Innnnnnteresting ....

[veronica_rich]

Supposedly, according to McCain campaign staffers, Sarah Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, not a country, and she was guilty of other asorted dumbnesses. Let's break this down:

In defense of the woman - and I cannot believe the text is coming from my fingertips - I know more than one smart person who has made this initial mistake. Including me. Not in the lasting, insistent sense - "Uh huh! Yes it is! South Africa's part of one country!" - but in the initial, unthinking sense when the topic first comes up. Because I've known since I was in at least the fourth grade that there are various and assorted countries in Africa. All I'm saying is, if you've ever heard anyone toss off "the country of Africa" before thinking, or someone reminding them "it's not a country, dummy" and then they go "what'd I say? oh shit, I wasn't thinking" - yeah. So, is this what the staffers are exaggerating? Or is it a case of her insisting it IS a country even after someone says "um ... it's not one country?"

Because I have to say - George Bush went to Yale and Harvard, and frankly, I think he's about as dumb as an actual president can get. (Not knowing the philosophical differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites before going to war is WAY worse than a slip of the tongue on Africa, IMO.) And while his lack of intelligence has been lampooned, spread out over eight years, the fact is that it took a lot longer than three months for people to start pointing and laughing at it. So why with Palin?

Is it - again, I have to wonder at this coming from ME - because she's a woman? Because it very well could be. (Bit of a lesson to the casual fandom pheminists out there: THIS is the sort of shit feminism was REALLY invented to combat. Not your crocodile tears over a fictional character not getting the right man.) Make no mistake about Palin - I don't want her anywhere NEAR my White House, now or in the future - but there are plenty of things to legitimately criticize about her besides lack of geographical knowledge IF it's just being exaggerated as I reference above. (And I suspect this may well be the case. I don't think the woman's the sharpest tack in the corkboard, but I really question if she's THAT ignorant.)

And if she is that ignorant? Well, it's not the fact she's being criticized for it, because certainly basic geographical knowledge is important. It's HOW she's being criticized. (See previous paragraph.) Certainly the electorate has the right to know, just as they should be cautious when listening to her tell a third-grader about the duties of a vice president and getting it out of whack. All I'm saying is, let's watch how we do it, and maintain a healthy skepticism about the extremity of her reported "ignorance." (If she were truly that dumb, wouldn't we be hearing about something far more egregious than the Africa thing? That's what makes me suspicious.)

Comments

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

Forget the Africa thing. She cannot even speak about Supreme Court decisions with any degree of intelligence. And like Bush not knowing the difference between Sunni & Shi'ite, that is far more telling than the Africa thing.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96735163

"Queen of Nascar" ROTFLMAO

[captsparrow4evr.livejournal.com]

IMHO, the McCain camp wants a scapegoat and Palin is it. Now, that's not saying she isn't "dumb as a box of rocks" but she is going to be reviled for quite a while because McCain lost "because of her." Now, we know that's not the truth. He lost because the majority of voters saw him as Bush v. 3.0 and said "Enough is enough" but that isn't going down well with the right wing. Furthermore, the Republican Party can now use this in the future when someone suggests another female candidate for VP or President.

[joyful-molly.livejournal.com]

And there I was thinking that Yale and Harvard had some sort of standards - well, beyond the financial ones, I mean.

From an European point of view, I can assure you that we mocked and pointed Bush very early on - four months on into his presidency, maybe. And I can tell you that my disgust for Palin has nothing whatsoever to do with her gender. (If you're interested, here are my thoughts on the matter). I'd hate anybody who seems to be the impersonation of every single negative stereotype about Americans that exists. The "Former Beauty Queen" is just the cherry on the top, just like "Former Quarterback" would have been in a man.

I don't think that "African thing" is more stupid than anything else she's said during the last months. An ignorant is an ignorant is an ignorant, and even if only half of her statements were made up, it was bad enough.

[mamazano.livejournal.com]

This isn't surprising, actually. (The geography bit). I once walked around the building I worked in, where 99% of the people were college students, grad students, with most have at least a Masters of Science degree, asking randomly which continent Egypt was in. Surprising, most people did NOT say Africa. Many said the Middle East, which when last I checked, is in Asia.

I am sure that Palin is getting critcized more because she is a woman, but the fact remains, she is definitely not the most astute woman in politics. I cringe to think the Republican party actually saw her fit to be running this country.

I am also sure that whatever Obama does will be under the microscope as well, mostly do to the color of his skin. That is the way this country operates it seems.

