What America is coming to?

[Guest EXPAT]

This is really scary and unintentionally funny. It's really sad that people live off of Fox News soundbites without really knowing what they are talking about. Very SCARY and very sad . . .

[Guest StuCotts]

I'm convinced that the scariest and saddest is yet to come. Palin's success proves that the only qualification required for right-wing aspirants to the presidency is the support of the Limbaugh-Beck axis that runs both the movement and the the increasingly irrelevant party that lends its name to it. Eye has not seen nor ear heard of what is preparing to emerge from under any number of flat rocks to swell the ranks of those competing for that august nod. It makes me wonder what the next gopish presidential primary will look like. Freakish, as a guess.

[TampaYankee]

This is really scary and unintentionally funny. It's really sad that people live off of Fox News soundbites without really knowing what they are talking about. Very SCARY and very sad . . .

Sadly, she IS the perfect candidate to inspire and represent this collection of blank slates. Before this video, I found it difficult to grasp just how and who this lady could appeal to. Thank god mindless TV, shiny objects, evangelical churches keep these poeple from playing in the streets. I really had no idea just how badly we have failed, as a country, to have a broadly educated and informed populace.

Kudos to the interviewer. Unlike Borat who encouraged and actively set people up, this guy did an excellent job of conducting absolutely grey interviews and letting the interviewees set themselves up to display their own shocking limitiations and shortcomings. Yes, very scary indeed.

[KYTOP]

Kudos to the interviewer. Unlike Borat who encouraged and actively set people up, this guy did an excellent job of conducting absolutely grey interviews and letting the interviewees set themselves up to display their own shocking limitiations and shortcomings. Yes, very scary indeed.

But in all fairness he kept showing the comments of about 10 people out of hundreds there. Do you think everyone there was so clueless? He obviously showed the people that would project what he wanted to project. It is very common to find people off the street to be clueless on many issues, current events, and even who their members of Congress or other leaders are or what they believe regardless of the side of the issue or the person they support. I've seen the same type of interview with people that support liberal politicians. I've always scratched my head about people that just vote for someone that is a Republican or a Democrat and never really know were a person stands. Many people have never voted for a Democrat and others have never voted for a Republican. Personally I am glad we have a democracy and a two party system.

I also hear many people talk about all right wingers and tea baggers as Republicans. I live in a conservative state that has about 2 Democrats for each Republican. We've only had 2 Republican Governors here in my lifetime and each only served one term. The Tea party express visit here had more Democrats than Republicans participate. Sadly, several people I know, Democrats, attended. Wonder how many people would have told their party affiliation if he had asked? And NO I would not vote for Palin for President. But you would be surprised to find how many people seem to relate to her as a normal everyday "Hockey mom" (we call them soccer moms around here) with kids and the everyday things they also deal with each day. They seem to relate to that more than some lawyer politician that they don't trust. I can see where they may be coming from but I don't want to go to the local Friday night High School football game and just pull one of the player's mom out of the stands and elect her President. Palin seems to bring out the extremes in people, left and right, including alot of hatred from liberals and I still haven't figured that out. To me she is just someone that ran for vice-president and lost. She wrote a book, like alot of failed politicians, and I won't buy it just like I never bought alot of the others.

[TampaYankee]

But in all fairness he kept showing the comments of about 10 people out of hundreds there. Do you think everyone there was so clueless?

I am certainly left to wonder. As you point out, we have no way of what was not aired and I suspect he had a point to make which he did nicely and not heavy-handedly.

I have observed Ms Palin since her arrival on the scene. I'm clueless as to what people see in her that make them believe she is presidential timber. Is is not that she is conservative. I have voted for more conservatives than not. It is simply that she is hollow as a gord. I grant that she has appeal as a celebrity to some. So does Parris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan. I don't understand the appeal of any of them. Nevertheless, there it is. Celebrity is not qualification for the presidency or even for a political spokesperson that should be taken seriously.

He obviously showed the people that would project what he wanted to project. It is very common to find people off the street to be clueless on many issues, current events, and even who their members of Congress or other leaders are or what they believe regardless of the side of the issue or the person they support. I've seen the same type of interview with people that support liberal politicians.

Probably true and sad but true. But the fact that this phenomenon spans the political spectrum does not make it any more appealing or acceptable or any less apalling.

What is a disturbing difference in this case is that this Palin madness is becoming organized by monied interests and coordinated by those interests and by cable 'news' organizations -- all for a political celebrity hollow as a gord. I believe that there are some superficial shared values betweeen those interests and Palin but I also believe there is a 'useful idiot' campaign afoot by some of those interests. Useful idiots are universally bad news for those who are not the controlling interest. For those controlling interests there is also a problem that useful idiots go off script occasionally. This is especially problematic when they have the power of the Supreme Executive in a national governement.

