Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Kerri's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, April 15th, 2010
1:08 pm	Arizona I'll be moving for a PhD program soon!! Yay!! Current Mood: nervous (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
12:21 pm	A “Failure to Communicate” and the Attacks on Palin James Campbell This past week, one of the greatest film actors of our times passed away. I am not sure that any other actor appeared in as many great films as Paul Newman. In thinking about what has been happening in this year’s election, one of the most memorable lines from one of Newman’s great movies came to mind. The line was not his, however. It was from Strother Martin’s character in the movie Cool Hand Luke. The line was “what we have here is ‘failure to communicate.’” It seems a phrase that is especially applicable to some reactions in this year’s campaign. After suffering through a recent call-in radio program in which my liberal Democratic colleagues castigated Governor Sarah Palin as a dangerous and reckless VP selection by Senator McCain, the “failure to communicate” line came to mind. While part of the attack on Palin is undoubtedly impurely partisan, I am sure that at least part of the hysterical reaction to Palin is sincere (though wrong). In trying to gain some historical perspective on the hysteria, a “failure to communicate” pattern jumps out. There is an interestingly consistent history to the hysteria. In 1968, Democrats mocked Spiro Agnew. They even ran an ad with Agnew’s name on the screen and someone laughing hysterically in the background. Then it was Gerald Ford in 1976. According to the Democrats, President Ford was just a dumb and uncoordinated jock. Then in 1980, it was the dumb second-rate actor Ronald Reagan who could not tell the difference between the movies and reality. Then it was the aristocratic, disengaged, and dumb George H.W. Bush and his dumb spelling-challenged side-kick Dan Quayle. Then Democrats brushed off their all-purpose dumb charge and awarded it to the non-Georgetown Texan George W. Bush. Now their target is Governor Sarah Palin. Are we supposed to believe that all or most of these national Republican leaders, leaders who more often than not defeated their supposedly smarter Democratic rivals, are really dumb? Hard to believe. Maybe it is that anyone who does not tow the liberal line is by definition judged intellectually deficient? Perhaps. I have no doubt that some intellectual light weights or the insecure adopt the liberal line to protect themselves from liberal bullies. You see it every day in academia. But I think that there is probably more to it than that. I think the pattern of claims reflects the culture gap between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Liberal Democrats make their evaluations about Republican politicians based on different perceptions of how smart people present themselves, a matter more of style than substance. By the same token, some demonstrably dumb Hollywood types are taken seriously by the left because they have mastered the appropriate presentational style. Liberal politicians are also given a pass by the left for their gaffes because they have the right presentational style. Can anyone even imagine the shrill rants that Palin would have been subjected to if she had made the gaffe that Joe Biden made in his CBS interview with Katie Couric? In that interview, Joe Biden put FDR in the presidency and on TV at the time of the 1929 stock market crash when Hoover was president and we were decades away from a television nation. This was a major brain-lock. Maybe it is just leftist media bias that Biden was given a pass, but I think that it also that his gaffe did not fit the left’s stereotypes. They could not believe that Biden was dumb. They are more than ready to believe that Palin is. Liberal Democrats are not the only ones who judge the book by the cover. Conservative Republicans draw inferences from stereotypes of their own. When they hear George McGovern (always sounded like Liberace to me), Mike Dukakis, and Al Gore, they hear snobbish, out-of-touch, smug eastern elites who think that they are better than middle-class, hard-working, God-fearing Americans. You know, the bitter ones clinging to their guns and to their religion. The poster-boy for this conservative stereotype of Democratic leadership style is John Kerry with his Thurston Howell III-affected accent. Though with some clear differences, Barack Obama has the same general style difference, a self-consciously stammering articulateness (yes, stammering articulateness) of a thoughtful professor searching for just the right turn of phrase. This is a style that became associated among elites with intelligence and was, ironically, most extremely represented in the speaking style of the late conservative icon William F. Buckley (suggesting that there are regional and rural-urban dimensions to the style differences as well as an ideological dimension). I am not saying that stereotypes are not sometimes useful and valid. Quite to the contrary of political correctness scolding, stereotypes are sometimes useful and valid. But the key word here is sometimes. We should all try to be aware when we are using stereotypes, recognize that they are no where near perfect, and not be so intellectually lazy that we rely on them when there is much more information on which we can base our evaluations. If we don’t, we will become victims of the “failure to communicate” as well as those we may be erroneously evaluating. http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/a-failure-to-communicate-and-the-attacks-on-palin/ (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
