We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I don't know who Palin's speechwriter is — and, for all I know, she writes them herself — but whoever it is, he or she is just terrific. Practically every third line in her CPAC speech was like something out of a book of Great Conservative Quotes.
Here Ted Cruz, like a good Texan; he comes to town, he chews barbed wire and spits our rust.
No, it's not about the bad guys, it's all about the lead, like solely that chunk of metal did the crime. That's like saying, solely that fork made me fat.
And background checks? Yeah, I guess, to learn more about a person's thinking and associations and intentions? More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President. Shoulda started with yours.
Remember 'No Drama Obama'? If only. Now it's All-Drama Obama. We don't have leadership coming out of Washington. We have reality television.
Whether it's green energy or free Obama phones — or prophylactics — if you don't have a team of lobbyists in D.C. or a cancelled campaign contribution check, well, you're not at the table. You're on the menu.
It was about then that she took a sip from a Big Gulp and brought down the house.
I suppose a lot of politicians use the phrase "we, the people" in their speeches, but the only two politicos who I ever believed actually meant it were Teddy Roosevelt and Sarah Palin.
Given how we below the 49th and our EPA are the only things standing between you and a total global climatic meltdown, raising the latitude of the 'food belt' and turning Canada into the richest fertile crescent the world has ever seen, you should be very thankful for our tireless efforts.
"Sold out" is putting it mildly. Like Ross Perot, his Bullmoose 'statement' was about himself, and the forseeable and soon-confirmed result was to throw the election to a hundred-year plague.
With all due respect, I'll take the word of a DVD documentary over what a couple of freaky hard-core right-wingers on some backwater blog site think. As I noted in the post -- which I take you also didn't read -- the DVD was very even-handed in pointing out both his mistakes and victories, and I don't believe they used the phrase "sold out" once. That's a silly, low-level phrase used in partisan politics, not intelligent discourse.
I only reported on one in the post. I watched three of them in a row, but the one I mentioned was exceptional.
I usually find that's true. I've watched a handful of insect documentaries over the years, but that one I posted on the other day was in a class by itself.
I recently watched the terrific mini-series, "John Adams", and was thinking of doing a post on it, discussing his relationship with Jefferson, so I re-watched the two Jefferson documentaries in my collection.
I expected the one by Ken Burns to be the better of the two, but nope. In typical liberal-drool fashion, all it could do was marvel over and over again that, "OMG! JEFFERSON OWNED SLAVES! OMG! OMG!" The other one mentioned it in passing, noted that pretty much every other person of wealth did too, then moved on to more important things. The Burns documentary simply couldn't leave the subject alone.
As I recall, I have four documentaries on the Wright brothers in my collection, and one of them really stands out. Ditto my three discs on Benjamin Franklin. Although we tend to view all documentaries as 'dry', there really does seem to be as wide a good-to-bad range as regular movies.
His relationship with Jefferson -- and it's profound impact on both our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- was really something. From best friends, to bitter arch-rivals, back to best friends.
Boston, yes, Boston Pops, no. Boston's a gorgeous city. It kept looking like my native San Francisco until I started talking to people and found out they're sister cities, with S.F. purposefully using much of Boston's architecture in the early days. I've visited almost every major city in the U.S., and those two are unique, similar only to each other.
Heck, I went to school with some Adam's family descendants ;) And I recall that during one of the tax revolts one of elders gave a wonderful speech during the town meeting opposing any cuts to the funding of the Fourth of July fireworks. Now that's government spending any thirteen year would support.
"We don't have leadership coming out of Washington. We have reality television." Stupid, no plot, bad actors and acting, and lots and lots and lots and lots of advertising.
Might I suggest you quit reading extremist political blogs? Using "bailed" is a classic political trope, and shows a distinct lack of history when it comes to candidates deciding to run for the presidency.
There is noting "extremist" about that statement. She still refuses to get a speech coach and that nails across the chalk board voice combined with the heavy "Ya betcha" accent is annoying as hell.
With respect to "bailing" - she bailed pure and simple. It had nothing to do with effectiveness or saving the state money. She saw big bucks and went for it. She was never serious about politics after her VP run - it was all about speaking fees and honorariums. And I don't blame her for it at all, but she's not the distaff savior of the party. Mia Love - hell yeah. Kelly Ayotte - Ya betcha. Diane Black - good choice.