[ellie-pierson.livejournal.com]

The thing I found most annoying, was surprisingly not Mrs. Palin, but how the press latched onto the fact that the Republican party had spent $150,000 on her clothing. Why is that important? Would they have ever considered making a comment about how much they spent on a male canidates wardrobe?? Was it to push home the fact that she is just an average mom?

[gloromeien.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was definitely thinking the same thing when I read that article. It does smack of 'Pin the Election Loss on the Pitbull With Lipstick'. And the ways they chose to defame her were classic sexism. She went on a spending spree! She appeared in a towel! She's an out of control, unedumecated floosy! She bedazzled us with her feminine wiles! Please.

Palin served their purposes when they needed her, but now she's suddenly the reason for their defeat. God forbid they should blame the actual candidate! Because honestly if he had been a stellar choice for Prez, her intellectual competency would not be or have been an issue.

Also, doesn't that inevitably reflect badly upon them? She may be dumb - and, whoa, is she ever! - but they were the ones willing to give her the keys to the kingdom. IMO, it says more about their priorities and infantile attitudes than it does about Palin's capabilities.

[crevette.livejournal.com]

I think that This says it best.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

You know, you weren't running for Vice President with a 72-year old running mate. I think it's inexcusable and these gaffs should be balloyhooed from theh rooftops for the pure and simple reason that it shows she's completely unqualified for the job she was applying for. Combine this with the leaks magnifying her shopping sprees and we have someone who is not only dumb but is venal and self-serving.

Do I wish that all the words spent on Hillary Clinton's appearance were excercized from my brain? Yes. Do I htink that the public spends an inordinate amount of time obsessing over women politicians and their apperance. Obviously. Just as much as people do over Obama being black. The trailblazers are storymakers.

But if you take away that "need" for a story, the bottomline is that her ignorance is so profound that it should be tattooed on her forehead. Because we all know she's running in 2012, thereby potentially eliminating a possible DECENT candidate. I used to admire the Republicans on one level in that I thought they were smart and focused. The radical wing of the GOP are idiots if they think they can parlay this woman into a national candidate. She is made of fail. And four years getting tutored night and day is not going to change her essential nature. Someone who can gas with a microphone and nothing more.

[justawench.livejournal.com]

I think they latched onto that because it was completely in violation of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act:

SEC. 313. USE OF CONTRIBUTED AMOUNTS FOR CERTAIN PURPOSES.
(a) PERMITTED USES-

...
(b) PROHIBITED USE-

(1) IN GENERAL- A contribution or donation described in subsection (a) shall not be converted by any person to personal use.

(2) CONVERSION- For the purposes of paragraph (1), a contribution or donation shall be considered to be converted to personal use if the contribution or amount is used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate's election campaign or individual's duties as a holder of Federal office, including--

(A) a home mortgage, rent, or utility payment;
(B) a clothing purchase;
(C) a noncampaign-related automobile expense;
(D) a country club membership;
(E) a vacation or other noncampaign-related trip;
(F) a household food item;
...


I think in the context that it flew in the face of everything McCain was supposed to stand for, it was a very important indication of her character.

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Campbell Brown said the same thing, and I disagree with her. It's important because the money came from campaign donations. Cindy McCain's Oscar de la Renta dresses probably cost five times as much as one of Palin's designer suits, but she paid for them out of her own pocket. Same goes for McCain's Italian loafers and Obama's expensive suits. In a time of financial crisis, it was extraordinarily bad PR and the campaign should never have allowed the story to break like that.

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Re: your last paragraph - we keep hearing 2012, but I honestly think she'll be on her way out long before that. The Republican party needs to undergo a seismic shift if it wants to regain any sort of power with the American electorate, and I hope and believe that Palin's brand of identity politics and lowest-common-denominator appeal will keep her out of a national race. All this villification after the loss seems like an important step along the way.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I think the Republican party is completely splintered on this issue. The real hard-core types who support someone like Palin (the neocons who see another potential puppet) believe that they weren't conservative ENOUGH (insert eyes hitting screen). They don't seem to realize that all those young people who voted in this election have grown up in a multicultural US and that the values of the old GOP have no resonance outside the South. I actually see an enormous catfight erupting. Because the neocons wants to back someone like her and those in the GOP with some brains are going to have to craft a policy that doesn't marginalize them to being the party of the south--and ONLY the south. It will be an interesting battle to see what shakes out. Because, regardless, the GOP needs to do some serious soul-searching. Beyond the Obama win, their bedrock philosophy has resulted in an economic disaster of unbelievable proportions (and from I've read this is only the beginning) and a stalemate in the Middle East. I wonder how in the hell Karl Rove wakes up in the morning and looks at himself in the mirror.

