British Media Snobs Look Down Their Noses at Palin
What attracts Middle America disgusts the UK media establishment.
This is the type of comment that keeps creeping up in comments sections, this time of the Independent in response to an admittedly rather fair piece:
After she starts her own inquisition of those of a different religious persuasion than her (or NO religion at all), burns/bans books like the good little Nazi she is, mandates HER creationism be taught in public schools, and hunts down and shoots all of the non-straight (or even the straight ones who do not follow her biblical “bedroom laws”) citizens of this country like just so many of the moose she’s bagged (all in the name of Jayzus, of course), etc., etc. WHAT’s NEXT on her agenda??
And it is not just Gov. Palin who gets trashed in the UK media. Alaska and her husband are coming in for vicious barbs as well, like this one:
Even the drunk-driving ticket he picked up when he was 22 just adds to his standing as a “true Alaskan.” Everybody drinks in Alaska.
Bucking the trend are people like Bruce Anderson, Janet Daley, and onetime sufferer of Obamaitis Dan Hannan. Bruce Anderson’s praise of Palin, like this, was met with vitriol in the comments:
She comes back from the wilderness to the checkout queue in one of the cheaper supermarkets, swapping stories about price increases with all the other housewives. Sarah Palin has a quality which will guarantee her a high place in politics. She is an extraordinary ordinary person. In old Europe, no one can understand her success. In America, her story has great political power. She is the most important vice-presidential candidate in American political history.
Heady stuff from the always-eloquent Mr. Anderson. Janet Daley has picked up on the Margaret Thatcher meme and uses it to defend Palin against some of the more vicious attacks on her character:
Like Margaret Thatcher before her, Mrs. Palin is coming in for both barrels of left-wing contempt: misogyny and snobbery. Where Lady Thatcher was dismissed as a “grocer’s daughter” by people who called themselves egalitarian, Mrs. Palin is regarded as a small-town nobody by those who claim to represent “ordinary people.”
Dan Hannan, MEP (Con.), has this to say on his blog:
Mrs. Hannan — who, in an unpolitical way, is a much better conservative than I am — is especially enthusiastic about her, and has joined the growing band of people who have lost patience with my fondness for Obama.
And, of course, the Sun had to opine on such a momentous choice. Now one could argue that the fact that she is a rather attractive woman might have inspired such praise. But in times like these Palin must take it where she can get it:
She was an electrifying mix of passion, energy, optimism, and plain speaking. The exact opposite of the slippery, two-faced, depressing bunch of third-raters who parade on our Westminster stage.
The paper referred to her speech at the RNC in a headline as “the mother … of all speeches.” And they have managed to shy away from some of the saucier comments about her feminine attractions.
Overall, the vast majority of media coverage in the UK of Sarah Palin has been neutral sneering to downright nasty. One thing that has become apparent, again, is the complete inability to grasp the realities of American politics in the British media. They don’t seem to understand that politics in the U.S. are nothing like that in the UK or the rest of Europe. Like it or loathe it, nevertheless it is still a fact.
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204 Comments
1. Bobby McGill:I don’t think it is an issue of whether they grasp American politics or not, but more as to who they would like to see represent America for the next 4 years.
This whole concept of “ordinary Americans” is an interesting topic in qualities of leadership. Who is really the most qualified? How would they react in situations based on their experiences?
Personally Palin seems like a decent person — do I think she would make a good vice-president with all its ceremonial pomp? Sure. Do I think she could handle a seat in the oval office? Absolutely not.
Bobby
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:17 am 2. nlcatter:http://idlewordship.com
nasty?
it should be for a lying, corrupt, book burning. religious nuts – Brits have seen those kinds before – like in WW2.
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:26 am 3. RE:Given the absolute mess Britain has become, one can only laugh at all the self-anointed British experts on America and their delusions of credibility. They are a bunch of self important fools, too lazy to fix their own deteriorating nation. They deserve only scorn and dismissal.
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:34 am 4. siobhan:Well -I’m British and I love both McCain and Palin. you are right though about the British Media-I apologise for my compatriots. Most people though to be fair-don’t know much about it. I’m the only person I know who watched the VP debate.
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:42 am 5. ic:Siobhan
“What is most appalling is the fact that many media outlets in the UK seem to be perfectly happy to repeat all the Daily Kos-spewed lies about her as if they were fact.”
Don’t they basically do the same thing at NYT, Washington Post, Times Magazine, CNN, CBS, ABC,and NBC? If you read British press more carefully, you may find their stories are reprints of NYT stories. Typical media bias here: based on Obama’s press release, the NYT and AP exonerate Obama/Ayers link. CNN cited National Reviews to discredit Pallin’s Obama/Ayers comment. But National Review found the Obama/Ayers connection troubling and suspicious. For some reasons, the MSM are not interested in the story at all.
When I was in Beijing, I noticed that CNN’s reports were more biased than those from China’s TVs. Seems the Chinese were less gullible than CNN and less likely to repeat Obama propagandas.
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:42 am 6. Stephen Fox:Right ic, and well said Siobhan, I’m with you.
Oct 5, 2008 - 2:39 am 7. Smokey:I can’t defend the UK media (I am British), but the left wing tilt of our media and academic/art culture is just like….yours!
You have Fox, ok, we have the Daily Mail, the Sun, and a few other newspapers. Most broadcast media and all the broadsheet (read: educated) papers are liberal. We have to face up to the fact that the elites, if they are to remain elite, have to spurn ‘ordinary’ people. Otherwise, they feel like the tumbleweed is blowing by the whole time.
I admit, things here seem worse than ever right now. But at least there is a sense of rage here at every new appeasement of ‘progressive’ ideas, at the steady breakdown of our sense of identity and social cohesion, the growth of Islam, etc.
