Drezner on Palin
September 18, 2008, 8:43 am
Posted by Eduardo Peñalver
Daniel Drezner vents a bit:
What I’ve learned about Sarah Palin to date is that she doesn’t know a lot about foreign policy, doesn’t know a lot about the economy, and she sounds just as bad in friendly interview situations as she does in slightly more probing interviews. Her best skill displayed to date was delivering a speech off a teleprompter (not insignificant in politics, mind you) and she’s apparently exaggerating that skill as well.
Hey, but she’s good on abortion!
A lot of what can be said about Sarah Palin can be said about countless other candidates who’ve run for office, both state and federal. In the last few days and weeks, this magazine has had plenty of people pile on her.
If that’s what this blog is going to develop into–a surrogate Obama campaign site where posters patronize Palin instead of offering the substantive commentary on important questions in politics, religion, and culture–then I, and others, will no longer visit the site.
On Palin’s speeches: reminds me of the old Smothers Brothers parody: “Ghost Writers In Disguise.”
I guess those who don’t like us criticizing their ideological favorites can, like the little kid, take their football and go home
Given the fact that it’s currently the consensus that Palin has revivified the McCain campaign, and McCain is drawing big crowds with her and small crowds without her, and that she’s pretty much unknown, and that if McCain wins, she could easily need to take over for him as president, I don’t see the matter of her “fib” about the teleprompter being unimportant. Or her “fibs” about the Bridge to Nowhere, or the plane on e-Bay, or the percentage or oil or energy Alaska supplies, or the apparent contradiction of instantly accepting McCain’s offer versus putting it to a family vote, and so on.
When McCain picked her, he had to know she would be under intense scrutiny (and appropriately so), and now to complain about that scrutiny and claim people should discuss the “important questions” rather than respond to the zingers in her speech and misrepresentations on the campaign trail is wanting to have it both ways. She was chosen to have exactly the effect she is having, which has little to do with the important issues, but people who talk about it are being mean.
It is indeed true that if we confined our discussions to the “important questions” in politics, religion, and culture, then Sarah Palin’s name might not come up, since she is basically a political gimmick rather than a serious candidate. But she could easily become president if the McCain-Palin ticket wins, so it is perfectly fair to discuss her virtues and her flaws.
“Hey, but she’s good on abortion!” Eduardo, this isn’t just a minor, throwaway point such as one could say, “Hey, but she’s good looking.” I am presently reading a shocking book entitled ‘In Reckless Hands’ which discusses the Eugenics movement in America that was all the vogue in the first third of the last century. It is interesting to note that the Catholic Church was one of the very few opponents of this and in the Supreme Court ruling upholding Eugenic laws the only dissenting vote was from a Catholic justice. Abortion and the respect for life itself is to me the paramount issue of this election. I think that the president, and in this case, vice-president, can use the office as a bully pulpit to free us from the power of the ideological secularists that have pretty much gotten control of media. I don’t agree with McCain about anything but abortion and I cringe when I hear Sarah Palin say that government is the problem, but they are right (and especially her) on abortion and for me, now, in 2008 that is enough!
If Palin and the other politicians give up their teleprompters, will you teachers out there give up your class notes? Or don’t teachers organize their lectures anymore?
I don’t agree with McCain about anything but abortion and I cringe when I hear Sarah Palin say that government is the problem, but they are right (and especially her) on abortion and for me, now, in 2008 that is enough!
Joseph,
You make a valid point about abortion not being a minor matter, but for people who feel the country is “headed in the wrong direction” (as the poll question puts it), how do you measure the issue of abortion against the welfare of the entire country? If you are a Catholic voter who is convinced that McCain would lead the United States into Great Depression II, but feel he might make inroads against abortion, how do you make a choice between those two>
Also, I can imagine someone being right on all the issues and being a very poor choice for president or vice president. Me, for example. There’s no way I could handle the job of president, so I would be forced to say that if the American people had to choose between John McCain and me for president, they should choose John McCain, even though I am opposed to almost everything he stands for.
