some minds on all sides.
Anybody catch Newt on Whatsisnames fake news show? Jon something – I don’t watch him, too smarmy by half. Looking for a clip. Any help appreciated.
Oh and the media tsk tsking Palin are concern trolling because they can’t say on TV what they really want to say: “She is hot, but women are just too fucking……womanish to have bigshot careers – they are just taking them away from a more deserving man. She must be some kind of shrill assed lesbo. I’d fuck her though.”
I couldn’t give a shit what she chooses to fail miserably at, it’s that she’s a two-bit failure that matters.
Amanda Marcotte and Jill over at Feministe have talked about this a lot.
Funny. That ain’t what they were saying last time I checked.
I saw a little bit of that Republican women press conference yesterday afternoon, namely, Carly Fiorina answering the last snarky six-paragraph question from a reporter, to the affect that since Fiorina was CEO of a large corporation, how would she feel if someone with so little “experience” were to succeed her, and then some hogwash about a small town Mayor not being up to the task of being second in command of the federal government.
Fiorina fired back that a) her successor was actually someone who had run a much smaller company than HP; and b) a mayor and a governor are essentially CEO’s, with virtually the same responsibilities as a corporate head.
No matter what you may think of Fiorina, it was a pretty good, concise, victimless, answer.
#76 is a terrific comment on the inherent asymmetry of the current political climate. Strike that. It’s a commentary on the inherent asymmetry of the moral and political spectrum through time.
This, we are led to assume ourselves by seeping cultural PC, pop-media and a complicit, frequent, academic slant — and even tacitly by the sorry state of Republican politics as the remaining bulwark against some cesspool of postmodern, morally-relative collectivism (and a fine job they’re doing, aren’t they?) — may not so much as be questioned.
I recall the first time I heard some NPR talking heads discussing not how to achieve and observe a principled platform from which to run for national office in this constitutional democracy, but how to simply win votes by strategy, ala the Clintons. Now it’s entirely commonplace.
Today we’ll recall the left’s 2008 media virtually campaigning for its candidate.
Next up? Out-of-the-closet cultural war for sheer power over what amounts to behavior, a contest the right has few weapons to wage. Count on it — we’re not far now. Might just be the Fourth Estate’s finest hours, at least as they see them.
B Moe, they have talked about sexism being atrocious no matter who it is aimed at. I remember them being on the receiving end of a crapload of scorn for condemning the sexist shit being flung at Michelle Malkin. I was totally down with them on that: Michelle Malkin is a crazy asshole, but she is not a cunt, mail order bride, nor should she be fucked violently in every hole. The issue is that some men feel like when a woman has opposing views than them (or has the same views but is in competition with a man) then she is “fair game” for misogyny. That is the biggest load of bullshit and it is depressing that so many young “hip” progressive boys believe that deep in their shriveled little souls. I am certain that I will probably call Governor Palin a goddamned ratfucking liar many many times before this election is over. But I will defend her to the heavens from sexist language and imagery. Because when you call her a cunt you call us all cunts, ya know?
When Palin’s name was first announced the dkos/MSM meme was that her lack of experience made her a frivolous choice. After it was pointed out how many male Democratic candidates vying to be President or VP have received the [lower voice here] gravitas treatment despite having objectively less qualifications for the office than Palin, we started hearing fewer comments about the beauty queen, and the meme shifted to how all our abortion rights will be revoked if Palin becomes VP.
I wish I could interrupt all of this chatter about what a theo-con extremist she is to point out the obvious: Palin has not been talking about abortion. She has been talking about energy independence, which happens to be an important topic at the moment. To my knowledge Palin has not said anything at all about wanting to restrict abortion rights. Furthermore, even if she had a secret plan to do so, and McCain suddenly vapor-locked and made her President, it would be next to impossible for her to do so. Abortion is a completely phony, red-herring issue in the context of this campaign. The sudden media obsession with it proves only the power the winged monkeys at dkos hold over MSM political coverage.
Lisa is a force for good in an America what has a deeply flawed media that makes us talk about things that are really a lot beneath our dignity I think. If you, meaning you not me, subscribe to a newspaper don’t think you are not part of the problem because you are.