4:10 pm	Yay!! I now have a Master's degree in Political Science! Yay! Current Mood: accomplished (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 11th, 2009
3:54 pm	Current Mood: content (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
1:37 pm	PRUDEN: Fairer to One than the other by Wesley Pruden November 11, 2008 ANALYSIS/OPINION: With the messiah safe at last, some of the notabilities of press and tube are climbing out of Barack Obama's media tank with tales of what's been going on in there. It's an article of media faith that everybody with a press card is incapable of showing bias - with the exception of a few newspapers like this one, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and, of course, Fox News. Anyone who says otherwise is a vacuous irrelevancy. So when someone strays off the reservation it's front-page news, even when it's not on the front page. Deborah Howell, the ombudsman (a Swedish word her newsroom now defines as "newsroom harpie") at The Washington Post finally had enough on Sunday and took her newspaper's best and brightest severely to task for allowing its reporters and editors to climb into that tank. "Readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama," she wrote. "My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that [readers] are right on both counts." Even before Election Day, Harold Evans, once editor of the Times of London and the London Sunday Times, was even blunter, perhaps because as the former editor he no longer has to risk life and limb walking among his former colleagues: "It's fitting that the cynicism 'vote early and vote often' is commonly attributed to Chicago's Democratic boss, Mayor Richard Daley, who famously voted the graveyards in 1960 to help put John F. Kennedy in the White House. In this 2008 race, it's the American media that have voted very early and often. They long ago elected the star graduate of Chicago's Democratic machine, Barack Obama." In fact, Reuters, the British news service that most slavishly follows the line of least resistance to bias, isn't even waiting for the inauguration. Most of the media refers to the new president as "President-elect Obama." To Reuters, he's occasionally already "President Obama." Miss Howell relies on statistical analysis to demonstrate her point, that by sheer weight of words and mush her newspaper showed bias. The Post's news pages reflected a lopsided attention to Mr. Obama's interests, "with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stores. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts' views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues." All very interesting, up to a point. But these are mere statistics about what everybody who reads newspapers already knows, and the numbers, impressive as they may be, do not tell the story. "What's troubling to anyone old-fashioned enough to care about standards in journalism," says Mr. Evans, is how the news is presented. The old notions of objectivity, fairness and thoroughness still get occasional lip service, though the Associated Press, once the gold standard of objectivity and neutrality, now boasts of telling it like it only imagines it is. "The coverage," says Mr. Evans, "has been slavishly on the side of 'the one.' " Not just against Republicans. He cites the way reporters connived in the Obama campaign's insinuations that Hillary and Bill Clinton were race-baiters in South Carolina. The Clintons are a lot of things, but they've never been credibly accused of race-baiting. Bubba took considerable heat early on in Arkansas when he ran against a powerful segregationist tide, before Barack Obama had put on his first pair of long pants. The most discouraging part of the sad state of media affairs is that there's scant sign it will ever get better. All that writhing around together down in the tank has only reinforced the high opinion the correspondents and commentators have of themselves. They imagine they're responsible for electing a president - and maybe they are - and they can't wait to keep on doing it. Newspapers, even those "too big to fail," have come on parlous times. The daily newspaper not so long ago was the arbiter of the manners and even the morals of its community, determining community's view of itself, its personality and its character. Now all that is mostly gone, and most of the editors and publishers think the way to survival is to give the readers more of what ails them. Crusty old city editors who relished making the lives of young reporters miserable in pursuit of teaching them how to be thorough and fair - "Son, nobody cares about what you think about anything, just tell me what happened" - are mostly disappearing. That stuff in the tank is poison. Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/11/fairer-to-one-than-the-other/ (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 7th, 2008
