Sarah Palin -- Good for Women's Health:
From Sarah Seltzer on The Huffington Post:
When I saw that John McCain had picked Sarah Palin as his running mate this morning, I was on the elliptical trainer, and my rage propelled me to the most furious workout I've had in a while.
Hey, people pay personal trainers good money for helping motivate workouts. Send in your check, please.
It's the people in the middle McCain needs to win over. A divisive, far-right fundamentalist isn't going to do it.
Nobody is going to feel sorry for her now as the press continues to tear her into a thousand pieces.
All elections involve a division. (One of the definitions of "division" is "The separating of the members of a legislative body, etc. into two groups, in order to count their votes.") It's true that sometimes people will be more likely to go to your side if you seem like an inclusive uniting sort, but sometimes they will go to your side if you come across as someone who stands for something and who's willing to duke it out with the other side. So general talk of someone's being "divisive" doesn't do much for me.
Well, yes, but she clearly comes from the far, far right. Standing for something is one thing, but the majority of Americans don't share the values she stands for.
We talk about American political parties being "big tents", and this is true, but it's worth noting that the Dems pitch their tent on the left side of the field and the Repubs on the right side; the overlap in the middle doesn't go to the edges; you can't please everyone.
We all know who's going to call the shots in the White house: the President. We hope that he'll listen to the VP, but we don't expect the VP to set the tone and direction of the administration. Given that fact, it's probably better if the running mates are operating on more or less the same wavelength.
I keep hearing this, but I find it a little bit of a stretch. She is definitely pro-life, but I think you'll find that many people are. I get the distinct impression that people who say this are from the far left, and so anything moderately conservative seems like it's coming from deep right-field to them.
Let's see...
She wants creationism taught in schools. She thinks it's a good idea for unwed 17-yr-old girls to have babies, but when they do, she doesn't want them to received any kind of public aid. She thinks God wants a pipeline through Canada. She wanted the library to ban books. She directed a 527 for Ted Stevens.
Shall I go on?
OMG! I was like so mad, too!
*Stomps foot. Makes mean-girl face. Looks around for people to notice me.*
It's very clear on a number of issues that Palin is far to the right. Not just her positon on abortion (which is undeniably outside the mainstream), but also religion in public life, creationism in schools, climate change, protection of endangered species, the environment, sex education, etc., she is on the rightward edge of the GOP.
Me thinks you protest too much.
Fair enough. I do think though that she is not quite as far right as many people have made her out to be. The creationism issue for instance has been misreported. In an article in the Anchorage Daily News she actually meant to say that she didn't think creationism should be on the curriculum, but that if it came up in class it should be discussed. That is a far cry from saying that evolution should not be taught in favor of creationism.
Damn, I'm sorry, I got snowed under by Democratic talking points.
As long as she doesn't go for a hard cell on the social-conservative angle, and I understand she hadn't even in Alaska, I happen to know a lot of socially-liberal but otherwise moderate voters who are looking at/going to be looking at her.
I get the distinct impression that people who say this are from the far left, and so anything moderately conservative seems like it's coming from deep right-field to them.
Let's talk about other great Pentecostals in recent American politics, like John Ashcroft.
hey:
If you think Sarah is the far right wing of the party,you just betray your ignorance.
True, that.
Nick
The alleged non-funding of public aid was a request by Covenant House to expand it's services by 5.5M which was cut to 3.9M expansion. Oh, the horror they didn't get the full increase they asked for!
The case of banning library books seems pretty tenuous at best. I haven't found any corroborating information yet.
All words. No deeds. Sure you're not thinking of your own candidate?
You'd think Bill's own supporters would have learned from the overwhelming effectiveness of Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers, et. al.
You guys have a winner. Ride him. Take down McCain. Palin is not the droid you're looking for. This time.
Seriously, though, I was a little disappointed by the speech, but then I realized - this is what equality looks like. She gave the usual VP attack speech. Just doing her job, whether we approve of it or not.
I may disagree with Gov. Palin on a number of issues, but I'm not going to put her down for those opinions.
It has been *reported* that she falls in the 'opposed to abortion even in rape cases' arm of the pro life crowd. *IF* such is the case, then she qualifies as 'far right', IMO. But I'll also withold judgement until such 'facts' are confirmed.
That aside, if Palin PO's some dolt at the Buffooningtwat Post, I wish she was twins.
"It's no rare thing for the right wing to use prominent women to keep the rest of us down. But just because Sarah Palin is a woman doesn't mean she's good for women. And female voters know that."
Behind Seltzer's anger, there is an important subtext: The left wing can no longer claim it speaks for all "female voters." Nor can it claim, in the words of Seltzer, that "our irrational she-hormones will lead us, like sheep, to pull the lever" for the left wing candidate.