And you have your own moonbats, immigration problems, culture wars. By all means, dismiss our media and politics, just remember there are many of us here who don’t see things like them. A fine Italian writer, Roberto Calasso, said that history was a kind of controlled catastrophe. It’s an illusion to think it was ever easy to hold on, we just have to do our level best. Sure, some day Western civilization will come apart at the seams. Let’s try and make sure it’s not on our watch.
Bobby McGill:
You underestimate Governor Palin. You probably would have underestimated Harry Truman, too. After all, he was only a hat salesman.
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:13 am 8. Tony:I’m not clear on the point of this article to be honest. You could have changed the title to “What attracts Middle America disgusts the American media establishment” and written the column verbatim.
I’m not British myself but it the point of the piece seems to be to have an unnecessary dig at them.
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:15 am 9. weSwinger:@Stephen Fox
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:40 am 10. Valerie:Thank you. God save the Queen!
So many Brits you see on UK TV, or who write in UK papers, etc are so anti-American…sometimes you cannot believe what they say or get printed. Whole TV shows are produced for the sake of America-bashing. It’s incredible.
That horrible Jeremy Clarkson (who has that car show) actually wrote in one of his columns a couple of years back that Americans can hardly stand upright, meaning that we are, uh huh, not as evolved as the Brits are. And the paper published that!
I watched UK TV regularly for a while but finally gave up on most of it (especially BBC and Ch4) because every type of show, about 2 – 3 minutes in, would have someone bashing Bush or America or Americans. And the Brits LOVE Americans who go over there and join in the bashing, like Ruby Wax.
The Brits can manage on their own the next time they are in trouble, for all I care. Like the French.
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:24 am 11. RightwingHippyChick:It seems amazing how much UK columnists all hate Mrs. Palin, but it’s easily explained with that it’s customary now in the UK to hate people who achieve things, because by despising them, the own failure to get one’s act together and live the dream that is possible to be real nowadays, bites a little less. That is why those people are bitching like chavvy playground queen bee bullies about Mrs. Palin and the quality of the complaint is the lowest sort, since there is nothing real to actually dislike, just much to admire. One has to try very hard to hate Mrs. Palin, and those guys sure are ‘trying’.
Sarah Palin is the real woman all those wimps never managed to be, and they are hating her for showing them up by just being her competent self.
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:36 am 12. Beema:Siobhan, I’m a Brit currently in the Middle East and I got up at 3.00 a.m. to watch the debate and found it riveting. I really do like Sarah Palin very much as she is down to earth, very attractive but above all I believe absolutely honest and given our rotten bunch in all parties, she is a breath of fresh air and I wish we had someone like her to take us out of the mess we are in. If you really want to know what is going on in the UK which you will almost never read in our gutter press, get a regular newsletter from the bnp website, don’t believe all the anti press on that subject, and you will learn much. I know where my next vote is going as I feel they really do care about us the indigenous people of the once Great Britain. I love the americans, and I am married to one, have lived in the USA and there are no better people on this earth.
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:43 am 13. Kirk:It seems as if Brits and Yanks are drifting further apart. The natural old europe tendancy is to hate what is different, so I can understand the increased hysterical ranting. Brits aren’t even really ‘free’ people. They are an intensely controlled, heavily monitored people, disarmed of all right to self defense and about to be overwhelmed by welfare muslim communities. Considering the tax load they pay, they might be considered serfs, what day is ‘tax freedom’ day over there? December 26th?
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:44 am 14. John Dubya:I participate in another forum which is populated by many Brits. Almost to a man they wish they had a Sarah Palin to vote for, they also miss Maggie Thatcher very much.
Of course, those who dare to speak of this are not part of the UK media elite. Most Brits these days are not happy campers about what the UK has become,or where it’s going.
Rather ordinary of them, don’cha think?
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:48 am 15. Sioux Lady:Bobby McG STILL doesn’t get it. One more time, Bobby, it’s the Affirmative Action Simpleton at the HEAD of the Democrat ticket who lacks the werewithal to sit in the Oval Office. Every time you people raise questions about Palin’s qualifications, you remind of us of that fact. (BTW Having been on the receiving end of affirmative action, I know precisely how it works.)
As for the readers of Brit broadsheets, like Obama they may be “educated” but are not very bright.
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:55 am 16. 888:Well, look at their role models — matronly home wreckers like Camilla Parker-Bowles. You put Camilla next to Sarah Palin, and …aghast…no comparison.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:08 am 17. Marina:“One thing that has become apparent, again, is the complete inability to grasp the realities of American politics in the British media.”
Not only. There is a strange connection between the American MSM and the Western European ones. It’s horrifying. Sometimes it takes 10 to 20 minutes until the same phrase American media just invented is repeated on the Western European TV channels. In exactly the same words. And when the dems deside not to follow this or that story anymore, it disappears from EU TV as quickly as it came.
This strange connection exists only with the Dems in America. You can hardly find a Republican point of view in the EU MSM. As if European MSM were a part of the American ones. They have the same issues, ideas, opinions and even vocabulary (in different languages, but still the same words and phrases). The same socialistic agenda: to share means justice, America is bad, blah-blah-blah.
But, unlike in the US, people in Europe have no access to the alternative information. Political internet blogging is not popular, and the illusion of “actually knowing all the facts” makes it unnecessary. That’s the field where the dems create the army of supporters. That’s why Obama was so worshiped in the Western Europe (people in the East are more realistic about new threats and old enemies). And that’s why they hate Sarah. And that’s why they hate America (the real America, not the socialist paradise they want her to be).
And it’s really “fascinating” how the huge MSM machine functions as a real network of private and PUBLIC TV channels, newspapers, magazines etc. both, in America and in Europe. One enormous web. This community had a lot of organizing and organizers, and now it functions almost perfectly.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:32 am 18. Noga:It’s interesting how Palin’s religious beliefs win her nothing but jeers and sneerings from the sophisticados of BBC land but Jimmy Carter’s insane religious beliefs aren’t even mentioned when he is rhapsodized by same.