10:29 am	Congratulations to President-elect Obama Tuesday, November 04, 2008 Congratulations to President-elect Obama Posted by: Bill Dyer at 10:55 PM (Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar) [As always, I'm speaking here only for myself, not necessarily for Hugh — but with thanks for his generous invitation to me to guest-post here during this election season, and thanks to all of the many additional folks who've read my blogging as a result (of all of which, more later in a more sentimental but less consequential post tomorrow).] Congratulations to you, Sen. Barack Obama, junior senator from Illinois, on becoming the President-elect of the United States of America. Congratulations to your supporters, and to the entire United States on this historic occasion. Mr. President-elect, you have been, and will remain even more frequently, in my prayers. I pray that you will succeed in bringing America into a post-racial future. In that regard, I pray that you will take to heart the prescription of Chief Justice John Roberts: The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. You are uniquely positioned to help us achieve that, and I pray that you will find the path to do so. I pray that you may acquire wisdom — wisdom beyond your tender years, your thin experience, and your inconsequential legislative achievements — wisdom as a public servant in office, rather, that is at least commensurate with the skill you've shown as a campaigner, which has been a genuine marvel. I pray for your health, because, with due respect, I regard the prospect of your Vice President-elect having to step into your shoes with genuine panic. Let's hope that he can continue to be Crazy Uncle Joe, less of a danger to the nation as Vice President than as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You have said, at times, that you recognize that your greatest flaw is pride. I pray that your prayers for help in overcoming that flaw will be answered. You are surrounded, unfortunately, with an entourage who share that very flaw. Between now and January, I hope you will find time to read modern American history, and in particular, histories about John F. Kennedy, who you resemble in so many ways. Kennedy's youthful arrogance and ignorance nearly incinerated our planet — a fact of which you seem to be unaware, and that frightens me more than anything else about the prospect of your presidency. Mr. President-elect, you must learn history, so that you can avoid at least its most conspicuous mistakes — like those John Kennedy made in Vienna 1961 when he, as a young and presumably naive president, was tested and found completely wanting. I pray for your family, that they may continue to give you strength and comfort and perspective. If you will do your best for your own beautiful young daughters, then I have grounds to hope that will also be good for mine. God bless you and keep you, sir. I have been among your harshest critics, in good faith I hope, and I will continue to speak out when I think you're wrong. I pray for the grace, though, to acknowledge those times when you are right, and for the decency to accord you with the full respect that is due to anyone who holds the office upon which you are about to embark. You will be my president too, and while I am filled with trepidation, I congratulate you as sincerely as I am able, and I wish the very best for you and our great country. — Bill Dyer (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
8:21 pm	(Comment on this)
7:45 pm	President Dmitri Medvedev orders missiles deployed in Europe as world hails Obama President Medvedev ordered missiles to be stationed up against Nato’s borders yesterday to counter American plans to build a missile defence shield. Speaking within hours of Barack Obama’s election, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad – the former German city – next to the border with Poland. He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads. Taking advantage of the world’s attention on the US elections, Mr Medvedev also cancelled plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia by 2010. In his first state-of-the-nation address, Mr Medvedev said the missiles would be deployed “to neutralise if necessary the antiballistic missile system in Europe”. He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its Navy off Kaliningrad and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which relies on a radar station in the Czech Republic and ten interceptor missiles in Poland. Nato’s eastern members greeted the Russian move with dismay. A Czech Foreign Ministry spokesman described the Kremlin’s move as unfortunate. Lithuania’s President Adamkus accused his Russian counterpart of going back on his word. But government ministers and parliamentary deputies assembled in the Kremlin applauded Mr Medvedev. The President failed to congratulate Mr Obama or even to mention him by name during the 85-minute address televised live across Russia. In a criticism directed at the US, Mr Medvedev said: “Mechanisms must be created to block mistaken, egotistical and sometimes simply dangerous decisions of certain members of the international community.” He accused the West of seeking to encircle Russia and blamed the US for encouraging Georgia’s “barbaric aggression” in the war over South Ossetia in August. He also gave warning that Russia would “not back down in the Caucasus”. “The August crisis only accelerated the arrival of the crucial moment of truth. We proved, including to those who had been sponsoring the current regime in Georgia, that we are strong enough to defend our citizens and that we can indeed defend our national interests,” Mr Medvedev said. “What we’ve had to deal with in the last few years – the construction of a global missile defence system, the encirclement of Russia by military blocs, unrestrained Nato enlargement and other gifts . . . The impression is we are being tested to the limit.” The outgoing President Bush insists that the missile shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but the plan has infuriated Moscow, which argues that it threatens Russia’s security. Mr Medvedev said that Russia had been forced to cancel its plans to withdraw the intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have a range of 