I agree that abortion is not a minor matter, but, apart from abortion, what does Palin have going for her?
Ann–I’ll give up my notes when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.
Thank God Obama speaks flawlessly without a teleprompter, and in fact doesn’t need one. Oh wait…
Thank God Obama speaks flawlessly without a teleprompter, and in fact doesn’t need one. Oh wait…
Bob,
No one expects any big-time politician today to speak without a teleprompter. That is not the issue. The issue is that Palin allegedly told a “fib,” saying her teleprompter malfunctioned and so she just spoke from memory. Apparently this was not true. Now, it would indeed have been impressive, given the importance of the moment, if the teleprompter had failed and Palin has serenely carried on from memory without it. But this doesn’t seem to have been the case, so apparently Palin was “fibbing.”
It’s interesting how, almost without fail, criticisms of Palin are answered with sarcasm. But yours isn’t even well aimed sarcasm. It totally misses the point.
I think Chuck Hagel today had it just about right.
When he asks his party to be honest about it….
Mr. Emerson, [any relation to Waldo?].
“If that’s what this blog is going to develop into–a surrogate Obama campaign site where posters patronize Palin instead of offering the substantive commentary on important questions in politics, religion, and culture–then I, and others, will no longer visit the site”.
Fustly, you should not speak for others. As Priscilla said “Speak for yourself, John Alden”.
Secondly, it’s great fun reading the contradictory statements. Trying to correct them is almost like trying to get a puppy to stop chasing his tail.
Just as an example, it has been said that there are many issues of great importance that should not be neglected besides abortion. The ongoing killing of 1.3 million people annually seems to me quite a serious business. As does the killing of 49 million since 1973. Add to this the proportion of people killed who were black – 13/14 million – and it seems one has a serious problem on hand.
There is abstract talk and reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But they appear to be rather trivial compared to self-inflicted killings in this country.
FWIW – the RealClearPolitics average this afternoon shows Obama leading McCain nationally by 1.9%, and leading in favorable ratings by 1.0% I’m sure both of these numbers are within the margin of error, but still, I believe it’s Obama’s first lead since the end of the Republican convention.
I think the bloom is off the Palin rose.
There is abstract talk and reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But they appear to be rather trivial compared to self-inflicted killings in this country.
Which implies, to me anyway, that if a “pro-life” politician could actually promise an effective ban on abortion in the United States, but also promised to drop nuclear bombs and annihilate, say, Alexandria, Virginia (population equal to the number who died at Hiroshima), and Phuket, Thailand (population equal to the number who died in Nagasaki), Catholics would be obliged to vote for him instead of his pro-choice opponent. The choice would be obvious, since the 220,000 lives lost to the nuclear blasts would be far fewer than the 1.3 million lives saved by banning abortion. In fact, the “pro-life” politician could pick two Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-sized cities each year in office, and still be preferable to the pro-choice candidate.
Now, is McCain promising to obliterate two cities a year? No, of course not. (Neither, of course, is he pledging to stop 1.3 million abortions per year.) But by the “body count” theory of proportionate reason, if he did pledge to obliterate two cities of his choice per year, Catholics would be obliged to vote for him as a lesser evil. Or at least that seems to be the “logical” conclusion based on the arguments many pro-life Catholics are making about the meaning of proportionate reason.
Two questions:
1) What is Palin’s policy on abortion? (Saying she’s pro-life is nice, but says nothing as far as governing goes.)
2) How would she affect the legality or rate of abortion as vice-president?
‘I think the bloom is off the Palin rose.’
Congratulations.
David
Gee, I remember once when Obama said he wasn’t familiar with the Reverend Wright’s radical views, which is palpable nonsense, given his twenty-year ongoing church attendance and personal friendship with the good reverend. Does that qualify as a “fib”?
At least Palin has the excuse of being new to the national stage. What’s Biden’s excuse for saying this like this? Sheer stupidity?
