Hard News: Go Us
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/pusing/pushing
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I present you I'llbeanadvocateforspecialneedsgate. Turns out quite a few people contacted the media after that line in the speech to point out that, far from being an advocate for special needs as governor, she cut the budget in that area by 62%. But then of course she's only had a special needs child of her own since April.
So it's not families that matter in the plural, or even in the abstract. It's strictly your own family.
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Just in from the RNC. A swiftly penned tribute to the new VP hopeful:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.For myself, I can see a bit of the "George Washington" spirit in her.
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Wha?? Obviously, he's pusing a party line. Either that or we didn't watch the same speech.
Oh, to be fair I think Frum is right -- she went out there and threw red meat to the party faithful (who else is going to be on the floor of a political party convention?) like Ann Coulter immediately after a double expresso or twelve. But I think Frum is right on the button with his substantive "anxieties" about Palin's lack of substance and McCain's questionable judgement. And that corner of the world wide web is a place where you have to have considerable cohoes to deviate from the party line that Sarah Palin is Thatcher, Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt and Truman reincarnate.
Still, it is oddly endearing seeing the American right exhibit a hitherto unsuspected affection for pregnant unmarried teenagers. Don't think Chelsea Clinton would have gotten off so lightly if she had fronted the '96 convention with her baby bump cradled in one hand, and her husband-to-be sitting beside her.'
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When I get a bit tipsy, I like reciting that poem too. Except my version goes
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
No. -
For myself, I can see a bit of the "George Washington" spirit in her.
Although, on further reflection, that might be understating things a little. A case could be made for comparing her to Alexander the Great, who himself was once a hockey mum.
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Alexander the Great, who himself was once a hockey mum
In that he kept mum about hockey?
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Don:
I thought the current iteration of the Republican Party was more Arthur Hugh Clough than the Bard, myself:
**The Latest Decalogue**
Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would be at the expense of two?
No graven images may be
Worshipped, except the currency:
Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:
Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:
Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:
Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.The sum of all is, thou shalt love,
If anybody, God above:
At any rate shall never labour
More than thyself to love thy neighbour.Though if you want to go for Shakespeare, you could do worse than __Titus Andronicus__ -- though it might be stretching things a little casting Palin as either the brutally vengeful Tamora, Queen of the Goths or Titus' virtuous (and tragically abused) daughter, Lavinia.
But I wonder if the McCain camp is full of people whose breasts would return an echo to these snarling, spitting lines.
Lucius. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
Aaron. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,—
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.[...]
O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?
I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
I should repent the evils I have done:
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
Would I perform, if I might have my will;
If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul. -
Palin's speech was good. What's the point of a convention speech without some good red meat in it?
I certainly can't remember a VP pick that has created such a stir in a long time. Unusual for a VP pick to motivate and excite the base while also appealing to other voter profiles, usually it is one or the other.
The bile vented on Palin by MSM and liberal types has been as expected, and can be an important indicator of the worth of a person. Some of the most important (and successful) political figures of the last century were despised by the media and liberal establishments.
At the end of the day it is only the undercard, Obama and McCain will decide the race. -
I present you I'llbeanadvocateforspecialneedsgate. Turns out quite a few people contacted the media after that line in the speech to point out that, far from being an advocate for special needs as governor, she cut the budget in that area by 62%. But then of course she's only had a special needs child of her own since April.
This doesn't appear to be correct. All that happened was a budget line for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy Program was taken from one accounting column and put in another.
2007 budget
Special Education Service Agency (SESA) - $2,072.3
Providence Heights School - $145.0
Alaska School for the Deaf - $319.0.
The Department of Education & Early Development - $637.4.
Alaska Challenge Youth Academy Program - $5,724.72008 Budget
Special Education Service Agency (SESA) - $2,054.6
Providence Heights School - $145.0
Alaska School for the Deaf - $319.0.
The Department of Education & Early Development - $637.4.The budget for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy in 2007, 2008 and 2009 can be seen here: http://www.gov.state.ak.us/omb/09_omb/budget/EED/comp2837.pdf
2007 - 5.5 million
2008 - 5.7 million
2009 - 6.1 millionSo, there was not a real decrease of 62% in this budget, just a shift in a line of the budget to somewhere else.
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This doesn't appear to be correct. All that happened was a budget line for the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy Program was taken from one accounting column and put in another.
True -- although the budget did still fall a little. But as someone pointed out further down that thread Giovanni linked to, McCain/Palin have absolutely nothing on the table for special needs, while Obama (whose chief strategist has an autistic son) has a detailed and cohesive set of proposals.
The closest McCain has got was entertaining the mercury-causes-autism bunkum in a speech.