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometres). He said: “We want to act together. But they, unfortunately, don’t want to listen to us.” Mr Medvedev blamed the US for the global financial crisis, saying that the rest of the world had been “dragged down with it into recession”. He said that the era of American dominance after the collapse of the Soviet Union was over. “The world cannot be ruled from one capital. Those who do not want to understand this will only create new problems for themselves and others,” he said. Mr Medvedev, who was elected in March, also set out proposals to extend the presidential term from four years to six. He did not say whether the reform would apply to his current term. Room for manoeuvre —Iskander SS26 (codenamed Stone by Nato) is an export variant of the more powerful Iskander M — Weighs 3.8 tonnes, carrying a payload of 480kg —Range of 174 miles (280km). Can travel at 2,100m a second and hit within 20m of target —Easily transported by a truck or transport-erector-launcher (TEL) —A TEL, below, can carry two ready-to-launch missiles and two more for reloading. Equipped with advanced targeting technology Sources: fas.org, defence-update.com This article can be found at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5090077.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093 (Comment on this)
6:15 pm	Election Analysis: America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don't care whether you are a conservative or a liberal -- when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation's highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread. Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let's not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama's election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country's struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left. Less than fifty years ago, African-Americans were barred from public universities, restaurants, and even drinking fountains in many parts of the country. On Tuesday we came together and transcended that shameful legacy, electing an African-American to the country's top job -- which, in fact, appears to be his first actual job. Certainly, it doesn't mean that racism has disappeared in America, but it is an undeniable mark of progress that a majority of voters no longer consider skin color nor a dangerously gullible naivete as a barrier to the presidency. It's also heartening to realize that as president Mr. Obama will soon be working hand-in-hand with a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard like Senator Robert Byrd to craft the incoherent and destructive programs that will plunge the American economy into a nightmare of full-blown sustained depression. As Vice President-Elect Joe Biden has repeatedly warned, there will be difficult times ahead and the programs will not always be popular, or even sane. But as we look out over the wreckage of bankrupt coal companies, nationalized banks, and hyperinflation, we can always look back with sustained pride on the great National Reconciliation of 2008. Call me an optimist, but I like to think when America's breadlines erupt into riots it will be because of our shared starvation, not the differences in our color. It's obvious that this newfound pride is not confined to Americans alone. All across the world, Mr. Obama's election has helped mend America's tattered image as a racist, violent cowboy, willing to retaliate with bombs at the slightest provocation. The huge outpouring of international support following the election shows that America can still win new friendships while rebuilding its old ones, and provides Mr. Obama with unprecedented diplomatic leverage over our remaining enemies. When Russian tanks start pouring into eastern Europe and Iranian missiles begin raining down on Jerusalem, their leaders will know they will be facing a man who not only conquered America's racial divide but the hearts of the entire Cannes film community. And those Al Qaeda terrorists plotting a dirty nuke or chemical attack on San Francisco face a stark new reality: while they may no longer need to worry about US Marines, they are looking down the barrel of a strongly worded diplomatic condemnation by a Europe fully united in their deep sympathy for surviving Americans. So for now, let's put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said "I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore. Can be found here: http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/11/election-analysis-america-can-take-pride-in-this-historic-inspirational-disaster.html (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
8:22 am	Sarah Palin's a Brainiac by Elaine Lafferty The former editor in chief of Ms. magazine (and a Democrat) on what she learned on a campaign plane with the would-be VP. It's difficult not to froth when one reads, as I did again and again this week, doubts about Sarah Palin's “intelligence,” coming especially from women such as PBS's Bonnie Erbe, who, as near as I recall, has not herself heretofore been burdened with the Susan Sontag of Journalism moniker. As Fred Barnes—God help me, I'm agreeing with Fred Barnes—suggests in the Weekly Standard, these high toned and authoritative dismissals come from people who have never met or spoken with Sarah Palin. