BS: Frank Rich on Palin

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 03:05 PM

You have a very perceptive daughter, Amos. Not to mention clever with a turn of phrase.

G

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 12:50 PM

Barky made the interesting observation that Palin has the star profile of someone like BRitney, but that politically she feels more like Bush's Mini-Me with lipstick.

Palins ruction is distressing her so much that Barky's Mom told her that she (mom) would take over worrying about the election for her and go volunteer for the Obama campaign on Barky's behalf!, so that Barky could focus on the building of her life. What a Mom!! :D



A

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 12:43 PM

My daughter's partner comes from a small town in Colorado, very conservative. He was raised evangelical, but has since rejected it. Still, he remains conservative in his views and would vote for McCain BUT he loathes Palin! I was so pleased and surprised to hear this. I really thought she might appeal to him, in some respects. There is HOPE, imo!

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 08:38 AM

bump for the amos, Harris article.


Palin theocracy?
I live next to some of these people who wage spiritual warfare, believe me it isn't comfortable when they abduct you against your will and interogate you about homos and abortion. Their brand of warfare is not spiritual it uses any government agency they can to cause grief for their target.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 06:20 AM

"Why don't you just NOT vote for ANY candidate who is an admitted Christian -- or Jew, or Muslim, or practicer of any other religion?"

             I know, the options are limited. But such a candidate not being available, it's probably better to vote for the folks who would lead the voting public to the obvious conclusions the quickest.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 10:58 PM

From Newsweek's Sam Harris:

"Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady's misfortune—and, above all, upon the "liberal elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.


The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too ordinary.

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

Palin's most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been widely discussed. The truth is, I didn't much care that she did not know the meaning of the phrase "Bush doctrine." And I am quite sure that her supporters didn't care, either. Most people view such an ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth. I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions of Americans—but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.

In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq, Palin urged the congregation to pray "that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan." When asked about these remarks in her interview with Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response "absurd." It was worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged about Palin's life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church, Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible guide to future events and that we are living in the "end times." Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather. Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing—as all true Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals, Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant when declaring to her congregation that "God's going to tell you what is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to have that within you"?

You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy "baptism in the Holy Spirit," "miraculous healings" and "the gift of tongues." Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin's spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of "the final generation," engaged in "spiritual warfare" to purge the earth of "demonic strongholds." Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: "All options remain on the table"? "

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 10:28 PM

Here's an idea, Ringslinger: Why don't you just NOT vote for ANY candidate who is an admitted Christian -- or Jew, or Muslim, or practicer of any other religion?

That oughta make the choice easy, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 10:23 PM

"You have such a hard bias against all religious characters that you cannot hear what they say even when it is socially sound, or philosophically helpful."

                What they say is counter-productive, self serving, and destructive!

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:36 PM

Perzactly, Bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:18 PM

Which merely means we need even more responsible people than we have been getting---and McCain/Palin are surely not those people. Think of Sarah with her hand on the "button" while John is on the ventilator

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:01 PM

In earlier times - especially before the 1940s, Presidents didn't have stuff like nuclear weapons to deal with.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 06:42 PM

OOPS--clicked too soon---signature and link to blog is below

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 06:40 PM

Probably not because no one reminded her to do that.

Sad to think that the Presidency and the VPency have been so devalued---much like the dollar. There were weak and inffecient presidents in simpler times and we, luckily, had great leaders in times of crisis. The stars surely did not align for that in this decade. Let us hope they will now for the next decade.

By the way---there is a great video which is on my blog from Youtube which will make you really appreciate Sarah's great talents and knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Alice
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 06:35 PM

Her finance experience includes a failed business she named "Rouge Cou" trying (and failing) for a cute name of Redneck. Some today have wondered if any of the French speaking heads of state she may meet now can help her with her French language problem. btw, google "Rouge Cou" and you will find lots of articles about her.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 05:57 PM

Ah, but did she remember to look into their eyes in order to see their souls?

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 05:07 PM

New reports stated that Palin met many world leaders today and said "...they all seemed very nice".   

