Friday, August 29th, 2008 11:43 pm

... we all wrote in Sarah Palin as President instead of VP?

On a separate but related thought, one of the things that I find most depressing about American politics is not just that the electorate is so deeply and bitterly divided between Democratic and Republican, but that both sides seem to invest so much hatred and vitriol in trying not to heal that rift, but rather to deepen and widen it still further.  Sometimes it makes me wonder whether this century will see a Second American Civil War.

Saturday, August 30th, 2008 03:47 am (UTC)
Are you comparing our political system to a bitter divorce?
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 04:12 am (UTC)
I wasn't, but now that you mention it, there is a certain resemblance.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 04:24 am (UTC)
I think what is happening is what one writer (IIRC) referred to as the Great Sorting, in which USAns are migrating geographically to be near people who are like them. The reasons for this are numerous and complex, but the end result is that (1) everyone ends up preaching to the choir, which is what happens when one's immediate neighbors are overwhelmingly likely to agree with one's political viewpoints and (2) it's much easier to believe the caricatures of people who are not like you and easier to see them as not-quite-human if no one like that lives anywhere near you.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 08:43 pm (UTC)
Interesting.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 05:45 am (UTC)

WooHoo! This time, I say the West/South breaks away. We'll take Washington as our overly liberal red-headed stepchild, and oregon, because they're cool. California can fuck off. All other interior Western states stay together to the Dakota/Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma line. We take Texas to join up with the South. Florida is NOT invited. Maybe they can form an alliance with California, or something.

The Midwest, East and CaliFlorida are on their own.



Game On!
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 05:48 am (UTC)


But we can still be friends. We'll try to form an alliance with Vermont/New Hampshire, because you guys seem cool. Everything around you is pretty much a wasteland, though.

Massachusetts, prepare for an ass kicking!
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 06:18 am (UTC)
But the South broke away last time. Along with a fair portion of the west. Colorado went with the South, I believe, and they would this time, too.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 06:33 am (UTC)


Fair enough. I'm trying to assemble all the states that have liberal gun laws. The east coast is going to be toast.

Saturday, August 30th, 2008 06:37 am (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Glorieta_Pass

Colorado, which was still just a territory at the time, had its fair share of CSA supporters, but the only military action it participated in was in New Mexico, on behalf of the Union.

Saturday, August 30th, 2008 02:37 pm (UTC)
She's anti-gay marriage, and anti-abortion. I don't want her to be President. I'm still mulling over whether or not I want her to be one-heart-attack-away-from-being-President.

She does have some impressive credentials, as you've previously mentioned. But ... I'm not sure they're really enough for me to overcome my "lets get rid of the Republicans for a little while" leaning.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 02:49 pm (UTC)
True, she's personally opposed to gay marriage. But she vetoed a bill would would have denied same-sex partner rights to Alaskan state government employees. She's opposed to abortion, but doesn't consider contraception equivalent to abortion. She's willing to yield on her personal beliefs — unlike many other politicos I could name.


You can't ask any candidate for office not to have personal beliefs, really. There's not much more that you can reasonably ask than that they do their best to keep their beliefs and the performance of their jobs separate. And it looks like Palin does that.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 03:36 pm (UTC)

Actually, that IS worth considering. I'm personally not in favor of choosing abortions... but I absolutely think it should be an individual choice/right and not one the govt makes for us.

If she's of a similar mind with same-sex marriage and abortion, then that's great. I'd like her a lot more. But, the two examples you gave aren't what I just said. "doesn't consider contraception to be abortion" is great* ... but it's not the same as "considers abortion to be abhorrent but a protected personal choice". Same with your example wrt to same-sex partner rights.


(* let me rephrase that... "doesn't consider contraception to be abortion" is _compulsory_. Any candidate who did consider contraception to be abortion would be as viable to me as a candidate who believes in intelligent design and/or biblically-literal creationism)
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 03:54 pm (UTC)
Actually, that IS worth considering. I'm personally not in favor of choosing abortions... but I absolutely think it should be an individual choice/right and not one the govt makes for us.
Exactly.

I'm just sorta making the point there that the Bush administration has, through policy, de facto declared it considers contraception equivalent to abortion ... so she'd be at least an improvement on that front.

