Palin had claimed her phrase death panals was metaphoric and accurate.
"To me, while reading that section of the bill, it became so evident that there would be a panel of bureaucrats who would decide on levels of health care, decide on those who are worthy or not of receiving some government-controlled coverage..it would therefore lead to harm for many individuals not able to receive the government care. That leads, of course, to death."~ Nov 17 interview with National Review
"The term I used to describe the panel making these decisions should not be taken literally," said Palin (same interview)." Is it possible for a metaphor to be accurate?
A metaphor suggest that X is akin to Y. It doesn't mean that X is Y. For example, Shakespere, in saying that "all the world is a stage" does not mean that the physical world is a physical stage but rather there are qualities in a theatrical stage that transfer to our realm of existence. In that sense, the metaphor is accurate and illuminating.
The problem with Palin's self-described metaphor is that it is not accurate, in that it is an inflamatory projection of right-wing extremist paranoia. All hospitals use insurance utilization experts that define to the dollar and the day acceptable limits of resource expenditures for patients. The free-market model of health care presupposes rationing based on your ability or the insurance company's ability and willingness to pay the hospital for services rendered and also their fear of law suits. It is disingenuous and dishonest to accept the rationing and triaging that is a function of capitalism while demonizing rationing and triaging that is a function of socialized medicine.
John Stuart Mill, letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March, 1866) I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
I think Palin will be indicted before the month is out-- the upshot of an investigation into the Palin Crime Family's use of state money for private contracting work. Her motive is her family? Hardly. Where was this motive when she was running for the White House? Her lila feeewings were hurt from Mr. Lettermen's naughty words? Will her lila feeewings be hurt from naughty words coming from Iran or North Korea? If she cannot stand the heat, she should go back to the kitchen, where she makes great moose.
I think she may have made a good director of publicity for Coca Cola, but, as Andrew Sullivan notes in the video below, it is frightening that anyone considers this person a credible potential leader of the free world.
"If she cannot stand the heat, she should go back to the kitchen, where she makes great moose."
As I mentioned in another post, the blatant sexism in our country is pathetic.
What is sexist is the elevation of this (ahem) person to a position where she was seriously considered as a potential president, devoid as she was of any foreign policy expertise and even the ability to speak a simple and coherent declarative sentence. If she were twenty pounds heavier and twenty years older, do you think for a second that anyone would consider Palin for the presidency? You have your own blinders of bigotry on, especially the blinder that places ideological purity over endurance, integrity, common sense, and competence.
I had no idea that conservatives were so sensitive to "sexism". Could it be that you are grasping for a way to defend the indefensible?
"Sarah Palin's friends say they are worried about her because she looks frail and her hair is thinning. It's all part of her plan to run for president in 2012 as John McCain."
From the AP. "Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby."
This is a minor tragedy that means no more than what it is-- the collapse of a relationship between two kids who had a child a decade or so before they were ready. While I don't think much of the politics of Grandmother Palin, I do wish Levi, Bristol, and baby Tripp health, happiness-- and luck. It's a tough way to start their lives, so they will need all the fortune and good will they can get.
The crowds that flock to see Palin wherever she goes have found something different in her: authenticity, charisma, and hope. Too bad these qualities are "different" in American politics, but the palpable craving for them explains much of people's continuing interest in her.
So says The Weekly Standard. But perhaps crowds flock to see Palin for the same reason they flock to see Joe-Joe the Dog Faced Man on the Alaska state fair's midway. She is pure entertainment and the comedy gift that keeps giving. But Sarah is an albatross that will haunt Republicans through the next few election cycles. Conservative social stands such as on abortion, crime, and welfare may well be in sync with what most Americans believe and I believe it is indeed possible to win a national election on such a platform. However, leaders of unimpeachable integrity and competence must articulate those stands as well as the kitchen-table concerns of average struggling Americans for them to compete with the Democrats. Palin falls short in those areas. Some minor scandals from her home state has dragged her down. And Sarah, an affirmative action selection if there ever was one, takes pride in her inability to speak simply and clearly.
My guess is that there will be a Palin boomlet in New Hampshire in 2012 that will soon fizzle when the Republican voters come to their senses.
Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”
PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.
So Caribou Barbie continues to misinform her daughter Piper.
Article I Section Three defines that office as follows: "The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they are equally divided." As this article deals with the legislative branch, the office clearly has a constrained role in the legislature. But it is in article two and the 12th amendment were the vice presidency is defined, essentially as an appendage to the president that becomes activated when the president can no longer perform.
I admire the governor for her poise, accomplishments, and love for family. However, I think her selection by McCain had more to do with getting elected than with governing. In effect, McCain passed his finger down the list of not dozens of potential vice presidents but tens of thousands of potential vice presidents-- an egregious example of affirmative action run wild. It was his first executive decision made after his nomination, and McCain failed in this test. This is not a question of gender or class but of temperament and judgement, both of McCain and Palin. McCain's choice appears to be impetuous and gut-driven, not reasoned and thoughtful. As conservative columnist Kathleen Parker notes, it may even be gonad-driven, a weak man falling for a comely woman. "Cameras frequently capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred schoolboy while Palin tells crowds that he is "exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief." What Palin thinks she is saying is that McCain is "the kind of man I want as commander in chief." What McCain is hearing, I think, is McCain is "the kind of man I want as commander in chief." And this will be one reason why McCain is losing this election, a 72 year-old with all the sense of a 17 year old trying to impress the homecoming queen.
Palin in her interviews and rallys has demonstrated shallowness, shrillness, and certitude, traits that have no place at a time when we are at war with two nations and entering into a recession. If McCain was a generation younger, perhaps we could forgive Palin's callowness. But the actuarial reality is that Palin might indeed follow McCain into the Oval Office. And it is even more difficult to forgive Palin's dishonesty. For example, responding to the Troopergate report, Palin said she's "pleased to be cleared" of "any kind of unethical activity." No, she wasn't cleared at all. The report said exactly the opposite. She recently said that Obama enjoys "palling with terrorists." These kinds of nonsensical casualness with truth is a habinger for her future. So the thought that this simple frontier earth mother might someday run the machinery of our government and have our nuclear codes scares me witless.
I hope these SAT scores really aren't Sarah's. But they would explain a lot if they were.