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart. I'm a Democrat, but I've worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women's rights. Now by “smart,” I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is. For all those old enough to remember Senator Sam Ervin, the brilliant strict constitutional constructionist and chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee whose patois included “I'm just a country lawyer"...Yup, Palin is that smart. So no simple task then, this speech on women's rights. For the sin of being a Christian personally opposed to abortion, Palin is being pilloried by the inside-the-Beltway Democrat feminist establishment. (Yes, she is anti-abortion. And yes, instead of buying organic New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, she joins other Alaskans in hunting for food. That's it. She is not a right-wing nut, and all the rest of the Internet drivel—the book banning at the Library, the rape kits decision—is nonsense. I digress.) Palin's role in this campaign was to energize “the Republican base,” which she has inarguably done. She also was expected to reach out to Hillary Clinton “moderates.” (Right. Only a woman would get both those jobs in either party.) Look, I am obviously personally pro-choice, and I disagree with McCain and Palin on that and a few other issues. But like many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I'm tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women's rights, deeply and passionately. Many of those—not all—who decried the sexist media treatment of Hillary Clinton have been silent as Palin has been skewered in the old ways that female public figures are skewered, as well as a host of sexualized new ways as well. Some feminists have weighed in; “Even the reportedly clear glasses she wears to play down her beauty queen credential and enhance her gravitas can't make up for experience,” writes my heroine Suzanne Braun Levine, former editor of Ms. Oppose her on policy? Fine. But how sad for feminist leaders to sink this low, especially when Palin has worn glasses since she was 10 years old. Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women's rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV—that was just “empty rhetoric,” they said. At least the blogger didn't go as far as NOW's Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. And there you have the formula for diminishing what was once a great and important mass social change movement to an exclusionary club that rejects women who sincerely want to join and, God forbid, grow to lead. But here is the good news: women, citizens of America's high and low culture, the Economist and People magazine readers, will get it. They got it with Hillary even when feminist leaders were not supporting her or doing so half-heartedly. Yes, Palin is a harder sell, she looks and sounds different, and one can rightfully oppose her based on abortion policies. If you only vote on how a person personally feels about abortion, you will never want her to darken your door. If you care about anything else, she will continue to intrigue you. As Time's Nancy Gibbs noted a few weeks ago, quoting bioethicist Tom Murray, “Sympathy and subtlety are seasonings rarely applied to political red meat.” Will Palin's time come next week? I don't know. But her time will come. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-27/sarah-palins-a-brainiac/2/ (Comment on this)
Friday, October 24th, 2008
8:43 pm	Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test... Conscientious, Fulfilled, and Spiritual 29 Renaissance, 17 Islamic, 13 Ukiyo-e, -38 Cubist, -43 Abstract and 19 Impressionist! The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosopy, religion, art, politics, science, and all other aspects of intellectual enquiry. Renaissance artists looked at the human aspect of life in their art. They did not reject religion but tended to look at it in it's purest form to create visions they thought depicted the ideals of religion. Painters of this time had their own style and created works based on morality, religion, and human nature. Many of the paintings depicted what they believed to be the corrupt nature of man. People that like Renaissance paintings like things that are more challenging. They tend to have a high emotional stability. They also tend to be more concientious then average. They have a basic understanding of human nature and therefore are not easily surprised by anything that people may do. They enjoy life and enjoy living. They are very aware of their own mortality but do not dwell on the end but what they are doing in the present. They enjoy learning, but may tend to be a bit more closed minded to new ideas as they feel that the viewpoint they have has been well researched and considered. These people are more old fashioned and not quite as progressive. They enjoy the finer things in life like comfort, a good meal, and homelife. They tend to be more spiritual or religious by nature. They are open to new aesthetic experiences. Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy (Comment on this)
Monday, October 20th, 2008