Bush was a boon to the richest of the rich with big tax cuts, a boon to big business through deregulation, failure to enforce laws on the books that impeded big business at the expense of the environment or consumers. Bush was a boon to adimistration connected businesses by privatizing two wars with multi-billion dollar contracts that ripped off taxpayers and denied citizens protection from and recourse to rape and abuse and false imprisonment, not to mention tens of soldiers electrocuted by shoddy work, while DOD and the State Departement looked the other way. He and the Republican Congress rolled back bankruptcy protections laws at the behest of Big Banks. Bush was a boon to neocon crusaders out to remake the world although he was over his head as Commander-in-Chief. He was over his head as Disaster-Responder-in-Chief. Bush did go off script with the drug prescription program.

We don't need another useful idiot, one even that is more of a blank slate. I respect serious (and honest) conservatives with three dimensional intellects and with knowledge and perspective to feed that intellect and the guts to show it. Unfortunately, few elected Republicans exhibit the guts to put forward serious thoughtful propostions for dealing with serious issues. The have opted to be obstructionists and mouth the platitudes of the tea partiers and monied interests. For domestic problems one solution fits all -- lower taxes. For foreign problems one solution fits all -- send troops.

As an intellect, Sara Palin may not even rise to two dimensions. If she does, then she has kept it hidden so far.

I've always scratched my head about people that just vote for someone that is a Republican or a Democrat and never really know were a person stands. Many people have never voted for a Democrat and others have never voted for a Republican. Personally I am glad we have a democracy and a two party system.

I agree. I have always voted for the man over party. I did so this last election. Even so, I can say for the first time I couldn't conceive voting for any Republican after their policies of last eight years in office. Even so, I have been less bothered by party-line voting because the parties always managed to come up with qualified candidates, more or less. I don't recall either major party or significant blocks of either party seriously pushing, in my lifetime, a totally unqualified candidate before Palin.

I also hear many people talk about all right wingers and tea baggers as Republicans. I live in a conservative state that has about 2 Democrats for each Republican. We've only had 2 Republican Governors here in my lifetime and each only served one term. The Tea party express visit here had more Democrats than Republicans participate. Sadly, several people I know, Democrats, attended.

I appreciate that. When I was growing up in Florida it was a one party state. Republicans were an endangered species and the Democrats had no organization other than 'every man for himself'.

There are many conservative southerners that continue to embrace the Democrat label on the local level. However, it is pretty clear that there is great divergence with the national Democratic Party as it has evovled as the party of the Coasts along with a rapidly growing segment of minorities.

But you would be surprised to find how many people seem to relate to her as a normal everyday "Hockey mom" (we call them soccer moms around here) with kids and the everyday things they also deal with each day. They seem to relate to that more than some lawyer politician that they don't trust. I can see where they may be coming from but I don't want to go to the local Friday night High School football game and just pull one of the player's mom out of the stands and elect her President.

Exactly. That is what is so disturbing to me and that interview video captures that. I have nothing against hockey moms with kids and everday problems. I come from plain people, they run in my blood. The fact that I may relate to someone doesn't mean I would choose them for my open-heart surgeon. Some people seem to place no more concern for whom they choose for president than choosing the friendlier check-out lane at the supermarket. They don't seem to appreciate that whoever is President literally has our lives in his/her hands and that means our potential deaths as well. How would Sarah have faired in 'The Days of October'. I do not ever want to find out.

Palin seems to bring out the extremes in people, left and right, including alot of hatred from liberals and I still haven't figured that out. To me she is just someone that ran for vice-president and lost. She wrote a book, like alot of failed politicians, and I won't buy it just like I never bought alot of the others.

You are right. I cannot fathom the vehement support from the right unless they believe brash and uninformed with no ambition to beome informed is desirable. They do not seem to put much store in being able to construct coherent responses to questions either.

For the left I think the explanation is three fold. First, she played the usual attack dog VP candidate role in the campaign, but did in a Sean Hannity type vein from behind that folksey hockey mom image. I think that added insult to injury for many of the other politcial stripe. Second, once you get past her God, Country and Apple Pie schtick, she is an empty dress -- at least to date. Third, I think it drives many crazy that she is taken as seriously as she is, as measured by the amount of ink and air time given to her by mainstream media with regard to her being taken as a political 'heavy weight'.

Over the long run I think Palin will sink from her own dead weight after a good run of publicity in the near term. She will either end up a Radio Rush Limbaughette, or go down in flames in a Presidential Primary. Maybe both. If I had to bet I'd bet she is in it for the money. She is a sellable commodity for now.

