Air Force General: Madam President., here are the facts. The F-22 can't land on aircraft carriers. It's land based.
President Palin (winking): Oh...c'mon there now, General. Let's just hook up a couple of static lines and we'll be good to go...you betcha!
It still amazes me that people think she is qualified to be president.
12 comments:
>It still amazes me that people think she is qualified to be president.
Not a Palin fan so I can't say I'd entirely disagree, but I have to ask - in the runup to the 2008 election, what metric did you use that would allow you to say that while Palin is clearly unqualified, Obama is clearly qualified?
Is she as unqualified as the guy who misrepresented several scientists' opinions as support for his drilling moratorium?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44921.html
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1276064428189870.xml&coll=1
There's a difference between the know-nothingism of Palin and stopping drilling for oil in a place where we have clear and undeniable proof that accidents have long-term catastrophic consequences.
Palin and Bush and company have outright contempt for the facts. The oil spill in the Gulf showed with absolute clarity that we don't have a handle on containing oil spills there.
The conservative thing to do when you realize you have a potential problem is to stop doing what can cause the problem and figure out a way to prevent the problem from getting out of control.
But the word "conservative" has adopted a complete new meaning. Instead of meaning cautious or preserving, it now means "do whatever Karl Rove and Grover Norquist command."
And they command that everything be done to make Democrats look bad. The Republicans must oppose any and every initiative that Democrats propose simply because they can give no quarter to their enemies.
That means the Republicans are not in control of their agenda. The Democrats are -- the Republicans make a knee-jerk decision to oppose whatever the Democrats are for.
This concept of total opposition is why the current crop of Republicans are unfit to govern.
blk translation: when Republicans oppose my preferred policy prescriptions, they are unfit to govern!
Hap-to put it simply, Yes he is.
I don't think the the qualifications for president should be measured by whether or not someone ran a business or was governor. I think it has to do with intellect and the ability to manage complexities...both before he became presidency and since that time. Ideology really doesn't matter to me either if one can prove definable results based on said ideology. Obama has this intellectual capacity and has demonstrated an ability to manage complexities. In many ways, he reminds me of Lincoln...a lawyer with limited government experience but a superior intellect.
In the case of Palin, blk is correct. She has an outright contempt for facts and that is very dangerous indeed when one is president.
>I don't think the the qualifications for president should be measured by whether or not someone ran a business or was governor.
In other words, you don't value experience as much as perceived intellect. Fair enough. From what I perceive to be your position in life, I can see why you'd think that.
>I think it has to do with intellect and the ability to manage complexities...
How does one measure "the ability to manage complexities?" Seems like a 100% subjective measure to me.
>Obama has this intellectual capacity and has demonstrated an ability to manage complexities.
No. Obama is good at *looking like* he has high intellectual capacity, in the manner of a college professor. And yeah - back when I was in school, I thought my professors were pretty smart, worldly people too. It's not till you get outside of the academic bubble that you realize that college professors seem smart primarily because they've never had to test their theories against real world experience. (They also tend to oversimplify the world into demons and angels, and they have a tendency to dress these theories up in jargon in order to make them sound more impressive than they really are.)
This is why I value experience far more than you do - it teaches one the limits of pure intellect. You may think that you have some theory that explains how the world works. But when you test that theory against the real world and it fails miserably, you have no choice but to revise, or go back to the drawing board. (Or you could claim that the real world is not valid in some way, but that is usually stupidity squared.) This experience is what gives us a dose of humility in dealing with a world that doesn't often respond in ways that we might otherwise desire. Obama does not seem to have had this experience, and neither have you.
Define "experience." There is no kind of experience that can prepare one to be POTUS. Lincoln proved that your definition of it didn't matter at all and we were in a much worse spot at that time compared to today...although we are close.
And the government should NEVER be run like a business because they are two completely different things. This analogy is a very poor one and is born out of the heroification of CEOs.
Measuring one's ability to manage complexities comes from an analysis of one's views of themselves and the world. If someone has an outright contempt for facts (the point of this post) then that would be one example of an inability to manage complexities. If someone demonstrates personal reflection, that would be one example of the ability to manage complexities. Obama demonstrates the latter every day and did before he took office.
Hap, you are more of the libertarian bend, correct? Show me where in our history it has worked. I can show you dozens of examples of successful socialistic programs. I'd also like to see where Obama has "failed" from the classroom to the real world in terms of his policies. He's certainly made mistakes and has some PR problems but the numbers of his success speak for themselves.
Check out the WTF has Obama done link again. And review how he saved capitalism.
stopping drilling for oil in a place where we have clear and undeniable proof that accidents have long-term catastrophic consequences.
? Is Prince William Sound a lifeless wasteland? Undeniable, long-term and catastrophic, used together seem to be a bit of hyperbole.
Lincoln proved that your definition of it didn't matter at all and we were in a much worse spot at that time compared to today...although we are close.
How did he do that? By making mistake after mistake after mistake until he finally got it right? By spending years breaking the law, violating the constitution and spending young life's at such a profligate rate that if tried today would result in a total collapse of the gov't?
