I’m at the point I was at a month ago: the two tickets consist one one old guy who frankly should have been put to pasture, two leftist asshats who belong in prison, and a lady who’s the only one of the four who’s worth a damn
– Commenter Sunfish.
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Samizdata quote of the dayOctober 9th, 2008 |
 48 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Mid seconds that opinion and offers a motion.
McCain should sit down and let Palin handle the campaign. I would suggest he do the same with the White House, but Glenn Reynolds wrote a paper that is consistent with Palin’s segregated view of president’s and vice president’s powers. Darn.
You guys are fucking crazy.
And having seen a bit more of Palin in action, I second Rationalitate
“I second Rationalitate”
Not me. His gracious forbearance makes me sick.
We’re talking about the fucking Marge Gunderson of national politics, and everybody’s grading this on a retard-class curve.
It is impossible to describe how fucked we really are. That will be left to the historians.
What amazes me is how regularly the political process throws up a collection of crooks, cheats, dimwits, sexual deviants, idots and liars.
I have said before and I will say again that Mrs Palin’s appeal lies in the fact she isn’t one of the above. I could imagine having a normal conversation with her. I can imagine her knowing what a pint of milk costs. I could imagine her coming round here and me not reflexively reaching for the hammer.
O’Barmy just reminds me of why DC is so unlike the rest of the USA. Seen his poll figures in DC? They’re stratospheric.
Does anyone remember J Danforth Quayle? Or the crude stereotype that Dubya was thicker than a whale ommelette (which has some merit) but Al Gore was some sort of “intelectual”. Well he had invented the internet and all.
Politics has become (perhaps it always has been) a carnival of the bizarre. I mean look at the bugger’s muddle of downright weidoes, misfits, loons and thickos that run Britain. And I mean all of them: Captain Darling, Gorgon Brownshirt, Hazel Bleary, The Millipedes, Ed Balls (who is clearly carpet-munching batshit insane), Ruth Kelly (gone but not forgotten), Sion Simon (utter twat on youtube), Mandy. Quite simply there isn’t one who is playing with anything like a full-deck
Well, if they’re all retards, then I’ll go for the pretty one!
I don’t know what you’re complaining about. The US of A is always boasting that anyone can be President, and they’ve gone all out to prove it! Why would you want a Prez with brains, anyway? Wouldn’t that be boring? (And I speak from experience- Australia has K.Rudd as Prime Minister, a brainy guy, who never varies his voice except when speaking Mandarin- which he has to do, because it’s a tonal language!)
“What amazes me is how regularly the political process throws up a collection of crooks, cheats, dimwits, sexual deviants, idots and liars.”
This is the natural order of things in democracy.
Last month, an old net.mate of mine delivered the single most profound insight that I’ve seen online in years. I’m posting it everywhere.
“You people have been voting for the lesser of two evils for so long that evil is all that’s left now.”
My country is about to pay the whole price of evasion, plus interest, and I feel sorry for none.
fiat iustitia ne pereat mundus
Men who would be free should not vote for smooth tounged tyrants (or at all if they have the option).
I’ve come to believe that if Obama is elected to the Presidency, the most historically significant fact won’t be that America elected a black man, but that America will have elected it’s first truly Socialist President.
That’s a samizdata quote of the day I would recognise. The one actually posted is shocking and depressing.
Billy Beck wrote:
‘We’re talking about the f*cking Marge Gunderson of national politics . . .’
The reference is to a lead character in the movie ‘Fargo’, played by Frances McDiormand.
At first, it’s a good line for a snigger.
But those who have actually seen the film will recall that Marge Gunderson, faced with a seemingly-random and motiveless murder, investigates, develops leads, runs them down, connects the dots, figures out where the killers are, and captures the surviving one after shooting him. All while 8½-months pregnant.
We could have a worse analogue for vice-president. I’ll take her over a lying, decieving Washington lizard like Biden. Or Obama, for that matter.
llater,
llamas
I understand that a lot of men are intimidated and even frightened by a strong woman.
If Sarah Palin frightens you, it might be time to talk to your doctor.
What llamas said. Marge is a hero in a great film. We could use a few more of such people.
After all, lots of clever people with MBAs etc presided over the credit bubble, the S&L meltdown, the lapse of concentration leading up to 9/11, etc, etc. If this is what happens with “experienced” politicians, you can keep them.
“You guys are fucking crazy.”
Perhaps, but the Lunatic-American community is an important constituency, and deserves reprosentation same as any other.
