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Palin the DebaterPosted on Sep 7, 2008
Sarah Palin and Joe Biden will go head to head on Oct. 2, but if you can’t wait to see how McCain’s No. 2 handles herself in rhetorical combat, take a look at this 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate. There’s a lot for Democrats to be worried about here. Watch it here. Previous item: Palin Wows 'em at Church in Her Pre-Nominee Days Next item: McCain the Neocon Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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By rage, September 10, 2008 at 10:21 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
“I hope she will have to prove her toughness on the road by tugging-up McCains elastic socks for him. He can tell her how nice her shampoo smells, turn down the lights in the Straight Talk Express and, in the tradition of Hugh Hefner, get some Republican mixology going.”
That criminal travesty has already occurred on the last seat of the Straightjacket Regress. Gramps calls that vetting the former Miss Congeniality before exploitation racist, sexist, lazy, willful ignorance Karl Rove calls The Base. Fortunately, after calling every single undecided Dobsonian lobotomite listed in every single evangelical megachurch membership directory in the free world, Rove still has the talons of his most crafty minion full to compacity trying keep the lipstick off this glammorized warthog’s tusks each time she puts her cloven hoof in her mouth. Team Grampers is that much closer to being forked as DONE with each new Palin gaffe or scandal that crops miserably up. With the passage of each news cycle, this base grows less and less certain that the Godzilla that savaged Wasilla is pretty enough to distract them from accepting as fact that they’re amongst those hardest hit by the war on the Americans who have nothing, including rights to hold the junta accountable. At least back when Bubba Clinton was getting his wick waxed, only Monica was wearing the infamous blue dress. Under Dumya and Dick Vader, with Gramps complicity 90% of the time for the last eight years, we’re all wearing it. Now they’ve got some ice princess from Eskimo country who wants to rub our noses in it. Well, now, look, Coy can’t hide that Sierra from GMAC too much longer. And, he and Lurleen haven’t had decent jobs since Clinton left Office. Lurleen’s parttiming at WalMart ain’t paying the mortgage on that house they’re trying to keep. Their son is on his third run in Anbar Province. And, their daughter, her husband, and their kids have had to move back home when industry shut down for good in their community. These folks are starting to realize all this war might not be what Jesus would do.
They are starting to realize something else, too. They’re realizing that choking your chicken to this slut who will do and say anything her handlers pay her to say isn’t going to feed them, clothe them, educate their kids, or keep a roof over their heads. These are rich heirs to fortunes bigger than the fattest Power Ball prize in multi-state lottery history. They don’t have bills like Coy and Lurleen. Gramps ain’t hiding his Cadillac from GMAC. McCain and Palin are privileged elites who can afford to fight aborting kids the poor can’t afford to feed.
Defending the Bush legacy Gramps has enherited is a daunting task for even the most erudite GOP legislators, and utterly impossible for two twits like Gramps and Caribous Barbie. It’s why the duncical duo have Rove all over keeping Miss Congeniality in the news in glammor-shots and are slapping down the race, sex, and idiocy cards in attacking Obama and Biden’s personalities instead of engaging in a meaningful discourse on the issues. Team Dumb and Dumber 2008 is more concerned about extracting an apology from Obama for calling a self-proclaimed lipstick smudged pitbull the pig she really represents. Still, with all Rove’s crafty distractions, Gramps and the candy heiress have peaked, plateaued, and are starting to trend downward. Face it, that post NaziCon bump in the polls was not a reflection of 18 million ship-jumping Clintonistas joining Gramps’ frey, and there are not as many bigoted, pew-blistered, uninformed Falwellians still voting wedge issues against their best interests as Turdblossom would have us all believe. Once Biden finishes ol’ girl off in the debates, and Gramps logs another dozen feckless gaffes while appearing small, short-armed, and alone, the poll ratings for McCain - Palin are going to start to fall like an anvil through thin air.
