I won’t attempt to rebut the many points on which I disagree. I must, however, strenuously object to Mark’s assertion that he is “not a writer”.

That’s the kind of class and dignity we are looking for in a President (?) – Sorry Palin worshipers she may be a sociopath.

The President of the United States is a very serious job. Our spin doctors and campaign managers have turned it into a high school popularity contest, but in reality the stakes are much higher.

You can not govern by slogan. Look at the damage done by deregulating Wall Street. That move was promoted and championed because of two words “free market”. Nice concept but in the intricate world of market economies a complete fallacy. You can not govern by cute little slogans. “Trickle Down” has lead to the unconscionable concentration of wealth in 1% of the population through subsidies and give aways of our tax dollars to the corporate insiders who place their people in our government.

Granted its a costly game of brinkmanship, sloganeering and manipulation to get the population to vote one way or the other, but at the end of the day to the extent we relinquish control and fall prey to easy answers big corporate america runs the show.

And corporatist and corporate america are unqualified to govern the country because their focus is too singular on their particular profit margins. Great focus for a successful business but absolutely wrong and a severe lack of vision for guiding this huge country over the realities of our collective landscape.

The fruit of their electioneering of politics has created an us against them mentality among the citizens in our Country. And it has created an artificial out of touch ruling class that cares only for the acquisition of personal wealth. The reality is that we are all in this together. And if we don’t make room for one another there will be trouble no matter how right one group thinks they are over another.

That is hardly the Country we all want or aspire to and not the vision of the United States we all desire to see unfold. In short we are better than that.

While Sarah might be a fascinating soap opera of a character, fun to loath or root for she is only qualified for a People Magazine Cover in the same respect of a Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan – what will she do/say next escapade.

All of these new media celebrities are the same version of the same m.o. – say or do something shocking to get the world of rubber neckers gawking just like the well worn metaphor of a car wreck.

Whether Glenn Beck is crying or predicting something ludicrous or Rush is flame throwing and lambasting something even he doesn’t believe, or some new media celeb is releasing a sex tape – its all shock value in the mode and method Howard Stern used to get famous and rich.

That may be one way to achieve a personal goal of wealth and fame but that personality trait is absolutely the worst trait to reward in our politicians.

Good governance requires good citizenship an understanding of how our Country works as a Nation of laws, the intricacies of the market place and in getting along with other people who may not share your same views, culture, beliefs and habits. It requires a true patriotism not in name alone but a commitment to actually put the Country and the people first over individual gain, profit and popularity.

Forcing ones self and opinion down another’s throat doesn’t win you many friends. No matter how right you think you are its counter productive and tone deaf.

Creating a nation and world where we are “free to be” as long as we don’t hurt each other and live sustainably side by side is the goal. Jumping up and down screaming my way or the highway leads to bloodshed.

I would put forth that if you aren’t living by these two rules of thumb “live and let live” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – it is you no matter what bible you are carrying or what uniform you are wearing that is doing the wrong thing.

That’s Pollyanna thinking for the Alpha Dogs like Palin but in actuality the alpha dogs are the ones who are clueless when it comes to anything other than their own selfish- self interest.

That kind of self absorbed me first focus might be good for ones bottom line but it’s one helluva lousy way to “govern” a Country.

North Korea goes rogue not the President of the United States.

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home

It’s a proper thing to disagree with another person’s positions, but you don’t do that. Instead you focus on Palin as a person and pronounce that she has “not grown” in a year. Now that takes a level of insight most uncommon.

You might want to give G K Chesterton’s “In Defense of Bores” a look for a view of how even the smartest of us can miss true value in another person.

I find Palin’s political philosophy fairly easy to understand. It’s woven all through the book in those sections where she talks about what she did while in office and why. But a very short, easy to read section touches on Sowell’s constrained and unconstrained visions. (pp. 385-386) That would be kind of a summary.

