Govenor Sarah Palin, Mormonism, Post-Mormonism, Politics

[_richardMdBorn]

Beastie,

In a 2004 debate with Keyes in the race for US senator, Obama showed that his knowledge of the Constitution was weak. He did so poorly in the last debate with Clinton (I think it was in early April) that he ducked out of subsequent ones with herjust as he ducked out of town halls with McCain after agreeing to them. His performance at Saddleback shows how bad he is when he's not reading from a teleprompter

If I was a lecturer, I would describe myself as a lecturer not a professor. You stated that Obama was a success as a lawyer. How was this manifested? What big cases did he win? What important papers did he write? What law firm made him partner?

[_beastie]

Obama's Law Career

Richard,

I have no doubt that, given your political ideology, that you don't find much use for Obama's legal focus. This is why I said, earlier, that the spin that will ensue given Palin's lack of experience will necessitate focusing on "accomplishments" rather than experience, and that worthwhile accomplishments are in the eye of the beholder.

You still haven't told me what Palin's professional accomplishments were prior to her brief political career.

[_beastie]

Perhaps Palin's "executive experience" ain't so grand, after all:

Alaskans really want to like Sarah Palin. In a state where corruption is the rule, and the same faces keep recycling over and over and over again like a bad dream, a new face, with a promise of reform seemed like a breath of fresh air. Palin defeated incumbent governor Frank Murkowski (father of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who he appointed to his own Senate seat when he was elected governor) because he was such an obnoxious, bloviating, downright BAD politician. This staunchly republican state voted with relief, not having to cross over and vote Democratic, but still able to get Murkowski the hell out of office. In the general election Palin swept into office running against a former Democratic governor, Tony Knowles, who was capable but came with baggage. And he represented to Alaskans more of the same, tired old-style politics, and special interests that we have come to loathe.

So, if McCain had made his selection six months ago, the squeaky-clean governor meme would have made a little more sense. But, Sarah Palin is currently under an ethics investigation by the Alaska state legislature. The details of this investigation read like a trashy novel, and I suspect that the players will soon have newfound celebrity on the national stage. I'll try to explain for all you non-Alaskans who suddenly have good reason to want to know more about Sarah Palin. For those of you not interested in trashy novels, feel free to skip ahead. Here it is...what we in Alaska call "TrooperGate".

Sarah Palin's sister Molly married a guy named Mike Wooten who is an Alaska State Trooper. Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin's father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten's story is that he was basically stalked by the family.

After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin's appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got "offered another job" (a.k.a. fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, before this investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I'm not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin's investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor's husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin's office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.

As if this weren't enough, Monegan's appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harrassment allegations by a former coworker who didn't like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.

After extensive news coverage about all this nasty behind-the-scenes scandal, which is definitely NOT squeaky clean, Palin's approval ratings fell to 67%, still high, but a far cry from the 90% number that's being thrown around so glibly by the Republicans today. Alaskans are quickly becoming disillusioned once again.

Troopergate

[_MsJack]

So is this the thread where we're just rehashing the talking points from our favorite liberal/conservative blogs? Because I think that's kind of boring.

Beastie, I usually think you're pretty level-headed, so it's in your best interest to know that Troopergate is a joke.

EDIT: More on Palin, the Troopergate smear and other smears, by pro-Hillary blogger Larry Johnson.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Still waiting for more insight regarding Palin's successful pre-political career.

From what I understand she once tried her hand at being a sportscaster. I'm not kidding.

beastie, at least we can vote for the same politician, regardless of anything else. ;)

[Tator]

So is this the thread where we're just rehashing the talking points from our favorite liberal/conservative blogs? Because I think that's kind of boring.

Beastie, I usually think you're pretty level-headed, so it's in your best interest to know that Troopergate is a joke.

EDIT: More on Palin, the Troopergate smear and other smears, by pro-Hillary blogger Larry Johnson.

