House of Eratosthenes

Blogger friend Buck sez, over at Daphne’s place, that we here put up Sarah Palin posts with great frequency. And you know what Morgan Rule Number One is…that’s right. If I’m gonna be accused, I wanna be guilty. Because being falsely accused of something really sucks. We won’t allow it to happen. So it’s time for a Palin post.

Saw a magazine at the haircutting place when my son was getting his buzz cut. Had a caricaturized cartoon of Palin taking the oath of office from a Chief Justice John Roberts, with a huge crowd in the background. The depressed-looking face of a mopey one-term Obama prominent among them. It was truly a glamorous piece of artwork. But before I could look around for whoever the Vice-President-Elect was, my eye was drawn to the headline: “Is This Even Possible?” or words to that effect.

Palin! The article inside was very thoughtful about all the pros and cons.

Not.

Just a bunch of high-level take-aways from sharply biased polls…her unfavorable rate is at a staggering sixty percent or some such. And you shouldn’t expect this number to move, ever, no matter what.

Well, I’ll tell ya this much. If we start from these premises that must remain unchallenged, for they cannot survive scrutiny or debate of any kind…if we start from those, then yes I agree. Sarah Palin is unqualified for any federal office, let alone President.

The premises are these.

That this bilge you’ve been told in elementary school…”Republicans and Democrats want to get the same things done but have different ideas of how to go about doing it” — is absolutely, positively, completely true and not to be subjected to the slightest bit of doubt.

That, since we have unanimous agreement about what we’re trying to do, it falls to We The People to elect the most qualified, knowledgeable and sophisticated people among those who agree with us about what has to be done. Because Lord knows our problems have nothing to do with wrong-headed policies per se. They all have to do with chuckleheads. We somehow have been electing thick-skulled people to do the things we all know need to be done, but we’re like crack addicts or wife-beaters. Starting now, we’re going to do things completely differently and put some rocket scientists in charge and that’ll fix freakin’ everything.

If you believe those two things, I can see where you’re coming from about Palin. She just isn’t the sharp-knife-in-the-drawer we need. We gotta get us a genius, like ++SKNXKXKX++ (guffaw) Barack Hussein Obama.

But I don’t buy into those two things. I don’t think we’re all trying to do the same things. I don’t think we all desire the same outcome. I think — and frankly, if you disagree, I must disparage your alleged attempts to pay attention — this nation suffers from a fundamental ideological split.

Constrained or unconstrained vision.

Extroverts in charge, or introverts.

Yin, or Yang.

Creators & preservers, or destroyers.

Real-life people, or fantasy-land pixie dust people.

Do we want wise, tested policies put in place, or crackpot bullshit policies, with really nice smart people who are capable of convincing us they’re the right way to go when they really aren’t.

Castes, or not.

People keep what they earn…or we need a wise, benevolent government to gallop in on a white hors after all the loot has been earned by others, and redistribute it. You know, like Obama said. “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

If you ~~have your head stuck up your~~ don’t believe i this schism, I can see how it would make perfect sense to carry around all this concern about whether she’s “qualified” or not.

If, on the other hand, you know what’s going on and you appreciate the gravity of it, you understand that insisting on a candidate who can get along with Katie Couric, makes about as much sense as telling the little boy to pull his finger out of the hole in the dike and let the city flood…because he doesn’t have a Ph.D.

She’s the boy. She’s got the hole plugged with her finger. How she ended up where she is, doesn’t matter one little bit. Our nation is about to be flooded…invaded. She’s standing between us and disaster, and she deserves our support.

Two things.

First, I said you posted a lot about Miss Alaska at my place, not Daphne’s.

Second: She’s standing between us and disaster, and she deserves our support.