How sweet and showing erudition in foreign policy. Bet she also liked her dinner guests over the years when they dined on the wild animals shot and then after dinner viewing Russia for more such foreing policy experience.

Do you think that her banking and finance experience will bring back the trading of felt pelts now that the dollar seems so cheapened.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 04:56 PM

I understand that CNN's video cameras and reporters were allowed into the meeting with Karzai for a whopping 40 seconds!

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:33 PM

September 23rd, 2008 12:37 PM Eastern
Palin Media Blackout Continues
by Shushannah Walshe (FOX)

NEW YORK –It has been widely reported that Sarah Palin has yet to give a news conference or even answer a few questions from the traveling press that follow her from city to city on her plane. But, today the Palin camp went to new lengths to control the media, which is covering the GOP Vice-Presidential nominee.



It was decided by the campaign that today's meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, and Former Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger would be pooled. This means only one television network with their camera and producer, plus a print reporter, and wire reporters would be let in at the beginning of the meeting and then be ushered out before the leaders and Palin began talking. This is common practice in presidential campaigns, but this morning a little over one hour before the meetings would begin the pool network television producer and print poolers were told they were not allowed to enter the meetings.



This means that the Palin camp has the benefit of pictures of her shaking hands with world leaders and have that video broadcast all over the world, but there would be no risk of her having to answer even one question from a reporter at the beginning of the meetings. It is many television network's policy, including Fox News Channel to not provide a camera if an editorial presence is not allowed in. Once the campaign realized that these pictures would not be seen they relented, but the print pool is still not allowed to enter the Karzai event, which is about to begin.



Palin has done two television interviews since her selection—with ABC's Charlie Gibson and Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity. One reporter got close enough to Palin to ask her an impromptu question about the AIG bail-out, but that is the only spontaneous question she has gotten thrown at her since being rolled out as McCain's number two.



It is traditional for the press traveling with a candidate to have some relationship with the candidate and special access because of all the hours logged on the plane and on the campaign trail. But, Palin still has not come back to answer any questions or talk to her press corps. The only time the press has met the Alaska governor is on her first solo flight three weeks ago and it was off the record. We shook hands with Palin and she was quickly ushered back to the front of the plane behind a gray curtain where she has remained for the three and a half weeks she has been a candidate.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:49 PM

Media Rebellion Over Palin Photo-Ops
By Michael Cooper


Original Post: Live from New York, it's Gov. Sarah Palin's top-secret foreign policy tutorial!

Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, is scheduled to meet Tuesday in New York with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, and former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.

But the McCain-Palin campaign's sharp limitations on coverage of the meetings have sparked a mini-revolt – and a threatened boycott — among the press corps.

The campaign plans to bar print reporters from the meetings, and to limit coverage to brief photo-ops for a still photographer and a television camera. The television stations, though, are objecting, noting that they have a policy of not sending cameras to cover events without a producer, who provided editorial guidance.

A stand-off has ensued, with the networks threatening not to send cameras. The newspapers are trying to get back into the act as well.

It is not uncommon for meetings with world leaders to be pooled, but in the past the McCain campaign has at times allowed print reporters and televisions producers to look in and report any color – or exchange of pleasantries, usually banal – that occurs.

Update | 12:02 p.m.: The campaign is relenting and letting in the television producer, so the camera crew will be going as well. But print reporters are up in arms about being excluded.

Update | 12:17 p.m.: Word now is that a print reporter will be allowed in at the next two meetings. Stayed tuned for updates on all the handshakes and pleasantries…

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:40 PM

You have such a hard bias against all religious characters that you cannot hear what they say even when it is socially sound, or philosophically helpful.

When Wright said America's chickens were coming home to roost, we would have been better off at large thinking about what he was pointing out instead of--as Hannity did--twisting it into hate speech, which it was not.

I have no drum to beat for Wright, but your pigeonholing him is prejudiced -- not to say bigoted --and unthinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:35 PM

Ringslinger, if you're gonna pontificate about Barack's judgment in "sitting in a pew in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years," perhaps you should get hold of a bit more representative sample of Jeremiah Wright's sermons than the carefully selected slivers the mainstream medi-opolies have crammed down our throats.   