1) What is Palin’s policy on abortion? (Saying she’s pro-life is nice, but says nothing as far as governing goes.)
Her position (not policy; the prez candidate sets that, no?) on abortion as told to Charles Gibson was that she understood and respected differences on the issue and said she felt that everyone could agree that abortions should be rare.
She also said she supported a constitutional amendment to ban abortions except to save the life of the mother. McCain supports abortion to save the life of the mother, and in cases of rape and incest.
She has participated in anti-abortion rallies as an office-holder.
As far as I can find, she was not been called on as governor to sign or veto any abortion legislation in the short time she has been governor of Alaska, nor has she agitated for any specific abortion restrictions in the state. Maybe someone has better information on this.
2) How would she affect the legality or rate of abortion as vice-president?
As Bob Schwartz has noted, the president–and by extension, the VP–has a bully pulpit to influence opinion. She also has a special needs child, which may inspire by example high-profile, high-income women with good health care benefits.
If she has any particular concern for less fortunate women caring for special needs children, I haven’t heard this articulated. When she talks about help for families, it’s usually within the context of the McCain tax cuts for the middle class.
The Republican candidate for Vice President has awakened a cognative reverie, be it connotation, denotation, or the rhetorical devices so cleverly strewn by playwrights and orators of olden times. See, ubiquitously: “Hockey Mom” — “Moose-hunter” — “Pit-bull” — “Lipstick”– a variation on a theme — “Change, change, change” – another variation on a theme from a party once changeless. And then, of course, the obvious ones, tossed out to generate responses which are then scorned as “Sexist Sexism.” “Palintology” — “Palin Rhymes with Pain” – “Palintacostalism” – or simply and succinctly – “Palinism.”
Democrats are asking, “Should we be Biden our time?”
This woman was the Mayor of Wasilla and is now the Governor of Alaska. She is also every Republican’s dream, straight out of and armed with the Phraseology Handbook and Manual of Style, governing the ancient playground game of “King of the Hill,” – in modern times, known as “An American Presidential Election Campaign.” She punctuates her jabbing, punching words with probing, slashing fingers, like exclamation points. No boxer she, though. She’s a hunter out to kill or capture. Then, with the shy smile of a Hockey Mom, a tad reminiscent of the snarling chops of a Pit-bull Terrier, she pops up both fists, both thumbs up, to acknowledge she has heard the approval of the crowd, and becomes as fired up as they, as energized, as it were. The one feeds on the other. Alaska was never like this.
Even John McCain, the reserved and numbed, long-suffering hero from an ancient war, titters with excitement. He is somehow energized, old age no longer coming on and on. Holding both hands together in front of him, he sidles towards her and shuffles in close, to stand by her side, mutely. With a slight grin of humble embarrassment to blend in with the ageing lines of his face, John raises both fists up, both thumbs up on both fists, gratitude smoothly calming a forehead, once so frowned in the despair of defeat. That came from the story of his life, caught in his youth as a prisoner, passed over for Four Star Naval Command, then defeated in politics over and over again by his own Republican party, as if he were a maverick. But now, at long last, in the evening of his life, he has a chance for a change, along with a change for a chance. Without her, he was doomed. With her, he is deemed. Presidential. For a while.
In ancient literature, there was a device used by authors like Euripides called Deus ex machina – God from a machine. It is dictionarily defined: “an improbable contrivance in a story characterized by a sudden unexpected solution to a seemingly intractable problem.”
Horace, the Latin poet, taught us in his Ars Poetica that playwrights should never stoop to the machine used in ancient theatres to haul up a god onto the stage to resolve a situation tumbling beyond resolution. Somewhat like our modern plots in plays, now called a presidential election. The machine could be a crane to lower gods onto the stage, or a riser to bring one up through a trap door. In modern times, out of a place called Alaska. Author? John McCain, student of ancient disciplines, crafts and skills, a man from out of the past.