Of course, the book is an autobiography–not a political treatise. If you want a bit more insight on Palin’s political philosophy, you might try reading the pieces she has written for the Wall Street Journal or National Review–or looking over her record and statements as governor of Alaska.

But, your review is really not about the book or about Palin’s political philosophy. That’s why you don’t give a single fact or citation from the book.

This is a personal review. And most of us come up short when trying to judge another person. It’s a kind of God-like attribute to measure other people’s personal growth and abilities. Good luck on that.

Now your haphazard and myopic reading of a memoir, has encouraged the trolls and the plain ignorant, to heap undue contempt on a decent public servant, and has won you praise
from Andrew Sullivan, figure out how that balance squares

Ice9

And you are still demonstrating exactly what ice9 was talking about. That you don’t realize this, and that you ignore the rest of the post in its entirety, is rather telling.

Would that be the critique that accuses Obama of doing too little (hope but no ‘substance’) or doing too much (‘excess’, point three)?

This is the crux of the complaint with Obama’s presidency. Conservatives have offered nothing but blank-eyed opposition, and assert whatever criticism is convenient to the moment. The only common component of these critiques is the veiled but rarely well-hidden religious pretext, the pretext that conservative equals religious, that Christians have the secret trumps, that our foreign policy should be Rapture-based, etc. At least First Things and the vile Neuhaus subversions of the our Constitution are reasonably open. Only problem with Palin, of course, is that she believes all that tripe and more, and is not nearly half clever enough to take the proper conservative routes to power–hide and dissemble on the theocratic questions in order to get elected, then act. Palin actually believes that a hidden majority of “real Americans” want another cabal of devious fake-Christians in power; she believes that the problems in the nation don’t exist or are but straws in the wind to an aroused Jesus. The nausea that this book has induced in the broad spectrum of thoughtful people, I hope, will doom not just her political fortunes but this entire brand of substanceless negative politics.

“You *are* familiar with King Barack’s hamfisted attempts to shut down all media outlets that refuse to grovel at his feet, are you not?”

Classic example. No evidence of such an effort is offered; it’s taken as a given in the arrogance of the asterisked rhetorical. In fact the previous president was very skilled at precisely this tactic, and the current one has (generally) resisted. Hyperbolic eliminationalist language, a claim to a higher power, the inverted overformal “are you not” to drive home the crisp clarity of a worldview of oppressed struggle…this from the traditional broad majority of christians, the aggrieved victims of election theft (who lost by a greater majority than Jimmy Carter in 1980), the tortured torturers, the bigoted victims of terrible religious bigotry. Sound familiar? Palin’s book is a cover-to-cover whinefest of blaming others for her own failures and weaknesses, a series if imagined Jesus ex Machina moments when her vitality and purity pull her chestnuts from the satanic fires set by her enemies. Her utter unsuitability for higher (or lower) office is the least obvious idea in the book. Frank, even proud detachment from reality is one; a sequence of highly questionable accounts of real events with legal significance is another. Worst, of course, is the brisk, enthusiastic unfamiliarity with even the most minor aspects of policy, governance, economics, political philosophy, the Constitution, and the history of the ignorant, poisonous, and violent populist tradition she now seeks to ride to power.

Lots of people are pleased to see a negative review of Palin’s dreadful book in a religious/conservative forum such as this one. I suppose I agree insofar as the more people who disdain Palin, the more likely we are to make progress against our many pressing problems. But it is praising with faint damning and overlooks, as we might expect of First Things, all of the terrible faults and cynical calculations that the book properly reflects back on this movement.

ice9

Mr. Reynolds’ misses the point. Lying helps Ms. Palin, it encourages her critics to report her dishonesty which helps feed Palinistas “evidence” that “far left liberals” hate Ms. Palin and will do anything to destroy her. Perhaps a dozen times I pointed out dozens of examples* of Ms. Palin telling whoppers, where I didn’t even depend on mainstream media reports, but instead used state and federal records, direct quotes from Sen. McCain, and even sources from the Right. Zero of these people were able to even consider these facts, my pointing out her honestly appeared to actually reinforce the idea that she distinguished herself with her honesty, the exact opposite of reality.