3:41 pm	Biden: Obama’s inexperience will prompt nations to test us posted at 11:05 am on October 20, 2008 by Ed Morrissey Joe Biden continues to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for Barack Obama. In a stunning statement, Biden acknowledged that Obama’s lack of foreign-policy experience will provoke America’s enemies into creating an international crisis. Biden apparently thinks this is just terrific: ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions. “Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” “I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.” Isn’t this an argument for electing someone with more experience? Why should we elect a man who will embolden our enemies and push us to the brink of disaster? Biden seems convinced that electing John McCain will make our enemies abroad much less sanguine about provoking us — which is one of the best arguments yet heard for electing McCain. Even worse, Biden admits that an Obama administration will likely fumble the ball. “It’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.” Really? Why not? I’d say that Biden admits that Obama will deviate from long-held principles of American foreign policy and diplomacy, and expects to reap a whirlwind of disapproval because of that. Where will that be most likely to occur, given Obama’s previous political alliances with people like Rashid Khalidi? Let’s not forget the example that Biden himself uses here. John Kennedy got tested because he met with Nikita Khrushchev with “no preconditions”. Kennedy acknowledged afterwards that it was an “unmitigated disaster“: Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world. Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.” What resulted? The Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy wound up trading strategic intel and missile installations in western Asia in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of the nuclear missiles from Cuba. The entire Kennedy administration turned out to be a foreign-policy disaster that was only overlooked because of the tragic assassination of Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. I agree with Biden. Obama is exactly like Kennedy in this regard, and our enemies will test us by threatening our interests around the globe if we elect Obama. I’d rather avoid the problem altogether and elect a man who puts enough fear into the minds of our enemies to keep them from testing us at all. http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/20/biden-obamas-inexperience-will-prompt-nations-to-test-us/ (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 20th, 2008
3:18 pm	Prayer, God and War: The Media Elites v. Palin, Clinton, JFK, FDR, and Lincoln (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
8:55 pm	Today Today is my dad's birthday. We went to Olive Garden to celebrate! (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
9:34 am	Obama Can't Win Against Palin By KARL ROVE September 11, 2008; Page A13 Of all the advantages Gov. Sarah Palin has brought to the GOP ticket, the most important may be that she has gotten into Barack Obama's head. How else to explain Sen. Obama's decision to go one-on-one against "Sarah Barracuda," captain of the Wasilla High state basketball champs? It's a matchup he'll lose. If Mr. Obama wants to win, he needs to remember he's running against John McCain for president, not Mrs. Palin for vice president. Michael Dukakis spent the last months of the 1988 campaign calling his opponent's running mate, Dan Quayle, a risky choice and even ran a TV ad blasting Mr. Quayle. The Bush/Quayle ticket carried 40 states. Adlai Stevenson spent the fall of 1952 bashing Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, calling him "the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation." The Republican ticket carried 39 of 48 states. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking Mrs. Palin, he could suffer the fate of his Democratic predecessors. These assaults highlight his own tissue-thin résumé, waste precious time better spent reassuring voters he is up for the job, and diminish him -- not her. Consider Mr. Obama's response to CNN's Anderson Cooper, who asked him about Republican claims that Mrs. Palin beats him on executive experience. Mr. Obama responded by comparing Wasilla's 50 city workers with his campaign's 2,500 employees and dismissed its budget of about $12 million a year by saying "we have a budget of about three times that just for the month." He claimed his campaign "made clear" his "ability to manage large systems and to execute." Of course, this ignores the fact that Mrs. Palin is now governor. She manages an $11 billion operating budget, a $1.7 billion capital expenditure budget, and nearly 29,000 full- and part-time state employees. In two years as governor, she's vetoed over $499 million from Alaska's capital budget -- more money than Mr. Obama is likely to spend on his entire campaign. And Mr. Obama is not running his campaign's day-to-day operation. His manager, David Plouffe, assisted by others, makes the decisions about the $335 million the campaign has spent. Even if Mr. Obama is his own campaign manager, does that qualify him for president? A debate between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin over executive experience also isn't smart politics for Democrats. As Mr. Obama talks down Mrs. Palin's record, voters may start comparing backgrounds. He won't come off well. Then there was Mr. Obama's blast Saturday about Mrs. Palin's record on earmarks. He went at her personally, saying, "you been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person." It's true. Mrs. Palin did seek earmarks as Wasilla's mayor. But as governor, she ratcheted down the state's requests for federal dollars, telling the legislature last year Alaska "cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government earmarks." Her budget chief directed state agencies to reduce earmark requests to only "the most compelling needs" with "a strong national purpose," explaining to reporters "we really want to skinny it down." Mr. Obama has again started a debate he can't win. As senator, he has requested nearly $936 million in earmarks, ratcheting up his requests each year he's been in the Senate. If voters dislike earmarks -- and they do -- they may conclude Mrs. Palin cut them, while Mr. Obama grabs for more each year. Mr. Obama may also pay a price for his "lipstick