This is how this works. Go here. If your local newspaper is owned by any of the companies in the graphic on that page, then you are subsidizing the mechanism by which newspapers are able to bid for national advertising accounts. In other words, buying your little paper actually extends the reach of an ad buy, making it a more attractive buy for national advertisers to place ads which would also net revenue for the New York Times and pals. So you shouldn’t be doing that. It’s wrong. Stop it. Just stop.
Aldo: The fact that you are right has not stopped the Obama campaign here in PA from running multiple TV and Radio ads featuring a nurse practitioner from Planned Parenthood talking up the dangers of “overturning Roe v Wade.”
She never mentions by what mechanism this dire overturning will be accomplished but I suspect, if the Obama campaign has some smarts, there will be a followup about SCOTUS nominations. Even so it continues to be the red meat of desperation to wind up the feminists to carry on a one issue crusade. They might want to take a page from the hard core pro life crowd who one-issued themselves in previous elections almost to irrelevance.
Then again, maybe they could trot out Cameron Diaz who, during the 2004(?) campaign on Oprah, that “you need to get out and vote so that rape doesn’t become legal.”
Ah, deep thinkers…
Oh, come on. No one’s dumb enough to put a Kennedy on the ticket!
B Moe, they have talked about sexism being atrocious no matter who it is aimed at.
I understand your point, but have is the operative word. I started skimming those sites when this shit first hit the fan to see if any of them would stick to their guns, and Melissa at Shake’s Sister was the only one who stood up for Palin. She has since backed down, however, and has joined the others in trying to rationalize and justify the attacks.
They may have taken principled stances in the past, but the only principle that seems to matter now is progressivism.
Wow Happy. Sighs. So I am not only supporting the bastard Rupert Murdoch when I get the Journal, but I am supporting some creepy massive advertizing megacorp? Something inside of me just died a little.
It’s all incest, Lisa. I feel so dirty almost all the time now. Think how mcgruder must feel.
I know that people are trying hard to either pretend the behavior is not happening or somehow say that it is what the other side would do so so what. I am not having vapors over the whole thing because alot of it is par for the course: If you have a weakness – like some family thing that might be slightly messy – people are going to gossip about it and be fucking cruel. However, when it gets into the territory of “dumb slutbag should go home to and take care of her litter” then it has crossed over from the usual ratfucking into that special zone of bigotry and misogyny that we seem to cling to with such zeal in this country.
SCOTUS nominations are extremely important, though should McCain/Palin win, noms. will be made by McCain, not Palin. McCain seems to say all the right things to calm the conservative right about nominations, but on the other hand, he still hangs out a lot with Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, so it’s kinda hard to tell with any confidence just who he will nominate.
Even though McCain should be possessed of the opportunity to nominate 2-3 Justices who might overturn Roe, the issue would merely return to the states and the Congress, where it ought to have been resolved in the first place. That by no means results in the elimination of legal access to abortions. The least we can expect is that any solution is consonant with our ostensibly democratic principles. (And therefore potentially only temporary, as opinions can change, and with them the votes of Congresscritters.)
Man, Rob, you spent some serious time sharpening your knives today, didn’t you?
SCOTUS nominations are extremely important, though should McCain/Palin win, noms. will be made by McCain, not Palin.
And even if McCain died and Palin became President she would still have to get her nominees approved by a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Happy I was aghast when I read something that said that most of our media is run by six or fewer really big companies. I have nothing against really big companies….but there is something weird about a few folks having control over the dissemination of information in the entire country (and world even).
This just turns the dagger in my heart just a little more and makes me point and laugh at Alex Jones just a teensy bit less.
Exactamento, Aldo. It mostly looks like an empty scare tactic. But I don’t think McCain will be dying anytime soon anyhow.
JD – Yep, saw it. A thing of beauty. The whole “Lies” phrase being the lies told about her being such absolute crap in the context of that headline.
Mr Pink. – To some, everything must be politicized. Which to me seems unwise, as the topics of death and new life are important enough to the population at large that they speak for themselves.