I'd much prefer an honest social-conservative who actually tries to do her job in an objective and bipartisan way despite her personal beliefs, over (frankly) a mid-to-far-left demagogue who's wrapping himself in a cloak of false moderation until after the election, or an aging self-proclaimed maverick whose record belies the claim and whose policy positions are pretty much those of whichever recent lobbyist walked through his office door flashing the largest wad of money.

And as I've commented elsewhere, there is no perfect candidate. The only way anyone can ever get a candidate who perfectly matches their own views is to run for office themselves.
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 03:42 am (UTC)
Looks like she believes creationism should be debated in public schools.
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 10:39 am (UTC)
I don't have a problem with it being debated. Let it try to stand on its merits, such that it has. It'll pretty quickly become obvious that it can't. It's when kids are taught that creationism is fact Because The Bible Says So while evolution is "Just A Theory" that you have a problem.
(As a matter of fact, I think schools should be required to discuss and compare ALL the different major religions' creation myths at least once. It's a good way to learn — and teach — critical thinking skills, and at the same time inoculate kids against dogmatism.)
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 03:25 pm (UTC)
The only places I see being appropriate to discuss the biblical theory of creation) and the derivatives (ID, Creationism, etc.) are:

1) A comparative religion / study of the bible as literature / etc. class.

2) A discussion of "how science works" and how the "theory" was discredited. i.e. a discussion of the scientific method, making predictions, paradigm shifts, etc.

3) A VERY brief mention of outdated theories in the area, if other outdated theories are mentioned in their appropriate sections. (I.e. the aether, etc.)

4) In a politics / constitutional law class, where the various court cases that decided it was an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into public schools is discussed.

Debate implies that there is some shred of merit to one of the opposing views. And there's not. We don't "debate" the geocentric model of the solar system and discuss epicycles and all that stuff. Anyone who's pushing for ANY mention of creationism in schools, other than as a historical curiosity, is scamming you. Logical people (like us) believe that the truth will be obvious, but, given many students' preconceptions, any mention at all of the alternate "theory" just makes it sound wishy-washy.

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 05:09 pm (UTC)
I'll go along with those. #2 and #3 seem to fit the case quite nicely, and #2 in particular.

Debate implies that there is some shred of merit to one of the opposing views.
Alternatively, debate is one way of showing if the opposing view has no merit. What's better — to simply declare "Creationism is indefensible" and have done with it, or to make people work out for themselves — by trying to defend it — that there is no actual supportable defense? (One of my physics professors used a similar approach one day in a class discussion of something very similar to the Abdelkader hollow-earth model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth) to illustrate that it is possible, with sufficient willing suspension of disbelief, to construct a false model sufficiently complete that it cannot be disproven by any feasible experimental test.)
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 05:12 pm (UTC)
The problem is that, in the structure of a high school class, where you can't easily verify the sources of "data", and you can't reasonably run experiments, and the teachers aren't necessarily experts on evolution, let alone debunking ID/Creationism, "debating" the subject can be very problematic.

Unless you are doing a historical retrospective, there's just no reason to even mention it.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 05:08 pm (UTC)
I am a woman of breeding age.
Nobody gets to tell me to be a broodmare.
This is NOT a Brave New World yet. Thank heavens.
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 05:19 pm (UTC)
Nobody gets to tell me to be a broodmare.
I didn't think she was. Unlike Bush, who apparently believes contraception is De Debbil. (Perhaps we could send him back to the 11th century in a one-way time machine, and he can run for Pope.)
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 11:45 pm (UTC)
I use contraception. That said, despite using 2x contraception EVERY TIME I HAVE SEX, I could still get pregnant.

I am actively NOT choosing to be a mother right now.
Hence, contraception.

Should the unthinkable still come to pass, somehow -- I am *still* choosing not to carry a child. Period. Nobody ELSE gets to tell me how to make that decision. My body, my rules.

I applaud her for following her own morals on this. She is OK with that, and that's great. Being pro-CHOICE means I am just as OK with her carrying any child she wishes to term, just as OK as I am with me not wanting any, and being willing to abort if necessary.

Saturday, August 30th, 2008 11:59 pm (UTC)
And I'm right behind you on that.

I didn't ever claim she was a perfect Presidential candidate (if there is such a thing). I just said that as a VP candidate, she's in my opinion more likely to make a good President than either of the actual Presidential candidates.


