Govenor Sarah Palin, Mormonism, Post-Mormonism, Politics

[_beastie]

No thanks, Dart. I refuse to engage with you again. Just repeat these words to yourself as a reply when you're tempted to try again.

[_dartagnan]

No thanks, Dart. I refuse to engage with you again. Just repeat these words to yourself as a reply when you're tempted to try again.

Of course you do, because you proved yourself a blathering idiot. You blindly attacked Palin based on horse crap you spent all week googling. Now that much of it is proved false and your own candidate is proved to be the real villan in these instances, you want to wax indignant and scurry off to Ariana Huffington's bosom.

You should be held accountable for your incessant yapping ignorance about Palin, her religious beliefs, and her alleged inferiority when compared to Obama.

[_aussieguy55]

Beastie, you might find the O'reilly interviews with Obama interesting. Here is a man that in another video is swearing his head off, talks over people etc. Obama responds to him with grace and poise and civility, a true Christian manner. Despite constant interruptions Obama handles himself well.

[_Calculus Crusader]

It seems the McCain camp want to make a virtue of being uneducated. McCain was down the bottom of his class at the Navel Academy, crashed five planes, was against the tax cuts for the rich then supported them, was the Roe Wade then wants it change, speaks out against the agents of intolerance (Religious Right) and then accepts an award from Farwell. A black man who has no father present in his early life, gets himself an education, pays off the cost by writing a couple of books and is successful chooses to do a job as a community organiser rather than a job in a well paying Law firm. There is a good YouTube video by a lady who is a community organiser and explains what many of them do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRR2PvoHUXA&NR=1 He is still married to the same lady. McCain, Ginrich(no 3), Murdoch, Guilani (No 4) instead of staying with the "wife of their youth" marry younger and richer and not disable women. The Republicans went on about small town values.

Ah, yes, the canard about crashing five planes.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/d ... lanes.html

Now, don't you feel like a jack ass?

[_Trevor]

Wasn't "Ragin' McCain" actually the creation of the Bush campaign in 2000?

I liked its near twin "Demon Dean" in 2004. I guess the Democratic establishment took one from the Bush playbook there.

[_beastie]

I’ll check it out.

by the way, I’m not saying I’m completely happy with Obama. I think there is an unknown factor to consider. I would like to him to have more experience. But I do agree with most of his views, and certainly prefer him to the alternative.

Part of what blows my mind is seeing people who state that they are unhappy with the direction Bush has taken this country, and yet they are going to vote for McCain. McCain, by his own admission, agrees with Bush on all the important issues, and has voted with him over 90% of the time. Wow. That’s some change.

All politicians are conniving, to a certain extent. They’re all hypocrites who whore themselves to get elected – they have to under our system. But, in my view, McCain has out-whored them all. He is willing to do and say anything to get elected. Bush’s camp smeared McCain back in 2000 with disgusting, vile, behind the scenes phone attacks implying McCain had an illegitimate black daughter, and questioned his mental stability as the result of the torture. They highlighted his wife’s drug addiction. In other words – they attacked not just him, but his family. And McCain turns around and kisses this man’s arse afterwards. In 2000, he called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell agents of intolerance. Today, he not only kisses the arse of folks like Hagee, but actually changed his religion from Episcopalian to Baptist. (I know, first hand, that conservative Baptists tend to view Episcopalians as the equivalent of catholics, whom they barely accept as Christian, so it was a very smart political move). He was morally opposed to torture before he apparently decided it was politically expedient support torture. He supported campaign finance reform, but has obviously allowed his 527’s to run ads accusing Obama of wanting to teach kindergartens about sex.

Well, good thing for McCain that this country has a notoriously short attention span.

[Guest]

Bush’s camp smeared McCain back in 2000 with disgusting, vile, behind the scenes phone attacks implying McCain had an illegitimate black daughter, and questioned his mental stability as the result of the torture. They highlighted his wife’s drug addiction. In other words – they attacked not just him, but his family. And McCain turns around and kisses this man’s arse afterwards. In 2000, he called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell agents of intolerance. Today, he not only kisses the arse of folks like Hagee, but actually changed his religion from Episcopalian to Baptist.

Not all of us forget so easily. I despised the Bush team for what it did to McCain, and I am none too pleased with McCain for pandering to the Christian right. But, let's face it, presidential politics are about confusing the issues, and both sides will get their hands dirty to win. Today it seems that McCain's hands are a little dirtier, but tomorrow it just may be Obama's turn.

I don't like it, but it does work. I don't like that it works, but it does work. I would love to punish candidates for engaging in it by withholding my vote, but then for whom would I vote? I simply have to stick with judging the policies I think will work.

I simply do not believe that McCain will be another George W. Bush, and I do not think Sarah Palin is unqualified. At the same time, I will not be voting for them. I try to separate my personal judgment of the issues (not saying mine are necessarily the only right ones) from the mass ritual of campaign rhetoric we are fed on a daily basis.

It is obvious to me that the presidential campaign does not map particularly well in its content onto what a person will be as president. In a sense I feel like I have to hold my nose until I cast my vote, and try to forget all of the pandering and mud-slinging between the primaries and election day. Sad, but true, imho.