Here is where Carter’s faith takes him:
“On his first visit to the Jewish state… Carter writes…” I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.”
Jews, in my experience, tend to become peevish when Christians, their traditional persecutors, lecture them on morality, and Carter reports that Meir was taken aback by his “temerity.” He is, of course, paying himself a compliment. Temerity is mandatory when you are doing God’s work, and Carter makes it clear in this polemical book that, in excoriating Israel for its sins — and he blames Israel almost entirely for perpetuating the hundred-year war between Arab and Jew — he is on a mission from God.”
Here’s Hitchens on same:
“Here is a man who, in his latest book on the
Israel-Palestine crisis, has found the elusive key to the problem. The mistake
of Israel, he tells us (and tells us that he told the Israeli leadership) is to
have moved away from God and the prophets and toward secularism. If you ever
feel like a good laugh, just tell yourself that things would improve if only the
Israeli government would be more Orthodox. Jimmy Carter will then turn his
vacantly pious glare on you, as if to say that you just don’t understand what it
is to have a personal savior.”
So while Carter’s fanatic brew of faith and politics is given a very wide berth by Brits and their American emulators, Palin, whose religious beliefs have been pretty muted, is excoriated as an “American taliban”:
http://drinksoakedtrotsforwar.com/2008/10/05/word-association-football/
I certainly don’t understand the viciousness of the descriptions or the absence of any measure of self-criticism.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:01 am 19. Irish Alex:“One thing that has become apparent, again, is the complete inability to grasp the realities of American politics in the British media. They don’t seem to understand that politics in the U.S. are nothing like that in the UK or the rest of Europe. Like it or loathe it, nevertheless it is still a fact.”
I really must disagree with this. I think it would be more accurate to say that the British Media is even more biased, worthless and disconnected with the people they ’speak’ for than the American press.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:03 am 20. Dark Helmet:An amazing achievement I admit, but they appear to have managed it.
europe can keep it’s trash and kneel before izslime. America NEVER will. We know that ‘manners’ and cowardice are not the same. Not only do we not care a fig if they don’t like our leaders, we are thrilled that they do not. Keep your soros bbc.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:13 am 21. RE:Some people seem to prefer someone polished on the outside and corrupt on the inside, confusing the ability to read a teleprompter with sound judgment.
Me? I prefer solid core values and character. What follows after that is not nearly as significant.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:16 am 22. TomJW:Isn’t that required of the British media due to sharia law?
What a pack of morons.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:17 am 23. Bill Perron:Palin has “traditional” American “values” which seem to have gone out of vogue as far as the press is concerned so she is a target to be stoned by the self righteous. When I read what horrible crap is being thrown around it makes me ashamed to say I am human and this is my race. It is no wonder we have such successful scoundrels in public office, why would a decent person want to subject themselves to such torture just to forward humankind by attempting to make a difference. It seems that today if someone has a different point of view that it is O. K. to slander them and not have any sence of guilt. With our form of government the shamefull state we are in is a disgusting reflection on how low our society has sunk.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:47 am 24. Jim in Texas:They have newspapers in Britain? How quaint! Are they still driving on the other side of the road?
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:00 am 25. FromIsrael:it’s called ‘ingratiating yourself with the person you think will be the next president of the US’
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:03 am 26. john from cinncinati:Sarah Palin does bring to mind Margret Thatcher. i like the idea of her keeping an eye on congress. “No Barney put that one back, that’s stealing and its not nice.”
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:18 am 27. TexEd:I believe the Brits’ dislike of Palin is understandable. Up to now, they’ve been able to bask in the charisma of Princess Di, a dumb cow that they’ve morphed into a legend.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:20 am 28. Robin Roberts:Now, along comes Palin, a bright, attractive, capable female who clearly has the potential to push Di’s memory/image to the side.
The Brit media has made good money on Di and they don’t like to see their future revenue diminish.
I don’t have any problems with the British media (although they do irritate me). The next time Britain needs to be rescued from its neighbors, we just won’t be there.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:20 am 29. Self-hating boomer:Maybe some effete leftist snob can explain to me why Sarah Palin is an unacceptable bumpkin, and yet this US senator, who ran a campaign on being a “mom in tennis shoes”, and oh by the way, won the “no rocket scientist” award twice for being the dumbest member in either house, is so wonderful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Murray
Please enlighten me.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:25 am 30. misanthropicus:English & european pettiness – also, not difficult to find on their side in the transatlantic relationship the impotent’s envy.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:38 am 31. AJ:is it then any surprise that bigoted, snooty liberal elites here in America have been to Eurabia 5 times before they attend college yet never in their life visit middle america?
i love how the elite libs i know ALWAYS act as though what the Brits and assorted Euro fools say is important….please
good piece
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:40 am 32. Vinny Vidivici:I thought we rejected the whole idea of being ruled by high priests back in 1776 — whether they be devinely selected royalty or the bien pensant bullies who populate our chattering classes.
The inbred incompetence we’ve seen on display in Washington these last two weeks is a direct result of this ‘we-know-best’ arrogance.
Europe’s media — the PR wing of its increasingly insular and unaccountable ruling apparat — have simply swapped the inherited authority of aristocrats for the educational pedigree and political fidelity of bureaucrats.
Nothing changes. At least, in the past, tyrants had to fight — literally — to the top of the heap. Today’s presumptive Charlemagnes get the right to rule the world by sitting in the right classrooms and meetings.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:57 am 33. Frank White:Those British Media snobs will be soon subjugated under the sword of Islam. Their women will be forced to cover themselves totally, and if anyone refuses they will be beaten. Then they can go write an article about it, and have their paper burned down for criticizing Islam.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:57 am 34. salome:Europeans and Brits have never gotten over the fact that most of those who first came to North America did so in order to flee and reject the goings-on over there. They were left behind, and even today America and Canada are chosen above them as places to immigrate to (legally and illegally), despite the many shortfallings and failings found here.