Jack,

I freely admit that I am far more emotionally biased in terms of politics than I am in terms of religion, so it's a bigger challenge to monitor those biases. That's another reason I try not to allow myself to engage in lengthy, detailed political threads. But I'm more interested in the part I bolded, the hiring of Kopp after inadequate background checks. The article you linked said nothing about that.

I realize the part with Wooten is murkier, and more "he said/she said". But the part about Kopp - that clearly reflects inadequate vetting. in my opinion, one of the biggest problems with the Bush administration is that they appointed people to positions they weren't qualified to handle. That reflects poorly on "executive experience". And now her excuse is "he didn't tell me"? Really? So her executive experience leads her to expect that people being interviewed for important position are going to freely offer information that may discourage the job offer? Really???? (although some sources say she knew but thought it was unsubstantiated, which also reflect inadequate checking)

Here's an article from the Alaska Daily News that affirms this occurred:

Alaska Daily News

New state Public Safety Commissioner Chuck Kopp never told Gov. Sarah Palin that he received a letter of reprimand from a sexual harassment complaint when he was chief of the Kenai police, the governor's office said today.

The governor learned of the letter when the public did after Kopp's Tuesday press conference, Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said this afternoon.

"The governor is concerned, and she's disappointed," Leighow said.

Do you or do you not agree that this is a reflection of her "executive experience"?

I'm sure she's not a bad woman at all. She did target corruption. And it's true that experience isn't the ultimate "litmus test" when it comes to presidential success - were it so a president's second term would be more successful than his first. But I do think her hiring of Kopp without fully vetting him, particularly when she'd just had a problem with the previous fellow, is troubling.

LoaP - yeah, there is that. :) To be honest, though, I really did think McCain's strongest point against Obama was lack of experience, because that concerned me, too. So when I pointed out that I thought the Palin appointment was a mistake because it neutered that charge, I wasn't being politically cynical, but stating what I think is reality. When someone has had a fairly short political life, much more is unknown. I felt like Hillary was "safer" in that regard, although I was disappointed in how long it took her to admit that going into Iraq was a mistake, and I don't like the fact that she took a lot of money from insurance lobbyists. So I'm happy he picked Biden, who has a clear record of great foreign affair credentials. I do think Obama picked someone who could really help him govern effectively, while McCain picked someone he hoped would get him elected. As I stated previously, I had more respect for McCain when he was running against Bush, but, in my opinion, he was so affected by that loss that he decided he would do and say anything the next time, including changing religions, to ensure his election - because that's why Bush beat him. The Bush team used underhanded tactics to smear McCain behind the scenes. McCain, at one time, I thought was above that. But he obviously learned his lesson, and sold his soul to the political devil. And because he once did resist that siren's call, that subsequent sale made me lose all respect for him (along with his hawkishness) -because he sold his soul with open eyes, knowing exactly what he was doing.

[Tator]

There is no "paradigm" like you imagine. You act completely oblivious to the real world. Have you ever hired an employee, or been hired? Looking through a resume you have various fields of experience to consider and some might pertain to the job more than others.

If I am looking for someone in IT to manage our CISCO routing, I might be impressed with someone who has 25 years experience in IT even if they had no familiarity with CISCO. But I would most likely hire the one whose experience is strictly CISCO, even if this meant the person only had a few years experience in IT. It is absurd to say that just because a candidate has no executive experience, he has no experience at all. Saying he was in "politics" is too vague and doesn't really say much. Experience in the senate lays a basic foundation for the next step up but really, to govern and entire state has far more responsibility than simply representing half of a state.

The “paradigm” was what you were using to claim Palin has more experience than Obama. You then asserted it was “executive experience” that counted. That’s why I later asked you what you thought “executive experience” meant in the first place, because when you defended Palin, you kept using the term “executive experience”, which means one specific type of governing experience that usually candidates obtain as governors of states. Obama does not have executive experience, Palin does. Ok, if you’re someone who thinks “executive experience” counts in some way that other experience does not, that means something.