Report thisBy who's your Daddy?, September 9, 2008 at 1:53 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
rage, You ought to change your nick. You are very entertaining. I don’t get it with Palin, either. She “loves Jesus” but lies without missing a beat. And those poor fucking animals trying to protect their cubs from the helicopters. I hope she will have to prove her toughness on the road by tugging-up McCain’s elastic socks for him. He can tell her how nice her shampoo smells, turn down the lights in the Straight Talk Express and, in the tradition of Hugh Hefner, get some Republican mixology going. I hope you know that in McCain’s 2nd-Term in Office, there is going to be some 80 y.o. love happening in the White House. 7PM is bedtime, so plug your ears then if you don’t like the sound of creaking, cracking bones.
Report thisAnd someone should warn the new Prez that those silky 400-weave sheets provide no purchase whatever (per Paul Newman flick) so the rubber footies are advisable.
By KDelphi, September 9, 2008 at 7:42 am #
Palin makes me want to projectile vomit, but so does so much talk of field dressing moose. Do you think you could focus on some other facet of her story for awhile? Or maybe even issues? I know abortion, fake feminism,—what about Creationism? What about “no science”.I think that is what her critics need to focus on. “I love my guns” people need mo more pics of her, in their head, butchering moose in a rwb bikini.It would be great if Dems could say that they didnt support “christian” charter schools—or charter schools at all! But—they cant! She is not evidence of feminism’a failure. She is a failure as a self-aware female, is more like it.
Report thisBy rage, September 9, 2008 at 7:17 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
“She used to enjoy shooting big game from a helicopter. THATS what I call HUNTING, baby!”
You need to stop flogging the bishop to that picture of Palin in the whore uniform in which she was vetted by Gramps. Palin only made the cut when the other suitable female Republican candidates told Rove that there was no guarantee Obama was going to choose Hillary, and that tiny leather skirt he got from Larry Craig was too sluttly for even the tramps who serviced Diaper Vitter! They were right. Obama picked Biden. And, all Diaper Vitter’s sex servants say Palin ought to be ashamed of herself. For McCain, not the skirt. And, this came from women who know better than anybody that Gramps is anything BUT a Maverick. Still, neither the Vitter whores nor the lady Republicans can figure out which of those two idiots could done better for himself, Gramps or Caribou Barbie.
CEEJ, Gramps is committing political suicide by political booty-call. The only reason McCain tapped this bootyful simpleton is because he needed a freaky spectacle to the curious in to see a show that had been tanking when it starred just him. Cindikins as Miss Buffalo Chip just wasn’t cutting it for him. Folks are now coming to his circus to see the freak. The problem is she’s peaking before the debates. That, and the public is getting way too much craziness for that dime. Desturbing craziness. Really desturbing stuff, like her family, her religion, her weird scandals, her having once played Godzilla to Wasilla, a small place now infested with meth labs, over 40 actually. And, the crap she says when she ventures off the 500 - vocabulary worded script! Sweet cheese on a cracker!!!! Team McCain is already sequestering this special needs baby to keep her from putting both her feet in her mouth in public with the cameras rolling again. For a minute, I actually thought Gramps took her with him everwhere they went out of sheer letchery. But, it’s to ensure this idiot does do something like set the bus on fire. If he can see her in the straightjacket, Gramps knows they’re good until the next stop.
Biden is going to thrash that bespectacled Alaskan hillbilly something fierce in that debate. Biden’s vocabulary is greater than 500 words. And, he didn’t have to attend 6 colleges to get one BS degree. And, he’s got experience actually debating the issues important to us right now, not what day Jesus is coming back or whether there were dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden. We’re talking about the economy, foreign policy, America’s infrastructure, jobs, the environment, energy independence, trade balance and regulation, education, and universal healthcare. This twit gaffed yesterday when she admitted she had no idea Freddie and Fannie were private until the government took them over as a contingency for salvaging what’s left of housing and mortgage in America. Sad thing was, as much as that’s been in the news, she knew little else about Fannie or Freddie, or the burst housing bubble. Biden isn’t going to lose one hour’s sleep worrying about making this poorly packaged sack of caribou manure weep when he brutally undoes her for that victory. She and Gramps have been jaw-jacking their wolf tickets for days now. Well, hopefully, the wolf cub murderess can hire a chopper to hover over Biden to get him in her cross hairs. Because, actually shooting him is the only hope of winning this twit has.