The history of the European nations is a sordid tale of the worst kind. The continent is soaked in blood – mostly innocent blood shed by those who sought power with whatever means. Women were treated shamefully. Corruption of Church and State permeated life. Let us remember what Europe allowed to happen right up to the Holocaust and beyond!
They hate Sarah Palin because she troubles the small part of their conscience that is still alive. Sarah, the happy, hopeful and honest gal from Alaska, shows these crusty, embittered reporters up.
Sarah Palin is somewhat of a plumbline, revealing the inner rot and hatred of those who are self-loathing and wish to embroil the whole world in their darkness. They are exposed and it aint a pretty sight!
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:03 am 35. Rick Balfour:I’m from middle America,fly-over country. Sarah strikes a cord with us. After almost 30 years in the U.S.N.,having put my country first, she’s a breath of fresh air. I,like many other Americans are tired of being lied to by the Left and Right, and more importantly the MEDIA. MY CONTEMPT FOR YOU IS ABSOLUTE. I see that the media is pretty much the same everywhere, far left. It’s a question of values,we will never agree. Let’s use our bail-out. Several in the GOP tried to reform fannie and freddie, it’s on record as plain as a pike staff that reform was called for. The simpering yobs on the left, state there’s “No problem”, that the reform called for is motivated by racism, that is also on record. Now what do we have?? Pigs from the left,right and Wall street feeding off the taxpayer. Are the simple facts layed out? No, there must spin, class warfare, charges of racism leveled by the media instead of just reporting the facts.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:06 am 36. Will Becker:Who cares what the UK thinks or says about Middle America? We are America’s backbone making us the greatest country in the world.We didn’t get that way being the elitist’s they are.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:13 am 37. Marion Valentine:Regardless of the MSM and foreign press putting out a constant assault. Traditional Fundamental values are what made America the greatest nation in the world. Abandoning those values is what has brought the world opinion of America down. But the traditional fundamental values will resurface and save the country from spiralling down the dead end road to secular Socialism.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:41 am 38. Fred Beloit:I admit to being a bit of an anglophile, though less and less so as they more and more islamize themselves. As such, one must rush to the defense of the UK media. They are innocent of malice, but of course guilty of childish gullibility. After all, Obama said he was going to be elected leader of the world and was going to change the world, though I have had the now apparently false idea that UK’s leader resided at 10 Downing. If what I’m saying is wrong and they don’t believe Obama will become their leader, why the bloody hell are sticking their bloody noses into our bloody election?
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:44 am 39. Matt:What I find hilarious about this article, and the subsequent comments, is that there is an acceptance out of hand that Sarah Palin “connects” with “middle America.” Any one of you following the polls, or the news cycle? Oh, that’s right you reject all that…
In any events, Palin’s unfavorability ratings are sky-high. There are just as many middle Americans who are, rightly, appalled by Sarah Palin, as there are those who wish to spend eternity being winked at by her.
Please get a grip on yourselves.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:58 am 40. jerryofva:Europeans heap contempt on the United States because they are ashamed of themselves. Europeans peed in their pants over Slobodan Milosevic and left it to the United States to clean up their mess just like they left it up to us in both World Wars. I never get overwrought when the European inferiority complex goes on display.
Why do European elites like Obama and hate Palin? They know that they can manipulate the former while the latter will laugh at their pretensions.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:59 am 41. Andrew Ian Dodge:Actually Jeremy Clarkson is rude about everyone including his fellow British. His brand of humour is rather close to the bone but he is at least and equal opportunity in his snideness.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:16 am 42. RE:jerryofva,
That’s it precisely. Europeans recognize that Obama will be extremely easy to manipulate and predisposed to give away the farm.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:17 am 43. Dodgeblogium » British Media Snobs Look Down Their Noses at Palin:[...] recent MTV awards, some of you might be wondering if his opinion is shared by others in the UK. read more | digg [...]
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:22 am 44. Tom:I’m British and I concur that the UK media, left,right and centre, hates Sarah Palin’s guts in a way that defies all reason. I get the impression that a large number of the public slavishly follow the media line. There is a nuance to this, coming as I do from a family that straddles the middle/working class. The so-called “intellectual” class despise Americans as uncouth and see themselves as intellectually superior, more sophisticated, more civilised. I suspect the working class in the UK, although virtually silent in terms of the media, loves all things American and would emigrate in a heartbeat if they could. You will never hear from this group and it is difficult to be sure how many fall into this category.
For the most part though, Britain is an utterly decadent society on the verge of total collapse. Its hatred of Americans is a projection of its own terminal self-loathing, like snide little shits you might remember from school or work who attempt to cover up their own inadequacies by bringing others down. There is no country in the world at greater risk in the current financial maelstrom due to our heavy dependence on financial services, house prices, consumer debt and a complete inability to manufacture pretty much anything. In 10 years Britain will be a Balkanised, fragmented basket case of a country.
If I was American I would ignore Britain. It is not worth the effort. In fact leave Europe to its own defences. Pull up the drawbridge and plug your ears so you don’t have to listen to the whiney limeys and frogs whimper about American isolationism.
But not until I emigrate to your country…
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:32 am 45. Paul:I’m a Brit who’s truly ashamed at the rabid anti-Americanism displayed by our media, most of whom are pseudo-intellectual snobs and champagne socialists who no doubt imagine themselves to be avant-garde but are in fact utterly in thrall to group-think. When the history of our times comes to be written, one of the great questions will be how to explain this anti-American psychosis on the part of the Europeans. Ignorance, of course, and psychological displacement; aware in their hearts of their increasing impotence in a dangerous world, they transfer their dismay and fear into anger at an America which can still act vigourosly to defend itself. Of course, future European and British history may well be in Arabic or Pushtu and proclaim that it was all Allah’s will, considering the feebleness of our so called elites.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:45 am 46. nlcatter:Anyway, please let me conclude by asking you not to judge us by what some over paid clown writes in the papers. Believe it or not, there are still many of us over here who see America as the “last, best hope”.