Still, I'm sure she'd be even better after a term or two as VP....
Monday, September 1st, 2008 12:56 am (UTC)
My word, you've certainly drunk the kool-aid. I think Palin's going to be a great deal of trouble. I doubt she believes in any civil rights, not in her heart. And, as with W. Bush, it appears that libertarians won't see it until they discover their rights are gone. And, heavens, this is the run-up to a second Civil War, having begun, just as the last, with a bad Supreme Court decision. Let us hope it doesn't come to mass violence; millions would die.
Monday, September 1st, 2008 01:14 am (UTC)
I think Palin's going to be a great deal of trouble. I doubt she believes in any civil rights, not in her heart.
So which site is it exactly that has the video of her eating babies...?
Monday, September 1st, 2008 01:27 am (UTC)
It's just all over the moderate and left sites--Here's a generally sympathetic opposing account (http://cliffschecter.firedoglake.com/2008/08/30/sarah-palin-bad-news-for-mccain-good-news-for-alaskas-gop). Palin has a lot of negatives when you look past the pretty picture that's been painted by her supporters. Even the mainstream press, which has been doing a very poor job of fact-checking right-wing claims, is dubious. That doesn't even get into the sheer weirdness of the pro-Palin claims I've been seeing.

BTW, have you been seeing the reports of no-knock raids on progressives in Minneapolis (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/index.html?source=newsletter)? Scary stuff.
Monday, September 1st, 2008 02:04 am (UTC)
About the most substantial charge I see laid in that first article is that she's pro-development. And frankly, when you consider Alaska's position, that's a pretty reasonable stance. Yeah, I know, environmental groups are up in arms against drilling on the North Slope ... but the particular patch of North Slope that is promising for oil drilling isn't the scenic wonderland most of the aforementioned groups like to paint it as. From what I hear, it's pretty much a blasted wasteland as it is. Honestly, though, after pursuing blindly stupid energy policies for so long, what real choices do we have? (Please don't tell me wind, solar and hydro. By many estimates, as much as two thirds of the exploitable "renewable energy" resources in the US are already being exploited, and we're actually shutting down some smaller hydro dams in the West because of the harm they're doing to their river systems.)

As far as the trooper/Monegan business, that's still under investigation, and I'm given to understand Palin's administration is cooperating fully with the investigation and actually initiated part of it. I do note that the "progressive" press tells only one side of that story, too — additional details seem to say that the trooper who was fired was, frankly, a disgrace to the force. I'm a little bemused why the progressive press isn't up in arms about him tasering his own pre-teen son.


As for the second link, yeah, I've seen it ... seen quite a bit about it. It's very similar to what's been happening in Denver to anyone who might be secretly conservative. Both just go to reinforce what I've been saying for years — that the similarities between the two parties greatly outweigh their difference, and they're equally rotten. The rottenness seems to have taken a sudden rather more disturbing trend just these last few weeks. Warrantless raids, ridiculously vague charges, possession of items as trivial as a computer or cell phone being taken as evidence of a crime? Uh, HELLO?
Monday, September 1st, 2008 02:24 am (UTC)
Let me cite some quotes from that article: "anti-science stance", "fired a highly respected chief of public safety. Then, the man Palin appointed to be the new top cop, lasted only a few days, as a sexual harassment charge against him surfaced," "suspension of her boards and commissions director [...] for pressuring at least one state trooper, to act against another trooper, who is Palin's sister's ex-husband."

C'mon, guy, what's there is there. You hate corruption. You hate anti-science positions. You dislike religion and especially religious authoritarianism. So why are you making excuses for her?
Monday, September 1st, 2008 02:47 pm (UTC)
C'mon, guy, what's there is there. You hate corruption. You hate anti-science positions. You dislike religion and especially religious authoritarianism. So why are you making excuses for her?
Yes, I hate corruption, and she's been a corruption-buster. I hate anti-science positions ... but she's shown she's willing to set her religious beliefs behind the needs of her job. But there's one key thing you seem to be missing here.

I never said she was perfect. I'm quite certain she has her warts. All I'm saying is that she appears to be WORLDS better than either McCain or Obama, both of whom I fully expect to perform somewhere between "fiasco" and "disaster". If elected, I expect "moderate, for change" Obama's moderate veneer to evaporate within six months of the election and be replaced by typical left-wing liberal rhetoric about how we all need to be protected from ourselves for our own good while he does his best to marginalize conservatives. If elected, I expect "maverick" McCain to show within the first year that he'll do whatever the lobby with their hand up his ass at the time tells him while he does his best to completely ignore liberals.