Report thisBy CJ, September 8, 2008 at 10:23 pm #
Joe Biden doesnt stand a chance in the face of woman who both believes in pending Rapture and who claims to be feminist. More than claims. Someone finally has to say it: Feminism, both as theory and cause, has turned out a disaster for the democratic left. Not because not valid but because so limited in scope. Palin is living proof. Its actually possible to be anti-abortion AND (supposedlyin the context of the single most uptight culture in human history) liberated. Shes gov, isnt she? Small state in terms of population, but gov of one of 50 states, nonetheless. Shes top dawg atop tundra, and now as McCains running dawg.
She used to enjoy shooting big game from a helicopter. THATS what I call HUNTING, baby! Why waste time tromping through snow and wood when you can gun-down running-in-terror beasts from the air? Was it Giuliani who mentioned in his ridiculous nonsense of a speech that shes the only woman he knows of who can field-dress a moose. (Lets hope shes the ONLY woman he knows who can do that!) Some putz said that, if not Rootin Tootin. My kinda woman! Blood and guts girl, truly a mans man. Sorry, a mans WOMAN! Whadda ya say, boys? Girls? Shes hotter than her just-fired pistols, aint she? Like Annie Oakley or Ma Barker. (More Barker than Oakley. More MacKinnon than Friedan. Forget G.I. Jane, comparatively a complete wimp.)
Shes a hard-ass woman with no time to waste on truck. This woman believes in personally repopulating the planet (when her kids arent doing so) as much as in Gawd ALL-mighty. Her thing is seeing to Gawds plan. BTW, Gawds not factored in any of you. Only the Biblically titled: Sarah, and John. Sarah, raised up a Catholic, which was hardly Calvinist enough. Mullah? Whats a mullah next to high, holy Sarah?
Biden will appear pallid next to not-remotely pallid, rocket-in-her-pocket Palin, Siren-in-Chief. Step-off Diane and you too Kay, and you, Hillary. Yas got nothing compared to Ma Palin. Old Joe will seem old and decrepit as he attempts to distinguish his version of Manifest Destiny from her version of Manifest Destiny. Has Joe ever field-dressed a moose? Im guessing not. Otherwise, he thought to partition Iraq, willy-nilly: End of problem. Bear in mind that Sarah resides closer to Russia too, as noted by Cindy Hensley of Hensley & Co., beer (which I also adore) distributorship. Ooooo bogeyman Putin only 500,000 feet to the west, 15 times the height of Mt. Everest above sea-level. Joe? Senator from Delaware, not so much within spitting distance. What does Joe know? Yes, hes gone to Iraq, but has he ever visited the Aleutian Islands? Well, has he? Cmon now. Iraq is one thing, the Aleutians a whole other thing. There does real danger lurk. Plus its cold.
Thankfully, according to believers in angels, and rather more seriously, both would-be veeps are ardent adherents of doctrine known as Manifest Destiny, as well as ardent believers in Gawd ALL-mighty, both political positions being what count most among we the voters.
No sense, only nonsense. May the best man (of which Sarah is certainly one) win pretense to debate, human reason utterly beyond both identity-politics left and social-Darwinist right. Here in empiric merica where the only dead bodies that are counted are empires own, certainly not those that, like Sarah shooting moose from the air, we insist on blasting on a far larger scale by the same means, long as media never puts up pictures of usby means of troops (who are only doing what we ask/require/DEMAND of them)doing so. Hell, we cant even be bothered with pictures of our own dead troops, never mind those of the enemy.
So much for any kind of liberation, including from the clutches of unreason. As Ari Berman pointed out a couple years ago in a Nation piece, reason (adherence to facts as they can be learned via scientific method) amounts only to another ism; namely, scientism. That from a liberal, not from Sarah Palin.
