Palin at Gettysburg

 
"The sun was barely up Tuesday morning when supporters and reporters gathered in front of Sarah Palin’s bus in a hotel parking lot, hoping to catch a glimpse of the former Alaska governor, whose third day of her East Coast tour is expected to include stops at the Civil War battlefield here and possibly later at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia." Poltico

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"Home, boys, home!  Home is just beyond that hill!"  Thus spake a Tennessee officer as his regiment approached the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge in what is generally called "Pickett's Charge." 

Is anyone going to ask her where she is while she is at Gettysburg?  I think a quiz would be appropriate.

Questions:

- Who was the Union commander in the battle?

- Why was the battle important?

- Did the battle end the war?

- Does she have any CW/WBS ancestors?

- Who held the battlefield after it ended?

And then, when they arrive in Philadelphia ask her a hard one, like, what role did Thomas Jefferson play in writing the Constitution? 

I actually think that a president ought to know a little history.  pl

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55919.html#ixzz1NvzdYPtu

 

Comments

[Patrick Lang]

Morgan

I would have harder questions for him.

graywolf

The problem with BO is not that he is not intelligent or well educated. He seems weak and easy to push around. If that is not true then he is very crafty. pl

[Medicine Man]

I actually had to look up and read a synopsis of the battle of Gettysburg. To think that there was 2 more years of war after that battle...

Sara Palin... she's not stupid. Proudly anti-intellectual, maybe, but not stupid. She shows pretty consistent savvy about some things. She knows exactly how to play the media, for starters.

Like others, I suspect that she has no interest in running for President; which is good, because I also think she has no interest in doing the work needed to run for President. She will however keep speculation going as long as possible, to maintain elevated interest in her public persona. Big money in being a pseudo-celebrity.

I'm not a fan of Sara Palin but I'm not sure whether I begrudge her her self-promotion. Our fucked up media culture is begging to be sold a product like Sara's public persona and I can't really fault her for having no respect for the role she is expected to play.

Or I could be 100% wrong. She might believe her own schtick, which is far more frightening a thought.

[graywolf]

Oops, senior moment caused a fat finger.
I'm not a big Sara fan.
I just like that she drives the self-anointed "ruling class" nuts.
I thought our ancestors threw out power pretenders 250 years ago.

[stickler]

Fred:

I saw the USS Olympia through the turret gunsight of the USS New Jersey a couple of years ago (they're moored on opposite sides of the river). Even took a picture of it, but haven't the slightest idea how to upload it. The New Jersey was jaw-droppingly awesome, but didn't get a chance to tour Olympia.

Sarah Palin is NOT stupid. She is crafty as all hell. She is also intellectually lazy and far from inquisitive. (In this she is emulating our current political elite, and who could blame her?)

She also has approximately zero chance of becoming President. Even though we have already had Presidents like Harding and Bush Jr., who were also no great shakes in the "inquisitive" department, Palin strikes me as a bridge way-too-far.

[Indy Ike]

Palin...scary? Phooey. She's not going anywhere substantial except in her bank account. I do suspect that she is in some ways smarter than a lot of people think.

Stuff that bugs me: I swear The Huffington Post publicizes Palin more than any other media org on the planet, including Fox. Mostly seem to be two kinds of Sarah articles: a) fear b)ridicule. I would think the fear is to pump up the Huffpo base but the ridicule should tend to mitigate that, assuming rationality factors /sarc. The main reason for overexposure must be to get mouse clicks and revenue.
If I owned a newspaper Sarah would be covered in the Media section since she is a media celebrity on Fox; her bus jaunt with her family would be in the Lifestyle section. Trump would be covered in the Entertainment section, the same place to display the arcs of Charlie Sheen's violent torpedos. If and when they pull up a chair at the grownups' politics table, declare candidacy and launch a campaign, then they get covered like the other candidates and get their turn in the candidates pulpit when appropriate.
So long, I gotta chase some kids off my lawn.

[LeaNder]

I don't think that's just a tea-party moment. Whenever Sarah Palin is mentioned, lady neo-neocon comes to mind. Who loves Hockey Mom, I guess mainly since she feels Sarah can make it:

http://neoneocon.com/category/palin/

[LeaNder]

I am with you Stephanie, if she was dumb she would be useless. But I have no doubt she proved her loyalty, ultimately not to the tea party; considering--excuse me Pat--the US election circus, they may not provide the necessary money.

[Patrick Lang]

LeaNder

US Elections are a circus because of corpoprate and special interest money in them. take that out and the picture would be very different. pl

[Patrick Lang]

walrus

I think that deliberate targeting of civilian populations is dishonorable. pl

[confusedponderer]

Mr. Lang,
first, happy birthday, second, I agree with: "US Elections are a circus because of corporate and special interest money in them. take that out and the picture would be very different"

The US do need a campaign finance reform. Yesterday.

Citizens United essentially set the precedent that corporations are people, too. If corporations are people, too, why aren't they allowed to vote? Indeed, it strikes me as particular unfair to discriminate against them in that regard.

