Replies to post #99257 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[patriotdb]

You can't fix stupid...

[StephanieVanbryce]

Privatized Government Just isn't Working for Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJO9lw2ja6g

commenter ..

That's the whole problem with privatized government.

The private sector doesn't end up working for the government. The government ends up working for the private sector. That's without even going into the having your cake and eating it too aspects. When it comes time to foot the bills. They're government. When it comes time to split the profits. They're private.

[StephanieVanbryce]

Palin puts on her shorts & tank top (her words) to mow the lawn .. and does her robert frost gambit while lambasting the press again .. .sigh.

Sarah Palin meets her new neighbor, journalist Joe McGinnis. Classy:

Wonder what kind of material he’ll gather while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole? Welcome, Joe! It’ll be a great summer – come borrow a cup of sugar if ever you need some sweetener. And you know what they say about “fences make for good neighbors”? Well, we’ll get started on that tall fence tomorrow ... [ http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=24718773587 ]

Palin On Robert Frost Wrong AGAIN.

The narrator of the poem is annoyed by his neighbor’s insistence that there has to be a fence between them. If only his neighbor would get beyond his father’s beliefs – originating in an old proverb – and reconsider his thinking.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/05/not-in-her-backyard.html

[F6]

Sarah Palin's fact-free commentary on Paul and BP


Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin speaks at a rally in Boise, Idaho, for Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward last week.
Photo Credit: Ashley Smith/Associated Press Photo
[(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=50691381 and the three preceding]

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Has Sarah Palin learned anything since she was plucked from obscurity almost two years ago? Not that I can tell.

It was not Palin's fault that she was woefully unprepared to be the Republican vice presidential nominee. For that one, blame the petulant, impetuous John McCain.

But Palin has had ample time now, outside the crash course of a presidential campaign, to develop and exhibit some understanding of the issues. Her learning curve, from all the available evidence, is a flat line.

Three unattractive Palin traits have, if anything, been amplified since the election: her unwillingness to buckle down and do the necessary preparation; her tendency to adopt what McCain adviser Steve Schmidt described as a "down is up and up is down" version of reality; and her enhanced sense of injury at the hands of what she oh so cleverly refers to as the "lamestream media."

That would include me.

I've started to write this column several times and put it aside. I worried: Was I being harder on Palin because I disagree with her politically? Was I being harder on Palin than I would be on a man spouting similar pablum? In a world where everyone already has firm opinions about Palin, pro or con, is there a value in pointing out that the empress has no clothes?

Palin's appearance on "Fox News Sunday" [ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,593404,00.html ] pushed me over the edge.

First, there was Palin on Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul, whose candidacy she had championed. Anchor Chris Wallace asked straightforward questions: Was Paul right or wrong in his view that the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far in banning discrimination in private establishments? What did Palin make of the controversy? He got typically Palinesque answers, rambling and aggrieved:

"I think there is certainly a double standard at play here. When Rand Paul had anticipated that he'd be able to engage in a discussion, he being a libertarian-leaning constitutional conservative, being able to engage in a discussion with a TV character, a media personality, who perhaps had an agenda in asking the question and then interpreting his answer the way that she did, he wanted to talk about, evidently, some hypotheticals as it applies to impacts on the Civil Rights Act, as it impacts our Constitution. So he was given the opportunity finally to clarify, and unequivocally he has stated that he supports the Civil Rights Act."

Actually, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and other interviewers [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=50383968 and following] did not ask Paul about "hypotheticals." They asked whether he supported prohibiting private business owners from keeping blacks off their premises. Paul said he "would have tried to modify" the public accommodations part of the law and that "when you blur the distinction between public and private ownership, there really is a problem [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37256695/ns/politics/ ]." He had every chance to clarify in real time -- and he didn't. A double standard? Call me when a Democratic nominee for a Senate seat questions the Civil Rights Act and liberal commentators drop the ball.

Then there was Palin's best-defense-is-an-untrue-offense response to questions about the oil spill in the Gulf. The cheerleader for "drill, baby, drill" suggested that President Obama was in the pocket of Big Oil:

"The oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now -- I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration. If there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."

Facts are stubborn things. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the McCain campaign -- that would be the McCain-Palin campaign -- received $2.4 million from oil and gas interests to Obama's $900,000 [ http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=E01&cycle=2008&recipdetail=P&mem=N&sortorder=U ]. BP employees did give more to the Obama campaign ($71,051) than to McCain's ($36,649), but this was a pittance in the context of Obama's fundraising.

There are fair questions about the administration's handling of the spill. There is not a fair question about whether campaign cash put Obama in BP's pocket. Not that this matters to Palin.

"There were numerous instances that she said things that were . . . not accurate," Schmidt said on CBS's "60 Minutes" in January. "And I think that that is something that continues to this day." Indeed.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052503970.html [comments at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052503970_Comments.html ]