But, using that same paradigm – ie, that executive experience counts in some way that other experiences do not – then McCain’s resume presents a problem. The only thing that could possibly count as executive experience was that he eventually became commanding officer of a navy aviation squadron. That’s stretching it, in my opinion. So McCain is either no more qualified – in terms of executive experience – or only marginally more qualified (if one counts the squadron) than Obama.

Do you see the problem now? This is why I stated that McCain’s pick of Palin neutered the “not experienced enough” charge against Obama. Unless you choose to view executive experience as more important – which you seem to when you discuss Palin – then Palin has very little experience at all, and yet McCain declared her ready to be president.

But then you switch tactics when discussing McCain:

Compared to his own, yes. And McCain has more experience with four years as a congressman and twenty-three years as a senator. He also served in the military, was a decorated POW, served as the Navy's liason to the U.S. Senate. Now compare that to Obama's six years experience as a Legislator for Illinois and one year as a U.S. Senator and two years as a Senator campaigning for the presidency.

Now, suddenly, executive experience isn’t the only thing that counts. Now you’re happy to count McCain’s experience as a senator.

So you have to decide what matters – is it only executive experience that matters, or does overall experience matter? Either choice is problematic now that McCain chose Palin. I’ll spell it out:

1 – if executive experience counts in some way that other experience does not, then yes, Palin is more qualified than Obama…. BUT then McCain is not more qualified than Obama.

2 – if overall experience is just as important, then yes, McCain is more qualified than Obama, but Palin is less qualified than Obama.

If you still don’t see my point yet, it’s probably hopeless.

(snipping your other comments that are more of the same confusion between executive and overall experience – In other words, dart trying to have his cake and eat it too)

Brief comment on McCain’s house gaffe – the problem is that McCain was trying to build a case of “elitism” against Obama. The house gaffe pretty much screwed that up, and having an equally rich VP would not help.

beastie

This is why a Republican who follows this party line will be more inclined to engage in preemptive military actions against other countries, like Iran. I do not believe our country can withstand another such action – economically, militarily, or globally.

dart

I submit that we can handle that easier than an Israel enduring a nuclear holocaust. Iran wants nuclear weapons and they have already stated their intentions. This isn't an ify situation liek Iraq, where there was only speculation about whether they had WMDs and whether they intended to use them against others. Iran is taking advantage of Bush's goof and is relying on liberals in America to implant this "war is never an option" mentality.

This is a great example of the divide between republican world-view and democratic world-view, and is why I could never currently vote for a Republican unless he/she eschews this party line.

The likelihood that any mid-east state would obliterate Israel with a nuclear holocaust is next to zero, in my opinion. As “crazy” as we like to present their leaders as being (and we use their politically cynical statements to build that case, when our own leaders also make problematic politically cynical statements to excite their base, as well), I do not believe any of them are that crazy.

But even if they were, we simply do not have the military or economic might anymore to invade Iran. This is reality, as much as you might like to imagine the Superman America being able fly into and beat anyone to a pulp. Look at the difficulties we’ve had with Iraq. We now have concluded that we need at least 100,000 boots on the ground to even partially control the situation in Iraq. Iraq had a population of 24 million. Iran has 70 million. Iraq had manpower fit for military service of 4 million. Iran has 12 million. Iraq had a military budge of 1.3 billion. Iran has a military budget of 9.7 billion. In addition, Iran’s terrain is more problematic. facts obtained here

Now you tell me with a straight face that we have the military and economic might to conduct a successful war in Iran, PLUS still deal with Iraq and Afghanistan. I actually supported the invasion of Afghanistan, because they were hosting and enabling the people who actually did attack us. What would Afghanistan look like today had we focused our attention there, instead of diverting forces and money from Afghanistan to Iraq??? Afghanistan has been neglected and is now screaming for attention. The hard fact is that, aside from the incompetency of the Bush administration, we simply don’t have the means to deal with BOTH arenas simultaneously with a high degree of success. And you think we can add Iran on to that mess????

Unbelievable.

I know you’d prefer to live in a world where the US had that kind of military and economic power, but we have to deal with the world we happen to live in, not the one we’d like to live in.

