Just to keep things focused.
I find it interesting that whereas Obama picked a running mate who complemented the shortcomings in his slate–someone with a good deal of experience in foreign relations, for instance–McCain chose someone who will appeal to disenfranchised voting bases from both sides: to women who will see an opportunity to put a female a heartbeat from the presidency (and with a president of McCain’s years, that takes on a serious reality) after Hillary’s campaign ended in flames, and to the conservative base who will embrace a bottom half of the ticket who is apparently somewhere to the right of John Wayne.
The easy answer, of course, is that women won’t support her because she’s anti-abortion. Except there happen to be plenty of women who are likewise anti-abortion–yes, even Democrats–and therefore won’t find that a turnoff.
Frankly, I think Palin was a nervy choice that could reap serious benefits. And the timing of the announcement knocked all the post-convention attention away from Obama and onto McCain, which will now build as they roll into the GOP convention.
Personally, I find the notion of an anti-abortion, pro-drilling, pro-creationism, anti-animal protection vice president to be nothing short of terrifying. Then again, anyone that the extreme right embraces is by definition terrifying.
PAD
• 
“To me, it doesn’t feel like anything has truly changed, that the Cold War was merely postponed and it never really ended.”
Tell that to the people of Eastern Europe and all the other republics. For them life changed significantly. Also, as bad as the relationship with Russia is now, it is still nothing near the kind of atmosphere that existed during the cold war (of which i’m only old enough to remeber the last decade).
Look, winning doesn’t mean that your opponent will nevedr rise and that you’ll never fight again. WWI taught us that.
What is it about McCain that evangelicals dislike so much? I really don’t understand.
————–
I can’t help but feel that If things were reversed each party would have used the same arguments they now deflect.
Timothy Butler: “If anything, the piling on, insults, attacks on family members, and bottom feeding are getting us even more fired up.”
As you said, that’s anecdotal. Only time will tell rather the Republican party’s base will react en masse the way you and your wife have.
I guess I should feel more outraged about the way Palin and her daughter are being treated except — the Republican Party is quite willing to use smears to its advantage, too. This isn’t a criticism of you in particular, Timothy — I don’t know you, after all — but I wonder how many conservatives truly felt outraged when 507 groups lied about John Kerry’s war record? Or when McCain attacked Obama’s patriotism? Selective outrage rings hollow.
David Broder recently interviewed McCain and Obama and asked them both about how they’ve dragged this campaign into the mud despite promises to the contrary. They both blamed each other. The two men with the most control over the situation both acted as though they were powerless to change course. What a sad, sorry state of affairs.
Timothy Butler: If anything, the piling on, insults, attacks on family members, and bottom feeding are getting us even more fired up. These people who are acting in such a repugnant fashion are not the sort that we think should be leading our country.
Timothy, I think we should keep in mind that the people lowering themselves to the point of spreading rumors are *not* the ones asking to lead this country. There are nasty, rumor loving people in both parties, but none of them are Barack Obama or Joe Biden and they’re not John McCain or Sarah Palin either.
This is critically important. We have to judge the *candidates*, not the lowest people in the parties. The reason I don’t talk about all the insulting, racist things said by guys like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh is that they’re not John McCain or Sarah Palin. It wouldn’t be fair to judge the Republican candidates by the worst people rooting for them and it’s not fair to do the same with the Democratic candidates.
Though I’ll agree with you all day long when you say that people should back off of Palin’s family. Her policies are plenty worth discussing without getting into muckraking.
Bill Mulligan: “I suspect that talk of her leaving the ticket is more wishful thinking than anything else.”
I’m not sure why unnamed Republican strategists would be engaging in such wishful thinking. You’re aware that I’m quoting a newspaper and not expressing my own personal feelings, correct?
Remember Gen. Wesley Clark? Or Fred Thompson? They too were supposed to light the night like Roman candles but they fizzled instead. Sarah Palin could well do the same. Time will tell.
Interesting, isn’t it, to hear the same people who call Obama “too inexperienced” going ga-ga over someone even less experienced? Just as it’s interesting to hear all of those who defend Obama’s readiness now question Palin’s.
People are funny that way.
It’s ironic that just when Obama seems to be polling his best numbers–Gallup has him over 50%–some of his followers are acting like they expect him to lose.
Now we have a columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News threatening that we will have a full fledged race war if McCain is elected. I can guarantee 2 things. One is that Obama would never approve of such a claim. And the other is that if this becomes any kind of conventional wisdom it will lead to a victory for Mccain. People will not be bullied into a vote based on fear of what race hustlers will do.