Report thisBy Kalin, September 8, 2008 at 7:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I didn’t think she did well. This was a red state debate, not the entire country. She’s obviously adept at managing the camera—her newscaster background showing—but that’s about it. And it was her Democratic candidate who discussed health care, while she dwelled on moose and karibu, biting down on her hunting buzz words, even to the point that it was transparently a gimmick. She kept it *professional* and looked into the camera, but that’s no great talent. I don’t see why Joe Biden would be anything less, himself. With all his years of experience in Congress, on the campaign trail, and in front of cameras himself—where he’s got great control over the viewer’s eye. He’s the one with more than camera experience— the background on foreign policy, and on the right side of the issues that are concerning most Americas. We’re facing 4 wars at present. See how the college leaping journalism student handles that, by way of comparison. Even with the Bush administration desperately prepping her.
Report thisBy KDelphi, September 8, 2008 at 7:11 pm #
It scares me when I see Palin at that whacked out church, and hear Olbermann saying, “Does Am. really need a VP who talks in tongues…blah”? Well, duh. hat do you think the guy in teh WH right now, believes? If you attack her, do you alienate born again Christians? I dont know.She’s very , very wierd.But, so are alot of Americans. You would THINK that 8 yrs of W would have people re-thinking having a prs. or VP that “speaks for god”. But, you never know…
Report thisBy Maani, September 8, 2008 at 6:52 pm #
Palin has three weeks to be prepped to the teeth for her debate with Biden. She is basically smart, and will absorb quite a bit in that time. She only needs to hold her own and not look like a complete neophyte in order to “score” well, even against a stateman like Biden who has oodles of experience over her. As well, Biden will need to be careful not to condescend or dismiss Palin, or he will simply come off as…condescending and dismissive (and mean). He will really need to be careful not to (i) allow her to rile him up, or (ii) give her any extra “points” by acting “elitist.”
Peace.
Report thisBy Marc Schlee, September 8, 2008 at 5:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
It has been reported that Sarah Palin screwed around on her husband.
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
Report thisBy Dancova, September 8, 2008 at 4:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
What most concerns me in this whole debacle is how quickly the American psyche can be turned with the right ad lines given by a skilled culture symbol. If issues of truth and substance are now deficits (why shouldn’t Palin and McCain continue to lie openly about Barack Obama? What’s wrong with going to six colleges to get a bachelor’s degree? ‘She sounds just like me!’), I do fear for the future. People are voting in greater and greater numbers against their economic interests and in favor of bland, easily understood cultural icons who continue to screw them. A small leap from there to literally auditioning actors to read the lines for those in the shadows, nearly what happened with Bush and Cheney anyway.
Report thisBy rage, September 8, 2008 at 2:37 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The thing is nothing from this debate footage is going to do Palin much good against Joe Biden. This chick was Big Oil’s pampered shill against a nondescript opponent whose responses to the questions posed that night were actually no worse than Palin’s scripted or rehearsed responses. The only reason she got mad props was because Big Oil was working the Applause sign that night. But, she isn’t going to be debating Joe Biden under those same generous circumstances. Palin is going to need more than the gloss of a BS in Looking Absolutely Fabulous During Teleprompted Public Reading to get her past Ladykiller Joe Biden.
Joe Biden can devour this brain-free Barracuda with minimal effort. Biden’s not going to cut her a whole lot of sympathy breaks just because a bunch of Rethugs voting with their dicks think she’s some super hot babe. Men on the left don’t esteem Palin quite that highly. Obama just ran off a highly qualified woman who was far better justified in claiming day-1 Presidential readiness than Palin can ever dream of being. And, women on the left resent Palin’s traveling by a geezer’s coattail to a job she, by her own admission, has no clue how to do because no one will tell her what the VEEP does everyday. Palin is little more than a very light snack for a tough old North Eastern shark who’s had heavier bowls of sugary moose flakes for breakfast too many mornings as a kid. When Palin leaves the cone of silence that night, she’s going to very much resemble a white mouse cowering in fear for her life in one corner against Joe “the Boa Constricter” Biden in the other corner. After Biden tears Miss Congeniality a host of new painful ones, all comparisons of her to Obama will CEASE.