My quarrel with Sarah Palin is that she’s grounded, well-balanced and normal.
I second Mids suggestion.
McCain will lose by being a boring old fart and a Beltway drone .
He should sit down and let Sarah run with the ball.
I much prefer politicians that make it up as they go along, rather the than the likes of Obama, with hidden commie agendas.
“What amazes me is how regularly the political process throws up a collection of crooks, cheats, dimwits, sexual deviants, idots and liars.”
That’s what you get in a democracy (and yes, I know that’s not what we’re supposed to have in the US, but that’s what it has become in reality). It all stems from abandoning the structure established by the framers. The President is supposed to be selected by the Electoral College, not by the People (he’s the Chief Executive, after all; it’s not supposed to be determined by a popularity contest). Senators are supposed to be selected by the state legislatures, to represent the individual states. Only the House of Representatives is supposed to be elected by popular vote, as a sop to the unwashed masses, which is why their terms are so short.
Running for President has become so mind-numbingly difficult that the task is undertaken only by those with an extraordinary hunger for power. You have to be borderline psychotic to attempt it. Basically, it has come down to the unpleasant fact that anyone who actively seeks the office isn’t trustworthy enough to have it. We’d probably do better choosing a President by lottery. I guarantee that we’d do better in choosing Congressmen that way.
On Marge Gunderson: just stop, already. I just watched that film again last Monday night. On the evidence of the film, there is no point in holding Gunderson out as some midwest Hercule Poirot, considering what she was dealing with.
Barney Fife could have rounded up the whole gang of imbeciles, and it’s a toss-up whether his goofy Piedmont lingo would have been more frivolously entertaining than Marge’s Sarah Palin act.
Laird,
I agree about the lottery to select our politicians. You only need to ask yourself “do I think our elected reps are smarter, more honest and honourable than the average in our population?”. At least a lottery will ensure they are average.
Yes why not a lottery of ordinary citizens,
rather than the self chosen ones.
I heard on Five Live this afternoon, Mayo in Indiana.
Interviewing the movers and shakers as the campaign comes to a close (please god soon!!)
And the main reason opinion formers in Indiana had a down on Palin was because, in their opinion, she wasn’t as smart as them (this from a lady journalist) so couldn’t possibly etc etc etc.
See, give us simple people the chance to confront problems we have never encountered, and we may just come up with a novel rather than a nuanced solution to the problem, whatever it might be.
Palin knows diddley squat
but then so do I, but I bet I’d muddle through somehow.
That’s my previous point really.
Amateurs are better than professionals, because profs are just too far removed from the real world.
Or perhaps I’m saying the world would be better
WITHOUT
A plan.
It seems to work better when we run it that way.
“Or perhaps I’m saying the world would be better
WITHOUT A plan.”
Extend that logic as far as you can, RAB, and Sarah Palin recedes to the anonymity that should rightfully be hers.
He should sit down and let Sarah run with the ball.
I would love to see that. Probably for different reasons to the rest of you.
I suspect it would make her time with Kouric look like fun.
She’s great on the stump, she’s great in any format where she can stick to talking points but there is no evidence that she can communicate outside of these situations and a leader needs to be able to do that and demonstrate that she can.
Palin needs at least another 4 years of baking and probably 8 before she’s ready to run with something like this on the global stage.
Trying to get her to do it now would be uglier than what we’ve already seen.
I wonder how all these experienced folk got their training for the Global Stage.
It couldn’t have been a very local one could it?
Ya know, like Congress is Junior High
The Senate is High School
and Governor is Graduate level is it not?
In the political arts I mean.
So, I will say again, between the three Senators and the one Governor,
who has the most hands on decision making experience?
I wonder how all these experienced folk got their training for the Global Stage.
Well they’ve been around doing stuff with a lot of people watching them do it for a lot longer. They’ve met a lot of people in a lot of countries and all demonstrated some pretty active interest in policy and events outside their core domains.
It might not be executive decision making ability but I’m fairly sure if the 3 guys had been asked the Couric questions, in exactly the same way, they’d have all had clear and focused answers. Ok, Biden might not 😉
Ya know, like Congress is Junior High
The Senate is High School
and Governor is Graduate level is it not?
In the political arts I mean.<.i>
Actually, I disagree. Here’s my analogy. I have a B.Eng (hons) in Mechanical Engineering from a fairly low ranked university. My university also chucked out a huge number of “Combined Honours” degree courses like Business Studies and Tourism. I rate my Engineering degree as worth more than those, even though a lot of those people got better degrees than I did.