Thatcher Answered the questions posed to her,
Margaret T did not read from cue cards.
and did not lie or try to ban books.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:48 am 47. Eric R.:Britain is just a wussified Marxist shadow of its former self, bending over for its future Islamic Overlords.
To hell with Britain.
The schadenfreude I will feel when Big Ben is turned into a minaret will be immeasurable.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:50 am 48. nlcatter:Thatcher remains the standard. She was not above using feminine wiles in charming individuals; but in public, in debate, in the Commons, she beat men at their own game, using nothing but knowledge, forensics, expertise, argument and courage.
From Thatcher to Palin is not a slide downwards for conservative women. It’s a free-fall. And McCain did it.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:53 am 49. Jabba the Cat:The MSM in the UK have the same hangups about Sarah Palin as do the US MSM. Politicians that can speak directly to the electorate without the need of journalistic or shill intellectual translation never go down well with the MSM and it’s hanger ons, because direct speakers make such intermediaries and shill’s surplus to requirement, which is never good for people with over inflated ego’s and sense of importance.
However, in the UK on the street you would be surprised how many people have taken a shine to Mrs Palin and oft remark when are we going to get someone like her here in the UK that is down to earth, and refreshingly different from the self centred and morally corrupt politicians that inhabit all levels of the Westminster village. Many in the UK remember that we had a Mrs Thatcher that came at the right time to sort out the accumulated messes of successive Labour and appeasing wet Tory governments.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:54 am 50. Rachel:If I was American I would ignore Britain. It is not worth the effort. In fact leave Europe to its own defences. Pull up the drawbridge and plug your ears so you don’t have to listen to the whiney limeys and frogs whimper about American isolationism.
But not until I emigrate to your country…(Tom)
come on over. We have cookies
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:54 am 51. nlcatter:The real shocker is that conservative Republicans — after 8 years of George Bush — are willing to put all their hopes into a charismatic, folksy leader who is ideologically rigid and intellectually stupid. With her complete inability to express herself on complex issues, and her willingness to mask that with folksy charm and talking points, Palin is a carbon-copy of W.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:55 am 52. nlcatter:The fact that so many other qualified women in the party, like Olympia Snowe Kay Baily Hutchinson, Christie Todd Whitman (my former governor) are able to communicate and connect with the American people, were passed over for this disaster of a candidate, is greatly disheartening to young women.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:55 am 53. Marion Valentine:Character does matter. If you believe Obama sat in a church for 20 years and did not hear any of Rev. Wright’s hate speech, that he sat at Frank Marshal Davis’s feet and listened to his poetry and stories (google) That his associations with the New Party of Chicago (google), Ayers, Resko and other shady characters has not influenced Obama’s character and judgement, then you must also beleive, though never having seen me, that I am the sexiest most handsome man alive.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:58 am 54. JaimeRoberto:Maybe they’re jealous of her straight teeth.
nlcatter, perhaps you can tell me what books she tried to ban.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:05 am 55. Cowcup:Hey guys, media everywhere, not just in US, dislike Palin.
But, I betcha, many people around the world would love her. (That is, if they do have that much attention in US politics to seek out information outside their own MSM.)
Brits are fine. They love Thatcher. I have confidence in them.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:11 am 56. DeSelby:I think the English have a word for people like Palin. Twit. And who says “middle America” likes her? More like “below average America.”
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:22 am 57. rightwingprof:It’s hardly surprising. We fought two wars to reject rule by elite for rule by citizen, and they’ve never understood that.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:29 am 58. kabud:She is the best, but it is not enough:
McCain/Palin campaign must have a PLAN, some serious positive PLAN
that will sound good to the american people
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:40 am 59. B Dubya:Matt;
Be sure to get cash when the Obama campaign pays you.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:44 am 60. david levavi:Your candidate of choice is an unindicted co-consprator and a foreign national. Good luck with that.
…Did he consult the allies…
Ya gotta be kidding. Are the English so sunk in their own perfidies they imagine themselves equal partners with the US? Do they imagine that the US needs their support in Iraq or Afghanistan for anything other than UN diplomacy and public relations? That they are anything but a fig leaf for actions we could accomplish on our own.
I recall the hysterical demonstrations by leftist British myopes when the Soviets caught up with the US in ICBMs and Kissinger/Nixon deftly switched the deck and turned to tactical nuclear missiles.
The British lefties didn’t mind an American nuclear umbrella as long as it was intercontinental. But not on their soil. By placing nuclear missiles in Europe the Americans were making them a target. Mushroom clouds over Leningrad and New York were fine but not over London. The Cold War was a contest between irrationally warring Capitalists and Communists. They were Englishmen, non-violent, cultured and wise. Peaceful socialists. World citizens. The Kumbaya choir.
The full sordid details of the British deployment in Basra is well known and understood by thinking Americans. With friends like the British, as goes the old quip, who needs enemies?
Through the civil rights movement, the left in America has infected and utterly corrupted the American body politic with a social cancer known as affirmative action. Ethnicity has replaced merit as the vehicle to success. The destructive effects of the disease are everywhere evident.
Mediocre “minorities” like Michelle and Barack Obama affirmatively leapfrogged past more deserving “majorities” into elite universities like Princeton and Harvard, and into professional positions for which they had no talent. Empty vessels, they learned to mimic the appearance and sound of their betters and grew into empty suits.