And this doesn’t even address the economic situation. Here’s how much the war in Iraq is costing us

Again, you tell me with a straight face we can take on Iran, and I’ll try not to laugh in your face.

Uh huh, and Nancy Pelosi, who just gave a rant about how Catholic doctrine doesn't really prohibit abortion. They are disingenuous idiots who claim a religious base for political reasons alone. But those true practitioners of the faith can see through their game.

LOL! This is priceless, I mean priceless. Dart declares the ability to discern “true practitioners of the faith” from the “disingenuous idiots who claim a religious base for political reasons alone.”.

ROLFMAO!!!

Man, you are a MASTER mind reader, MASTER. Not only can you read MY mind and tell me things I didn’t know – like I supposedly don’t really care about scientific education in this country and am simply using that as an excuse to bash Palin cuz I hate her religion – but you can read the minds of religious Democrats as well!!!! And you mastered this level of mind reading without even using a peepstone as a training tool. Amazing.

You other republicans out there, I want you to take a good, long look at Dart’s comments. This is what the Republican party currently deliberately fosters.

And I just proved to you that your suspicions regarding this are false, and are entirely based in your own intolerance towards religion. That's it. If you were truly tolerant then you wouldn't be complaining about something she explicity said she wouldn't do.

You proved nothing of the sort. I know that you have a long history of finding your own arguments to be totally persuasive, but others of us do not share that opinion.

Obama recently made a stupid comment at a rally that some republicans won't like him because he doesn't "look like those other faces on our currency." That was his back-door way to race bait. As far as Palin goes, she was just picked out of a hat here. She didn't aspire to get involved in Washington politics at all, let alone the White House. IF you think otherwise, then let's hear the evidence.

LOL! Yeah, she was just picked out of a hat.

Umm, does that really help your cause?

Obama at the time was a nobody (this was before he was elected to the Senate) thus he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If the war turned out to be a mistake, he could launch hismelf onto the spotlight by saying he was the lone guy who disagreed with it. He didn't lose any democratic friends over that decision. Palin literally made enemies on the republican side because of her stance against Big Oil.

This makes no sense. The climate of the country was pro-Bush, pro-war. We were in shock after 9/11 – a fact the Bush administration calculatingly took advantage of. People who opposed the war were practically labeled traitors to their own country. And you’re going to say, with a straight face, that he had “nothing to lose and everything to gain”.

Well, it’s no more outrageous than the other junk you’ve been saying with a straight face, so I’m sure you’re completely serious.

Are you truly this ignorant? We didn't attack "them" either. We invaded the country to topple the dictator. The people were left alone. The military surrendered immediately. It was not a "war" in any conventional sense of the term, because their troops gladly surrendered and their citizens welcomed troops while dancing in the streets. At this point the "war" as was planned, was really already over. What ensued was a manhunt for Hussein. The cluster f*** came about when Bush and his advisors underestimated the insurgency that soon came about. They did virtually nothing to secure the Iraqi borders, which led to an ongoing civil war leading to thousands of deaths and billions more spent.

Oh. My. God.

I am practically speechless, and it takes a heck of a lot to render me speechless.

We attacked the country, Dart. You believe the attack was justified in order to topple the dictator, but the fact that we attacked the country is indisputable, except, apparently, to people whose grip on reality is quite loose.

But this part is even funnier:

Again, are you really this ignorant? We did not go there to remove radical terrorists. The biggest terrorist was Saddam himself. He was responsible for murdering hundreds of thousands. Bush had convened with many Iraqi Americans who convinced him that upon the removal of Saddam, Iraq would become a friendly nation and ally to the US.

Wait a minute!!! Earlier on this thread you said it wasn’t about evil dictators.

Earlier dart:

Who said anything about an evil dictator? The fact is you cannot blame McCain for Iraq. Trying to do so is pointless. Iraq was Bush's idea. He had it planned before he came into office.