And so, from the frontiers of America, deep within that sheer white, wilderness of ice and snow and sled dogs and Eskimos and wolves and moose, good Old John can shuffle a soft shoe, even bubble a bit. He knows how to laugh, with the release of a prisoner, tossed from solitary into the light of day he thought had gone black. He knows how to laugh, with the laughter of a seasoned politician, astonished at the silly people massed in front of him, waving their arms and roaring their acclaim that he, indeed, and at last, gets it. It’s not what you say, nor how you say it, that wins elections. It’s who you get to say it.
As a mistress of words, her very surname notwithstanding, our disarming Governor of Alaska knows how to phrase a palindrome. She is one, actually, forwards and backwards. What requires far more skill, however, and is, thus, more deleterious, is her casual resort to antimetabole. That’s the use of words in one phrase and replicating them reverse grammatical order in the next phrase. An orator’s trick, as old and tried as Deus ex machina. And yet and yet, she is making it ever new and fresh and energizing in Republican rhetoric for the election of the President of the United States of America. And his Vice President, too.
The palindromic Palin is also antimetabolic. John McCain used to call it “Straight Talk.”
And that, from an orator’s handbook on words and phrases and style, is how the candidate for Vice President is on her way to the Presidency, as a passenger in John McCain’s bus, The Straight Talk Express.
At least Palin has the excuse of being new to the national stage. What’s Biden’s excuse for saying this like this? Sheer stupidity?
Stuart,
I hate to tell you this, but you are quoting from the Biden interview on The Today Show. There were back-to-back interviews with Biden and McCain that day, which I happened to see, and McCain said, “We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else.” What was McCain’s excuse? Sheer stupidity?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aon5_BVOvo44&refer=us#
I heard someone (Pawlenty, I think) say, after the bailout was announced, that McCain was opposed to it in principle, but he realized that something had to be done. So he has principles that he doesn’t believe should be applied.
Yesterday, McCain said he would “fire” Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. Setting aside the fact that the president can’t fire the SEC Chairman (“Come on, you know what McCain meant,” I hear you say), everything I have read indicates McCain is picking on the wrong guy. Chris Cox is not to blame for this mess. What is McCain’s excuse? Sheer stupidity?
So your response is that McCain changed his mind as to a fluid and rapidly evolving situation? That’s as stupid as Biden’s claim that income tax rates caused the entire crisis? Hmmm. Nice try, but I’m sure you could find something McCain has said or done that was worse than this.
And yes, blaming Chris Cox doesn’t seem correct, although a recent column by Michael Lewis might suggest otherwise:
So your response is that McCain changed his mind as to a fluid and rapidly evolving situation?
Stuart,
No, that is not my point. My point is that you accused Biden of “sheer stupidity” for saying there should be no bailout of AIG, but McCain said exactly the same thing on the same show within about the same 10-minute time period. If it was stupid of Biden, it was stupid of McCain. I think it was stupid of Biden, personally. In a fluid and rapidly evolving situation, to use your words, it’s unwise to make pronouncements you may have to take back the next day. If we can agree that both candidates blundered, we will have achieved the spirit of bipartisanship both Obama and McCain talk about.
My point is that you accused Biden of “sheer stupidity” for saying there should be no bailout of AIG,
Oh, I see where you’re coming from. But I wasn’t blaming Biden for that remark at all. You have to keep reading the Biden quote to the finish. I know Biden is a boring rambler, but in this case it’s only a few more sentences, and you’ll see that Biden says that the crisis was caused by Bush’s tax cuts. Which makes no sense at all. How would a top marginal income tax rate of 39.6% rather than 35% have prevented the banking and housing crises?
How would a top marginal income tax rate of 39.6% rather than 35% have prevented the banking and housing crises?
Stuart,
You left out most of Biden’s response, but to answer your question, the Bush tax cuts contributed to the atmosphere of greed and privileges for the rich encouraged by the Bush administration.
Well, that was Biden’s number one answer, and then his number two cause was “CEOs getting these big bailout packages.” That is only a bit less asinine, I think.