It's not hard to find both transcripts and videos of a number of his sermons and talks. "God damn America"* doesn't even come close to representing what Barack Obama was listening to for 20 years.


*which was said in a very relevant context and when Barack Obama was not present, by the way

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:12 PM

"...your implication that Mister Wright was a fountain of hatred and negativity is simply false,..."

                      He's a witch doctor isn't he, what else would one need to know?

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: MAG
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 11:19 AM

Why invest your energy is such mindless negative nabobbery and caterwauling?


Because that is how demagogues work, Amos.

Can we wonder why Bush's education (sic) programs eliminate all critical thinking??

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 10:57 AM

Actually, if you bothered to examine the ground truth instead of the inflammatory soundbites that made him a scandal, you would find that Barack Obama did not sit in a pew for 20 years. If he attended every Sunday, which he did not, it was for perhaps 1/20th day per week. Less than a year total. Furthermore, your implication that Mister Wright was a fountain of hatred and negativity is simply false, but has been generated by two 20-second clips from thousands of hours of actual sermons, about which you know nothing.

Why invest your energy is such mindless negative nabobbery and caterwauling?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 08:34 AM

Not necessary. You've seen one church, you've seen 'em all.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 08:11 AM

sit in a pew for 20 years at Reverend Wright's church.

Right. Do check up on Palin & the Reverend(?) Kalnins.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:50 AM

White House warned about Fannie and Freddie
September 23, 2008 - 0:49 ET

For many years the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President's repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:45 AM

"Barack is both emotionally, analytically, and I expect mathematically more intelligent..."

                   It must have been his analytical intelligence that he was using when he decided to go down and sit in a pew for 20 years at Reverend Wright's church.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:30 AM

DougR: "The Executive Branch cannot appropriate money. Who has been in control of the congress since 2006? The Democrats."

Ah, but Doug, mon frère, the President does have veto power - and W has used it a lot. He's also gone way beyond what any previous Chief Exec. has done in issuing "signing statements" (basically saying, "I got yer new law right HERE!!").

As you well know, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to stop a filibuster, and the Repubs in this latest Congressional session have filibustered no less than 95 times -- even when bills have passed with bipartisan support. Then, if those 60+ votes have been found and the bill has been passed, when the President vetoes, it takes 67 votes to overturn it.   (That's how the recent GI Bill did eventually become law, by the way.)

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 08:56 PM

The reason it is called stupidity is BECAUSE it gives inaccurate answers and leads into undesired consequences, for goodness' sake!!

Granted that there may be several "kinds" of intelligence or at least ways in which it manifest, Barack is both emotionally, analytically, and I expect mathematically more intelligent than Bush and McCain rolled into one. McCain may have an edge in mechanical aptitude, but he's well past his prime as a jet jockey.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 05:08 PM

"So, Kendall, a high IQ, to you, serves as ample qualification for one to become president of the most powerful country in the world. What if that person with a very high IQ wants to lead the country toward a path that would be destructive to the population? Should one overlook that, and elect him/her anyway?"

It is generally not the person with a high IQ that we have to fear. It's the non-thinking,
impulsive, reactive, uneducated individual such as we have now that is turning our
country into a third-world dictatorship. Stupidity should not be a requirement for the
Presidency.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 09:29 PM

It's so nice to have one's dreams come true. :) A dream *can* turn into a nightmare, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 05:13 PM

Ya see, Douggie & the BuShite masses are uncomfortable with and afraid of anyone smarter than they are; they'd much prefer a moron for president. And they currently have one.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 09:44 AM

At the used-book shop, I'm reading Molly Ivin's 'Shrub, the Short, Happy Political Life of George W. Bush'. It was written when he was Governor of Texas, and then updated in 2001 after he was president.

It is an interesting - even funny - book but depressing. Among other things, she says that he did the same thing in Texas that he did in Washington: cut taxes, in consequence turning a 7.5 million surplus into a deficit. He left Texas in debt.