So let me make a reasonable proposal of the Ayn Randian kind for how to best solve America's problems by building on the Citizen United precedent:

Introduce Census Suffrage. Probably Objectivist ethics projected on a societal scale mandate such a step. It would prevent America's John Galts from progressively disappearing (into tax heavens and such), withdrawing from America the "minds" that drive society's growth and productivity!

[Fred]

Confusedponderer,

If corporations are people then why can't we put them in jail, i.e. stop their commercial activities or otherwise de-charter them for felonies they commit? As to Ayn Rand, I think the proper 'bible' is not Atlas Shrugged but "The Virtue of Selfishness". Seems to fit the entire gang of 'got mine' true believers.

[Dan Gackle]

Fred:

I always thought the salient fact about Ayn Rand was that she took both Social Security and Medicare in her old age.

[Walrus]

Both Obama and Palin are narcissists. The trappings and adulation associated with the Presidency attracts them. They don't have strong personal policy agendas for which they would risk unpopularity with "important" people.

This is the reason that Barack Obama immediately threw his liberal progressive netroots base (including me) under the bus the instant he was elected.

To put it another way; you will never see Obama nor Palin say, as FDR did:

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred. "

You should all read that speech. It was right then and it is right today.

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od2ndst.html

[kao-hsien-chih]

One thing worth remembering is that we created the legal fiction that corporations are people in the first place so that they can be sued. I do think it'd be a good idea to get back to this (original) principle more often.

[William R. Cumming]

Once again! Those dilated pupils in bright sunlight scare me!

[Frabjous]

It has long interested me that corporations are treated in the US as having some of the same rights (but certainly and unfortunately not all of the responsibilities) as human beings.

I I’m not an attorney, but the earliest example of this of which I am aware is a court case (Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad) where an Obiter Dictum was added by the court clerk asserting that the court assumed that corporations should be treated as humans for the purpose of the case. The CLERK asserted this and it became law!

Seems to me this could be and should be refuted on strong constitutional terms!

Mark

[Grimgrin]

walrus: It's a wonderful speech, however one part in particular caught my eye:

"When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself."

[Frabjous]

Should read “Supreme Court case” and it was the court reporter, not the clerk.

Mark

[optimax]

Who is paying for Palin's bus tour? Why is the media so enamored with her?

[bth]

Rumor is she is coming to the Boston area for a tea this week and perhaps out to Concord's north bridge (in MA not NH). Dem state party convention is this weekend and her presence will serve as a disturbance in the force for any unmotivated delegate. Say what we may about her, she can generate millions in publicity for the price of a rented tour bus.

[confusedponderer]

Dan Gackle,
but it was in her rational self interest to do that.

[Indy Ike]

@optimax: "Why is the media so enamored with her?"

Advertising revenue. Some people love her, some people hate her. Both kinds in significant numbers can't help reading about her. It helps sell stuff and fills the media's coffers.
She's charismatic as hell for at least a critical mass of people; that's a hot-button thing. You may bust a mental gasket trying to reduce it with reason and logic.

As far as her budget, maybe she's gotten enough book money etc. by now to cover it herself? I saw a headline somewhere that said high gas prices may force them to cut it short...salt that or not.

[Medicine Man]

The media deserves Sarah Palin. They will deserve the imitators and successors she will spawn in the future. Why? Because following spectacles like those she creates is the business they've chosen. If they were in the business of informing the electorate, fact-checking public figures, and generally being critical watchdogs of the public sphere they would have a rational basis for ignoring or castigating Palin. As purveyors of entertainment products, carefully calibrated to sell advertising space, they have no rational basis for ignoring Palin. She's giving them what they want (need) and they can't ignore her, no matter how much they might dislike her rude and uncultured ways. Just desserts in my opinion; they deserve each other.

What isn't funny about Sarah Palin is that she might actually run for the highest office in the Republic. Personally, I doubt she could win, but even having a reality television candidate run would represent a new nadir in US politics.

[fasteddiez]

For some that think that Sarah Palin is not utterly stupid:

On Paul Revere, Via Historical Bus Tour.

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free."

Too bad Benjamin Franklin had not yet invented GPS. Had it been available to the hapless Mr. Revere, he might have foregone the incredible bad taste of having to ride towards the British lines, albeit in a retarded, psychotic, undecipherable attempt to warn of impending doom, or ehrr....jackassical nuisance.

The video of Palin's response is even more ridiculous.

[Charlie Wilson]

graywolf:

I don't always agree with all the letter writers to SST but they are written with sincerity and mean well. The colonel has accused me of being an anti-colonial lefty and I plead guilty. However your letters gives me the creeps. They reek of hostility and bigotry just like the rest of the Teabaggers and very unAmerican with a complete lack of generosity. You remind of that character in Mel Gibson's Passion where a worm comes out of his nose while he gleefully watches Jesus being brutalized.