On the other hand, I have some hope, based on such things as her readiness to bust members of her own party for corruption and her ability to form a Republican-Democratic coalition in her own state assembly, that Palin has the potential to do better. It's too early to judge for sure right now. Time will tell, if McCain is elected, and perhaps if he isn't. But the one thing I am almost completely certain of is that she can't possibly be worse than McCain or Obama. There just isn't that much suck left in the world after Feinstein et al consume their share.

As someone else already pointed out, right now George W. Bush has the lowest approval rating in history, and Congress, republican-led for six of the past eight years, is hard on his heels. (I add the observation that Congress's approval rating hasn't noticeably improved since the Democrats gained control; they have basically sat there and done nothing.) With that to run against, the Democratic party should have been able to run a tree stump for President and have a shoo-in. Yet Obama's struggling to keep even with McCain in the polls. If he's such the Great White Hope, McCain should be lost in his dust. So what's wrong?
Monday, September 1st, 2008 07:16 pm (UTC)
Wow. She doesn't need to make her own excuses when she has you to do it for her.
Monday, September 1st, 2008 07:24 pm (UTC)
You know, it's not making excuses to say something other than "Yes, every word you say must be true, she is the devil incarnate and the Sixth Sign of The Apocalypse." Why are you seeing everything in black and white?
Monday, September 1st, 2008 07:34 pm (UTC)
Because, as far as I can tell, she does and it scares the hell out of me. I don't want another president who thinks she's the rep of god on earth. Oh, BTW, it's now turned out that Palin was a director of Ted Stevens 527 (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/01/palin_was_a_director_of_embatt.html). Josh Marshall, over at TPM, is doing a great job of covering this stuff as it comes out (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/).

BTW, they've broken out the pepper spray and rubber bullets in Minneapolis (http://cliffschecter.firedoglake.com/2008/09/01/breaking-pepper-spray-and-rubber-bullets-in-the-streets/).
Monday, September 1st, 2008 08:30 pm (UTC)
So she was involved politically with Ted Stevens. That hardly comes as a huge, shocking revelation. Could you be involved at state level in Alaska politics and not have some kind of political connections to the state's senior Senator? And Obama was involved with William Ayers. I haven't noticed her campaign staff calling for anyone to be jailed over the revelation yet, like Obama's campaign staff said the staff of the 501(c)4 that released the documentably-factual Ayers-Obama PSA should go to jail for it. I don't know if there's any significance to Obama's past relationship with Ayers, but I sure find his campaign's reaction to the PSA pretty significant.

You say she scares the hell out of you? Here's something that scares the hell out of me: A Presidential candidate who isn't even bothering to make any secret of his apparent belief that all of those pesky "inalienable" Constitutional rights should come with "reasonable restrictions". Like, the First Amendment apparently means "free speech unless you say something critical of me, even if it's true." He hasn't revealed yet what his "reasonable restrictions" on the Second are, but I'll bet it's not restricted to "comply with existing Federal law". When spoken by a liberal politician, "reasonable restrictions on firearms ownership" usually tends to mean something like "you can't have anything black or semi-automatic, you can't carry it, you have to register it, you have to store it unloaded and disassembled, you can only buy one box of ammunition a month and we'll expect every bullet to be individually numbered, we can inspect it at any time without warning, we want a ballistic fingerprint on file, you have to be certified mentally fit by a psychiatrist first, god help you if you ever use it in self-defense because better you should be murdered than that you use a gun on a poor misunderstood criminal, we'll take it away if you're ever mentioned in a domestic violence charge even as the victim because defending yourself against domestic violence is bad (and did we mention we consider raised voices to be domestic violence?), and oh by the way, you can't have one in a house a child ever enters, won't someone please think of the CHIIIIILLLDREEEEN?" Yeah, he's made vague noises about how he understands people in rural areas need guns. Like maybe a shotgun or a deer rifle.