[Guest StuCotts]

Tangentially to this thread, I think there is too much misuse of the conservative designation.

Conservatism's last vestige was blasted out of existence during Bush's eight years by wagers of useless, ruinously costly wars, boosters of a market free of any oversight, and others, who all called themselves conservative.

So do the likes of Fox News, Armey's Freedom Works, the rump of Larouche's movement and other such, who urge their pawns to scream "Socialist", "Fascist", "Nazi", etc., interchangeably and in perfect ignorance of what they're screaming about, at anybody who disagrees with them, to depict Obama in a Hitler moustache, to question his citizenship and religion, to accuse him of palling around with terorists, and to fight openly for the defeat of his administration, regardless of potential fallout.

These entities are not conservative. They are Republican to the extent that they so call themselves and nobody in the mainstream party, which has slunk away from its authority and resposibilities, dares object. In the last analysis, they are extremist right-wing, distorting patriotism and religion for their own twisted ends, which is arguably treasonous, or close to it.

[TampaYankee]

Tangentially to this thread, I think there is too much misuse of the conservative designation.

Conservatism's last vestige was blasted out of existence during Bush's eight years by wagers of useless, ruinously costly wars, boosters of a market free of any oversight, and others, who all called themselves conservative.

So do the likes of Fox News, Armey's Freedom Works, the rump of Larouche's movement and other such, who urge their pawns to scream "Socialist", "Fascist", "Nazi", etc., interchangeably and in perfect ignorance of what they're screaming about, at anybody who disagrees with them, to depict Obama in a Hitler moustache, to question his citizenship and religion, to accuse him of palling around with terorists, and to fight openly for the defeat of his administration, regardless of potential fallout.

These entities are not conservative. They are Republican to the extent that they so call themselves and nobody in the mainstream party, which has slunk away from its authority and resposibilities, dares object. In the last analysis, they are extremist right-wing, distorting patriotism and religion for their own twisted ends, which is arguably treasonous, or close to it.

What you say is true enough in a classical sense. Right-wing extremists is a more accurate designation but in effect they have co-opted the mantle of Conservatism and are successfully selling the sham.

There is no significant organized Conservative power center willing to stand up publicly for the distinction. That goes in spades for elected officials. With the exception of a few isolated voices including Chris Buckley, Mark Mckinnon, David Frum, Steve Schmidt and a few others which have been marginalized as pointy-headed compromising impure theoriticians exiled to the gulags. The Club for Growth is the face of the present day Conservative movement, like it or not.

The Right needs the equivalent of a Democrat DLC to re-establish a classical conservative power center on the Right. However, it is dubious that it could get the funding to organize and sustain itself against the blowing winds from the extreme Right and the Neocons.

This saga will have to play itself out until the Right decides it is better to win than to be pure. I'm not sure that will ever happen short of a convulsive upheaval. By the time that they get tired of losing and revert to more classical Conservatism and a bigger tent the growing Democrat Minority Express may dash right wing hopes of ever effectively controlling national power again. As it is, their own selling factors are limited to tax give-back bribes and fear. I suspect they have entered their era of The Party of Obstruction which will pretty much define their ongoing influence.

[Guest StuCotts]

Add Lindsey Graham (!) to your list of the marginalized.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/politics/29senators.html?hp

They're really turning their backs on civilization.

[Guest Conway]

Back in October, a member of Howard Stern's radio team went to the street of Harlem and asked Obama supporters how they felt about specific issues. The issues were flipped so that he asked how they felt about positions that Obama supported which were actually McCain positions. Theses were big issues like abortion (they were opposed to it just like Obama was) and stem cell research (if Obama was against it, they were against it). One question even asked these Obama supporters how they felt about Obama's nomination of Sarah Palin as his vice president (they all supported his choice of her).

The point that I am trying to make is that you can't count on manufactured pieces like the one StuCotts has posted above or the Stern piece to really gauge the political intelligence of the voters of this country. They're manufactured for a political purpose. Nothing more. People who rely on this crap to try to gauge the political intelligence of this country are every bit as ignorant as the subjects of these pieces.

Instead, we as a country would be much better served and much less polarized by understanding that there are reasonably intelligent people who simply hold differing positions based upon their values. Some are better educated than others. But, all have the right to vote as long as they are legal citizens and residents of this country and they aren't felons. That's not going to change.

This type of finger pointing at our leaders and each other is simply lending to the fracture in our political system that is reaching the point of being unable to be fixed. If it reaches that point we, as a nation, will be far worse than we are today.

Listen to the Stern piece by clicking below:

http://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3