She then slammed Barack Obama calling him disqualified to be President of the United States, “Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may — in my world– disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief.” Palin said, “Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly– just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That’s reckless. So I wanted to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize about being a little annoyed, but that is also an indication of being outside that Washington elite and being outside the media elite also and just wanting to talk and just wanting to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for.”
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, two weeks ago:
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates apologized Wednesday for recent U.S. airstrikes that have killed civilians in Afghanistan.
“I offer all Afghans my sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition air strikes,” Gates said at a news conference outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
“While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is clear that we have to work even harder.”
Daniel Larison has been chronicling her nonsense on this on an almost daily basis, so I will just leave you with a quote from him about the Palin choice:
For my part, I have made no secret that I welcome McCain’s defeat, so you might say that I am so biased against the ticket that you should ignore what I say, but it seems clear to me that the ever-declining standards that conservatives have set for what makes a candidate acceptable to them and the declining quality of the political leadership they have received are very closely related.
It is not an unfair attack to state that on matters great and small alike, Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she has no idea what she is talking about. And on the few occasions that she decides she should speak freely to the press, it is clear that she is just passing on jingoistic claptrap and unadulterated nonsense. Which, then again, may explain her appeal to the Republican base.
TheFountainHead
I used to think that four years of McCain would irreparably harm our relationships with the rest of the world because of his hawkishness and inability to think prior to acting. I am now convinced that even Great Britain will consider an invasion if only to get Palin to shut the fuck up!
donnah
But Republicans eat up her lies like candy. She’s patriotic! She loves her country! Nevermind that she’s talking out of her ass.
She’s exposed herself as a liar time and again. I hope when the votes are counted after the election that she and John McCain take a long look at how they composed themselves during this campaign and think about what honesty and honor really mean.
Oh, duh. Not gonna happen.
hydrino
Palin reminds me of the character Diana in the television Sci Fi series "V." An alien with a pretty human face that’s actually a mask. But when you peal the pretty mask off you find a reptile.
w vincentz
I’ve always wondered why villagers that we drop bombs on and murder their families continue to resist being our friends.
dbrown
So I hear that Rove and McCain will seek the true road of Republican politics – slime. That will be fine. McCain is such an outstanding person. In Vietnam, he aided the enemy – that is he made films betraying the US, signed statements denouncing the US and helped the enemy to get better conditions.
He was a key member of the Keating Five and took money for helping a criminal steal billions.
He cheated on his wife and even got a marriage licenses before he divorced the poor woman.
Lets not forget that he lost five multi-million dollar planes and two of these were destroyed directly because of his irresponsibility. One he flew into wires crashing the jet and knocking out power for a large area of Italy. This was due to his irresponsibly flying and against all normal procedures/regulations because he didn’t care about his actions, he nearly killed himself and harmed a whole community.
The other major crash was caused by his hot-dogging that lead to engine failure that luckily, caused the jet to go down in the ocean so he got off by lying about the cause.
When he was on his aircraft carrier and his aircraft was struck by another plane’s missile, he ran away as hundreds of his crewmates ran to the fire to save him as well as the ship and they died. He saved his own skin and ignored his shipmates.
This is part of the list of the low parts of his life. Besides the criminal acts, the man has lied endlessly about everyone around him and about his own life. The man is not the type of person who should throw mud but it is typical of a man that calls his own wife a cu*t (yes, that is the word he freely uses to describe woman – the man is sick.)
This is what some group should run with as adds on all major networks. The low life McCain really is and what he has always done – put only himself first and f everyone else.
Г-жа demimondian
I recognize in Larison’s commentary the same sense of helplessness I feel when I confront my fellow liberals about issues where they’re out of touch with reality. Of course, it’s not surprising; there are always taxes to pay for belonging to an in-group — being anti-nuke, for instance, on the left, is every bit as factless a belief as being pro-Republican is on the right.
S.G.E.W.
Bing bing bing. My patented Eternal Truth Detector (John Cole edition) just lit up.
The Republican base is only interested in jingoistic claptrap and unadulterated nonsense.
Yes. I like that. I think I might just frame that and put it up on my wall.