[Gah. STUPID BLOODY LJ COMMENT LENGTH LIMIT. Continued in a moment.]
Monday, September 1st, 2008 11:05 pm (UTC)
What makes you think Palin will protect the second amendment? It seems much more likely that she will honor gun rights only when it is convenient, just as Bush administration does any other right. For them firearms advocacy is simply a way to get an influential faction on their side, and your rights matter no more to them than the rights of those protesters now being abused in Minneapolis. If they will physically attack people who threaten them only with dissent, how much more aggressively, given the reason and opportunity, will they attack people who threaten them with actual weapons?

As to her association with Stevens: yes, most Alaska Republicans were involved with Stevens. That is exactly the point; it's not clear to me than any major Alaska Republican, including Palin, is clean, and Palin was fairly closely associated with Stevens.
Monday, September 1st, 2008 11:51 pm (UTC)
What makes you think Palin will protect the second amendment? It seems much more likely that she will honor gun rights only when it is convenient, just as Bush administration does any other right.
Well, obviously no-one can predict the future. Her record so far has been pro-gun, and in general pro-individual freedoms. (Her personal position on abortion, and her apparent for-my-family position on birth control, excepted. But as far as I'm concerned, what goes on within her family is her own business.) While I'm less sanguine about McCain's integrity, having been bought out before, what I do know on that front is his statement on DC vs. Heller was unequivocally "The Supreme Court has affirmed that the founding fathers intended this to be an individual right", while Obama's was filled with the buzzwords and catchphrases that, from Democratic lawmakers, have always preceded more new gun-control laws more onerous than whatever they tried last time.

Fiscally, I don't know. Historically, the Republican party has been small-government, the Democratic has been tax-and-spend. But last time we got a Republican administration elected on the promise of less government and no more tax-and-spend, who then proceeded to spend money as though it was going out of fashion. One would think that the Democratic party would be exploiting this and Clinton's success at actually ending his term with a record budget surplus, but instead, when I hear any of Obama's public statements, it's new program for this, expanded program for that, new program for the other ... where's the money going to come from?

I see us headed steadfastly up salt creek, and I have no faith in either McCain or Obama getting us turned around. While it's by no means a sure thing, I see some cause for hope that Palin mightdo so in the future, given a chance.

Sure, I could be wrong; I've been wrong before. When he was running for his first term, I thought Clinton was going to be the one to back; and we know how that turned out. He was fiscally successful, sure, but he sold White House influence to foreign powers, there was that whole utterly pointless AW ban that - as far as can be told - never prevented a single crime, there was the tacky business of renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, there was the lying to Congress about the Lewinsky affair (ahem), and let's not forget that it was Clinton's administration that invented the Designated Free Speech Zones. And that's without even getting into the whole farce of "Well, that depends what you mean by [insert word here]" or any of the various unproven/unresolved matters. (Two words by way of example: "Vincent Foster.") I think one could come up with a substantive argument that the events of Clinton's term led directly to the election of George W. Bush, "Worst President Ever."

it's not clear to me than any major Alaska Republican, including Palin, is clean
I propose that the words "major Alaska Republican" above can be replaced with "national level politician" without loss of generality. ;)
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 02:43 am (UTC)
I think that focusing on just one right leaves one vulnerable to manipulative pols. If one has firearms, but none of the freedom-of-thought rights: press, speech, and so on--how is anyone going to know what to do with the the firearms? Without freedom of assembly, how can one practice, or organize? Without control over our own bodies--and that doesn't just include the right to abortion, but also the right to be free of forced medical tests, like drug tests, and the right to be free of surveillance implants--does one have any freedom at all? It is hard to imagine any use of firearms that could save as many lives and free as many people as maintaining the legality of abortion! And yet we've every reason to believe that Palin, as a authoritarian religious radical, opposes all these rights. So when the balance sheet is totaled McCain and Palin come out looking very bad. That doesn't mean I think the Democrats are perfect on these issues; it does mean I think the balance is much, much, much better.

A lot of the stuff you're reciting about Clinton, except possibly the assault weapons ban, is either ripped out of context or flat false. If you want, I can get you chapter and verse on the rest, but it's all out there anyway.
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 10:46 am (UTC)
Behold the power of assumption. (http://jezebel.com/5044027/bristol-palin-is-pregnant-let-the-opprobrium-begin)
Monday, September 1st, 2008 08:34 pm (UTC)
Here's Obama on DC vs. Heller:
I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. [...]