Employing strong-arm tactics refined by thuggish poverticians like Jesse Jackson, these hollow Frankensteins and their leftists supporters eventually succeeded in forcing banks to extend affirmative-action mortgages AKA subprime loans. If “minorities” short on intellect and learning deserved university educations, why didn’t “minorities” short on money and credit deserve homes? And so we arrive at the current financial crisis in America.
If our “allies” who imagined themselves above involvement and responsibility during from the Cold War are still so shortsighted as to imagine themselves immune from America’s troubles, they’re in for a shock. And their problems of the present are nothing to their problems in future.
The time is not long distant when England will no longer be home for the English. Young Englishmen will have to pack their bags and look for someplace familiar in the world where law doesn’t translate to Sharia and their children don’t have to attend madrassas.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:46 am 61. me2:I would suggest Canada. New Zealand. Australia, perhaps. Here in the US, there’s a long line of the more affirmatively blessed from around the world that Englishmen will have to get behind.
I came across this this site by following a link and will be fleeing immediately. For your information if you lived in a country which had a murder rate like the UK you guys would think you were in Utopia. In your attempts to convince yourselves the the US is superior to the rest of the world you never actually look at facts. The facts are that crime in the US is among the highest in the world. Your murder rate is five times higher than in Ireland for example despite the fact that you have 1 in 100 adults in jail. Ireland only needs to put 1 in 1200 adults in jail. The UK stats are similar as are most European countries. Think on that next time you are in such a hurry to dismiss the values of European countries.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:48 am 62. JerryT:“… is the complete inability to grasp the realities of American politics in the British media.”
I think the problem has more to do with the inability of the Brit people to understand Americans. The English are no longer the people they once were.
Oct 5, 2008 - 10:50 am 63. vernington:I don’t get what the problem is. Palin is not qualified. Not because of her inexperience but because of her lack of knowledge and interest. What is wrong with pointing that out? Would you appoint someone to look after monkeys because they look like one?
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:00 am 64. AF_Vet:nlcatter spewed:
“Thatcher Answered the questions posed to her,”
As did Governor Palin, at least the straightforward ones that weren’t set-ups or non-sensical.
“Margaret T did not read from cue cards.”
Uh-oh….sounds like Obama is in trouble then, huh?
“and did not lie or try to ban books.”
So then, she’s safe on both counts here, because: Obama & Biden have been doin all the fibbin lately, and Gov. palin didn’t try to have any books banned–please do try and keep up with your memes—this one’s been busted long ago.
Your ignorance is stunning, clatter; at least you make up for it by posting profusely.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:05 am 65. J. B..:Governor Palin should seek good legal counsel in England. Libel is still illegal there.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:31 am 66. nlcatter:leapfrogged? and your proof is?
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:33 am 67. nlcatter:.
.
.
I thought so!
at least straightforward? already making excuses?
she did NOT answer the questions posed to her at Debate and even at Courics interview
“ill get back to you”
Obam did not refer to any props at debate
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:35 am 68. Jabli Izvesti:cant wait till he cleans clokc of Mccain tuesday
Even by the standards of the American mainstream media,the British press,save a few honourable exeptions,is trashy in the extreme.It is a law unto itself and glories in its gutter journalism.As to the BBC,it has deteriorated so much few in the third world take it seriously,except the Arabs whom it supports to the hilt.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:37 am 69. nlcatter:Ill put books on this separate response
the fake list of books not even printed was a fake, noone even acknowledge posting it
(problably a red herring posted by GOP operative.
she couldnt ban books she never read)
there were TWO BOOKs she tried to ban as councilperson (campaign said “none as MAYOR” true) one was a book about being gay by a STRAIGHT pastor who confirmed
(oops I just gave an out to the moron above about using internet)
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:38 am 70. Marc Malone:Twit. A thin place. English term referencing the lack of material between one’s ears. Why would you think that Gov. Palin qualifies for that term? Because she’s not conversant in foreign affairs or complex national issues? That doesn’t her stupid, or even mentally incurious.
It’s just that in her world, other things have had to take priority. She is skilled at sports. She has learned to hunt and fish. She can pilot a boat and a plane. She has run a business and has property investments. She has run a city. She runs one of our most important States. She has a solid track record of success, unlike Sen. Obama, who can point to exactly zero achievements.
She has solid understanding of energy policy, more than most politicians in this country. This is THE issue. It’s what’s behind the international mess. It’s what’s going to get us out of our economic mess. It is, simply, the future. Get rid of the need for Mideast oil, and so many problems just go away, for us and for Europe.
Many don’t realize this, as the Media seize on her weakness, and refuse to highlight her strengths. Conversely, they whitewash Sen. Obama’s many shortcomings. She’s an existential threat to the Liberal movement. If a clearer picture ever got out of her, her mere existence would unmask their false premises.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:39 am 71. Noga:British Actor Stephen Fry on British anti-Americanism:
“I was so nearly an American. It was that close…. I was 10 when my mother made me a present of this momentous information. The very second she did so, Steve was born.
[-] I have often felt a hot flare of shame inside me when I listen to my fellow Britons casually jeering at the perceived depth of American ignorance, American crassness, American isolationism, American materialism, American lack of irony and American vulgarity. Aside from the sheer rudeness of such open and unapologetic mockery, it seems to me to reveal very little about America and a great deal about the rather feeble need of some Britons to feel superior. All right, they seem to be saying, we no longer have an empire, power, prestige or respect in the world, but we do have “taste” and “subtlety” and “broad general knowledge”, unlike those poor Yanks.