Octavian
I’m going to relish seeing Chris Matthews (or whomever) on election night announce that Obama has gone over 270.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
It’s very concerning to think about a Resistance forming, with the weapons that are so very dangerous, and rogue actors such as Juliet Parrish and Michael Donovan, who is a professional cameraman and part of the media elite, and so tonight I’d just like to speak directly to the American people without that media filter, and if I can go back to the previous point, I’d like to talk about energy, which is my area of expertise, and reassure everyone that those large pipes in the ocean that are connected to our motherships are to move oil and clean, green natural gas to hungry markets in the United States, and not to steal all of your water and leave the Earth as a dry, barren husk.
winks, unhinges jaw, swallows live hamster
Dontcha know, also.
ThymeZone
It does, and has from the day she was picked. That base doesn’t care about facts or intellectual integrity, it cares about what they see as the tyranny of progress, as represented by the relentless push of progressive ideas, as represented by liberals and Democrats. That’s it.
As far they are concerned, Palin speaks the truth. That’s why people like us strive to take the country away from people like them. These idiots have already done enough damage. As Barack said, "enough." We’ve had enough.
S.G.E.W.
I disagree (surprise!). There are factual, reality-based arguments to be made for and against nuclear power (waste disposal accountability, economic interest, terrorism, and weaponization issues, to name a few). There are many who just chant "No Nukes!!11! They scare me!", but there are also quite a few respectable people (left and right, mind you) who can raise legitimate arguments about domestic and international nuclear power.
(gets off of soapbox, removes Greenpeace hat)
Prematurely Grey
Yesterday, Lowry let the cat out of the bag. Sarah Palin’s primary appeal to conservative men is sexual. Spend one minute watching Pat Buchanan talk about her and you’ll hear the words "refreshing," "fresh" or "bright" at least twice. He’s smitten with her because she’s different from all the D.C. women he’s been surrounded by all of his life.
Stop trying to understand any of this through any other lens. Grandpa McAngrypants’ unhinged excitement at his rally yesterday is all you need. They all want to fuck her. Period. Paragraph.
Comrade Jake
I assume most of you have caught the Fox News interview she had recently, where they gave her another shot at the same set of questions she faced from Couric? Given a second chance, she suddenly remembers that she reads the NYT, the WSJ, and The Economist.
Still in your chair? Given a chance to "visit the books", as Fox News anchor Carl Cameron states, she now has a much more informed answer on the SC decisions she disagrees with. The video is here.
Kind of amazing how well you can do when you know the questions ahead of time, huh? My question is: how stupid do you have to be to fall for this? Aren’t there some people on the right who have a modicum of self-respect????
Laura W
I enjoyed Arianna this morning:
Throughout the entire 90-minute debate, Palin came across as an over-wound windup doll, sporting a pasted-on-smile expression that never varied, except when she winked. Which she did repeatedly — and pathetically. It was the folksiest appearance since Hee-Haw went off the air.
"The home-spun homilies have to go," Martha Stewart told me. "And, oh my god, words do have ending consonants."
HA!
D. Mason
This can be said about about pretty much any activity as far reaching as powering cities. The problem is that the fanatics on the extreme left will not hear any argument on this issue. They’re every bit as fanatical as people on the right who rail against gay marriage, for example. They don’t give a shit what the flip-side is to them having their way.
ThymeZone
No.
SATSQ vol 133 no. 478
RoonieRoo, dontcha know
I have a hard time sorting out if the republicans who fall for all of this are stupid or if they are just so determined to support "their team" that they are willingly turning a blind eye and a deaf ear.
I’m very vocal about being politically involved so my friends/coworkers expect me to start conversations with them about "taboo politics". When I engage my republican friends in coversation, I try to be very factual about events not a politician’s stand or words. I want to talk about what my friend believes about the events not what their politician they support believes.
I find that most of my friends actually do believe the same thing I do 90% of the time. But what they say they believe when you remove what the republicans they support actually espouse from the conversation almost never lines up.
So why are they voting for these people? That’s the puzzle I’m still trying to solve.
ThymeZone
Sexist.
Aside from being just dumb and wrong, I mean.