LOL! Which is it, dart? Did we invade Iraq to topple an evil dictator or not?? Saddam was, no doubt, an evil dictator who murdered his own people, and engage in border wars which also resulted in mass casualties. But he was not a terrorist plotting action against the US, like the folks that our buddy Saudi Arabia protected and nurtured. You know, Saudi Arabia, the country that oppresses and kills its own people, too? The one that’s on “our side”?

Of course, I can’t blame you for being so confused about why, exactly, we invaded Iraq. The actual people who perpetrated the attack are just as confused. But maybe one of their first name choices gives us a clue:

Operation Iraqi Liberation

That is a naïve goal since you cannot "control" anything that's radical.

Then what do you suggest? Killing all muslims? We don’t have the stomach for that, thank god. So just invading and seeking to control all Muslim countries? As much as your macho imagination tells you otherwise, we simply do not have the economic or military might to do that.

Agreed. Iraqis should choose whatever government they like, and it won't resemble much of our system when they're done doing that. But so whay? The goal was to remove Hussein. Mission accomplished.

And why was Saddam our target, instead of, say, the leaders of the country that actually gave us the 9/11 perpetrators.. you know…. Saudi Arabia????

Cuz he was an evil dictator? I thought it wasn’t about evil dictators, since obviously we’re quite comfortable with other evil dictators in the world, with whom we regularly bed.

Well I doubt most Americans feel that way. We'll find out in the coming debates, but I doubt the Iraq war will play a huge part in the minds of fence straddlers.

Sadly, you may actually be correct on this. The US seems to have quite a few citizens who think that not letting gay people get married is far more important than the Iraq mess. Perhaps that fact is not unrelated to the fact that 1 in 5 US citizens thinks the earth revolves around the sun.

beastie

I think that the refusal to disavow that stance indicates an unwillingness to learn painful lessons from our past history (NOT just Iraq), which indicates a higher likelihood that we will repeat those mistakes again.

dart

And of course, only republicans go to war, right? Kennedy didn't damn near start WWIII when Russia tried to make allies with Cuba, now did he? Johnson didn't prolong the suffering in Vietnam by disallowing our troops from attacking unless attacked first, now did he?

Oh, lord, you never tire of just making up stuff to attribute to me, do you? I never said, nor implied that only republicans go to war. I was quite specific in my statement – the refusal to disavow the stance that invading (or insert your preferred PC term here) Iraq was justified, just mishandled, is more likely to lead to other possible war maneuvers in that part of the country as well. Like, you know, IRAN. (which attack you would support, hence, proving my point)

In fact, your entire response to me has proved this point, over and over again.

Were they even running for President? These guys have a losing history, and there is too much dirt on both of them as race-baiting bigots.

You don’t know they ran for president??? If you didn’t even know that, you should at least have the sense to keep your mouth shut on this particular issue, but I doubt you will.

[_EAllusion]

Larry Johnson is the person responsible for spreading the rather vicious rumors about a Michele Obama's "whitey tape" for those who didn't know. Great source there.

Hey Richard -

I've seen the Obama/Keyes debate. I watched back in 2004 because I'm entertained by Keyes - how do I put this delicately? - being totally nuts. I've seen clips since then. Would you care to share where Obama showed he didn't understand the Constitution? I'm blanking here, and this leads me to believe I or others might not agree with that at all. In short, it might be you who has the problem. Let me rephrase the question a little. Was his understanding in line with views commonly held by constitutional law professors, granting for the informality and impromptu nature of debate?

[_beastie]

Dick Cheney making sense before he lost his mind

How many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth?

Bush Sr. tells the truth about how foolish it would be to invade Iraq, too bad that Bush Jr. only listened to the “higher father” and not his biological father

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome.
o A World Transformed (1998) by George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft; also as an excerpt in Time Magazine in 1998.

[_EAllusion]

Kevin -

As for why teaching ID-creationism in public schools is and should be unconstitutional see here:

http://www.creationismstrojanhorse.com/ ... eyWULQ.pdf

If that doesn't convince you, I don't think anything will, so it's win/win.