Here’s the nightmare scenario–what if has beens like Sharpton, Jackson, Wright decide to live out their castration fantasies of Obama and start threatening civil unrest if he loses? The result will be that he loses, there will be at least some trouble, and they have another chance to pretend to be the go to guys in race politics.
Obama’s smart but he sometimes waits too long to cut off people who need to be cut off. Hopefully this sort of thing will be limited to cranky columnists with one drink too many but if it spreads he will need to act fast.
“Timothy, I think we should keep in mind that the people lowering themselves to the point of spreading rumors are *not* the ones asking to lead this country. There are nasty, rumor loving people in both parties, but none of them are Barack Obama or Joe Biden and they’re not John McCain or Sarah Palin either.
“This is critically important. We have to judge the *candidates*, not the lowest people in the parties. The reason I don’t talk about all the insulting, racist things said by guys like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh is that they’re not John McCain or Sarah Palin. It wouldn’t be fair to judge the Republican candidates by the worst people rooting for them and it’s not fair to do the same with the Democratic candidates.”
Agreed. Obama is doing the right thing by trying to distance himself from this kind of garbage. However, he is right to be concerned about it. Fair or unfair, the continuing smears may produce a backlash. It’s one thing to say something bad about a candidate. Going after his or her family (especially children) is really, really ugly. (I remember when SNL called Chelsea Clinton, “The World’s Ugliest Teenager.” That wasn’t even during an election and it caused a huge uproar. And justifiably so.)
Jerome Ranted:”
>Yes. Sorry if that disappoints you or if you simply don’t believe it due to the media’s reluctance to say those words.
I’m so sorry that you can’t see the forest through the trees. Are they still bombing each other. Yes. Are they still bombing our soldiers? Yes. Locally we just buried another dead father/husband/son last week. Another two year old will never know daddy! We have neither the money or the ability to continue holding a occupation and when we leave the powder keg will once again be lit. Those who fail to learn from History, like you, are doomed to eternally repeat it. Great Britan tried to dictate the social/economic status of Persia not once but twice and the second time led to Iran, Iraq and Kuwait.
>And “bribe money”? Given by American soldiers? Are you writing the script for “Syriana II”?
DO you research and learn before you spew forth Repub talking points? I suggest a little research, no a lot of research. The illusion of stability has been purchased by giving bags of money amounting to billions to those who otherwise would shoot us. Start with the Wallstreet journal in July.
>No. You are. The situation is much more complex – and optimistic – than you portray it.
Oh it’s very complex, far beyond anything Bushco and sycophants can even comprehend.
>But that’s okay. Our soldiers will continue to do their jobs, with or without your support.
Oh I support our troops getting out of the meat grinder you so carelessly throw their lives away in. Return to being fathers/husbands/sons/mothers/daughters/wives. You’ll keep killing them off in a spat of idiocy over what was it, oh oil, and we all will have to keep paying the price, all of us!
>As for your over-the-top environmental screed and sarcastic rip against Palin, well they pretty much speak for themselves.
No the rip was against you. Keep raping the environment, kill off a few more species, make the world a lesser place. Show god how well you can destroy his creation in your self centered orgy. I’ve never quite figured out how a sector that prides themselves on being such god fearing war mongers can just trash the world he created so flippantly.
As for Palin, every teenage pregnancy I’ve ever seen can be traced back to the parent’s failure to be parents. And you want this woman in charge of the country? Let’s run the teenage pregnancy rate up higher than Bush has even managed! No thanks!
Brian
Palin: Poster grandmother for failed parenting and no-sex education.
I’m not sure why unnamed Republican strategists would be engaging in such wishful thinking.
Given my experience with how real live flesh and blood people can be misquoted I have zero faith in anything that comes from “Unnamed” anything. What evidence do we have that the people who said this said it, were strategists, were Republicans? Jeeze, at least the bloggers put their names down, some of them anyway.
As for Palin, every teenage pregnancy I’ve ever seen can be traced back to the parent’s failure to be parents.
Can’t disagree with that, since I have no idea how many you’ve seen or what methodology you use to come to that conclusion. My own life experience, which perhaps affords me a far greater exposure to that kind of thing, would not allow me to make such an overreaching conclusion. Personally, I don’t think the mark of a successful parent is having children who never make mistakes. It also occurs to me that this sort of mindset could be very damaging to the kids–the child who gets pregnant would be seen as evidence of failure while the child who doesn’t is presumably evidence of success.
If I didn’t like Obama I would be encouraging you to continue this line of thought, as often and in as many forums as possible.
Bill Myers: I’m not sure why unnamed Republican strategists would be engaging in such wishful thinking. You’re aware that I’m quoting a newspaper and not expressing my own personal feelings, correct?
