bonoman
Refugee
Hey diamond, congratulations, you've won the award for the most idiotic post written on here in years. I'm sure you're proud.
From a legal stand point, by having a person pay for a procedure in an allegation it bodes better in a legal argument,
Its just crazy to claim that Obama was qualified to be President in February 2007 or even earlier and that Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska is not qualified.
it's a statement like this that confirms for me the fact that you have no actual beliefs and you're just a Republican shill. no serious person thinks Palin is at all prepared for the presidency -- and you'll note that the actual serious conservative intellectuals like David Brooks, George Will, David Frum, Charles Krauthammer, Ross Douthat are not at all happy with the Palin pick. they understand why it makes political sense, but they know that it's not "experience" but preparedness. there is no evidence whatsoever that Gov. Palin has spent any time engaging in national and international issues until August 29, 2008. none. and what's important is what this says about McCain.
so i don't think you're crazy. i think you're just dishonest. and i think you only care about the continuation of Republican power, regardless of what's good for the country.
Here we go again, making ignorant, absurd, comments about forum members rather than talking about the issues.
Why Experience Matters
By DAVID BROOKS
Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.
The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.
There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.
But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.
The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.
This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.
Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do battle with the corrupt establishment. Her followers take pride in the way she has aroused fear, hatred and panic in the minds of the liberal elite. The feminists declare that she’s not a real woman because she doesn’t hew to their rigid categories. People who’ve never been in a Wal-Mart think she is parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.
Look at the condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters, her backers say. Look at the endless string of vicious, one-sided attacks in the news media. This is what elites produce. This is why regular people need to take control.
And there’s a serious argument here. In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation’s founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.
I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.
And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.
What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events — the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight.
How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.
Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.
Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.
The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.
When you do you think Obama became qualified to be President of the United States?
June 4, 2008.
Setting aside Palin's personal failings as a leader, of which there are more than enough to be damning, the fact is, Alaska is so insular that she doesn't have enough experience or exposure to issues that concern the rest of the nation. Given equal time as Governor on the mainland, any other politician would be more qualified than she is.
Based on your vast legal expertise???
At one point in time many people said the same about Illinois. It did not stop a Lawyer with little formal education or experience in elected office from becoming President.
So everyone who voted for Obama in the Primaries voted for someone that was not yet qualified to be President? Obama began running for President 18 months before he was actually qualified to be President? Its one thing to argue that someone is not qualified to be President, its another thing to openly support someone that you admit is not qualified to be President.
Can you name a single McCain supporter who will be switching their vote to Obama because he picked Palin to be his VP?
At one point in time many people said the same about Illinois. It did not stop a Lawyer with little formal education or experience in elected office from becoming President.
So you're comparing present day Illinois and Alaska in terms of remoteness? Good argument.
yes but was he SELECTED by someone who had already won the nomination to be VICE PRESIDENT, a position where the #1 qualification is to be PREPARED to be PRESIDENT should that person die in office.
No, he was actually selected to be THE PRESIDENT.
I said at one point in time obviously not meaning currently.
yes, STING. that's exactly what i'm saying. you're so clever. what logic!
he was elected president. a VP is selected by the nominee.
tell me, do you think Sarah Palin's experience is at all comparable to Andrew Johnson's?
because that's the actual comparison to be made, not the false choices and bogus equivocations you're setting up.
and hence, the comparison doesn't work.
Well, if you feel differently why not explain. You said June 4, 2008. Are you saying that prior to June 4, 2008 Obama was not qualified, prepared etc to be President of the United States? If you think its earlier, just give the month and year.
Can you name a single McCain supporter who will be switching their vote to Obama because he picked Palin to be his VP?
no, i didn't say that. but continue to put words in my mouth. it's the only way you're going to get anywhere with your thinking.
what does this have to do with anything at all?
So your saying the qualifications to be Vice President of the United States are higher than the qualifications to actually be President?
Remember, the issue here is not that Sarah Palin has less experience than this person or that person, its the false claim that her experience or level of being prepared is not enough to qualify her to even be Vice President or President of the United States.
Well, then at what point did Obama become qualified or prepared to be President in your opinion? Give us at least the year.
i am saying that a responsible pick for the VP -- as evidenced since the beginning of this country -- is that it is someone who is qualified and experienced enough to take over the presidency should they have to. yes, in many ways the "experience" required of a VP might be higher than that of a president, but not everyone lives in as rigid a world as you do. people like Kennedy, for example, might have been young and untested and relatively inexperienced, but their vision was compelling enough for them to win votes in the primary and then in the general election. and they usually choose VPs who are deeply experienced (like LBJ).
you are right. the issue is that Sarah Palin's experience has not prepared her to be VP or President. it hasn't. it's been amply demonstrated in her one, single interview, in her short record as governor of Alaska, and in her total lack of any engagement with national issues prior to August 29th, 2008.
Im sure Tawana Brawley agrees with you:
i told you: June 4, 2008.
he convinced more than 18m people that he would make the best candidate for the presidency.
of course, those of us who live in the real world know that life doesn't lend itself to such black-and-white thinking, but i'm willing to play along because it's a fascinating trainwreck of logic you've got going on here.
Swallow your pride and give up, you're just digging a hole. If the individual was forced to pay for their own rape kit then what is going to stop them from going to individuals with an agenda and falsifying information? Open your eyes, take off the partisan blinders and swallow that fact that she's wrong.
If you really think the qualifications for Vice President are higher than the qualifications for President, please explain.
What national issues was Tim Kaine engaged in prior to Obama running for President?
What would Sarah Palin need to do in order to actually reach the level of being qualified to be President in your view, since at this time you claim that she is not qualified?
Then your saying you knowingly voted for someone in the primaries who you felt was not qualified, at that time, to be President.
Do you think Obama was qualified and prepared to be President on February 10, 2007 when he announced he was running for President? Do you think a citizen should first be qualified and prepared to hold a particular office before they actually start to campaign for that office?