They like her for the reason that they say they like her: She is just like them. That’s the appeal. She talks like they talk to each other.
They’re votin’ against that Barack Hussein Obama, he’s a liberal and a baby killer.
D. Mason
Tribalism.
Conservatively Liberal
Yeah, but the guys in this tribe are not talking about beating their drums. What they are beating has skin, but it ain’t a drum.
Part of Palin’s appeal is sexual and there is no other way to put it. Men favor her over women, but I will bet that a significant number of the men are thinking with the wrong head.
Nothing new there.
Г-жа demimondian
Actually, S.G.E.W., your answer is very much what I was talking about. Weaponization and terrorism are not threats for standard light-water waste, and never have been. Responsible disposal? Umm, yeah, about that Yucca Mountain — have you ever actually looked at the standards to which it was built? Economic interest? If you think that electricity is expensive, try permanent darkness.
You threw around a number of points every bit as unhinged as any argument about "creationism". Yes, there were questions, once — and we answered them decades ago. Your tribal association requires that you ignore those answers — and it’s disingenuous, whether on the left or the right.
John Cole
@D. Mason: Someone asked me what I would do if Obama wins, and turns out to be a terrible President. “How will you criticize him, now that you have been such a vocal supporter?”
I just laughed. They don’t know me very well, I guess.
vishnu schizt
You know this already, but the right has tapped into the true "value" shared by Sarah and the "small town values" army. That is resentment. An emotion more powerful than love or hate, since it deals directly with ones self-worth. This was the genius of Lee Atwater. He knew that stoking the resentment of those in the south against the yankees, the northeasterners, those that destroyed "the south" would band together people forever. This was the southern strategy. It is still employed today, why do you think they rail against the elites? Joe sixpack and hockey mom want someone on their intellectual level because it validates their fears and insecurities. To them they see these folks and say to themselves, you know maybe I’m not as big a fuck up as I thought. She’s giving the same answers I would!
RoonieRoo, dontcha know
@John Cole: I guess that really is part of the issue. This particular brand of "republican" that is still voting for these nutbars just cannot concieve of how you could be against your team regardless of what they do.
I just can’t wrap my head around that. This is a brand of person that I don’t get at all.
RoonieRoo, dontcha know
As an aside, Grumpy Code Monkey spent a fun evening being a spotter for his friend that does radio sports broadcasts for high school football. He’s a Republican and he refuses to call McCain/Palin or Bush/Cheney Republicans. He says that just are not Republicans. They are the Radical Right.
iluvsummr
@RoonieRoo, dontcha know:
Volunteered for the Obama campaign Thursday after the VP debate, making phonecalls to undecideds and republicans in Nevada.
Phonecall 1:
[after dispensing with niceties]
Me: Who’re you planning to vote for?
Guy: Leaning towards McCain
Me: What’s your biggest issue?
Guy: The economy, I just lost $20K in stocks…
Me: I hear you, my 403(b) has lost so much value it’s where it was at the end of 2006. But what do you think about the uneven approach to deregulation that’s occurred with the Republicans?
Guy: Wasn’t Palin great in the debate tonight?
Me: stunned silence
Phonecall 2:
[after dispensing with niceties]
Me: Who’re you planning to vote for?
Guy: McCain, I guess
Me: What’s your biggest issue?
Guy: The mortgage crisis. I mean I accept some responsibility, maybe I bought too much house. Good thing I refinanced my ARM before things got really terrible.
Me: Yeah, my mortgage broker kept trying to steer me to an ARM but I picked a 30 year fixed mortgage for my condo. I still remember the guy telling me I’d have to be crazy to pass up such a good interest rate…
Guy: You know what the real problem is?
Me: What?
Guy: Clinton and that community reinvestment act. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave loans to all those minorities! The minorities caused this.
Me (realizing guy doesn’t know he’s talking to a black woman, and fighting the urge to say "fuck you" and hang up): But sir, it’s hardly that simple [long winded explanation]
Guy: I guess you’re right. I still can’t vote for Obama though. Guy has no experience.
Phonecall 3:
[after dispensing with niceties]
Me: Who’re you planning to vote for?
Guy: Did you see what happened with the [senate] bailout? Did you see all the pork they added to that bill?