Do you have a link to that?
> My own life experience, which perhaps affords me a far greater exposure to that kind of thing, would not allow me to make such an overreaching conclusion.
Then evidently your life exposure hasn’t afforded you much.
>Personally, I don’t think the mark of a successful parent is having children who never make mistakes.
I didn’t know teen pregnancies were ‘mistakes’. Many of them tend to be “I’ll want someone who loves me unconditionally”. I’m sure there are a few educated, well informed and not looking for something teen pregnancies that are true accidents where the contraceptive failed, but the vast majority can be traced right back to the parent and some failure on their part to communicate ‘something’ to their children whether that is love or sex education or providing attention or whatever.
>t also occurs to me that this sort of mindset could be very damaging to the kids–the child who gets pregnant would be seen as evidence of failure while the child who doesn’t is presumably evidence of success.
IT occurs to me that you are blaming the child who went looking for something or wasn’t prepared with the knowledge they needed. That’s your failure to scapgoat the innocent. If you are an adult and a parent, then live up to your responsibilities, so few do. We of course aren’t privy to the internal workings of the Palin family, but two parents with time consuming careers, dad out on boats for weeks at a time, mom traveling the country as a politician… And then there are 5 children. I’d bet they are borderline latch key kids, who have little interaction with the parent’s likely hauled out to show the perfect family and then foisted off on babby sitters or nannies. We’ll never know because the Repubs would never let it out but I bet the girl is crying for attention.
>If I didn’t like Obama I would be encouraging you to continue this line of thought, as often and in as many forums as possible
Thanks for playing, Bill. I love those types of lines “you better shut up or you might hurt your candidates chances” in other words suppression of opinion. First of all who says I will vote for Obama or support him. And where did I ever bring up Obama… Oh wait I didn’t.
Bill Mulligan: “Given my experience with how real live flesh and blood people can be misquoted I have zero faith in anything that comes from “Unnamed” anything.”
Having been a professional journalist, I can tell you that most reporters are far less cavalier about accuracy than you believe. The industry in general has strict standards for using unnamed sources and I doubt the Chicago Tribune is any exception.
I can’t evaluate your anecdotal evidence about people being misquoted. I’ll simply say that most people perceive what they expect to perceive.
Bill Mulligan: “What evidence do we have that the people who said this said it, were strategists, were Republicans?”
I’m not sure what to say Bill, except… that’s kind of silly.
I’m not sure why this story makes you so angry. You’ve belittled Obama supporters for putting him on a pedestal, yet you do the same with Palin. Is it not possible that Palin, like Obama, may have flaws?
Jason M. Bryant: “Do you have a link to that?”
It’s in the post where I quoted an excerpt from the article.
“I’m not sure why unnamed Republican strategists would be engaging in such wishful thinking.”
Getting the base to rally behind Palin by suggesting there is doubt about her.
Okay, I found it. The article reads:
Voters nationally are just getting to know Palin, 44, and the revelation Monday led some Republican strategists, speaking anonymously, to question whether she would survive on the ticket.
That quote doesn’t really imply that the Republicans are wishing she was off the ticket. It’s vague enough that it could mean a lot of things. From everything I’ve heard about reaction to Palin news at the convention, it probably means they are worried about how solid a candidate she is and how her pick reflects on McCain, not that they’re planning on rejecting her themselves.
Even in the article, it says that the Republicans were offering overwhelming support for Palin. So it doesn’t seem to be the opinion of the reporter that the Republican conservative base are who Palin has to worry about.
Thanks for playing, Bill. I love those types of lines “you better shut up or you might hurt your candidates chances” in other words suppression of opinion. First of all who says I will vote for Obama or support him. And where did I ever bring up Obama… Oh wait I didn’t.
Oh it’s no game. That’s why Obama is trying to stop that kind of behavior. He’s a classy guy. Whether you support him or not, you’d do well to emulate him in that regard.
As for the rest of you spiel good luck in trying to portray me as the one blaming anyone–it isn’t like your own comments aren’t right above for all to see. Class will tell.
But if you are going to continue being…the way you are, please be sure at least to keep reminding people that you are not an Obama supporter. It would be helpful to the campaign.
I’m not sure why this story makes you so angry. You’ve belittled Obama supporters for putting him on a pedestal, yet you do the same with Palin. Is it not possible that Palin, like Obama, may have flaws?
It doesn’t make me angry because I find it dubious. Now if I thought Palin was going to be pushed off the ticket I would be angry, but not at the Chicago tribune, or unnamed sources. I’d be angry at McCain for being a coward and getting a case of the vapors based on something that should in no way disqualify her. If it turned out that Joe Biden’s son got a girl pregnant and people started calling for Biden to be removed I’d be angry at that as well.