What silly, self-deluding rubbish! What dreadfully small-minded stupidity! Such Britons hug themselves with the thought that they are more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than Americans…
Sophistication is not a moral quality, nor is it a criterion by which one would choose one’s friends. Why do we like people? Because they are knowledgeable, cosmopolitan and sophisticated? No, because they are charming, kind, considerate, exciting to be with, amusing… there is a long list, but knowing what the capital of Kazakhstan is will not be on it.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/30/bofry130.xml&page=2
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:44 am 72. Zhombre:Tom, you’re welcome in Florida. Bring copious amounts of Guiness and some single malt Scotch. That’s all I ask.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:48 am 73. Jack Burton:Gov. Palin is pro-choice. Doubt me? Do you really think she would disapprove of anything on this page?
http://hubpages.com/hub/For-Women-Only—-A-Pictorial-Journey-About-Choice
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:48 am 74. Juliana:I spent a year in England for college and was there during the 2004 election. Needless to say I quickly learned that the british media was not a reliable source for information on the American politics. They regularly reported that Bush had no change of winning and were openly horrified when he did. I think the Times headline on the day after election was something like “Bush Names Himself President”.
Oct 5, 2008 - 12:42 pm 75. siobhan:Yes, but remember its not all Brits. Some of us
love you – and many more would do if they were not cowed by media opinion. Added to which, all the older people know you rescued us in WW2 and are grateful
Siobhan
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:08 pm 76. Matt:B Dubya:
That’s right. I get paid by the Obama campaign. They pay me in bite-sized chunks of happiness as watch McCain/Palin tank and listen to people like you say, “Good luck with that,” as though I needed it.
Your party of choice is a dead animal. It will evolve over the course of the next two decades to look more like–guess who? The Democratic party. Reason being that an increasing number of people recognize the GOP for being the party of stupidity, incompetence, hypocrisy, and intolerance that it is.
No future. No future. No future for you.
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:45 pm 77. Mexican bystander:It must be difficult to say somethingh positive about the republican nominees for this election, really hard work to twist, massaje, strech, hammer, pull and chew the facts to leave them unrecognizable! I hope you get paid well.
Oct 5, 2008 - 1:55 pm 78. david levavi:Noga, Siohban and like minded Brits:
Apologies if my last post sounds too much like Brit-bashing. The seamless dominance of MSM by the Left makes me forget that the bastards are just a noisy and overinfluential minority.
I’ve heard our freely elected president, a courageous, decent and intelligent man, called a cowboy and an idiot, his vice-president called a puppeteer and a Haliburton shill, and our former Secretary of Defense, the best and brightest in my lifetime, called a war criminal. All in English accents.
The presumption of some Brits in America is monstrous. They imagine that because their ideas are in synch with their lefty American friends and employers, they are equally free to publicly piss on people, institutions and ideas Americans hold dear. Not so. American lefties are a rotten and detestable fifth column but they’re our rotten and detestable fifth column. As Americans they enjoy the right to be as crude and rude in their criticisms as they like. Outsiders don’t.
Its a shock when representatives of a friendly and civilized European nation famous for good manners forget they’re guests and behave like hostile interlopers from one or another pestilent Arabian backwater.
Oct 5, 2008 - 2:09 pm 79. Phillip:Who cares weather or not the Brits like someone or not. They aren’t voting
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:03 pm 80. John:You have to wonder through what prism the guy who wrote this views the world. There used to be a time when the Republican party, the party my family has voted for generations, used to be against dumbing down. Now it’s party policy apparently. The woman with every respect is a numbskull, this is apparent to my 16 year old son who would undoubtedly have done better than her in a school debating competition. And if he didn’t I’d be on his case. No she didn’t fall on her face like Charlie Chaplin but her answers were Gibberish. I’m afraid the far right in the GOP has lost all contact with reality when they can sit there and spin her as in any way a remotely plausible vice presidential candidate. Pretending that she is the victim of snobbery which seems to be one of the standard lines is risible. The GOP is in trouble because of dishonesty, this is just the latest example of it.
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:07 pm 81. Dave Surls:“The Sarah Palin in St Paul last night seems like a woman who would be quite comfortable in Red Scare America.”
Why would Ms. Palin be especially comfortable living in Woody Wilson’s America (first Red Scare) or Harry Truman’s America (second Red Scare)? Personally, I’m a lot more comfortable living in times when the Republicans are running the country and we aren’t throwing people in prison just because they tell the truth about military conscription or because they’re members of the CPUSA.
Since Ms. Palin is a Republican I’d assume she’d feel the same way.
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:45 pm 82. Marc Malone:me2 – Interesting point. Yes we have lots of people in jail. Two reasons: our jails are too cushy; and the drug war. 85%+ of our criminals are in for drug offenses. Many of the violent offenses are also drug-related.
Actually, there is another reason. We are willing to fight. I’m okay with that. We do what we do internationally, because Euros are too unwilling to fight. I hope we never become like the Eu-nuch-ros.
Oct 5, 2008 - 3:46 pm 83. sioned:In America we are frightened by her ignorance juxtaposed with her ‘unblinking’ unwarranted self confidence. John McCain has years of experience, Sarah sadly doesn’t know enough to understand what she doesn’t know. That is whats frightening.
Oct 5, 2008 - 4:27 pm 84. John F. MacMichael:Noga, thank you for the link to the Stephen Fry piece above. A great essay and a fascinating comments.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:01 pm 85. Adam:Indeed, there are plenty of Americans (read: the majority) that know that Palin is a moron and has nothing to say for herself other than what the cue cards tell her.
It’d be a terribly sad day if the Republicans get in for a third successive term. Barack Obama is a terrorist according to Palin, for that, she is a prick.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:03 pm 86. jerryofva:I have come to the conclusion that people like nlcatter are simpletons. They continual repeat the debunked lies put out by the Obama campaign as if they were the gospels.
Which VP candidate thought FDR was President in 1929 and that TV existed; didn’t know the duties of the Vice President under the Constitution; and thought “the US and France” drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon? It wasn’t Governor Sarah Palin.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:06 pm 87. Adam:“Marc Malone: It’s just that in her world, other things have had to take priority. She is skilled at sports. She has learned to hunt and fish. She can pilot a boat and a plane. She has run a business and has property investments. She has run a city. She runs one of our most important States. She has a solid track record of success, unlike Sen. Obama, who can point to exactly zero achievements.”