[_antishock8]

All right. Beastie, just to give you a chance, let's see you be as critical toward Senator Obama as you are Senator McCain. We know which way you're gong to vote, so what's to lose?

Me? I wasn't going to vote for a President this election, which would have made it three times in a row. However, the selection of Governor Palin brought me into McCain's camp. The reason? I'm not going to lie, it's because she's female. Period. I have two girls, and frankly I don't like the example Senator Clinton or Congresswoman Pelosi offers. The issue of abortion is resolved, with Chief Justic Roberts even saying so. We have to win Iraq, and I believe Senator McCain is better suited to that endeavor than Senator Obama. Energy and oil is something Senator McCain responds to in a more realistic way than Senator Obama ($8 a gallon gas future with taxes and no drilling). And frankly, I think Senator Obama is friendlier to Islamic regimes than Senator McCain. The two are diametrically opposed to the obvious threat of an Islamic bloc.

So, what, exactly, does Senator Obama offer that isn't a platitude? He's full of crap. He pandered to his demographic in Chicago, and he's pandering to the US populaion right now. Please. Explain to me why Senator Obama is sooooo different than the status quo NOW, and how he truly is going to be an agent of change. I'm enraptured.

[_Trevor]

The reason? I'm not going to lie, it's because she's female. Period. I have two girls, and frankly I don't like the example Senator Clinton or Congresswoman Pelosi offers. The issue of abortion is resolved, with Chief Justic Roberts even saying so. We have to win Iraq, and I believe Senator McCain is better suited to that endeavor than Senator Obama. Energy and oil is something Senator McCain responds to in a more realistic way than Senator Obama ($8 a gallon gas future with taxes and no drilling). And frankly, I think Senator Obama is friendlier to Islamic regimes than Senator McCain. The two are diametrically opposed to the obvious threat of an Islamic bloc.

So, what, exactly, does Senator Obama offer that isn't a platitude? He's full of s***. He pandered to his demographic in Chicago, and he's pandering to the US populaion right now. Please. Explain to me why Senator Obama is sooooo different than the status quo NOW, and how he truly is going to be an agent of change. I'm enraptured.

I think you have some good points there, antishock. I don't agree with all of it, but I see some things that make me think.

[_beastie]

All right. Beastie, just to give you a chance, let's see you be as critical toward Senator Obama as you are Senator McCain. We know which way you're gong to vote, so what's to lose?

I can’t be as critical towards Obama because for two reasons: he hasn’t been in politics whoring himself as long as McCain has, and I agree with his stance on most issues. However, I am critical of how his supporters – likely with his approval – tried to portray the Clintons as racist, which was a big load of horse pucky. And the Obama camp has been inaccurate in some of their claims, as well, as factcheck.org demonstrates. I want him to hit hard and get nasty, but I want him to be accurate.

And I don’t think Obama is the Second Coming, who’s going to change everything in some miraculous way. Are you kidding me? Have I said anything on this thread that would indicate such naïveté about the body politic? Not that I remember.

by the way, I want to remind you that I am the one person on this thread who has fully admitted being biased. There is much in today’s republican party I cannot stomach. Today’s republican party is different than the party pre-Reagan. So yes, I am biased. I just think that some of the rest of you are fooling yourselves if you do not recognize that you are, too.

I agree with Trevor:

It is obvious to me that the presidential campaign does not map particularly well in its content onto what a person will be as president. In a sense I feel like I have to hold my nose until I cast my vote, and try to forget all of the pandering and mud-slinging between the primaries and election day. Sad, but true, imho.

I also agree that the ugliness works, which is why I hope Obama gets as ugly as McCain has been. If anyone ever doubted that vicious, gutter politics works in this country, they should have been disabused of that notion when Bush beat McCain for the nomination in 2000. McCain learned his lesson well.

I think that we’re always taking a chance with a new president, because we can’t really know exactly what they will do, nor can we know the circumstances the rest of the world will present. If you had listened to candidate Bush, after all, you would never have suspected President Bush would one day support preemptive war and nation-building. So what are we supposed to do? All I can do is make my vote based on what it seems likely the candidate will support. I believe the war in Iraq was a tragic mistake, and neo-cons have been wrong about the war on almost every count, so there is no reason to continue trusting that bunch. I think global warming is a worldwide emergency, so want someone who seems to share that commitment without having to pander to a base that doesn’t believe in it. I strongly want this country to improve our scientific education, because I believe future technology is the key to our economic future, as well as our general well-being. This means exploring alternate energy sources rather than just looking for more places to drill, and just extending our addition to oil. I also believe that tempered capitalism – ie, capitalism tempered with reasonable regulations and taxation, and some social networks – is far preferable than unfettered capitalism, which I think would end result in a two-class society filled with violence and possible outright revolution. I’m sure you, antishock, don’t agree with me on those points, but those are my views. I also think that both parties tend to get full of s**t and corruption when they’ve had too much power too long. The democrats were once the more corrupt party when they controlled congress for so long, but now the republicans are taking their turn. It’s periodically time to clean house. It’s just human nature. So I do think it’s important to switch the balance of power at times.