OMFG. It’s gonna be a loooong two years, 11 months and a couple o’ few days if I have to keep reading this sort of drivel. I love you to death, Morgan, but you’re way over the top when it comes to Miss Alaska. Would you care to explain how your adulation for her differs from the Obamaphiles’ worship of their Main Man? I’m speaking specifically of YOUR attitude toward her, NOT her resume vs. Obama’s, her accomplishments vs. those of The One, her glasses, or her legs. Just YOU. Your attitude. Your fetish. 😉
- bpenni | 11/30/2009 @ 09:34
I already explained it. She’s got a real shot at prying us loose from the foolishness.

Everyone else — they all happen to be six-foot middle-aged white guys, but even if there was some of that much-vaunted “diversity” in the line-up…hey, tell you what. Here’s a thought exercise for you.

We don’t have primaries anymore. We have a serial election. Each Republican candidate, one at a time, goes up against The Holy One all throughout 2012. If Holy One loses to any one out of all of ’em, He has to step down. Just pretend it works that way.

Would anyone else gather so much of the vote as to get into the double digits? No, they wouldn’t. Every single one of them would allow the contest to languish in that “Who’s More Fun To Watch” depravity. And then the electorate would vote for whoever’s cuter.

I’ve said this many times before, I don’t know why you need me to keep repeating it. Palin had the testicles to say “This is a man who can give endless speeches about the War on Terror, and never use the word ‘victory’ except when talking about his own campaign.” All the other so-called “guys” have to take the “Er, I’m willing to concede health care/climate change is a serious problem, but…” approach.

And then there’s the matter of being a just-plain-capable administrator. After all the hubbub has died down, there is ample reason to think Palin has what it takes to steer a large bureaucracy so that it is effective — not too much reason to think she’s a fuck-up at it. Sure there are lots of folks eager to paint that picture, but they don’t have any evidence to back it up. They’re just trying to protect their own brittle egos. Now, Rudy can make a similar claim to being a capable administrator too. But I don’t see how anyone else can. Huckabee maybe, but now he has to wrestle with his “Willie Horton” moment. So he’s more done than Palin’s ever gonna be. And I don’t think The One is going to be cruising on in to 2012 in top form either, for reasons that are probably obvious.

And hey, pal. Do you really want to see Joe Biden on the cover of Runners World in tiny jogging shorts? She’s definitely got him beat there. 😉
- mkfreeberg | 11/30/2009 @ 10:13
And hey, pal. Do you really want to see Joe Biden on the cover of Runners World in tiny jogging shorts? She’s definitely got him beat there. 😉

OK… you win that one. Point taken.

I already explained it. She’s got a real shot at prying us loose from the foolishness.

Ummm. That sounds suspiciously like hopenchange to me. Your vanilla to their chocolate. (Is that racist?)
- bpenni | 11/30/2009 @ 11:09
Well it’s gonna have to have at least one thing in common with hopenchange. You want whoever-it-is to win, right?

Gee it wasn’t so long ago you were giving me precisely the same pitch about supporting the Maverick over Mr. Thompson. “You want him to win dontcha?” or words to that effect.

Anyway, I don’t see the parallel. Perhaps the problem is you can’t see the difference. Someone says “You’re a meanie-cow!” and there are two ways to respond to that… 1) No I’m not! Which means you’re now under their control. You have to do whatever they tell you to do. 2) Take the Morgan route…if I’m gonna be accused I wanna be guilty. Which puts you in a position of changing the conversation to — hey, weren’t we supposed to discuss which policies work the best? Let’s talk about that, now that we’ve come to agreement on this irrelevant matter of whether I’m a creepy jerk or not.

Palin doesn’t pursue either one of those two with real fidelity. John McCain stepped squarely into the first one. Me, I’m more faithful to the second one. And Obama? He never seems to have to make a choice. He’s the guy that keeps laying the trap for others.
- mkfreeberg | 11/30/2009 @ 14:08

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The Daphne/Sarah ThreadSunday, November 29th, 2009

The Daphne/Sarah Thread
Sunday, November 29th, 2009