George Will: Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society

The Washington Post ^ | February 18, 2010 | George F. Will

[Clemenza]

Get a clue! The original income tax fell on high earners, and was pushed by the populists starting in the late 19th century. The given reason was those "wealthy industrialists" in the north/upper midwest were "hogging all the wealth" away from the "little man" in the rural states.

Stop trying to rewrite history to fit your own attempts to redefine "populism" ie the philosophy of failures who resent that others are more successful than them.

[curiosity]

I fear that what many are seeing (even FReepers) is a provincial accent (JFK had one, too), a less than Ivy League education (Reagan didn't have one, either) and what the mainstream media wants them to see.

Actually, what you say is true more for her supporters than her detractors. Most Palin fans like her primarily because of her provincial background and lack of contact with teh nation's elite. I've seen many Freeper Palin worhsipers admit as much.

I don't think any Palin skeptics on FR care about her accent or where she went to school. I certainly don't. My concern his her lack of any coherent political philosophy or substantive ideas about governing.

YOu don't need an Ivy education or a New England accent to impress me. I care about the ideas in your head, not about your accents or what's written on your resume.

What is it that you find so compelling about her?

[curiosity]

She tried a novel idea when oil prices fell in 2009, and Alaska's revenues fell.

Okay. So you admit that high oil prices, not Sarah Palin, were responsible for the high revenues in 2008. Good. That's progress.

It's called SPENDIG CUTS.

Right. She did such a great job with those spending cuts, the state ran a $1.65 billion deficit in fiscal 2009. What a fiscal conservative she must be! LOL.

[SmokingJoe]

“Okay. So you admit that high oil prices, not Sarah Palin, were responsible for the high revenues in 2008. Good. That's progress.”

I admitted nothing of the kind.
You don't hear so good. I just showed you a graph showing that oil prices actually collapsed in 2008.

http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts/crude_oil.html
I also pointed out to you, that there are plenty of other states that produce huge quantities of oil, yet none of them manged to double revenues in 2008, yet Sarah Palonn did.

[SmokingJoe]

“Actually, what you say is true more for her supporters than her detractors”

ROFL!
Now why don't you get back to me when you get back to reality?

“Most Palin fans like her primarily because of her provincial background and lack of contact with the nation's elite”

I support her because she fought corruption in her own party(when her party lost touch with the masses who put them in power, and became corrupt), took on the establishment, and whupped them, putting plenty of them in orange jump suits in jail, and governed as a fiscal conservative, and never lost sight of the fact that she was there to serve the people who put her there. The congress in Washington need to go to Sarah Palin for lessons on how to govern properly.

[OldDeckHand]

"How the hell does a columnist like Will afford a 19 million dollar home? I think Bill Gates’ home only cost something like 23 million."

Will lives on Grafton St in Chevy Chase. I've seen his home, I have friends in his neighborhood. His home isn't worth anymore than than $2.5 million, TOPS. And, in any other city, it's value is well less than $1 million. This journalist is smoking crack if he/she/it thinks it's worth $19 million. It's ridiculous.

[curiosity]

You don't hear so good. I just showed you a graph showing that oil prices actually collapsed in 2008.

LOL. Do you have any idea when the fiscal year ends in Alaska?

Let me give you a clue: it ends in June.

Now do you know when oil prices collapsed in 2008? I'll let you go figure that out for yourself. But let me give you a hint: they didn't start going down until well after June.

[SmokingJoe]

“Do you have any idea when the fiscal year ends in Alaska?
Let me give you a clue: it ends in June”

Chortle!
Can you read a graph?
Oil prices started collapsing long before June, and it was a very sharp, steep drop. Plus no other oil producing state in the country doubled revenues in 2008.

[curiosity]

Chortle! Can you read a graph?

Yes I can. Obviously, you cannot.

Oil prices started collapsing long before June, and it was a very sharp, steep drop.

Nope. Before shooting your mouth off, you ought to look at the raw data that underlies the graph; it's kind of hard to eyeball it when the labels on x axis aren't very clear.

If you go look at the raw data, it just so happens that oil prices peeked in July of 2008. They did not start their sharp decline until October, long after Alaska's 2008 fiscal year ended.

Here's a source that has the raw data, in case you don't beleive me:

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp

Plus no other oil producing state in the country doubled revenues in 2008.

LOL. You're not very good with numbers, are you?

If you were, you would realize that's because no other state produces anywhere near the volume of oil that Alaska produces. We're talking orders of magnitude here.

[SmokingJoe]

“LOL. You're not very good with numbers, are you?

If you were, you would realize that's because no other state produces anywhere near the volume of oil that Alaska produces. We're talking orders of magnitude here.”

Yeah?
Will you excuse me while I laugh?
Read this:

U.S. Crude Oil Production 2007 by Major Producing States and Federal Gulf of Mexico (Million Barrels per Day)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/crudeproduction.html
It just so happens that Texas produces more oil than Alaska
Not only that, California is not that far behind Alaska either.
Ooops! There goes your "no other state produces anywhere near the volume of oil that Alaska produces. We're talking orders of magnitude here.”, right out the door. :)
You don't have a clue what you are talking about do you?
Alaska doubled state revenues in 2008, because Sarah Palin introduced a new system of splitting the oil profits, in a program called “ACES.”.

[okie01]

Actually, what you say is true more for her supporters than her detractors. Most Palin fans like her primarily because of her provincial background and lack of contact with teh nation's elite. I've seen many Freeper Palin worhsipers admit as much

Gee. I've encountered a lot of FReepers who were put off by her accent, the assertion she "didn't have a good education, even the fact she seemed to like country music. If you're not one of those, power to you.

I don't think any Palin skeptics on FR care about her accent or where she went to school. I certainly don't.

You don't need an Ivy education or a New England accent to impress me. I care about the ideas in your head, not about your accents or what's written on your resume.

Ah, good for you. But others do.

My concern his her lack of any coherent political philosophy or substantive ideas about governing.

What is it that you find so compelling about her?

Obviously, we're not listening to the same person. To me, she's Reagan in a skirt. The same openess, the same honesty, the same philosophy -- uncomplicated and resolutely American. And I've been a Reagan fan since 1964.

Philosophically, being the President of the United States is pretty simple. First, national security. Second, let the country work.

[Clinging Bitterly]

btrl