Posted on 02/23/2009 9:19:15 PM PST by VinL
If Barack Obama has been the most remarkable phenomenon of the recent political scene, Sarah Palin must be second. The emotional responses to each-- especially by the media and the intelligentsia -- go beyond anything that can be explained by the usual political differences of opinion on issues of the day.
That liberals would be thrilled by another liberal is not surprising. But there are conservative Republicans who voted for Barack Obama, and other conservatives who may not have voted for him, but who are quick to see in various pragmatic moves of his since taking office an indication that he is not an extremist.
Anyone familiar with history knows that Hitler and Stalin were pragmatic. After years of denouncing each other, they signed the Nazi-Soviet pact under which they became allies for a couple of years before going to war against one another.
Pragmatism tells you nothing about extremism.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Based upon your rigid criteria, Lydon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama were not and are not presidential material.
Your comments are exactly what Sowell is debating concerning Academia’s standards for a president and what the common people want and need.
Barack Obama was terrible w/o a teleprompter and thinks we have 57 states, he made so many geographical errors during the debates I was screaming the responses thru the tv for McCain.
And so by your standard of what makes for a proper candidate and ergo president you must be mightily pleased with our newly minted scholarly president with his degrees from Occidental, Columbia, Harvard [did I miss any??].
Face it he’s a dud. And Sarah can learn plenty over the next 4 years of just observing this 3 ring circus master on what NOT to do.
No, I think your implied mental image was enough.
I do believe that conservatives some voted for That One, thinking that the defeat would result in the purge of RINOs from the party.
It's a very common question. Obama was asked. Here's an excerpt:
In October, the New York Times asked Obama to provide a list of books and writers that were significant to him. Here goes – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois’ Souls of Black Folk, Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory and The Quiet American, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward, John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Robert Caro’s Power Broker, Studs Terkel’s Working, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments, and also Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men – a novel about a corrupt Southern governor (Rod Blagojevich anyone?). And then there were his theology and philosophy influences - Friedrich Nietzsche, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.
LOL!
That's only true if we the voters allow that carp to stand.
And assuming your contention is correct, from which Ivy League college did the two term President Ronald Reagan graduate?
Exceptions yes, but I beleive like TS thinks...the snobs voted her out.
3 times the charm. -:)
So after Sarah has run for president fot 4 years, she too can present a list that her advisors compiled. But do see where Barack left of Mein Kempf and Marxist’s Communist Manifesto or what about Confessions of A Black Liberationist.
'Always' in this matter, has been since 1988, with both Bush's, Clinton and Obama from Yale and/or Harvard. During the 43 years from 1945 to 1988 only Kennedy was an Ivy man. Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Reagan went to non-elite colleges. Eisenhower and Carter went to military academies. Truman never went to college. I do not think that the Bush's, Clinton, Obama, and Kennedy were the best Presidents since WWII.
I don't know. It's pitiful the way it all seems to work.
Sure she's better than Biden or Obama, but for a 2012 nominee, I'd prefer a candidate with a better understanding of either foreign or domestic policy than I have.
And you are deathly wrong if you think it's acceptable to the electorate to have lower standards for a VP nominee than for a presidential nominee.
I think W. was the best president in this nation's history aside from maybe Washington, but I still don't want to go down the road again with another candidate who is as inarticulate as him (and he is far better than Palin in that regard). In 2012, we have some options who are articulate, intelligent, and solidly conservative - which Palin is not - and who didn't sell out their principles by backing McCain's support for the first bailout like Palin did.
I was editing and re-editing. I had FOUR but wanted to lower the bar to TWO.
It’s the Yalies and Cantabs who have gotten us into this mess.
So much for elite education.
The point of an Ivy degree is to certify the alumni as part of the ruling class, not really to educate them.
Are you kidding me? I have absolutely NO problem with a kid kickin’ around colleges until they find one that fits or until they find what it is they want to study. In my way of thinking, someone who does this and then eventually graduates certainly has the grit and determination to get that degree. It’s not like mommy and daddy ploppin’ down their little sweetie into school and picking up the whole tab. Palin has said that she paid her own way through college entirely, with no financial help from her parents, and took breaks to work and earn money for tuition, room, and board. It would’ve been easier just to drop out or quit, and I would guess many in her situation did.
From an Ivy point of view one is educated and suitable for rule BY DEFINITION because of the Ivy degree, not because of any knowledge or analytical skill one may have incidentally acquired in obtaining the degree.
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