So far. as near as I can tell, the only talk of her being removed has been from those who aren’t voting for Mccain anyway. The stuff from the McCain side has been overwhelmingly positive. Frankly, they’ve been too thrilled with Palin, to my taste. I like her but I think she could have benefited from a few more years experience (Same with Bobby Jindel, another GOP up and comer or Jim Webb for the Democrats). I haven’t seen any sign at all that Palin is being disliked by the base and lots of evidence that she is exciting them. People I might have expected to be judgmental, like Dobson, are instead sounding enthusiastic for McCain for the first time. Given all that on one side and nothing (so far) more than unnamed sources on the other, I think I can be dubious without having to be angry!
Why not? She says all the right things and she believes all the right things. Competence and ability is second to that. Here’s a quote from the Texas GOP national committeewoman:
Cathie Adams, Texas’s incoming national committeewoman, said she is elated to have someone like herself running for one of the nation’s highest offices. “It’s very exciting to have a person who holds the faith,” Adams said after arriving in St. Paul. “I’m sure this is a woman who believes, as I do, let’s present evolution and creationism on a level playing field, because when that happens, we know education is happening, not brainwashing, not politics in the classroom.”
Bill Mulligan –
If I didn’t like Obama I would be encouraging you to continue this line of thought, as often and in as many forums as possible.
I’m seeing plenty of right-wingers elsewhere who desperately want Obama to lose who are certainly wanting to encourage such comments.
All in all, I find it a pretty sad state of affairs that Palin is getting the base more excited than McCain is. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with Palin (although there’s no way I could vote for her), but because the base apparently is that unenthusiastic for McCain, the man they’ve put in the position to become President. Yikes.
I just had a philosophical thought about creationism.
If you believe in a supreme god creator, than the last thing you should want, is to try to reduce that god to mechanical scientific terms that are used by science to describe processes like evolution. God, if you believe he exists, is supposed to be beyond that.
I’m seeing plenty of right-wingers elsewhere who desperately want Obama to lose who are certainly wanting to encourage such comments.
Of course they are! One of Obama’s biggest draws is that he is seen as a man of decency. Take that away, associate him with the smear artists and he’s just another politician, maybe an even more disappointing one.
>Oh it’s no game.
No it’s not. Teen pregnancy is a major problem in this country and is on the increase since abstinence only programs became the only thing being pushed by the White House and the Repubs. It affects every person in this country. No one forced Palin to enter the spotlight and no one forced her to support a party that sticks it’s head in the sand and plays stupid about sexually educating the children of this country. But since she chose to put herself and her family up on that altar of public view and force her beliefs down the public’s throat, with a prime example of a major problem standing right next to her. Well I’m sorry if you can’t stand the conversation, get out of the limelight!
> Whether you support him or not, you’d do well to emulate him in that regard.
Ignoring the problem and not talking about it has accomplished what? Oh increased rates of teen pregnancy. Palin can very easily have her family not be part of the discussion… But I don’t think that’s going to happen. She has no one but herself to blame for being the poster child for failed education and parenting.
As for Obama, if he doesn’t get with reality, he’s lost this election. McCain is already in the toilet and trying to play nice, in the face of that, is what has lost the Dems the last two elections.
>Class will tell.
It’s very seldom classy to speak the truth. The funny thing is Bill for someone with so much “experience” with teenage pregnancies you didn’t bother contradicting any of the facts I have found in my eperience. What is not said, speaks as much as what is. If it’s not classy to confront the reality behind a major problem, then so be it. As I said no one forced Palin and her family to stand up on that podium, no one forced her into politics and no one asked her to support a party who’s system is so flawed that it is compounding the problem. But since she is part of the problem, has put her family up on the podium, and is publically standing up there telling the general public how they should behave, act and think, she has made her family talking point of the problem. Obama may run from it, that is his choice, but this is a problem that affects us all and Palin stands on what I see as the wrong side while she tells me how wrong I am. So classy or not, she is the poster child of the problem and the conversation.
>But if you are going to continue being…the way you are, please be sure at least to keep reminding people that you are not an Obama supporter. It would be helpful to the campaign.
Please Bill, keep saying that! You might repeat it enough times someone, somewhere might decide to believe you. It won’t make it true, but you might feel better. Obama winning or loosing will be dependant on Obama, not me.
Brian
Palin, poster grandmother for what is wrong with the religious and republican right.
The funny thing is Bill for someone with so much “experience” with teenage pregnancies you didn’t bother contradicting any of the facts I have found in my eperience.
