Thursday, July 2, 2009

Krauthammer thinks Governor Palin unqualified?

by Smitty (h/t HotAir)

This is a fascinating three minutes of your time.


K+ is completely correct on his point that the GOP has operated on a seniority system going back at least my four decades. Going unsaid in his remarks are the ringing non-triumphs of the Bush-41 1992, Dole 1996, and McCain 2008 campaigns.

Romney certainly sells a fine Progressive brand of snake oil, and can certainly give good speech, like BHO. Does anyone have advice on how to overlook the fact that the libertarian ideals of the Constitution are antithetical to the Progressive snake oil? The collectivist crap has only been bankrupting the country these 80-ish years or so. Mitt:
  • I can stare at the First Amendment and ignore theological differences with you.
  • I can admire your fine rhetoric and capacity to deliver a stirring speech: I joined in the standing ovation for you at CPAC with gusto. Great buildup, masterful delivery.
  • But if you're not in touch with the basic concepts of Federalism, then why bother, sir?
You'd be offering the same non-choice between Obama and McCain: "Vote for me, I say 'tomato' with a long 'a' in the middle."

The comment that Governor Palin has to do the homework is also well-founded. You can complain that BHO didn't, but that just underscores the point: "We the People" let an arguably unprepared, unexamined candidate into the office this time around. Possibly John McCain over-estimated the critical thinking with which the voters would come at the question. This "Vote for the groundbreaker, even if there are some weaknesses, FML" is not the precedent you want to reinforce.

The fact that Governor Palin would be the first female POTUS really needs to be a tangential point, or we're continuing the DNA-based decision making that marred the 2008 election cycle. "Anyone not voting for X is Y!". X goes Obama->Palin, Y goes racist->sexist. The scourge of Affirmative Action wasn't completely stomped out with the Ricci decision. Playing to Progressivism just to win an election on gender is playing into their fell hands.

In the credit where due department, HRC is nothing if not cunning. She's suddenly not going to Russia. Of course, it's entire too early to connect the dots with other (scroll down a bit) "Unwelcome Distractions". But it doesn't take a prophet to realize that, if BHO is AFU in 2012, HRC will come back with the fury of a cancer that's been in remission for a few years. Possibly I could have chosen a more pleasant metaphor, but as long as the electorate favors Beltway hangtime over Constitutional fidelity, the egalitarian oxymoron "political class" shall continue to weaken all you hold dear, tumor-like.

This is my worry about Governor Palin: there will be a legitimate argument made that her resume is relatively thin compared to Secretary Clinton's. A Palin/Romney ticket will be "too weak on foreign policy, which is our number one national concern." Understand, a magic unicorn shall have recovered the economy in time for the election. Or so the propaganda shall instruct us to think. How about that General Petraeus, anyway? Has he quaffed the Progressive kool-aid, one wonders?

Full circle, then, I appreciate that K+ is seemingly immune to Governor Palin's charms. Uncharmed thinking is a Good Thing. However, Romney needs a come-to-Beavis meeting where he unloads the Progressive baggage. Either way, don't count HRC out. Or, rather, do: you're likely helping her game.

Update:
Goldberg, also, seems to hope that Governor Palin can come through, while deliberately muting the enthusiasm.

13 comments:

  1. Why the f*ck are we still holding tryouts in the msm? If he honestly feels that way, he needs to have a quiet word. He needs to stop felching Romney and killing our young before they have a chance to find a voice. No wonder nobody but limp-d*cks and has-beens want to step up.

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  2. I certainly would not count out HRC. I always suspected that is the SS Obama starts to take on serious water, HRC will jump ship (and punch a few extra holes in the hull for good measure) and run against him in 2012. Her serious problem will be that she and Obama had identical domestic agendas in 2008.

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  3. In three years time, when the economy will really be in the shit tank.. (It won't work:) people won't care about a candidate's foreign policy.

    As for Palin, I trust her judgment to make the right decision. No one person can do it all. Hell, why do President's have cabinets to begin with? To advise and present options for the CiC.

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  4. Palin's cabinet would be awesome. Compared to what we have now, it would be like living in America.

    Palin having to do homework... She will if she wants to run for Prez, but I think she wants to help campaign and go after a Senate seat.