on a pig" comment. The last time the word "lipstick" showed up in this campaign was during Mrs. Palin's memorable ad-lib in her acceptance speech. Mr. Obama says he didn't mean to aim the comment at Mrs. Palin, but he deserves all the negative flashback he gets from the snarky aside. Sen. Joe Biden has now joined the attack on Mrs. Palin, saying this week that her views on issues show she's "obviously a backwards step for women." This is a mistake. Mr. Obama is already finding it difficult to win over independent women and Hillary Clinton voters. If it looks like he's going out of his way to attack Mrs. Palin, these voters may conclude it's because he has a problem with strong women. In Denver two weeks ago, Mr. Obama said, "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from." That's what he's trying to do, only the object of his painting is Sarah Palin, not John McCain. In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly. Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122108935141721343.html Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
3:02 pm	Sarah Palin's Speech (Comment on this)
2:52 pm	Palin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
1:06 pm	Obama’s answer on experience: But I’m such a great campaigner! Update: McCain response — “Desperate, Obama’s answer on experience: But I’m such a great campaigner! Update: McCain response — “Desperate, laughable” posted at 7:25 am on September 2, 2008 by Ed Morrissey Anderson Cooper asked Barack Obama last night to answer the claim that Sarah Palin has more applicable experience than he does. In response, he completely ignores Palin’s status as governor, and then makes the claim that a campaign counts as executive experience: AC: Some Republican critics say, you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this [Hurricane Gustav]. They’ve in fact said that Governor Palin has more executive experience as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state like Alaska. What’s your response? BO: Well, you know, my understanding is that, uh, Governor Palin’s town of Wasilly [sic] has, uh, 50 employees, uh, uh, we’ve got 2500, uh, in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. Uh, uh, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Uh, so I think that, uh, our ability to manage large systems, uh, and to, uh, execute, uh, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years. Uh, and certainly, in terms of, uh, the legislation that I’ve passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina, uh, of how we handle emergency management. The fact that, uh, many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place, uh, as we speak indicates to extent to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect. Let’s take the last point first. Did Barack Obama pass legislation bearing his recommendations for emergency management? A list of “actions” taken by Obama in the wake of Katrina compiled by a supporter doesn’t exactly lend itself to that conclusion. Once one strips out all of the speeches, the actual legislative actions appear to mostly consist of adding his name as co-sponsor to the bills of others, and it’s unclear whether any of the bills Obama did introduce ever passed. Even if they did, it gives him no experience at managing disasters. Governors and mayors have to manage disasters, and when they succeed, they save lives. When they fail, as we saw in Katrina, it costs lives. Legislators have no role in disaster management itself, although honestly, disaster management isn’t usually a resumé point when voting for mayor, governor, or President. Whatever impulse exists now to make it one stems from the irrational blame heaped on George Bush for the failures of Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco in Katrina, although FEMA certainly had its failures as well. But the main point here is that Obama didn’t really answer the question, and he set up a straw man argument in response to Cooper. Governor Palin is, well, governor, and not currently the mayor of Wasila. As Governor, Palin operates a $9 billion budget, and manages $13 billion in revenue. Furthermore, she runs a government that employs 25,000 people. Obama blithely pretends that she’s still the mayor of “Wasilly” in order to boost himself. However, running for office isn’t executive experience, for one good reason: Obama isn’t the campaign manager. He has a CEO actually running the campaign, handling the budget, and managing the people while Obama makes the speeches. If this is Obama’s best response on the experience question, the attacks on Palin’s experience will have to stop, unless the campaign wants Obama to keep embarrassing himself while making it. Update: The McCain campaign has responded to Mark Halperin at Time: “For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over 10 billion dollar dollars, and more than 24,000 employees.” —Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008 By that standard, anyone who ever ran for any public office has executive experience — and that also kills their own experience argument against Palin http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/02/obamas-answer-on-experience-but-im-such-a-great-campaigner/ (Comment on this)
12:55 pm	Wow! WOW! Current Mood: contemplative (Comment on this)
9:15 am	School School starts tomorrow. I am taking two classes: 1. Legislative Processes 2. Seminar in International Relations We will see how these go! One of the syllabi is 58 pages long, that concerns me!!!!! The International Relations class has assigned reading already, Greek mythology. Current Mood: indescribable (Comment on this)