Like Palin did Wasilla.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 08:52 AM

"Sarah had to have some kind of cunning to arrive where she did, but she must be half addled to believe some of the things she does."

                         And Obama must be in the pew right behind her!

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 03:22 AM

I would say intelligence is absolutely one of the most important criteria. You've been defending a rather unintelligent man for eight years who has eun the country into the worst shape it has been in for decades.

And let us not confuse intelligence with cunning. Sarah had to have some kind of cunning to arrive where she did, but she must be half addled to believe some of the things she does.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 02:22 AM

So, Kendall, a high IQ, to you, serves as ample qualification for one to become president of the most powerful country in the world. What if that person with a very high IQ wants to lead the country toward a path that would be destructive to the population? Should one overlook that, and elect him/her anyway?

DougR

I'm not Kendall (and I don't even play him on TV), but I'll give you an answer.

In a word, Hell, no!

OK, that's two words. But OF COURSE the direction one wants to take is more important than his or her IQ. Heck, that's why I'm so scared of li'l Ms. Sarah. She's inexperienced, but she ain't dumb. It's her apparent world view that I'm terrified of!

In Barack Obama's case, I happen to believe that he's not only extraordinarily gifted -- as a scholar, a thinker, a teacher, a jurist, and a speaker -- but someone with a clear and inclusive vision of what the USA was founded on and what our country could be.   I think he will listen to the voices of the people and help lead us back to what the better angels of our forebears' natures had in mind in founding this country.

He won't do it alone, nor is that his intent.

His phrase, "We are the change we have been waiting for" is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi. It's a mantra for populism, for true grass-roots democracy.

And the Republican party once stood behind those ideals too.

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: DougR
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 01:29 AM

So, Kendall, a high IQ, to you, serves as ample qualification for one to become president of the most powerful country in the world. What if that person with a very high IQ wants to lead the country toward a path that would be destructive to the population? Should one overlook that, and elect him/her anyway?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 07:12 AM

You're absolutely right, Genie. I think the entire board of directors of Tyson Foods should be in jail. The employers are the problem.
                  Somebody running an honest business, trying to play by the rules, doesn't have a chance in today's environment.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 03:15 AM

Throw a few corporate CEOs' butts in jail for hiring illegals (at sub-poverty wages), Ringslinger, and that stream of "people from Latin American displacing hard working US citizens in the great Southwest" will slow to a trickle in short order, as those illegal immigrants find the jobs for them aren't so easy to find.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Genie
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 03:08 AM

Doug (yeah, I said the topic was for another thread, but I see it's being addressed here),
does the phrase "95 filibusters in less than a single 2-year Congressional session" mean anything to you?

G

Oh, and in case you missed the RNC, Sen. "Joe-Mentum" Liberman may have been caucusing with the Democrats till this Sept., but that hardly means he's been acting like one or voting like one.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:09 PM

That's the kind of racist crap I was talking about last week.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:29 PM

That's a pretty loose definition for the term "ethnic cleansing".


Here's Websters' definition...

Main Entry: ethnic cleansing
Function: noun
Date: 1991

: the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethnic%20cleansing


Here's Britannica's definition...

the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/194242/ethnic-cleansing

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:37 PM

An epidemic wipes out entire populations. Ethnic cleansing replaces one ethnic group with another.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:26 PM

Well, then, so is a flue epidemic or the evolution of the Homo erectus, but that is certainly not the general sense of the phrase.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 07:24 PM

It's simply ethnic cleansing carried on by other means. I can't think of any other thing to call it.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:39 PM

HArd working people from Mexico and Central America? :)

That's not ethnic "cleansing" and you are being intentionally fractious to use the term like some kind of Rush Limbaugh rabble rousing haranguer of hatreds.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:18 PM

The ethnic cleansing that features people from Latin American displacing hard working US citizens in the great Southwest.

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 03:37 PM

What ethnic cleansing are you talking about, Rig?????????

Subject: RE: BS: Frank Rich on Palin
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 03:02 PM

It looks to me like John McCain is correct through all of this. Nobody tells the truth to the public any more, and the fence is the only thing congress offered in an effort to stop the ethnic cleansing.