For someone who expects women to march in lock step with a left wing agenda, it is good reason to be angry.
Oh, and don't be so angry with the women amongst us. They're our sisters and mothers.
Her beauty is intimidating, isn't Ms. Seltzer? Keep working-out, you'll get there.
She is a conservative. Her inclination is to always go with a conservative solution first, but if it doesn't go through, she falls back to a populist position to get something done that people are happy with.
So while some of her personal views may be way out on the fringe, she isn't going to try and force them on an unwilling population.
About a month ago, my Mom excitedly asked me if I wanted John McCain to pick Romney as his vice-presidential canidate. I told her no, I wanted Romney to stay far away from a McCain presidency. I told her that I thought Palin would be a terrific match for McCain, but she was such a little known Governor from a low electoral state like Alaska that she didn't have a shot.
Over the past couple years I have heard a few interviews by her and had heard about some of the things she was doing up there, I liked her. I found her speech last night to be entertaining and fun.
I don't think Biden will find her to be a push over in the vice-presidential debates.
It has been confirmed that BO falls in the 'if the aborted baby manages to survive the abortion and comes out alive, let's stick it in a closet until it dies' arm of the pro-abortion crowd, so I guess we all agree that he is far, far left.
I know that in NYC being pro-life seems fringy, but it's a position held by a very large number of Americans. (Indeed, the hysteria over the possibility of Roe being overturned suggests that liberals realize this, even if they won't admit it; if being pro-life were really so extremist, then they'd have nothing to worry about if it were left to the legislatures.) Now, to forestall the obvious, yes, not supporting the rape exception is unusual, but to say that being anti-abortion is extremist, merely because a very minor portion of her position on the issue is, is unjustifiable.
As for the others, I don't think you'll convince many people she's "far to the right" on any of these. What did she ever say about "religion in public life" that would make her "far to the right"? As I understand it, she doesn't oppose sex ed; she just supports teaching abstinence rather than contraceptive use. Is that actually "far to the right"? Etc., etc. I'm not saying that she's not on the conservative side of the spectrum; she obviously is. But what makes her "far" to the right, rather than a mainstream conservative?
How very... cosmopolitan of Ms. Seltzer.
This is what my boss keeps saying. So I asked "then you would also be against Hillary running?" and he told me "that's different".
I don't even understand people anymore.
I don't understand how it matters, and why politicians wbo are against abortion say it's ok in those instances.+
Whether you believe life begins at conception, or at viability, or at birth, in all 3 cases, that's when you believe life begins no matter how it started. At one of those 3 points in time is when you are no longer a mass of cells but a human.
Now how can someone who believes that life begins at conception turn around and say "but you're not human if the mother was raped". You are either a human with rights, or you are not. There is no middle ground, "some are human and some are not", how can there be?
Rape and incest are horrible crimes, but they have nothing to do with the argument of when life begins. And yes it's quite an awful lot to ask a woman who was victimized to carry a baby to term, but if you believe life begins at conception, then I don't see how you can do anything but that (except maybe offer to help as well). I think it's all the others who claim to believe life begins at conception who actually do not.
Same with people who believe in point of viability and downs syndrome. No one really gets elective abortions that late in the pregnancy unless they discover the baby has birth defects. But if you believe in point of conception or point of viability, you can't make an exception for that either.
I'm a point of viability person myself, and the idea of discovering my baby might be retarded in the last trimester scares the hell out of me. No one wants to hear that, but if I did, well if I have the courage of my convictions then I'll ask my wife to keep our child no matter what is wrong with him, and hopefully not say "well I didn't mean in THIS case".
Also had a schadenfreude moment when the reporter interviewing Romney riposted Romney's talking point about Biden's Obama putdown by saying "well, you also said a lot of things about McCain during the primaries". He didn't say much, still held his expression perfectly, but you could see the red blush of embarassment... :-)
Palin had a great delivery, but my mom who is still undecided asked me "she's not pro-choice, right?" and I realized that those Hillary voters may not bite on McCain. He would have been better off riling up the base with other means and keeping the ticket a little more moderate on the abortion issue.
spare me the "far right" thing. let's get real
1) she does not want creationism taught in schools. that's already been debunked. she wants evolution.
2) she does NOT think it's a good idea for a 17 yr old to have a baby. that is rubbish. she does think it's a BETTER idea for them to have a baby than abort it. i'm pro-choice, but her position is HARDLY far right. please provide any evidence she doesn't want them to receive "ANY KIND OF PUBLIC AID" (your words).
3) Which books were they, fwiw. I don't think a library should carry (for example) hardcore porn. So, in that sense I'm for banning books - FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARY. Most people would not want a public library to carry hardcore porn, or white supremacist magazines, for instance. in that sense, nearly EVERYBODY is for banning books from a library. I'm honestly curious WHAT books we are talking about here.
etc.
i heard she is against abortion in the case of rape. that's about the only position that could arguably be called "far right".