My degree was also partly vocational. I had an on-the-job portion and worked with a lot of people who were working their way up from apprenticeships.
Now, some of our lecturers and some of the best engineers I worked with/for didn’t have graduate level qualifications. They’d trained on various jobs and had skills which let them, frankly, be twice the engineer I was ever going to be.
Getting the degree doesn’t always mean you can do the job.
GW Bush was a state governor too and I don’t much like how he turned out.
Yes I get your point Daveon, but I hope you realise that it was only a loose analogy.
But your comments only reinforce my point.
Your little guy engineers are Sarah.
I like people who learn on the job, they usually know what is what.
Not like Obama, all book and no sidewalk.
And some very strange friends.
You may not like how Bush turned out after being Governor.
But at least he was Governor. When he signed his name, perhaps someone died. Bit emotive but he made real decisions, wheras Obama et al, have been jus Votin for whatever they have been told to vote for by their surrogate backers.
Sigh. We are all fucked anyway.
Humpty dumpty fell off the wall again today.
Daveon:
And they all turned out to be great successes in office, right? Who did you have in mind in particular, BTW?
It’s not just Biden. Obama has been asked easier questions in a much friendlier way, and his answers were not any more enlightening than Palin’s. The problem with her is not that she is more ignorant than the rest of them, but that she is not as good at hiding her ignorance.
McCain may be the exception on foreign policy between the 4 of them. As far as economics, none of them understand much. FWIW, I do think though that both McCain and Palin have good instincts (pity McCain doesn’t always trust his), and morally they are much more decent people than Obama and Biden.
I can’t believe the chutzpah you denizens of the UK exhibit when it comes to being all judgemental about us knuckle dragging new worlders. With slab face Cameron, weepy creepy Gordo and all those frightful female politicians on your side of the Atlantic it takes a lot of nerve to hyperventilate about the hapless Yankees.
Is that all of us Millie,
or just some of us?
I was just standing up for a real, flawed, human being.
Millie Woods, I am wondering what you motivations are for saying that. What relevance does the fucked up nature of UK politics (which we often mention) have on the ability of people in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, to comment on the fucked up nature of US politics?
Actually, most of our presidents (at least in the 20th century) have been governors or had real executive experience. (Senators don’t tend to get elected to that office, because it’s not particularly good training for it.) Let’s look at the list of 20th century presidents who were governors: GW Bush; WJ Clinton; R Reagan; JE Carter; DD Eisenhower (a general, not a governor, but that’s excellent executive training); FD Roosevelt; H Hoover (not a governor, but an engineer with substantial business and executive experience); C Coolidge; WG Harding (Lt. Governor). W Wilson; WH Taft (not a governor, but a judge and administrator); and T Roosevelt.
Now let’s look at the ones whose primary experience was legislative: GHW Bush; GR Ford; RM Nixon; LB Johnson; JF Kennedy; and HS Truman.
A mixed bag, to be sure, but clearly selecting senators as presidents is a decidedly recent (and wholly lamentable) phenomenon. Unfortunately, we’re destined to have another one after this election, whoever wins.
Here we can comment on anything at any time, Millie. We all have the right to an opinion. Some opinions will be more informed than others, but I think we would all hate the time when only qualified experts are allowed to discuss a subject.
Daveon,
If you have a better idea, I’m all ears. Unless your better idea is to elect a guy who’s been a public employee for about as long as I have, but without working nights or having to make a decision, who claimed that he attended a church for two decades without knowing just what a nasty sack of crap his pastor was, and who can’t answer a question without mentioning “Iraq.” In which case, it doesn’t qualify as a better idea.
I think my point in the front page quote was that, this year, there are no good choices. Some are better than others. Okay, some are less bad than others. I don’t know if McCain even has the small-government instincts of, say, GWB. But at least he didn’t select Governor Goodhair or Democrat On Fire for JEEZ-us-AH for VP.
Des anybody have a better idea?
“Vote for Obama, who won’t raise taxes or ban guns or censor his opponents.
Yeah, he did hastily edit his website after Heller was released, didn’t he? And his campaign has, of course, denounced the St. Looie Truth Squads. *snort*
“Vote for Bob Barr, because he’s a real libertarian.”
Great. You can then be pure and have clean hands. And let me know what that actually accomplishes.
“Vote for McCain, because he’s no good but everybody else is worse.”
At least that’s honest enough.
BTW, Rationalitate, care to translate? Iz simpel an’ dont reedz so good.
Where can I get the bumper sticker?