Let’s be clear about one thing: this age of accepted Presidential ignorance is over! Sarah Louis Heath Palin is never going to be President as a result of being on McCain’s ticket. For one thing, McCain is not going to win this election. All these baseless polls, this debate footage of Big Oil giving Palin the governor’s office, all these delusional what-if scenarios for if Gramps were to keel over, Turdblossom’s less than subtle massaging of the media for Team Grampers, all the photo ops she and Gramps are enjoying like a couple DeMille stars finally getting that coveted close up, and all the rest of this empty campaign silliness mean nothing to voters seeking relief after eight years of Bush manure. The only thing voters want to hear is that this old coot has a plan to fix this mess made by a predecessor with whom he voted 90% of the time. And, he doesn’t. McCain doesn’t have a clue, and neither does Alaska’s special needs poster babe for governance ineptitude and malfeasance whom this old booty-blinded geezer selected to be his running mate. Palin is the one political booty-call Gramps is going to live long enough to regret, okay?
Report thisBy KDelphi, September 8, 2008 at 2:24 pm #
The pics of her all over the covers of magazines, with close ups of her disabled baby , made me sick today, shoping. She is using a 5 month old baby—the baby should be at home, being cared for by her husband or a child care worker. Not by her l7 yr old daughter.
Report thisBy troublesum, September 8, 2008 at 12:53 pm #
Alaska is full of religious red necks. That’s the crowd Palin plays to. Lots of people with drug and alcohol problems too because life is so difficult there and winters are so long. One of her opponents mentioned the need for more money for alcohol and drug treatment but apparently Palin wants to leave sinners to God.
Report thisBy troublesum, September 8, 2008 at 12:23 pm #
Oh yes, a lot to worry about here. Out of all the issues facing the people of Alaska, Palin said what she most wanted to do if elected was to increase the moose and carabou herds. Her priorities are in order. She also said she was opposed to abortion even in the case of rape and wouldn’t allow her daughter to have an abortion even if raped. She is opposed, she said, to assisted suicide no matter how much pain the terminal patient was in. Start worring.
Report thisBy NOLA Native & unapologetic Liberal, September 8, 2008 at 11:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
All I have to say is Big B, ya made my day!!!!!
Report thisBy purplewolf, September 8, 2008 at 11:43 am #
Paolo: Sarah Palin will not get us out of the middle eastern countries as she stated in a June 2008 speech, given to a graduating class at her former church, the Wasilla Assembly of God. “Iraq, is a task from God that America will carry out God’s plan. That’s what we have to make sure we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.” She also wants her brand of Christianity to pray for the pipeline as God wants to assure that America will obtain that natural gas also.
I remember when it was a sign of madness when God spoke to people. For God to encourage the slaughter of millions of his people in other parts of the world, simply because they are not like you, just doesn’t seem to fit well with the commandment, “Thou shall not kill,” they spout on about. Anyone who thinks like this and uses the bible to justify their depraved acts against everything she claims her God created, has NO BUSINESS in politics. Help us if she ever becomes President in probably a 3rd stolen Repug. presidential election.
Let’s not forget her patriotism, or lack thereof, being a member of a society that wanted to secede Alaska from the rest of the U.S., and still they complain about a damn flag pin, or lack of on Obama’s lapel.Really.
Report thisBy purplewolf, September 8, 2008 at 11:28 am #
Paolo: Sarah Palin will not get us out of the middle eastern countries as she stated in a June 2008 speech, given to a graduating class. “Iraq, is a task from God that America will carry out God’s plan. That
Report thisBy Richard Eyews, September 8, 2008 at 9:37 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
McCain is horrible in debates, It will be interesting to see how Palin does. They have a vitual debate set up between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Its pretty funny. Its a side by side video of Palin and Biden Debating
Report thisBy regmax, September 8, 2008 at 7:26 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Say what you will , she did hold her own , which is is supposed to do ...
Report thisBy Fahrenheit 451, September 8, 2008 at 5:52 am #
Big B;
Report thisIt’s not the debate, the substance; it’s the performance!
By Fahrenheit 451, September 8, 2008 at 5:48 am #
Ah, naming; naming is so bad because it stultifies thinking and boundaries. Tell me what you think, feel, and wonder; not your label.