The undecideds that I know care more about the abortion thing than the bridge to Terabithia, pipelines, energy policy with Russia, 527s, etc, pregnant daughters, book banning, etc.
Those smaller items are meant to rile the liberal base in my opinion. I agree that she's not that "right" on things.
"Anyone who gets enraged by a Presidential candidate's selection of running mate is in serious need of psychotropic medication."
McCain is already solidly pro-life. Even if McCain chose a pro-choice candidate (rudy, etc.) people would still recognize the prez appoints SCOTUS judges (and that's the only real way a president affects choice), not the VP.
I guess if he chose a pro-choice Palin (im not aware there IS such a creature but...), he might get some more hillaryites than he is going to get. But... the mccain ticket is a pro-life ticket because mccain is pro-life.
For the "litmus testers" , they will vote obama no matter what.
this election will not be decided by the abortion litmus test voters. it's the swing/independents.
Who else has reformed Government as she has ???
OBama talks of Change , Sarah did it.
She's good for Hoosierwife's health. She is very enthused by Palin so far.
And I like it a lot when Mrs. Hoosier is enthused.
Good question. I'm sure that the shelves of the library were filled with plenty of books that Americans would consider "hardcore porn", right? Surely, Mayor Palin was only trying to rid the library of "hardcore porn". Otherwise, her position would be wrong by your own standards.
I think what Whit is asking for is SPECIFIC titles of books that then Mayor Palin wanted banned. To say she wanted to ban books is a mindless talking point unless it is placed in context--something usually either lost or distorted in politics.
If not, the library has to make decisions about what to keep on its shelves and what to omit.
Maybe the point makes more sense if you replace "divisive" with "polarizing."
No, it's not a question of "misreported," and it's not a question of "meant to say." What happened is first she said one thing, and then she said something else, the next day. This is what she said first:
This is what she said the next day:
The way it looks to me is that first she gave an answer which revealed her authentic belief, and then she backpedaled after she noticed the uproar she created.
No, it's not that she needs to take care of Trig. The problem is that there needs to be some parent taking care of him. Trouble is, it's not Todd, and it's not her. Palin has asked us to admire her for her parental choices. But when I actually look at her parental choices, what I see is an irresponsible parent:
Who's further right than she is? Coulter? stormfront?
You need to pay less attention to her speech and more attention to her record.
A pretty detailed account is here. Palin tried, and then fired the person who got in her way.
Not because she didn't try. Because she was stopped by a courageous librarian who ended up sacrificing her job.
The article indicates that Palin got as far as complaining to the librarian about "obscenity," but didn't get as far as presenting a list of titles. The librarian made it clear right away that no books were going to be banned. Palin later fired this person.
She's only been there 20 months. Rome wasn't built in a day.
I'm not sure what you would require for "confirmed" beyond this:
And you feel confident about this because she hasn't managed to do so in 20 months?
Sorry to confuse you with the facts:
If you or someone close to you was impregnated by a rapist, you would probably not think of the matter as "very minor."
Try this:
I have this quaint idea that my government is supposed to follow the will of the people, not "God's will."
That's because what he did is obvious tokenism. It's clear that he picked her not because she is the most qualified person.
Indeed. Romney is on video calling McCain "dishonest." And that was his softer statement, after backpedaling from calling him a liar.
I agree. But McCain signaled his direction when he told Rick Warren that life begins at conception.
What Sarah "did" is replace the old set of cronies with her own new set of cronies.
And her idea of 'reform' is to lie to the public.
Our library also recently underwent massive construction to create more space. I'm under the impression they were also given funds to buy more books. The shelves are full. I don't think I've ever run across a library with empty shelves or spare space. (It's pretty easy to just never throw anything away no matter how worn or un-circulated.)
FWIW, my sister is a law librarian. She worked in at the LA county library for a while. She also reports that libraries do need to periodically get rid of book and outdated reference materials.
So, yes. Every library needs to make decisions about what books to keep on the shelves and what books to omit.
What does this tell us about the Sarah Palin story? Very little. But the story is so vague I honestly have no idea what Sarah did or said to the librarian. It may fall in the category of "So what?" or it may be horrifying.
Those who think this is a big story should provide details and/or link to newscoverage.
Correct but that decision isn't based on the political whims of elected officials who want to cleanse the library of unpure thoughts.
I also see ditching outdated reference materials as significatly different than having everything up to date and still not having space.
One library I worked for had a nearly complete collection of National Geographic dating back to the 1920s with many duplicate issues after 1960 yet also had several hundred empty feet of bookshelf space.
I did precisely that, shortly before you posted. You probably missed it.
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