"with the heavy "Ya betcha" accent is annoying as hell."
It isn't often we see a case of blatant stateophobia here on Maggie's Farm, where someone with a particular accent -- Idaho in this case -- is spit on for nothing more than that.
It's not just the accent - it's the horrible screeching voice she has. Which she can change - it's easy to do if you get a good speech coach.
You guys like to say she's smart. Ok, what has she done that makes her smart? Was it her campaign appearances? What did she do in Alaska that makes her "smart"? I'll bet none of you can name three things that make you believe she's "smart".
I'll bet you didn't know that Palin, as Mayor of Wasilla, asked the town librarian if she could live with censorship of certain books - as in banning from the library. Palin claimed it was a "rhetorical" question, but she asked it twice in two days. You don't ask a question like that unless you're thinking about it.
I'm not going to vote for anybody who might censor books from a library.
1. She was elected mayor of an American city. Dumb people are not elected mayor of cities.
2. She was appointed chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Dumb people are not handed such a position.
3. She was chosen to be a vice-presidential candidate. Dumb people aren't selected for this honor.
4. She was both the youngest Alaskan governor ever elected and the first woman governor. Such breakthroughs are not made by dumb people.
5. She held an 82% approval rating from the Alaskan legislature, composed of a majority of Democrats. Professional lawmakers don't give such confidence to dumb people.
6. While I haven't been keeping an exact count, I believe she's 8-for-10 in officially endorsing candidates who then got elected. The official endorsement from dumb people usually isn't given much credit.
I threw in a couple of extras, just to make sure.
"Commentary is just as valuable as front page material"
This site gets roughly 100K visits a month. Every one of those 100,000 visits sees every post on the home page. It's somewhat doubtful they also read the comments.
"Just because I'm not a fan of your favorite politician, and openly say so, does not mean you can disparage my approach to posted material at Maggie's."
Sure it does. It means you're a chicken. Big loudmouth in the safety of the comments, but afraid to put it right out there for all to see. And the beauty of the blogs is, who knows? What if you posted some anti-Palin screed and the Palin-haters came out of the woodwork and supported you 100%? What if the crowd outright dismissed some of your criticisms, but others had merit and made people reconsider their opinion of her? Wouldn't it be 'mission accomplished' if you got people to at least do that?
Of course, the sad part of you not posting here is that you're incredibly knowledgeable about certain facets of life and this knowledge should be shared. Why not do posts on documentaries, like my recent 'Bismarck' and 'Bugs' posts? Why not some humor, like my nature series featuring such august articles as "Twig of the Week"? Or, take something you're exceptionally experienced at and writing a series, such as on boat maintenance and handling, like my ongoing 'Computin' Tips' series?
"Cap'n Tom's Boating Tips: The magic of the bowline knot"
When you consider how many people would give their left nut to have a platform like this site to share their ideas on, it seems almost 'morally criminal' to kiss it off as you have.
To those of you scoring at home, the bowline knot is, indeed, almost magical. Every other knot does nothing but get tighter and tighter as time goes by, to the point where you need a chisel and a blowtorch to undo it. The bowline knot, while just as secure, doesn't tighten up.
Gosh, Tom, if only one of the bloggers here knew how to tie a bowline knot and could teach others how to tie one. What a valuable article that could be.
Waste of perfectly good indignation, Tom. I don't know what you have against the lady, but it isn't based on a rational evaluation of her accomplishments. Even if her only achievement since 2008 was helping get Cruz elected I'd be happy. Through in her support of Walker and other promising politicians and she looks pretty damn good. Now tell me what the big boys have done that compares?
And get off the accent thing, it makes you look tiny. Plus, it was much reduced in this video.
She resigned when it was costing her state money to defend frivolous law suits, and she could not effectively do her job anymore. The Left is mean as cat sh** and positively ruthless, so I don't blame her one bit.
Well, maybe. OTOH, she certainly has some advantages over, say Romney:
1) She can talk.
2) Common sense.