Wow, little did I know that a tongue in cheeky – cue my use of knuckle dragger – comment was going to raise the testosterone level of the posts. It just goes to prove the point that a good looking competent woman -and alas there aren’t that many of them in government- brings out the me tarzan you Jane natural order of the universe in even the most libertarian of males.
Also sprach Sunfish:
For those of us who live in a state that’s going to go for Obama no matter what — after all, the other people here voted 70% for the corrupt AG who was using his office for politically-motivated prosecutions while cavorting with prostitutes — voting for somebody who is closest to our ideological viewpoint is no worse than voting for the guy who claims to care about limiting government but doesn’t actually vote to do so.
Not that the idiot Republicans here will listen to us.
Sunfish: Nope, no better idea. Sorry.
“Vote for McCain, because he’s no good but everybody else is SO DAMN MUCH worse.”
There, fixed it.
I’m not gaga over the choice we have but sometimes you just have to go with what you got.
To the people who are either going to sit home or write-in the name of someone totally unelectable in order to ‘teach them a lesson’ or ‘vote my conscience’.
Let me say ‘thanks a hell of a lot’ if Obama get elected.
Neither strategy accomplishes ANYTHING.
Remember ’96 when Perot gave us another 4 year dose of ‘Bill’ ??
Anyone here really think that ANYONE of either party sits down after the election and COUNTS the
write-ins ?? Sorry, doesn’t happen.
Or COUNTS the number of votes cast and compares with number of registered votes to see how many ‘sat at home’?? Again, doesn’t happen.
And even if it did, anyone here think that the result would be questions like –
Gee, wonder why so few people voted ? We REALLY need to do things differently !!
or
Hey, Charlie, did you see that 1500 people wrote in Ron Paul ?? Wow, we better really look at how candidates are chosen so that we don’t have something like that happen again !!
Sorry, but the abstainers ( siting at home or somewhere ) and the ‘writers’ are deluding themselves.
I don’t think Palin is anywhere near as dumb as the MSM (and entertainment media) is working over time to make us think. She has had an amazing rise against great odds in Alaska – she can’t be dumb and has to be at least a little ruthless.
There are ‘advisors’ galore in DC to fill in data – what we need is someone of good character and sound judgement rather than an encyclopediac policy wonk.
I prefer Palin to the other 3 (although I agree that 4 or 8 more years would be ideal – she’s there now with the 3 idiots).
Seems McCain’s heading for a loss.
Maybe he can save his arse by declaring he will resign after a year, so we can have the prez we really want ?
Nobody wants McCain, we are just horryfied of Obama.
From the French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine in the 70’s, at the time of the Carter election:
“History shows that when faced with a choice between a cunning bastard (un malin) or an idiot (loose translation of un con) one should always choose the idiot. You know what you’re getting. The Americans have understood this: both their candidates are always idiots.”
Plus ca change…
Roger: as far as Carter vs Ford, I was too young to be interested at the time, but this time we do have a cunning bastard (plus some even more cunning bastards behind him), vs not so cunning but decent guy (McCain is certainly not an idiot, although he is not nearly cunning and ruthless enough). It’s an easy choice for me.
Alisa: Forget Ford and Carter. I thought I’d share an elegantly phrased ongoing message here, but it seems to have been lost in translation. The word con has a spectrum of meanings. The most literal is cunt (Ah, French logic: con is actually masculine and the words for dickl/dickhead feminine!), the broadest is idiot but in the context above I should perhaps have translated as “apparently unqualified for office”. But then who is truly qualified tobe POTUS?
The message is, beware of cunning bastards.
Point taken:-)
if Obama is elected, people who voted for him will be sorely disappointed. none of their expectation of a positive change will be realized from the hack Manchurian candidate
if McCain is elected, people who voted for have already expected to be disappointed by the tired old white guy. but there likely be moments of pleasant surprises.
the only one worth a damn in this race is Palin. the only one that is even anywhere near being like a normal American.
Elegantly and succinctly put:-)
And the French always choose “Clever” Presidents
Not Cunning Stunts?
The French couldn’t possibly choose otherwise, because all of them are so clever:-|
Some good news for Anti-Obamaists- Malcolm Mackerass has predicted Obama will win!
Malcolm is an Australian Psephologist who gets Australian Elections right, but seems to always get American Presidential Elections wrong! He predicted that Gore and Kerry would win, for instance.
So the smart money would not be on Obama.
Given our current world-wide crisis, I would suggest that there is no “smart money”.