Me: I had a problem with that too but…
Guy: Fuck them, fuck them all Democrats, Republicans. I’m not voting for any politicians. They can all go to hell. [slams down phone]
Me: [A grin emerges, in spite of myself. I kind of liked the guy’s spirit]
jrg
What part of "the terrorists want to kill us" is so hard to understand? Republicans want to elect her because she’s a pitbull hockey mom. Have you ever seen a hockey mom wave a white flag of surrender? No. You know why? Because hockey moms love America and never, ever give up.
If you can get a 12-year-old to clean up his room, you can clean up Iraq. If you can make a grilled cheese sandwich, you can negotiate peace in the middle east.
Of course, anyone that votes for Barack Hussein Obama does not understand all of this, because liberals are stupid haters of motherhood, kittens, and baby Jesus. That’s why they want to elect a Muslim so that they can destroy Christmas and put gay porn on primetime T.V.
Thomas Jackson
I wonder when the Left will stop praying for a terrorist victory and start supporting our troops. I wonder when they will stop wondering why the world doesn’t love us when the world hates us for what they cannot achieve nor have. Freedom, liberty, prosperity. Gee I wonder why we need the respect of nations like Haiti, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, France or Russia.
Its sad to see a site like this now the home of trolls and moonbats.
Comrade Kolkhoznik Jon H
I’d just like to say I’m very much not a fan of Lucida Sans Unicode, especially when it’s bold.
Comrade Kolkhoznik Jon H
I’d just like to say I’m very much not a fan of Lucida Sans Unicode, especially when it’s bold.
Hedley Lamarr
She needs to be called out on this "filter" business. Any filter being applied is due to her being hidden away and not having Q & A sessions, press conferences, etc. She causes the need for filters.
D. Mason
@John Cole: Some people don’t even understand the concept of making the best decisions they can for themselves based on the best available information and then being willing to adjust when new info comes along. The in for as penny, in for a pound crowd.
Of course, if Obama turns out to be as shitty a President as Bush you should probably just give up on politics.
ThymeZone
Everybody really needs an editor, don’t you think?
RoonieRoo, dontcha know
@iluvsummr: It’s the delusion that gets me. But even more is that they seem to be aware that they are actively living in the delusion.
Now caller 3, I might be able to get behind :) When it comes to the House and the Senate, I’m pretty much screaming "Boot them all out!" on most nights.
kommrade jakevich
So if you’re keeping track:
1. Being able to name a newspaper or a magazine – Elitist.
2. Following the rules of debate – Ditto.
I suspect that by Nov. 3 everything except attending Wasilla Assembly of God, hunting and nodding vacantly at everything McPalin say, will be elitist.
D. Mason
@iluvsummr: I can fully identify with the guy in call number 3. American politics is a disgusting circus.
Conservatively Liberal
There is a post at Kos about how Palin is being ripped in newspapers over her lackluster debate performance. Some of the papers listed are in red areas, so I went and read the articles and the reader responses. One thing that I immediately noticed is that the responses with mens names are very supportive of Palin and the responses with womens names are not.
Some "mens" responses to a negative Palin review at the St. Petersburg Times:
Some "womens" responses to the same negative Palin review at the St. Petersburg Times:
This pattern is replicated everywhere I have read so far. The men are thinking with the wrong head, no doubt about it. Any guy knows that there are times when the brainless head tries to take over. Smart guys don’t let it happen.
The stupid ones do. Case closed.
Soylent Green
Civilians? What civilians? They’re all Muslims.
Brachiator
It’s not just about the "Republican base." Palin’s relatively positive performance in the debate have allowed the GOP Smear machine to revive and intensify the propaganda that Palin can speak for "real" Americans because she is one of them, while Biden is an elitist Washington insider and Obama is a foreign exotic. And McCain, of course, is immune from ever becoming an insider because he takes his daily dose of Maverick Juice(tm).
Fixed. The cat was never securely in the bag. Comedians like David Letterman regularly note that Palin is smokin’. And in the real world, there are a number of men I know who are not die-hard conservatives, but who are eager to vote for the Hero and the Hottie. Their reaction is oddly primitive and visceral, because their strong desire to vote for McCain and Palin has nothing to do with these candidates’ achievments or political qualities, but with what they represent symbolically — all American strength and beauty.