    I find it funny poeple talk about her platitudes, but offer nothing specific about where she is geeting things wrong.

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  5. Palin is likely deciding whether or not she will seek re-election. Once that decision is made then she's either going to stick with Alaskan issues and just stump for the 2012 GOP candidate or she's going to forego re-election and commit full time to a presidential campaign. Then we'll get to see what SHE believes and not what she had to parrot during the 2008 campaign. Hell, McCain didn't have a coherent message to give to the voters so naturally Palin sounded uninformed. Anyone would peddling that shit. She has the experience of running on a nat'l ticket, and I have no doubt she can mount an effective campaign in 2012. A lot of things can happen in 3 yrs. And in that time she can build her political machine.
    Damn, I honestly didn't think we'd still be talking about a former VP candidate 8 months after an election. She's got something special, it's up to her to use it.

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  6. "...it doesn't take a prophet to realize that, if BHO is AFU in 2012..."

    If BHO is AFU in 2012, the Democrats will lose big time. Americans reject the party when the president is AFU.

    If
    - the economy is really bad in 2010, and the Republicans make significant gains
    - Obama's courtship of every dictator in the world makes Americans unhappy enough
    - Americans begin to identify Obama with his policies, and it shows up in the polls

    the Democrats will lose big time. HRC can hang it up. She might not even be able to carry NY. Go, Rudy.

    As far as Palin is concerned, I voted for the Chick. Does she want to run? Can she do anything to stop the attacks by the MSM and certain high level officials from the McCain campaign? We'll see.

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  7. Doesn't the fact that Sarah is being given so much attention as a "possible" presidential candidate clearly reveal the shallowness of the Republican party?
    This is not a dig at the Governor, I respect her courage and spiritual grit probably more than most of her died in the wool supporters, but that doesn't erase the realities of political stagnation in the GOP.

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  8. @Edward Cropper:
    I'm not so sure. It's about mindshare, and the vitriol from the left reeks of fear.
    The Progressive decadence of the GOP, I think, is a separate question from whether the amount of attention given Governor Palin is a bad thing.

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  9. @Edward Cropper:

    Smitty says, "I'm not so sure. It's about mindshare, and the vitriol from the left reeks of fear."

    Roger that. The more they speak ill of her the more they show dread of her. She is what they fear in their roots, propriety.

    A person is known not only by the company they keep but also by the company they avoid and that abhors them.

    People, including myself, want to call Governor Palin Sarah. We feel that personally connected. We feel happy for her and her family, her husband, parents and children. We feel at ease and comfortable with them. It's just personal, "mindshare" in modern jargon. It is because she is a lady and her husband is a man and their children are children. That is propriety, they embody it.

    Sarah has all the right friends and all the right enemies. If the leftists and the progressives of her party were not heaping calumny on her, then I and others who feel comfortable for her, with her, about her would be squirming when her name appears. As she is, we think, "Yes, that is a lady every honest man trusts and every dishonest man fears. Go Sarah!"

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  10. Does AFU mean what I think it means? Or does it mean something else entirely?

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  11. @Trog:
    It can mean All Fouled Up, or anything else you want to slap in there.

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  12. I think Romney is another GWB with whiter teeth. He'll say what he thinks you want to hear. I would vote for him if I had too.

    But Palin, on the other hand, I WANT to vote for. Not to defeat the Dems, but to help her win. I would defend her, volunteer for her and donate to her. She's not a TWIT, she's a real person that has real conviction. Plus, I think the "vote for the first woman president" angle would be HUGE. She make the MSM reveal their true colors, which are quite ugly.

    I love Charles, but Palin didn't get to this level by being a community organizer. I trust her. The real question is who's her VP?

    PALIN 2012!

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  13. Sarah Palin is the democrats worst nightmare. Although the msm will continue to belittle her, too many American families relate to having children that are not "impossibly cute" as John Stewart described the Obama girls. And too many Americans have had the Michelle Obama is "soooo beautiful" line shoved at them too many times, while no one can dispute the manliness of Todd Palin and the womanliness of Sarah Palin. The fairy tale story of Obama can and should be replaced by a real story of real people.

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