How could I possibly contradict “As for Palin, every teenage pregnancy I’ve ever seen can be traced back to the parent’s failure to be parents”? I have no idea how many pregnancies you’ve seen or how you determined that a failure of parenting was to blame. It’s an opinion based on experience with nothing to indicate the degree of experience or validity of the opinion.
Please Bill, keep saying that! You might repeat it enough times someone, somewhere might decide to believe you. It won’t make it true, but you might feel better. Obama winning or loosing will be dependant on Obama, not me.
I’ll concede that point that nobody should or is likely to be swayed by your bad behavior. If your point is that I’m not really rather favorably disposed to Obama, well, I have no reason to say it if it isn’t true. And one of the things I like about the guy is that he’s smart enough to know that the kind of gutter fighting you advocate is the way to lose. He’s not the one out of touch with reality.
Brian, take it from someone who supports Obama pretty wholeheartedly:
You’re not helping anybody’s argument here, especially not that of anyone who’d like to see an Obama victory in November.
At a minimum, please tone the flamebait down. Thanks.
TWL
Palin might place her family on the podium — as all politicians do — but that does not make her children fair game. They are not running for office. Their need for privacy outweighs anybody’s need to make Palin a test case for bad parenting, especially considering its unnecessary to talk about Palin or her family in order to have an informed discussion on the subject. More so, since we are not really informed about the specifics of Palin’s case, nor should we. I’m sure Brian can provide other test cases to illustrate his point, from his wealth of experience, without dragging Palin’s daughter through the mud just to get at her mother.
More Palin news: Apparently she thinks our actions in Iraq are a holy war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
They’ve got video so you can judge for yourself. I’m not *entirely* sure that’s why she’s saying. She might being telling everyone to pray for guidance in respect to the war in Iraq, but it sounds like she’s saying the war is part of God’s plan. She’s definitely saying that the proposed $30 million Alaska pipeline is part of god’s plan.
The article also lists some very scary things her pastor said, though they don’t have video of that. He apparently said that people who don’t support George Bush are going to hëll.
I don’t usually want to bring a candidates religion into the debate, but some of this stuff scares me. Go ahead and call me a weenie, it legitimately scares me. If I were an Alaskan, I wouldn’t like being told that she’s working for me as Governor, but only if I’m “right with God.”
It’s fair: Obama got called on the carpet for the nutty things his pastor said so it’s only right that Palin get the same treatment.
Jason M. Bryant: “Even in the article, it says that the Republicans were offering overwhelming support for Palin. So it doesn’t seem to be the opinion of the reporter that the Republican conservative base are who Palin has to worry about.”
Fair enough. I read the article too hastily and was wrong. My bad.
Or, to be more specific — I skimmed the article superficially, and filled in the gaps with my own biases. I’m rather embarrassed about that because I should know better.
Hmmm. I am more interest in Palin’s and her husband’s connection to the AIP. Would middle america support a candidate associated with a group that questions Alaska being in the United States.
Hmmm. I am more interested in Palin’s and her husband’s connection to the AIP. Would middle america support a candidate associated with a group that questions Alaska being in the United States.
Well the latest update has the AIP person who said she was a member backing off from his story.
Still, her husband was pretty clearly a member.
(On the other hand, the pattern of her line item vetoes might be interesting to some folks…..)
Brian: “Palin, poster grandmother for what is wrong with the religious and republican right.”
No. Palin is a human being with human frailties, as is her daughter. You, on the other hand, are deplorable.
It seems I was wrong about the Republican party’s base getting riled up about Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy. No, it’s some of my fellow liberals who are doing so, using Palin’s stated views as an excuse to engage in rank hypocrisy.
J. Alexander: “I am more interested in Palin’s and her husband’s connection to the AIP.”
The latest I’ve seen from the AP says that a search of voter registration records and past news reports show she never registered with the AIP.
Her husband’s enrollment in that party isn’t necessarily a reflection on her. My girlfriend of seven-plus-years is a conservative and I’m a liberal, yet somehow it works.
Bill wrote:
>I have no idea how many pregnancies you’ve seen or how you determined that a failure of parenting was to blame. It’s an opinion based on experience with nothing to indicate the degree of experience or validity of the opinion.
Nearly everything stated in this blog is opinion backed with experience, Bill. Since you have no alternatives to offer up based on your experience, and just keep taunting about what you consider bad behavior and talking about Obama.
>I’ll concede that point that nobody should or is likely to be swayed by your bad behavior. If your point is that I’m not really rather favorably disposed to Obama,
And how is that, I keep talking about teen pregnancy and Palin and you keep talking about Obama. Is Obama pregnant or something? Your disposition towards Obama is of no interest to me, in this conversation, even though it seems to be the only thing you can talk about.