Comrade Jake
Eager to vote for the "Hero" and the "Hottie". Yup. That’s everything that’s wrong about this country, in a nutshell. Fuck them.
ThymeZone
So let me see if I have the sense of this thread right.
Obama’s strength with women voters, and weakness with men voters, is sexual? The girls just like that big hunka man but the men just like that Alaskan hottie?
This is the brilliant analysis now taking over the hallways of Balloon-Juice?
WTF? Is there one piece of actual evidence indicating a sexual … not a gender, but sexually motivated … force at work here in either campaign?
Is this bullshit factory now going to subscribe to a hormonal explanation for politics in the absence of any evidence to support such a wacked out theory?
Just when you think you have seen the bottom of the pit of stupidity around here ……………………….
Goshdarnit here’s a shout out to those 3rd graders …..
Brian
A woman called the Ed Schlutz show yesterday to report that 73% of debate viewers in her deep south area felt that Palin won the debate. Big Ed also got a lot of calls from women who were offended by Palin’s performance… both her coquettish mannerisms and obvious lack of depth and understanding of the issues.
THe more I think of Palin’s performance the other night the more I am disgusted with it and the blind support she receives from people on the right.
Brian
Annette
Do you suppose that she missed all those lessons on punctuation, syntax, and grammar while she was tearing up the basketball court?
"…also an indication of being outside that Washington elite and being outside the media elite also…
She surely does like the word also, even when it’s inappropriate. Setting off an entire subphrase by prepending and appending the word is atrocious. Maybe she made a bad deal with the devil to use that instead of commas and periods. I find myself idly wondering just what the readability scoring is when her verbal babble is transcribed and put through.
Joe Max
Naw, I’m really going to relish hearing Brit Hume on Faux Noose actually have to make that announcement, while throwing up a little in his mouth.
Comrade Napoleon
Men are more favorable to Palin then women simply because they tend to support the conservative, nothing more. The amount of additional votes she gets because of her alledged "hotness" I can count on one hand.
The best part of Palin is that along with the 28% that think Bush is still the greatest thing ever is that she is completely discrediting the right in a way that people like Abbie Hoffman and Jane Fonda did the left in the 60s. People are going to come to automatically assume the worse with the clowns the right put up. In fact I would be willing to bet that the Republicans will find that they have to stay away from national candidates with heavy southern or otherwise yahoo/hick way of speaking because it will kill them with the swing voters. The Republicans have really jumped the shark with Palin.
John Cole
Could explain why Sullivan is one of her most relentless critics. There is no sex appeal whatsoever for him…
JGabriel
Shorter Sarah Palin: I was annoyed because I wanted to attack Obama unchallenged, and instead my own record and fitness for office was questioned – so unfair.
.
iluvsummr
@Annette:
You just had to go there :). We had a discussion of this at work yesterday. I ran part of her Couric interview through Microsoft Word’s readability test (which has not always been correct for anything above 12th grade reading levels).
Palin:
Readability:
Since some studies show that half of Americans read at the eighth grade level or lower, I’d say Palin’s sixth grade level rambling is pretty well-targeted.
JGabriel
John Cole:
I’m straight, and Palin holds no appeal for me either.
Palin reminds me of those people with whom you avoid having sex so you won’t have to talk to them afterwards – the kind who may be perfectly attractive, physically, but whose conversation either drives you nuts or bores you to tears.
(I don’t think that’s a sexist observation. I suspect most women have known men that provoke the same reaction. If it is sexist, my apologies to anyone offended by it.)
.
Chris Johnson
Homeland women, now’s your chance!
Time for the Lysistrata Defense!
That’s an old greek play you might or might not have heard of, but the idea is pretty simple. If your man is being an idiot because he wants to elect political leaders who wink and giggle at him- tell him he’d better hope she’s really winking at him, ‘cos he’s not getting anything from YOU until he settles the fuck down and acts his age :D
dmbeaster
Cole:
It is not just about not knowing much about you.