Report thisBy Big B, September 8, 2008 at 5:44 am #
Always a misnomer in american politics is the perseption that winning the debate equates to a win on election day.
Report thisYou could not be more wrong!
The classic example is 1960. Nixon won his big TV debate with JFK, But he was seen as being nervous and sweating(you know, Nixon) and he lost!
In 1984, Mondale beat the poor, doting, Reagan like a gong, but was seen as being “mean to that poor old man” and lost!
Sen. Bentsen practically walked across the stage and pants’d dan Quail, yet that moron was one heartbeat away from the red button.
Ross Perot, although a kook, made Bush I and slick Willy look like the arrogant, out of touch elitists that they were. and he also lost.
GW looked like a retarded monkey with a blocked colon in 2000 and 2004, and yes you remember, he won too.
Debates have come to mean nothing. Whoever you supported before the debate, you will support after.
Short of Barry coming on stage with a towel wrapped around his head, or Sarah doing a striptease complete with picking up a 5 dollar bill with her ass, the debates will probably amount to nothing.
By Paolo, September 8, 2008 at 5:09 am #
As a libertarian, I see Sarah Palin as a mixed bag. On the good side, she has many times had kind words for Dr. Ron Paul. This is good. She has also supported the Alaska Independence Party, which calls for secession from the US Empire. This is also good. On the other hand, she likely took these stands out of perceived political advantage, and will drop both like a rock if and when she gets to Washington.
On the bad side, she supports the War on (non-government sanctioned) Drugs. Definitely very bad.
Regarding her lack of experience, it is true she doesn’t have the necessary experience to reign as Empress of the Global US Hegemon, but on the other hand, who does? Obama, Biden, and McCain all suffer from this delusion.
So, as a libertarian, I have two very slim hopes that we may be saved from utter devastation under the next administration. In one scenario, Barack Obama wins, and actually starts to move in an antiwar, non-interventionist direction. This is highly unlikely, but marginally conceivable.
In the other scenario, McCain wins, dies of a heart attack immediately after inauguration, and Palin takes over. Through some miraculous means, she goes back to her Alaskan roots, actually supports limited government, makes Ron Paul VP or an important advisor, gets us out of the Middle East and elsewhere, and begins scaling back the central government colossus. Again, highly unlikely, but conceivable.
At least, we can dream, can’t we?
Report thisBy Jim Yell, September 8, 2008 at 4:49 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
We should ask ourselves why a candidate for what was once a major political party, a resident in the one state that was specifically bought with the tax dollars of the whole country was ingraite enough to have played with Secessionism of that state of Alaska from the union? It is an insult to the country at large.
Add to this her disregard for the rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the phony enthusiasm built up by the Right Wing News—-what is the fool doing in the spotlight at all?
Report thisBy rage, September 8, 2008 at 3:55 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Big Oil’s cutesy plant’s overwhelming problem is her competitor in the debate from Gov can’t carry Joe Biden’s jock. So, this is hardly a good preparatory dry run for her. This guy is nowhere near as relentless as Biden.
Palin is high school junior varsity product of a lot local league mercy and gimmes about to engage the reigning champion in the majors. She’s the same highschool basketball barracuda, but she’s facing off against the Michael Jordan, instead of that girl team against whom her candy fortune trust funding folks were able to fund a victory. Biden is going to finish this debate picking his teeth with whatever is left of Palin’s parched bleached bones. This moose is stew!
Report thisBy mpkirby, September 8, 2008 at 3:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Note she always looks at the camera when answering the questions. Other folks look at the interviewer or down. She also relates almost every question to her own personal convictions (something that evokes admiration, even in opponents), or something that “the people” want.
She’s strong-willed, without being shrill.
She is everything Hillary isn’t—Democrats beware.
Report thisBy Fahrenheit 451, September 8, 2008 at 3:29 am #
Much to my chagrin; Palin did well enough to win the Governorship. Democrats need to see this.
Report thisBy Dave in Big Pine, September 8, 2008 at 2:40 am #
typical. Halcro is by far the most informed, articulate, progressive, candidate, on that panel while palin is beyond stupid, and of course the voters choose the yokel.
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