> And one of the things I like about the guy is that he’s smart enough to know that the kind of gutter fighting you advocate is the way to lose.
It is? Then please explain how it was that McCain was not the 2000 candidate and Bush was? A little clue: Tucker Eskew and McCain just hired him. Let alone the past 8 years of BushCO, swiftboating, terrorist alerts (where did those go so soon after the 2004 election…) and so many other dirty tactics.
Tim wrote:
>Brian, take it from someone who supports Obama pretty wholeheartedly:
You’re not helping anybody’s argument here, especially not that of anyone who’d like to see an Obama victory in November.
Tim, I’m not here as an Obama supporter. I’m hear speaking my own opinion on a subject that has nothing to do with Obama. If someone equates my opinion of Palin and her family being that of Obama, then that person is either just plain stupid, or is attempting to control the conversation to their own ends. I don’t like people who try to control what I say.
My gut tells me that the AIP thing is going to be a dead end. Maybe they considered her a member because of her husband, maybe they made her an hororary member because they did something in her town when she was mayor, who knows. But with her being such a strong supporter of all things Republican, I doubt we’re going to find video of her chanting, “Alaska First – Alaska Always!”
>No. Palin is a human being with human frailties, as is her daughter. You, on the other hand, are deplorable.
Well I find the rate of teen pregnancy in this country deplorable. It was on it’s way down until BushCO showed up and ignored reality.
>No, it’s some of my fellow liberals who are doing so, using Palin’s stated views as an excuse to engage in rank hypocrisy.
I’m a registered Republican, who’s tired of these religious, neocon hypocrites who have hijacked the party for the past 18 years. The party of Nixon is dead.
Bill Myers said:
“I can’t evaluate your anecdotal evidence about people being misquoted. I’ll simply say that most people perceive what they expect to perceive. “
Agreed. In a much repeated experiment, people were put in a strange situation, then asked afterwards to tell what they heard and saw. Few people had enough correct information to be helpful. If you asked what was said at the time, most would have different variations of the same words. They couldn’t remember 20 minutes later exactly what the words were.
My community college psychology prof did the experiment, having 2 guys burst into the classroom, make a couple statements, then drag him out of the room. We were then asked to describe the 2 guys, their clothing, their words. Few of us, about 30 or so, had the exact words. One of the guys said he had a gun, and a couple of the students said they saw a gun.
Memory is a trickster.
Brian,
I don’t like people who try to control what I say.
Who’s trying to do that? Several people here have pointed out that you’re not so much contributing to the discussion as frothing at the mouth, but nobody’s trying to say you can’t do it. And if you say Obama’s trying to … well, he made those requests (not demands) of his supporters, and you just said you’re not a supporter of his. So where’s the problem?
Well I find the rate of teen pregnancy in this country deplorable. It was on it’s way down until BushCO showed up and ignored reality.
I agree with that; there’s no reason to use one particular pregnant teen as a reason to demonize, however. It’s not a good plan regardless of who does it.
Now, there are some areas in which that could have been different. If it turned out that the hugely pro-life Palin family had taken Bristol to get an abortion, then that’s absolutely grounds for hypocrisy on a policy level. This is a family facing a new wrinkle in their lives. Big difference.
I’m a registered Republican, who’s tired of these religious, neocon hypocrites who have hijacked the party for the past 18 years. The party of Nixon is dead.
Apart from the “registered Republican” part, I couldn’t agree more. Let me rephrase what I originally said, then — a lot of the ways you’re phrasing your arguments are actually playing into the cause of those same neocons. It doesn’t sound to me like that’s what you want.
TWL
Brian, if you can’t tone down your posts and act like an adult, I can’t be bothered to engage you any further.
Jerome Maida: The Republicans’ energy policy of “all of the above” is resonating nationwide. It seems much more reasonable than Nancy pelosi refusing to even bring drilling to a vote because she wants to “save the planet”.
Brian: Ðámņ those grand children. It is our right to burn, burn, burn, burn and to hëll with anyone who follows us. Let them choke on acid rain, smog and weather gone insane. Who cares about wildlife! The country who pokes the biggest hole in the ozone wins!………Keep raping the environment, kill off a few more species, make the world a lesser place. Show god how well you can destroy his creation in your self centered orgy. I’ve never quite figured out how a sector that prides themselves on being such god fearing war mongers can just trash the world he created so flippantly.
Luigi Novi: Opening up drilling, and believing that important issues should be discussed and voted upon, does not necessarily lead to the scenario that you prescribe, nor does advocacy of drilling mean that the advocate wishes that scenario. From my reading of Jerome’s post, what I understood was that he was more critical of the issue not being held up for a democratic decision, rather than that we need more drilling, much less that he is necessarily as sanguine about environmental damage as you suggest.