This question, though focused on Obama, seems to describe righties’ behavior toward Bush and every other right wing failure. They just don’t know how to criticize their own even when the failure is blindingly obvious, and presuppose that Obama supporters must have the same problem.
Joe Max
An Obama victory doesn’t mean the struggling is over. Not by a long shot.
Let me tell you why I have some hope that struggling can make a difference with Obama.
I saw his stump speech about a year ago in San Francisco, so he knew he was speaking to a very liberal crowd. He told the story of FDR being confronted with the reality of Jim Crow by leaders of the NAACP, and how Roosevelt agreed that it was wrong and something needed to be done. So he told them, "now make me do it."
It took twenty years.
Remember, though LBJ is now fondly remembered by the old school civil rights movement, he wasn’t always a believer. What happened was that the people made him do it.
We saw that with Obama’s nomination – the DLC establishment crowd didn’t want to nominate Obama, they wanted Clinton. But the grassroots Democrats made them go with Obama.
So we have to do the same with an Obama administration – make him do the right things.
Comrade Scrutinizer
I just don’t get that. She’s not all that physically, and her voice and intellect take away any vestige of whatever physical attractiveness she’s got. And if she’s a screamer, can you imagine? "Oh, ya! You betcha!" yelled into your ear?
I’d rather put my dick in a blender.
(This has been a sexist remark.)
Comrade Scrutinizer
@iluvsummr:
OT:
How are you getting the normal font weight in your blockquote instead of bold?
Brachiator
Yes, I can. More seriously, the idea that just because you or I don’t find Palin attractive, then no one else possibly could either is just dumb. I don’t understand why Prince Charles would prefer Camilla to Diana, but am glad that it’s not my problem.
And it’s not just lust. There is a core of women who love Palin because they claim that they see themselves in her, or want to see her do well because she appears to be so ordinary and a "real" American. I’ve even heard women say that Palin’s relative lack of knowledge about national affairs is actually a selling point. They themselves don’t know any Supreme Court decisions and see it as entirely reasonable that Palin would not as well. Experience doesn’t mean "educated" or "knowledgeable" past a fuzzy community college awareness of the world. They believe that Palin will learn all she needs to know once she is in office because that’s how they would do it if they were her.
Now, I am not saying that these people will turn the election, but they are a significant part of the electorate, and might only re-consider if Palin is demonstrably shown to be less of a perfect fantasy figure and more of a flesh and blood — and flawed — politician.
SGEW
(O/T, btw)
It’s rather extraordinary, Г-жа demimondian, how you accuse me of my tribalism when I am, in fact, pro-nuclear power. I have debated for increased domestic nuclear energy many a time with Greenpeace employees and activists, and we have had many frank, serious discussions over the pros and cons. While we may not have changed each others’ positions too much (I am, however, much more hesitant about the Yucca Mt. project now, for reasons I am too exhausted with you to write about), we always engaged each other with mutual respect and dignity.
Dig?
In other words, go take your sophomoric, entry level talking points and fuck yourself with them, kthxbai.
SGEW
Just realized my handle is "S.G.E.W." on one computer and "SGEW" on the other. Apologies for any confusion.
iluvsummr
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
& lt; blockquote & gt;
& lt;p& gt; quoted comment goes here & lt;/p& gt;
& lt;/blockquote& gt;
Remove space between ampersand and lt or gt.
That’s all I’m doing – not sure why it would make a difference though.
Comrade Jake
Nah, he’s just not a right-wing hack. You want to know which conservatives aren’t hacks? Look for those who’ve been openly critical of Palin. That’s a pretty good place to start.
Comrade Scrutinizer
That’s a comment that could be applied more accurately to Kennedy. Johnson’s position on civil rights was complicated by his position as a politician from the South. Johnson approached civil rights more from a class point of view, but he privately worked to support black schools and to fight poverty among both blacks and poor whites. After War 2, Johnson held that since blacks fought in the war, they deserved civil rights. He continued to vote for segregationist policies in the Senate to appease his base and to build his power in the Senate, but he refused to sign the Southern Manifesto condemning Brown v Board of Education, and throughout his Senate career he attempted to move the Senate toward a more tolerant approach toward civil rights.