If you want a comparison between the respective styles of the two sides, I think this is quite a good one. Mawkish symbolism versus actual policy.
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Palin's speech was good. What's the point of a convention speech without some good red meat in it?
Absolutely nothing, James. But much as I love rare steak, it's much more nourishing with some boring old vegetables on the plate. As I've said up thread, Biden's speech was less partisan than I expected -- and I found that a damn sight more endearing than a talkback rave.
I certainly can't remember a VP pick that has created such a stir in a long time.
Well, like them or not, the usual Veepstakes winner on both sides is serious, credible, experienced and thoroughly vetted. I'm pretty sure McCain would cause the biggest sir even if he did a Jim Morrison and pulled his cock out of his pants during his keynote speech. But even in our spin-addled political culture, not every bit of publicity is good publicity.
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I'm pretty sure McCain would cause the biggest sir even if he did a Jim Morrison
I'd have liked to see some rope tricks & fancy shootin' from the Governor though. That would have been cool.
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If you want a comparison between the respective styles of the two sides, I think this is quite a good one. Mawkish symbolism versus actual policy.
Absolutely agree. I do think it's important though to not too quickly go down the road of observations that get accepted as facts when they can be rebutted easily enough by a bit of Googling. I've posted to the climate denier meme up thread and I don't think the book banning at the local library thing is quite as clear cut either.
Personally I find the fact that someone of this ilk having any traction at all in the 21st century profoundly disturbing.
Disturbing and mesmerising at the same time. -
I do think it's important though to not too quickly go down the road of observations that get accepted as facts when they can be rebutted easily enough by a bit of Googling
Guilty as charged here - I trusted Soledad O'Brien to have fact checked the claim. Very unwise, in hindsight.
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Cracker, don't go there. Uh oh... she went there! (Hat-tip Andrew Sullivan)
Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term "uppity" to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.
Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.
"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.
Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”
And even more endearing:
At an April 12 event in his district, Kentucky Rep. Geoff Davis (R) said of Obama: “I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”
Davis sent a letter of apology to Obama in which he described his remark as a “poor choice of words.”
Well, as my Grandma used to say the apology is all very nice. But isn't it better that you don't have anything to apologise for in the first place -- and it should a no-brainer that you don't patronise grown-ups, regardless of their gender or race, as boys and girls.
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'Uppity' and 'boy'.
Whew.
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Latest CBS polling shows McCain and Obama tied with McCains positives up substantially from pre-convention (though still well behind Obama).
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And I was going to say, hands off Molly! Just because she played the rich princess that one time in the Breakfast Club? But her latest project turns out to be spookily relevant.
Indeed. I didn't mean to slight Ringwall; just the she seemed to regularly portray the kind of preppy midwestern women who seem to be everywhere at the RNC.
The Harry Truman comparison they cooked up for Palin was duff too. Truman might have come from a small town, but he spent 10 years in the Senate (busting war profiteers, among other things) before FDR tapped him as veep in 1944.
And do you think thought was given to Truman's historic use of atomic weaponry? Perhaps they did and it was intended; that scares me most. I wonder if McCain might at least be a better commander in chief than W, but Palin? Talk about reversing gender stereotypes.
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'Uppity' and 'boy'.
Whew.
And one might have thought Westmoreland would have taken the opportunity to walk that one back. OK, it's not the biggest scandal of all time but it really says a lot about how tin-eared the Republicans are.
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And do you think thought was given to Truman's historic use of atomic weaponry? Perhaps they did and it was intended; that scares me most.
Well, you might be right -- Truman was a 'war President' however reluctant and unexpected that status was. But he also volunteered to serve in World War One -- despite being legally blind (he passed the test by secretly memorising the chart), and was deemed as engaged in essential war work as he was running the family farm.
Also, Truman is the only 20th century President who didn't earn a college degree, in large part due to financial reasons. Suck that pointy-head elitists!
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Oh, and not that anyone should care but I've just got a Redbaiter facial over on Kiwiblog for daring to suggest that solar eclipses aren't caused by Sarah Palin clenching her buttocks.
Must be one of those days that end in Y.
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Latest CBS polling shows McCain and Obama tied
Gallup and Rasmussen still at +7 and +5.
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Gallup and Rasmussen still at +7 and +5.
I'm still saying that this election is McCain's. If anything Sarah Palin showed us the that the treat them dumb and dumber approach still has the most resonance.
Big lies delivered as gospel without a blink, a big slab of kentucky fried fear, a touch of homely flag waving and simplistic platitudes masquerading as policy will win every time.
Sadly that's the America Rove knows and he's right.
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There's a fascinating (alarming) quiz at Salon: Palin or Bush?. And a related article.
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