I have been dreading the conversations about Palin with my left leaning female feminist friends because I was pretty sure they were going to throw the underlying principles out the window in favor of choosing the correct women to choose for positions of power. Which is just nuts, because if one of the basic principles of feminism isn’t that the standards applied to both genders must be equal, then it simply isn’t feminism. So far I’ve heard all the usual expected bullshit that they would normally rail against – the most galling being that she should be more concerned with staying home and watching her kids. Amazing and sad.
“ur all STUIPOD!”
Wow. Just…wow. Got a bit of a thrill up my leg with that one, I must admit.
#89 Slart:
Same applies for a man, naturally, so I can take this body part, here: my foot, and jam it all the way up your ass.
Oh, man! You’ve taken on my role from earlier this year! Now matoko is going to get all weepy and scared that you are actually out to get her! Unless she has run out of needy ‘poor wittle me’ drama, which I doubt.
#99 Lisa:
But I will defend her to the heavens from sexist language and imagery. Because when you call her a cunt you call us all cunts, ya know?
Then you understand why I defend intentionalism in speech (as far as I understand it) and why I defend free speech. I quoted the exchange between Roper and Sir Thomas Moore earlier(A Man For All Seasons), but the gist was why give the devil the benefit of the law? And the answer was ‘for my own safety’s sake’.
Others whom we disagree with have to be defended from this kind of B.S. in order that we be safe. If I permit free speech to be removed from others, then I tacitly allow it to be removed from me; if you allow misogynist attacks on Gov. Palin, then you tacitly permit them to be done to you.
At the bottom of it all these ‘no-go zones’ are for the safety of all.
The good news is that they’re really stupid and likely won’t stay in business much longer. Newspapers, at least.
I would like to go on the record in favor of nishi having as many abortions as necessary.
I was aghast when I read something that said that most of our media is run by six or fewer really big companies. I have nothing against really big companies….but there is something weird about a few folks having control over the dissemination of information in the entire country (and world even).
Is one of them the Bilderburgers? Becuase I just bought a ton of them (don’t ask, you need to know somebody), and when their hostile takeover of the world goes through later this year I’m in line to make a shitload of money…
Seriously Lisa, “control”? How many nanoseconds would it take someone like Olbermann to scream to the mountaintops that he was being told what to say?
It was one of those days. My Mac died — I had to go into work early, take an early and long lunch to get it into the shop for repairs. I got back to find the team in a panic, because our latest release was spazzing out and the fire-breathers upstairs were firing up.
Then I spent four hours struggling to get a piece of software compiled that should have taken ten minutes. Finally got it, but somehow it doesn’t have the most essential feature we need. Somewhere I disabled that…
Then nishi showed up here, as hysterical as could be, spouting her latest lies and obsessions. I stand by what I said — I think nishi’s real problem is that someone, somewhere, thinks she made a bad choice, and she can’t stand it. She wants everyone to say, “You go girl!” and make her feel like she did the right thing, even though she probably spends at least a day a year swamped in regrets.
Which is OK. God knows I spend more time than is healthy mired in my own regrets (I have a few…) — but I don’t take them out on other people.
#120 Rob:
I hear you – if you don’t have any regrets you haven’t actually lived life. But to take those regrets out on the general populace is pretty rotten.
Must be what you do when you don’t have any friends or religion or something to fall back on when you wake up in the cold watches of the night and those regrets are right there, staring you in the face – go fire up the computer and flog them out on people who don’t know you. Sounds kind of shallow to me.
You know, if anyone ever catches up to either thor or nishi in TX, I’m pretty sure that just the comments on THIS thread would be enough for the jury to accept the “it needed killin'” defense.
As Sarah Palin might say, “It’s time to thin the herd!”
#101
Swear to god , it’s only for the crossword. Honest. Aaand Dilbert. There.
I have been dreading the conversations about Palin with my left leaning female feminist friends because I was pretty sure they were going to throw the underlying principles out the window in favor of choosing the correct women to choose for positions of power. Which is just nuts, because if one of the basic principles of feminism isn’t that the standards applied to both genders must be equal, then it simply isn’t feminism. So far I’ve heard all the usual expected bullshit that they would normally rail against – the most galling being that she should be more concerned with staying home and watching her kids. Amazing and sad.