For all his faults, Johnson was always interested in bettering the condition of the have-nots. His Great Society program was the most significant liberal legislation passed be Congress since the New Deal. We haven’t seen a liberal Democrat in power since Johnson, and we’re not going to this year, either, even if the MUP wins.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
A message from Sarah Palin.
EDIT: Worked! Guys, it’s the CSS. If you wrap your blockquoted text in P tags, the style for the quoted text is the same as for standard paragraphs, overriding the style set for blockquotes in the style sheet.
I used to make a standard quote by pasting the text, then selecting it, then clicking the B-Quote button.
My revised method is to paste the text, select it, click the P button, then select everything including the opening and closing P tags, then clicking B-Quote.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Brachiator:
Yes. Cue Mika.
Also.
JGabriel
ILuvSummr:
Looking at comment in source mode, it appears that putting a {p} (replace squiggly parens with the usual brackets) at the beginning of the blockquote turns off the bold attribute.
Testing… and: Yep, that worked.
.
SGEW
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Hear hear. LBJ has gotten short shrift on his achievements, while accumulating a lot of grief over the years. (some of which I think is deserved, don’t get me wrong).
Also, re: L.B.J.:
Quite the, um, guy.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Huh.
Thanks!
Testing.
Walker
I see, so the issue is using text raw in a blockquote instead of putting it in paragraph tags.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I wonder if LBJ ever met Milton Berle. Two larger than life guys, for sure.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Better that "Mini-me", I suppose.
Hypatia
regarding women
most of the men i know want to avoid talking afterwards regardless of who their partner is ;=)
iluvsummr
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
Thanks for that explanation.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Inline CSS doesn’t seem to work. Restricted list of valid HTML attributes, I guess.
JGabriel
Mary:
Right, but you only need to put the p tag at the beginning of the block – WP, or the style template, automatically closes the p tag at the end of the block. So you don’t have to wrap the quote, just tag the beginning.
.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I thought as much, but, damn it, years of teaching have made me a little compulsive about properly closing all tags. Hands are shaking …
Comrade Scrutinizer
@SGEW:
I love Caro’s biography of Johnson. I know that some Johnson supporters don’t care for him, but I think he does a good job of talking about "the light and dark threads" that ran simultaneously through Johnson’s career. I just hope Caro gets the volume about Johnson’s Presidency published soon.
jcricket
I think what’s happening is fairly simple. It’s nearly impossible to keep the current Republican coalition together, because there are no inherent ties that bind other than fear. Fear of gays, terrorists, government, liberals, immigrants, taking away your guns, taking away your religion, etc.
There are only so many times and ways you can appeal to fear before you start losing people who realize they have other concerns you are not meeting.
That’s why the Republicans are losing the rational folk (of any bent). They realize that even if they fear gay marriage, they need someone to get us out of Iraq. Or if you fear immigrants, it’s more important ultimately that you get some better healthcare and tax progressivity. Whatever the issue, Democrats have a reasonable set of answers, and Republicans just (to quote Palin) "point to the past". The tired tropes of "socialism" and "the end of freedom" and "government control" ring hollow when the private sector has brought us to the brink of economic and social collapse.
As Biden said, "facts matter" and they do eventually win out, which is why I think we’re seeing massive defections of all groups to the Democratic side (both in terms of votes and in which party people believe on any given subject).
iluvsummr
Clear evidence that Palin was spouting someone else’s pre-written talking points (she jumps from a sixth grade speaking level during the Couric interview to a ninth/tenth grade level during the debates):
Palin speaks at higher grade level than Biden?
charlotte
Sex appeal and Sarah? Never the twain shall meet. She’s got a vagina dentata vibe going on … Slice and wink, baby.
the truth
Perhaps the "clueless" palin is aware of a few things that you and obama seemingly aren’t: the difference between an air-raid and an airstrike for one. I suspect Palin refers to inaccurately suggesting that the entirety of US strategy in afghanistan amounts to "just air raiding villages and killing civilians" because she doesn’t deem it prudent for a presidential candidate to echo Taliban propaganda, not because she disputes that any afghani civilian has ever been killed as the result of an airstrike.