And the government should NEVER be run like a business because they are two completely different things.
Remember that next time you tell us that the government can do something more efficiently and can save us money. The two are different.
If someone has an outright contempt for facts (the point of this post) then that would be one example of an inability to manage complexities.
Highly ironic statement coming from you.
personal reflection, that would be one example of the ability to manage complexities. Obama demonstrates the latter every day and did before he took office.
Vanity approaching narcissism is not the personal reflection you are looking for.
I can show you dozens of examples of successful socialistic programs.
And I can show you millions of victims of successful socialistic programs.
review how he saved capitalism.
Coming from a person who seems to hate capitalism, I can't figure out if you're hyping this as a way to 'spin' that he didn't destroy capitalism as much as you all expected him to. Or if you truly believe, in your shallow and hate filled manner, in your misconceptions of capitalism and O's effect upon it.
If someone has an outright contempt for facts (the point of this post) then that would be one example of an inability to manage complexities.
And once again, I point you to the facts that he misrepresented in order to push through his moratorium. His panel of scientists didn't think it was called for. So he had his people misrepresent their advice in order to use them as cover for the political position he wanted.
Go back and actually read those links, why dontcha? What do they show? Contempt for the facts, that's what.
>Define "experience."
Well, mw.com defines it as:
"practical knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events or in a particular activity"
Seems alright to me.
>There is no kind of experience that can prepare one to be POTUS.
Er, how about executive experience, such as oh, I dunno, a governor? Even if I were to grant your premise, the implication is that nobody can be unqualified for the position of POTUS, since no experience is required. All you are saying in the end is that you think Palin is dumb, and therefore unqualified. Well, if that is the case, then Obama is clearly unqualified from my standpoint. If Palin is dumb in the traditional sense, Obama is worse in that he isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and is unable to realize that. (You have that same problem.) Hubris, in other words. I'll take a dumb person who can learn from their mistakes any time over a "smart" person who doesn't learn from their mistakes.
>And the government should NEVER be run like a business because they are two completely different things.
Indeed - businesses can actually allocate resources efficiently. Governments, for the most part, can't. This is why putting resources into the hands of the government is not a good way to allocate resources.
>Measuring one's ability to manage complexities comes from an analysis of one's views of themselves and the world. If someone has an outright contempt for facts (the point of this post) then that would be one example of an inability to manage complexities. If someone demonstrates personal reflection, that would be one example of the ability to manage complexities. Obama demonstrates the latter every day and did before he took office.
Do you ever get tired of flattering yourself? Not surprisingly, you think of yourself as being personally reflective, and thus you manage complexities too! Awesome! So funny watching a narcissist operate. "Certain attributes are objective good, and I just so happen to possess those attributes." Hey Mark, I'm curious - have you ever, in your adult life, had a job that wasn't paid for by the taxpayers?
>Hap, you are more of the libertarian bend, correct? Show me where in our history it has worked.
Kind of, but (and this may come as a shock to you) there are lots of different strains of libertarian thought. I personally find libertarianism useful as a particular lens I can look through to guess/judge the consequences of government action in the real world. As to where libertarianism has worked, and defining libertarianism generally as "leaving people alone", I'd say it worked pretty well, in various forms, in this country up until well meaning but naive individuals like yourself started getting power. People haven't been left alone since.
(cont)
>I can show you dozens of examples of successful socialistic programs.
I bet you can only do that if you define "successful" as "programs that people like" regardless of cost. I would define "successful" as "programs that people like that are sustainable." Social Security isn't sustainable (and its own trustees agree with me, sorry.) Got any others?
>I'd also like to see where Obama has "failed" from the classroom to the real world in terms of his policies.
Oh I didn't say he's failed yet - it will take time for the negative incentives to build (especially around health care) and start exposing its problems. It all springs from the same conceit - that you, Obama, or any one person or even group of people are smart enough to run parts of the economy efficiently. It just isn't so, and that has been shown throughout history over and over and over again. Yet you still think you can accurately know what is in other people's best interest.
>the numbers of his success speak for themselves.
See, this is the funny part - you seem to consider "success" to be "Obama passed a law." Why do you think that is a success? That's the thing about WTF has Obama done - almost all of the things on there are "Obama passed a law that does x." When I read that, I think, ok, he passed law x, which is going to have negative side effect y and z. Once again - making a law does not make it so. People don't respond to incentives the way you might wish.
>And review how he saved capitalism.
Heh. You still think that gibberish is pretty profound huh. Tell me Mark - if Obama hadn't "saved" capitalism, what would it's fate have been? Taken by Gollum into a dark cave? Would we be not allowed to call it capitalism any more?
If someone has an outright contempt for facts (the point of this post) then that would be one example of an inability to manage complexities. If someone demonstrates personal reflection, that would be one example of the ability to manage complexities.
Funny that you claim to do the latter and yet you frequently demonstrate the former. What are we to make of you?
I would also disagree with the simplistic little dichotomy you set up there. Doesn't show much regard for nuance, now does it? It is awfully black-and-white thinking, isn't it?
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