A real feminist decries sexism and misogyny when it is practiced on anyone – because permitting one woman to be degraded because she is a woman is a degradation of all women. A real feminist is not fooled by the lure of exceptionalism (where you allow the denegration of women because you think YOU are an exception to the inferiorness of womankind). Even when I knew I was defending a true blue fool of a woman – a woman as dreadful as Ann Coulter
, I realize it is not about “her” so much as all of us.
Now this is not to say that women shouldn’t be criticized – and criticized just as harshly as a man would be. Women who hide behind the “don’t pick on me I am a girl” meme are just as guilty of antifeminism. But the kind of criticism that basically says “you have a pussy thus you are substandard” is unacceptable no matter who it is aimed at.
You’re one woman is all women is a bit too grouperish.
If I call that Moose-Nazi a bitch a cunt, really, Lisa, I’m not referring to you nor the vaginal bond that binds you.
I’m referring the that cunt’s actions and political positions I disagree with. Disassemble your percieved grrl power association and misplaced identity groupering, unless you’re pleading for kindler and gentler tone in speech. I’d respond to that by answering I’m only speaking in like terms as my politically defective cohorts sitting at the extreme, yet opposite, end of the political spectrum from I.
the right to ones own body is THE basic principle of libertarianism.
Palin invalidates that.
weasel word it all you want.
If Falcon Crest is a libertarian, then I’m a freakin’ Dutchman. And thor, Hobsbawm? Is that your idea of a good read?
“… (as is their* wont) …”, Jeff.
Long day, I reckon?
(* Not because it really matters, or because I think for a second you don’t know better, but because fixing the homonym for the archives will make it read better and avoid haw-haws from idiots.)
Okay Moose-Nazi is pretty hilarious. I am not calling for gentler speech. Pile on her ass by all means. She represents everything that is sad and pathetic about the wingnut base of the Repbulican party. However, calling her a cunt, bitch or a whore is sexist. I have never seen you call McCain a cunt, bitch, or a whore (though he really and truly is the biggest fucking whore I have ever seen in my life). It doesn’t occur to you to call McCain (a true whore who has been on his knees servicing the very people who fucked him with no lube in 2000) a whore because it is not about the philosophy when you say it, it is about her gender.
You know that shit is wrong Thor. You know it. Just stop doing it. There are plenty of ways heap the scorn that she so richly deserves upon her head without adding the “and you have girl cooties too” part to it.
Oh and Rob, just because a person is adamant about the right for a woman to have autonomy over her body and the contents therein – does not mean that she had an abortion and needs an “attagirl”. Talk about demeaning the idea of female humanity. It is about liberty.
“She represents everything that is sad and pathetic about the wingnut base of the Repbulican party.”
A week ago you didn’t even know who she was, and now you say this. Can you explain to me please how she represents that?
Pink, she vomits out that “smart people suck; real Americans don’t do all that thinkin’ stuff” foolishness that is beneath her apparently fine intellect. That is deeply insulting, but seems to be REQUIRED to rally the base. That shit is pathetic and truly loathesome. We have enough problems with people thinking there is some five second answer to any issue without someone who ought to know better fetishizing simplemindedness. Everyone gets burned up at the idea of Obama suggesting that Americans are responsible for America’s challenges. God forbid the “party of personal responsibility” actually suggest that Americans might be culpable for their own country. I am tired of the Sarah Palins of the world yapping about how if you get a “straight talker” in office he will run off all of the icky problems and everyone can get back to their regularly scheduled walmart shopping. After 8 years we have bigger deficits, more spending, and more whining. The jig is up and only the deluded still buy into the lie.
And that is what she represents.
Really? I hadn’t seen that. Care to link to anything of that nature?
“Vomit”, though, tells me that you have some…ahem…prejudicial feelings in the matter.
“Vomitâ€Â, though, tells me that you have some…ahem…prejudicial feelings in the matter.
Yep yep.
[…] Which, in turn, has caused them even greater consternation. […]