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

From what I've been seeing since Tuesday, this bringing up the Africa gaffe is part of an ongoing tension (to put it mildly) between the Palin and McCain camps. Frankly, I'd forgotten about it until now. Maybe the McCain people are looking to scapegoat Palin, and using this as one of their many excuses?

[justawench.livejournal.com]

My personal problem with her is not her lack of knowledge on this particular subject or that one, it's that she is intellectually incurious and that she doesn't see a problem with not having all the information at hand.

She's all about appearances and self-promotion. I don't think she has been unfairly picked on for being a woman. She's worse than Dan Quayle, IMO, and he was mocked pretty relentlessly. I find her *completely* unqualified for VP or President.

The only experience that could possibly qualify her for a higher political office is less than two years as governor of a small (population-wise) state. From what I've read, she achieved this by letting people mentor her, then stabbing them in the back; plus running against an incumbent who was perceived to be corrupt.

I just found this article, which gives some interesting insight: http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=8c130fe3-adab-4cb3-8443-c363f085cf13

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

She wasn't picked to run the country. She was picked to get votes, both from the conservative base and from those disappointed that Hilary Clinton didn't get a spot on the Dem ticket.

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Lord, I don't know ::shudders::

It will certainly be interesting to watch. My hope (and I should really try to watch more Faux News to confirm this, painful though it may be) is that neocons are so inherently self-serving that they'll conform to a kinder, gentler, more genuinely traditional (if that makes sense?) Republican party. Or they can get thrown out, I'm cool with that too. But really, I'd like to stop using 'conservative' as a pejorative just as much as I'd like to stop seeing 'liberal' used the same way.

[justawench.livejournal.com]

No, they believe McCain wasn't conservative enough. The Republicans have been made even more neocon (from what I've heard) by losing some moderates who held seats in northern and western areas. If they don't reverse this trend, I don't know what will happen. Maybe some of the actual fiscal conservatives will splinter off and make a new party?

ETA: Oh, sorry, I see you said "they" not "she."

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely.

[justawench.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen, the neocons have religious righteousness on their side and they'll be pulled from the Republican party kicking and screaming.

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

Her motivations aside, she sounds like your garden-variety bully.

[porridgebird.livejournal.com]

An entirely different story would have been: "When we first met Sarah, she didn't even know Africa was a continent. But we've never seen anyone so eager to learn! She wore us out! You couldn't keep her face out of a book. We had to remind her to sleep!"

But that's not what happened. She resisted and refused coaching and instruction. Then when she got bad press over her ignorance, she cried and threw temper tantrums and blamed the very people who had tried to help her. THEN she spent a king's ransom on clothes. She's not being picked on because she's a woman, she's being picked on because she's bimbo. She lived down to just about every negative female stereotype out there.

[mamazano.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know why she was picked, I was being facitious. :)

But, to me at least, a VP candidate SHOULD be able to run the country if there is a need. I am old enough to remember Kennedy's assasination, and Nixon's impeachment. Heaven forbid if McCain HAD won and dropped down dead from a heart attack or something during his term. Regardless of the "Al Haigs" who think they'd be in charge, the second in command would take over.

I shudder to think what would happen to this country with someone like Sarah Palin running it.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Precisely. I prefer to concentrate on what matters, and in a fashion that criticizes her in the same way I would criticize any candidate, man or woman. I just sort of get the feeling if she were a man, the criticism would be taking a different tone - don't ask how, I can't answer that. Just a reporter's feeling.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

it's that she is intellectually incurious and that she doesn't see a problem with not having all the information at hand

This. This is my problem. Though I am alarmed she doesn't have a basic college education, I've actually known a few people in my life who didn't need it, because they were so relentlessly self-educated.

My point was that everybody seems to be focusing on penny-ante shit, when there are larger issues at hand with her - not that she shouldn't be criticized. And with Dan Quayle, it annoyed me that they were picking on "potatoe" when there were THINGS to criticize about the man.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure it's scapegoating. That's what annoys me about it. It's going to be done enough on this stupid little shit that people are going to focus on that and forget the true ignorance and incuriosity she has displayed. I don't want it forgotten that she doesn't know what a VP does, or that she doesn't read to keep up with the news, or that she's ignorant about even one or two Supreme Court decisions.