As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today's decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.
(http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/06/mccain_reacts_to_scotus_gun_de.html)

"What works in Chicago"? There's a massive body of evidence it doesn't. "Gun show loophole"? The so-called "gun show loophole" is a complete fraud based on lying to people about what the law requires. In the real world, it doesn't exist. There is no "gun show loophole".
(Matter of fact, there's a yellow-journo out here, based down in Boston, who tried to come to New Hampshire and prove that there was a gun show loophole. He was most disappointed when the dealer he approached wouldn't oblige him. "I can't sell to you, you're not a New Hampshire resident, it'd be a violation of Federal law." Not to be defeated, he made his best effort to get a friend who lived in NH to help him try to make an illegal straw-man purchase. He didn't actually succeed — the gun never left New Hampshire or the friend's possession — but he misunderstood the law badly enough to think he had, he bragged about it in the papers, BATF got very interested, and he and his buddy are now under Federal investigation for attempted violation of Federal firearms laws. The existing laws work ... it's just that criminals seem strangely reluctant to obey laws. Oh, wait! That's why we call them criminals!)
"Common-sense laws" ... yeah, we've only heard THAT one about a thousand times before. Everything the Brady Bunch and the Violence Policy Center ever put forth is "common sense" or "reasonable" in their eyes. It's the same old tired Feinstein/Schumer/Boxer/Brady rhetoric polished up all shiny and new. "Reasonable" is used as in "Be reasonable and see things our way." "Out of the hands of terrorists" is another piece of pure Feinstein bullshit. Real terrorists don't need to go buy guns retail at gun shows ... it'd be one of the stupider things they could do, especially when they can get far more potent weaponry on the international black market - or just ask for some from their hidden and not-so-hidden backers, like say Syria or Saudi Arabia.

If he doesn't want to wear the shoe, he'd better start showing that it doesn't fit. He has yet to do so. He talks a great talk. The man can make a rousing speech, sure. But under the style, there seems to be a disturbing shortage of substance. I think it says something about him that on his recent European tour, he cancelled a scheduled visit to wounded troops in a military hospital because he was told he couldn't bring his press crew in. That's a pretty clear sign he wasn't there to visit the troops; he was there to be seen visiting the troops.
Monday, September 1st, 2008 01:58 am (UTC)
I think religious fanaticism and political cronyism are really good reasons to oppose Palin, and they're fairly clear in independent and sympathetic accounts of her. It surprises me you don't see them. I think whoever did the spin on this one was an absolute master, and I fear we may not waking up from it before the general elections.
Monday, September 1st, 2008 02:12 am (UTC)
I'm not seeing either the religious fanaticism you're seeing or the cronyism. The closest I see to religious fanaticism is her statement that she personally believed both evolution and creationism have a place in schools — a position which she later clarified with a statement that she did not believe creationism "needs to be" on the school curriculum, and that under no circumstances would beliefs on the issue be allowed to influence Board of Education postings.

Cronyism? I can see leveling that charge against Murkowski. He appointed his own daughter, fer crissakes. Blatant nepotism right there. But if there's cronyism ongoing in Palin's administration, it seems curiously absent from reports. (I assume you're not referring again to the ongoing, unresolved trooper/Monegan business.)
Monday, September 1st, 2008 02:56 am (UTC)
There was more than the Monegan business; though even that counts--one simply doesn't hire someone for a critical position if they are the subjects of a credible criminal investigation. The petroleum-industry connections alone are enough to raise my eyebrows. The connections between the petroleum industry in Alaska and the state Republican Party mean that any Alaska Republican is going to have to make a very strong case for their independence from the oil industry before I'd even consider them. Hey! I wonder if that's who put her forward. That would make all kinds of sense. Have to wait and see.

In any event, I've said my piece; I'm going to let this discussion drop for a while.
Saturday, September 6th, 2008 04:07 pm (UTC)
huh. this is why i hate election seasons. i make my decisions, meanwhile a bunch of people pretty much go rabid at the mouth for awhile about pointless bullshit that distracts us from the actual decisions we're supposed to be making.

i don't really believe any one person can bring about the apocalypse or act as a savior... there's always countless factors affecting the flow of change in a country or the world.

and i'm less disturbed by any of these people than i was about the current officeholder and his cronies. particularly after all the evidence from the first term. so i don't see much reason to get up in arms about it.

but i do feel like writing the obama campaign a pretty direct comment about my support for the second amendment. for that matter, the fourth has been pretty beat up, too....