Mr. Reynold’s states:

She is smart, but not book-smart. She has common sense, but not practical wisdom.

Mind-blowingly false. Ms. Palin is adept as positioning herself in a certain manner and it has carried her far beyond her capabilities. She is neither intelligent nor does she possess common sense, she is like a lotto winner who believes she earned her winnings, like Bush waking up on 3rd base thinking he hit a triple. She has proven to be both ambitious and almost totally without scruples. If she were smart she’d be able to speak and write articulately.

Mr. Reynold’s states:

Palin has the makings of a splendid executive . . .

Totally absurd. I don’t believe Ms. Palin would be able to gain an entry-level post-undergrad job at most world-class corporations, let alone become a supervisor, lower-level manager, middle-manager, director, or executive. This perspective comes from someone (me) who managed recruitment for these types of people up to and including director level. If the initial screener had delivered an interview subject to my team as incompetent as Ms. Palin proves every single time she opens her mouth or puts fingers to keyboard, I’d be considering firing the initial screener.

The one exception to my observation is that it is a fact that attractive people enjoy a halo effect that could very well get them through some hiring processes for lower-level jobs. However, I’m comfortable predicting she’d never last at any corporation that extended a lot of responsibility to its employees, let alone advance to an executive level. In fact I observed only four people in last year’s presidential primaries who obviously displayed executive skills: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani. The latter two also had demonstrated executive skills, not merely showing aptitude.

Reynolds states:

[Palin] . . . a gifted speaker

Perhaps in certain tightly controlled venues. However, there is absolutely no way Ms. Palin could come out of a press conference unscathed or deliver a speech that would convince well-informed independent thinkers. All she has is shallow talking points and a posse that ignores her inability to speak coherently about any subject matter, which includes the duties she held as governor and on Alaska’s oil & gas commission.

Reynolds states:

Palin is sensitive to the charge she is “dumb,” but has not been given the tools or the teachers who can help her.

Is she a bed-ridden invalid who can’t communicate and can’t get her fanny to a library or bookstore? What an absurd statement. She’s dumb because she both is and is also because she’s willfully ignorant. In fact she’s aggressively ignorant. If she wanted to bone-up she’d have started that many years ago. In addition, she shows absolutely zero capability to study and learn. Forcing herself to go through coaching would only provide her with a more compelling set of talking points, any foundation underlying such talking points would still be non-existent or incapable of adapation to fit the actual environment.

Reynolds states:

While an excellent chief executive in Alaska

Either Mr. Reynolds shares Ms. Palin’s willingness to make statements based on ignorance or he’s depending on his readers’ ignorance regarding the fact that Ms. Palin was such a failure as governor much of her staff and the Alaska Republican party’s state legislators turned on her because of her incompetence. The fact is she got lucky entering office with rising oil prices, by the time she quit even she knew her governorship would result in failure if she remained through the end of her first term, either because she’d have to avoid vetoes by flip-flopping on her VP campaign talking points or having her principles vetoed even by her own party’s legislators.

*Amazon reader reviews – comments section

Whereas the opposition dwells in untraceable rumor and innuendo, (her son’s birth, her ‘inpending indictment’ back in July, the divorce rumors, back in August. Speculation about Obama’s own role in public policy, is founded on his own record of applying Alinskyite
tactics, like the secessionist rumor spread by an associate of Axelrod, how he cleared a path for his own Senate seat back in 2004, his record
of appointment associations, et al.

As a frequent poster at C4P, I’ve occasionally left comments there about Palin’s weaknesses — for instance, her habit of “burying the lead,” so to speak, when she answers a question. None of my comments has ever been “censored,” to my knowledge. Trolls are kicked out, honest critiques aren’t.