3) Humor
4) Made of steel, not cardboard
My own take on the resignation is that you've got to know when to fold them. In this case she sidetracked the lefty mosquitoes who were fixated on her and left an unmolested, hand picked governor behind. Unusual? You bet. But also effective. Sometimes you need to be a bit original in war.
Haven't heard anything, and, given the scuttlebutt machine, I figure it'd be front page news if there was something amiss. I, too, noticed the loss of weight, but I didn't see her as 'haggard', just a little thinner-faced than in the past.
And chuck was right up above, when he noted she'd toned down her accent somewhat. She still uses colloquialisms like "Shoulda" and "gonna" and drops her g's, but that's not "accent", that's vernacular.
“You know the effect that she has on establishment Republican people,” Limbaugh continued. “They’re just as frightened in their own way as the Democrats are of Palin and one thing I think is inescapable — particularly in looking at the Democrats — the Democrats and the media will always tell you who they are afraid of by virtue of who they spend time trying to destroy.”
I like her a lot. I like the light she has shone on good things and especiaqlly the wonderous illumination auto-da-fe the left has perpretrated on itself while under her spell. The axiomatic as-vile-as-possible attack on this self-made glass-ceiling-demolishing good, smart, virtuous woman.
The weight-loss --last i heard, she was doing a heavy running workout. A serious workout program --she characterized it as. That was a year ago --maybe her diligence held? a year of hard running will change the way you look alright.
That said, to me she looked fine the other night --ageless, actually --surprisingly so. She's a fine-looking woman, and her husband is one of the small handful of people i would envy if i wasn't past the stage of envying anything other than teeth and non-adversarial prostates.
Bulldog has been a serious disappointment. I brought him on board to espouse his Libertarian values, yet he has almost never written on it. Exactly like you, he was a Big Mouth in the comments, but put him in the spotlight and he clammed right up.
My, my, my. Anyway, Palin is one of my favorites as she actually believes what she says when campaigning. And Limbaugh is right, she absolutely aggravates every rino in the party. After a major speech by Palin you almost need to put a suicide watch on Karl Rove.
Nicely put, Indy. As far as Rove goes, I can think of a number of ways to alienate yourself from the Republican Party, but dissing Palin would probably be at the top of the list. I imagine even he was surprised at the backlash. I used to idolize the guy. Now he's on the same list as Arianna Huffington.
The republicans are reforming into a more conservative political party with people like Palin and Cruz. I do think conservatives realize that big government is not just unaffordable but actually is having a detrimental effect on family quality and family life. I can see a future republican party doing well with the Palin and Limbaughs leading the way but I see no future if they continue the Rockefeller, Bush, McCain, and Rove path. I don't even deal with the party anymore, I simply give to a candidate I think will provide a smaller but sound government. The ruling elite in the party suck, and thats as kind as I can say it.
Merc, i'm a little shocked at your tone in this thread --i don't blame TF for getting a little PO'd --so far you've blasted everyone who's disagreed with you --using pert-near fightin' words --words not meant to pursuade, but to insult.
There must be some explanation --it's too altered a state for the Doc Merc brand.
I wish you would drop a couple sentences illuminating the corners of my conjecture.
On that subject, i wonder what has become of Bruce Kesler, and David from Israel --did i miss something --my attendance has been spotty the last year or so --having to work ("WORK ?!" --Manard G. Krebs), alas.
I didn't "blast" you and Dr. Torch, I correctly noted that the hyperbole you both used was usually reserved for far-wing political blog sites. Ditto the adjectives Tom was using about Palin. Let's just say you're using the right language -- just on the wrong site.
I like Sarah Palin but I was opposed to McCain choosing her as a running mate, In fact I was opposed to McCain. I still do not understand what McCain and the Republicans were thinking with that choice. Then putting her out there for the wolves made me believe McCain really didn't want to win. Having said that I repeat I like Palin and she is dead right on so many issues. I can only conclude that either she is smarter then 99% of Republicans OR she is braver and Republicans are afraid to speak the truth. Not that I blame them the left, the media (redundant I know) and the low information voters twist what Republicans say and it is safer to say nothing. But which ever the case is I respect and believe Palin and do not respect and believe those Republicans like McCain and Lindsey Graham.