Brian: As for Palin, every teenage pregnancy I’ve ever seen can be traced back to the parent’s failure to be parents.
Luigi Novi: The teenage pregnancies you have personally seen constitute anecdotal testimony, which is not sufficient to establish issues of fact, especially when one considers how subjective assigning culpability can be in these situations.
Brian: I didn’t know teen pregnancies were ‘mistakes’. Many of them tend to be “I’ll want someone who loves me unconditionally”. I’m sure there are a few educated, well informed and not looking for something teen pregnancies that are true accidents where the contraceptive failed, but the vast majority can be traced right back to the parent and some failure on their part to communicate ‘something’ to their children whether that is love or sex education or providing attention or whatever.
Luigi Novi: And in those few instances in which educated, well informed teens not looking for something experienced true accidents in which contraception failed, wouldn’t those be called mistakes?
Bill Mulligan: My own life experience, which perhaps affords me a far greater exposure to that kind of thing, would not allow me to make such an overreaching conclusion.
Luigi Novi: Just out of curiosity, Bill, what experience do you have in this area?
………
Personally, there’s too much we’d need to know about Palin before we can conclude that her anti-school sex education position is delegitimized by Bristol’s situation.
1.) For one thing, has she stated that she’s against simply her children being taught this in school, or that she’s against it being taught to any and all children? If the latter, than she is wrong to impose her will on other families, since schools can and should provide such education to families who agree to it, and exclude those who decline it. Schools, after all, are equipped with experts who can answer the questions, including technical ones.
2.) Second, is it possible that even if Palin was against her children learning this in school, that she herself could’ve taught her children at home, as some parents choose to? If she’s an educated women, and has books in the home, then she could’ve done this. While sex education may statistically reduce teenage pregnancy, this is obviously not an absolute, so Bristol could’ve been an exception, and her situation not at all reflective of Sarah’s parenting, but something that occurred despite it. The kind of person that a child grows into after all, is determined by the interaction between nature and nurture and not just one or the other.
Because of all these necessary pieces of info, which at present, are either unknown or unclear, we cannot conclude that Bristol’s pregnancy is relevant to the campaign. It might be. It might not.
I will say, however, that if it were known that Bristol received no sex education at all, then yes, it would call into question Sarah’s position on sex education in general, and by extension, her suitability to be the Vice President, because if she advocated a no-sex-education-in-schools-whatsoever policy, it would have deleterious effects for our children and the entire country. By way of analogy, I wouldn’t consider it relevant to know that a candidate had an extramarital affair or patronized a prostitute. But if the candidate were someone that built their career on opposing such things, like Eliot Spitzer, then yes, it would be relevant because it calls their beliefs and positions into serious question.
Palin has about 16 hours to tell McCain she wants off the ticket.
Anybody know where I can get a McCain/Putin ’08 bumper sticker?
I’m calling it now!
Day four of the Republican convention, Ashton Kutcher’s big head will pop up on the big screen and say “The Democrats really think Palin is the real pick for VP? Ha! The Dems and the Liberal Media just fell for the biggest, PUNK, EVER!!! The real VP is Tom Ridge!”
Apparently some people think a McCain/Pawlenty bumper sticker is still a viable option: the RNC co-chair referred to the VP nominee as “Sarah Pawlenty” early into the convention this evening. Frivolous, but amusing.
What you’ve quoted makes clear no such thing. “Off-limits” and “hope” don’t denote “contempt.” That’s crap.
You know, it’s funny: if more little things keep coming out about Palin — even if they’re not entirely true — it could amount to “death by a thousand cuts.” If, however, Obama’s campaign supporters overplay their hand, it could cause a backlash that would favor Palin. The Dems should play it cool and let this stuff come out with minimal commentary.
This is part of the risk McCain took when he selected an unknown like Palin. We haven’t had time to get to know her and therefore any negatives, real or imagined, are coming tumbling out like junk from an overstuffed closet.
Who knows? We may be past the worst of it and Palin may end up looking great going forward. On the other hand, if there’s anything more, well… again, death by a thousand cuts.
That’s assuming anyone gives a crap. I suspect by the time we get to the presidential debates, people will have stopped focusing on the running mates.
Bill wrote:
>Brian, if you can’t tone down your posts and act like an adult, I can’t be bothered to engage you any further.
Bill you act as if I might think that’s a bad thing. Please don’t engage, you’d be doing me a world of favors.
