The definition of hubris

Does she not get that when she says “a writer,” that makes googling the quote, finding out Wetbrook Pegler wrote it, and then finding out Westbrook Pegler was a whckjob, more or less reflex?CC

She’s a “cocky wacko.” Lincoln Chafee I didn’t hear the quote about war with Russia. I hope it wasn’t said with her usual Tracy Enid Flick look of determined zeal.

Lincoln Chaffee didn’t say that Sarah Palin is ‘cocky wacko’. I know that makes a stirring headline, and argument for political nerds to hang their rage on, but it is cutting and pasting words for effect. What, in fact, he said was that he considered her assertion that Obama was too concerned with Al Qaeda terrorists getting read their legal rights to be wacky, and that her tone was very, very cocky. It’s a grammatical distinction, to be sure, but important, none the less.

Palin Derangement Syndrome Some of the symptoms are: 1.She gets in your head and drives you crazy.2.You are afraid she will get elected…and it drives you nuts.3.A Republican picked someone who will appeal to the base of his party….and it drives you bonkers.4. You feel the Democratic VP pick is so superior to her and can’t understand her appeal….and it drives you insane.5. You think the vetting process of a Republican candidate should be done by the Daily Kos not the Republican party…..and it drives you mad.6. She owns guns for Christ sakes.

John McCain, in October of 2007:”I have had a strong and a long relationship on national security, I’ve been involved in every national crisis that this nation has faced since Beirut, I understand the issues, I understand and appreciate the enormity of the challenge we face from radical Islamic extremism…I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time.” So really, I’m just taking John McCain’s position that Sarah Palin isn’t prepared. Wait–what’s that you say? You say McCain is now saying there is someone with less mayoral experience than Giuliani and less experience as a governor than Romney who is qualified to step in and handle foreign policy if she has to? But that would make McCain a hypocrite! Or is going back on your principles to win an election the mavericky thing to do?

Perhaps the true definition of hubris is Charlie Gibson and the NY Times getting the Bush Doctrine wrong, then belittling Palin for it. This is from Dr. Charles Krauthammer, who coined the term in 2001 to define the first of at least four variations of the Bush Doctrine. Apparently Gibson and the Times wanted Palin to respond not to the current version of the Bush Doctrine, but to the outdated version three of four. You can’t make this stuff up!As Krauthammer said beautifully tonight, “Yes, Sarah Palin didn’t know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn’t pretend to know — while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and “sounding like an impatient teacher,” as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes’ reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.”

I think Fish is really on to something with the changing “Bush Doctrine” and Palin’s attempts to describe a set of ideas as a single stationary thing.I mean, tonight the second part of the interview aired and a transcript was posted, and Palin can’t keep straight whether she was for the bridge or against the bridge, except she was always right and always consistent. But that’s OK — there must be two Palins at stake here.Same thing with earmarks — one Palin loves earmarks for her state and the other Palin sees them as wasteful. They’re just both getting interviewed simultaneously, and the corpus callosum is clearly getting overwhelmed.That silly media, trying to insist there’s only one Palin and that one Palin should be questioned for all the Palins’ actions. Long Live the McCain-Palin-Palin-Palin ticket!

Have Obama stay on message as an agent of hope and real change, energize the base.This isn’t Afternoon Tea. It is a friggin’ street fight for the most powerful position on earth with political 2x4s the weapon of choice. Think it’s a coincidence that the only Dem who has succeeded in the last seven elections, is the only one who could play this way? Winning on the issues has nothing to do with it. You win by getting the votes of the last ten percent who decide by some gut response.

Knowledge and experience tend to be related, and the “experience” factor has been debated at length since Obama and then Palin became prospective leaders of this country.Just an observation, then, going back to “this Bush doctrine”/”these Bush doctrines”: It’s hard to find more experienced leaders than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney … and it’d be awfully hard to find someone who said the initial planning for the invasion of Iraq was a masterpiece. As even the initial round of histories has it — and I suspect “Fiasco” will be the gold standard for decades — such highly experienced individuals were even on track to bungle things worse, but for a few professionals who’d tried to argue profusely. At one point, the invasion was supposed to have been done with 25,000 troops.So experience and knowledge only get you so far if the judgment’s lacking, and perhaps values. Seems like voters would do well to consider a total package of the candidates, rather than these factors in isolation. People have been raising comparisons lately to Harry S Truman, who was woefully uninformed; he was, however, an experienced legislator with strong critical thinking skills, good values and pretty decent judgment.I truly hope voters take such rational decision-making into account, even as the talk lingers on lapel pins and lipstick-bearing hockey moms, lipstick-bearing bacon, and the like.

You really can’t read for context can you mark?As I wrote, I am simply assuming Sarah Palin is unqualified using John McCain’s criteria for determining who is qualified to be president and who isn’t. And you’re right Mark, as a 25 year old woman I am assuming she is unqualified because she is a woman because I am engaged in the practice of self-loathing. I also secretly believe women shouldn’t have the right to vote, shouldn’t be allowed to hold property, and that you have every right to stare down my shirt because I’m asking for it. So now, according to you, I’m a sexist, and Peter Porcupine thinks I’m a bigot. How charming. Take your condescending lecture on sexism and save it for complaining about how McCain/Palin lost because liberals hate women.

A letter-writer to the Boston Globe went through the sexist arguments in a hurry. Thought it was interesting reading this morning …