Luigi Novi: Opening up drilling, and believing that important issues should be discussed and voted upon, does not necessarily lead to the scenario that you prescribe,
It has been voted upon, and shot down. So the point of another vote is what?
>nor does advocacy of drilling mean that the advocate wishes that scenario.
Then they wouldn’t be advocating drilling in a region that is sensitive to such matters.
>From my reading of Jerome’s post, what I understood was that he was more critical of the issue not being held up for a democratic decision, rather than that we need more drilling, much less that he is necessarily as sanguine about environmental damage as you suggest.
That’s your reading. I read a person who is attempting to overturn what has already been decided once. Democracy has spoken but not to his liking and now he is trying to overturn that democracy.
My girlfriend of seven-plus-years is a conservative and I’m a liberal, yet somehow it works.
It amazes us all. The general consensus is that it must be blackmail and/or you keep her heavily sedated.
My community college psychology prof did the experiment, having 2 guys burst into the classroom, make a couple statements, then drag him out of the room. We were then asked to describe the 2 guys, their clothing, their words.
Wow, does every college psych professor do this one? Must be a requirement. Good demo though, makes you nervous when you realize that eyewitnesses are given the most weight by juries.
Just out of curiosity, Bill, what experience do you have in this area?
Family, friends and mostly the kids I see in school. At this point I’ve had something on the order of 1500-1700 students of my own and toss in a few hundred who, even if they weren’t my actual students, I got to know through the various clubs etc. I work with one group (WISEGUYS) that works with boys to try to go after the teen pregnancy issue from that angle (recent scientific evidence suggesting that boys may have something to do with the problem, though this is still undergoing peer review). It would be an unusual year that I didn’t have at least 4 or 5 girls who were pregnant in class and about as many boys about to become fathers, though that is, of course, less obvious, as would be those who get pregnant and have abortions.
So I get exposure, probably more than I’d like. I won’t pretend to have any great insights or simplistic answers (I will observe that there is very much a cyclic element to these things–when a lot of girls get pregnant the younger ones get a good view of the difficulties and we have a few years where the rate decreases. Then, without those warning examples, it creeps back up. It’s one reason we’ve been having some of these young mothers come in to talk about their realities with at risk girls.)
Also, we have a very large influx of Latino kids into the school these last few years, which had its own challenges. Many came from cultures where the girls were expected to get married early. That seems to be changing; we are having much better luck at keeping the girls in school and this is probably the single biggest reason we’ve seen a decrease in teen pregnancies (though rates for Black and White teens hasn’t moved much).
(one other area we’ve had some luck with comes from the observation that many of the girls who do have babies…have another one within 2 years. So we are working with them to try to help them finish school and not just go into a career of having kids. )
(And one more observation–an alarming number of these girls are impregnated by older guys. And I don’t mean upper classmen. Guys in their mid to late 20s, trolling for highschool sophomores. I can well understand why a high school girl may be on the lookout for a guy a bit more mature than the average high school guy but these assclowns are usually socially retarded, little more than a sleazier version of a high school boy with a better car. They are the worst.)
I’m certainly open to any good suggestions on how best to guide these young folks. I don’t think they lack any knowledge of the basic mechanics of sex, based on the pørņ I’ve confiscated (and boy do those cameramen have no sense of composition.) Condom demonstrations on bananas are good for a laugh but unlikely to come as any major revelation.
Please don’t engage, you’d be doing me a world of favors.
Then let me ask you this. You’re here posting to a discussion forum but are asking people “don’t engage.”
So why are you even HERE?
TWL
Bill Mulligan:
… imagine the furor if it was proposed that teens seeking abortion under go mandatory classes before getting one.
SO: That is already status quo in some states, not just for teens, either. Does a man have to undergo counseling before a vasectomy? It’s quite biased already. But I live a Blue state, and we don’t have those things. How about mandatory child care classes for ALL students in Jr. High, then? In my town it’s a senior elective – far too late for many teens.
BM: Legislating these things opens up many cans of worms.
SO: It should. The best possible outcome of Palin’s nomination is that people will start thinking about these things. Last week alone there were three dead shaken babies in the news, all of teen parents, and one teen mother who was sentenced to 18 years for drowning her baby in the toilet after giving birth. Do I hold those parents responsible? No. I feel awful for them, for being overwhelmed and alone and ignorant and too young. They are as much victims as their babies. 18 years for being frightened out of your mind? Would she have been as likely to do that at 22? The exact scenario happened in my town several years ago, the baby being found at the trash plant and traced backwards. The girl was given several years of counseling, no jail time at all.
There is no easy answer, and no easy decision. If the solution is as cut and dried as we wish, as extremists from both sides see it, something is terribly wrong.