So while Obama has been writing books, has become a Senator and all that, Palin has been in boats and fishing? Wow. That doesn’t qualify her for anything, ESPECIALLY when the McCain camp was criticising Obama for his comparative lack of experience, yet between Obama and Biden, they have far more experience and foreign policy knowledge than both Palin and McCain. Palin was a moronic choice, why bring forward someone with such a small amount of knowledge and who was less than two years ago, a Mayor of a town of ten thousand? Ridiculous to think that Biden himself has been in office for over twenty five years and out-qualifies her without thinking.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:08 pm 88. fred:The British chattering classes are virtually indistinguishable from ours. They share a common outlook, so why are we surprised to hear the grunts coming from across the Pond?
They think that America should strive to be like socialist Europe. It rankles them that we haven’t “evolved” the way they have.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:15 pm 89. Zhombre:Dear Mexican bystander: I hope some day our political system compares with yours for stability, the integrity and honesty of its political class, transparency, and responsiveness to its citizens. As we all know, Mexico is one of the most progressive and prosperous nations on earth. Vaya con dios.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:30 pm 90. Judy, NYC:the brits notions of themselves as superior, comes from having once been a dominant global power (stealing natural resources and enslaving indigenous natives, of course). now they are stuck in rather cramped quarters, cheek by jowl with the arabs, whom they despise and fear. their deeply class conscious society is also falling apart, the upper class riddled with arabs standing on their oil money. frightened and vulnerable, the brits are compelled to express themselves not in their own country, but in some far away scenario, as if they are participants. although they neither understand or value america or its culture, they support barry obama, someone about whom they know far less than we do. which isn’t much, and what we do know is not too good. perhaps, it is that in their misery they would like some company. i wouldn’t plan on it though, despite our various looming debacles, america is still rambunctious, chaotic, crayoning outside the lines, energetic. and, most of all, outspoken.
Oct 5, 2008 - 5:30 pm 91. Believer:I don’t know, but maybe ol’ Sarah has more in common with the Queen of England than the average “media snob.”
Afterall, hasn’t Elizabeth been known to mount a horse and chase after a four-legged creature? And surely someone puts a hole in that furry critter at the end of it all.
Not to mention her own sons and grandsons serving their nation in uniform.
British media is even more biased and useless than ours.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:00 pm 92. ElodieStClair:Yeah, those Liberals are judging Paling for petty little reasons like her inability to answer “questions”, or for her lack of a basic command of “history”, or for her ignorance about “American law” and the “Constitution”, or for her total lack of understanding about meaningless things like “economics” or “foreign policy”, or her inability to locate “Iraq” on a map, etc.
Yeah, how dare those evil, insipid liberals demand that Palin have rudimentary competence? The nerve of them!
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:22 pm 93. Preach on, SarahCuda! « The Right Daily:[...] MSM from trying to come to the rescue for The One. Of course, the MSM is not quite as bad as the British media is about [...]
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:47 pm 94. Mandy:What is most amazing is that so many Ameicans choose not be appalled by the selection of Sarah Palin as a vice presidential candidate.
Oct 5, 2008 - 6:50 pm 95. Michael M:It isn’t that they think they have a right to determine anything about who leads us,its that they are concerned about it. Europeans are very concerned with the direction the US takes,just as we are concerned with the directions of Mexico,or Canada or the European nations. Additionally,they are very disturbed by what they see as a vein of religious fanaticism in the US. This has to be understood from their background. They have seen religious and political extremism up close and paid the high cost in human life in way we have not.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:15 pm 96. Michael M:Can you blame our allies for being upset about their citizens being kidnapped and tortured in third world prisons becuase they were suspected of terrorism. This is not leftist propaganda. Its a fact,that was publicized in the media both in and out of the US. Off the top of my head,I recall reading about a German citizen and in another case,a Canadian citizen who were victims of our “extraordinary rendition” where prisoners are sent to countries like Syria,or Egypt for interrogation. (Before you dismiss this,do a little research,its real,its happening and if your not shocked,your not paying attention) These people were later release when it was found that they had no ties to terrorists. (Thats little comfort if you have had a night stick inserted in your rectum and constant beatings. “We made a mistake,your free to go,heres an inflatable doughnut for you to sit on during the trip home”) While some question whether these people are really tortured,and say they are lying,ask yourself,why send them to syria? For milk and cookies?
That being said,you can see why our allies are worried. These cases are not incredibly common right now. Thats true. Its not like tens of thousands are being victimized. If it were one single American taken by the French and beaten for information,we would be livid. No one does that to an American and gets away with it! Other nations feel the same. Even isolated incidents will get their blood boiling. If you were in their situation you would feel the same.
This is why they are so concerned. They hope that someone gets elected in the US that will move the US in a direction that they are comfortable with. Similarly,when a politician with extremist ties seems to be on the verge of rising to significant power in Europe or south America, Americans worry. The only difference is,when a hardliner comes to power in south American,they don’t command the most powerful army on earth with thousands of nuclear warheads. We Americans believe it impossible that an Adolph Hitler could come to power in the US. We find it more believable however that for instance,it could happen in some other country. Similarly,the British I’m sure are not to worried about an extremist taking their nation in that direction,but they worry about it happening else where. The farther right of their political ideology the politician they more so. (and lets be honest,any presidential candidate that has any relevance in American politics is probably to the right of the Europeans)
“Noga, Siohban and like minded Brits:
Apologies if my last post sounds too much like Brit-bashing…
.
.
.
Its a shock when representatives of a friendly and civilized European nation famous for good manners forget they’re guests and behave like hostile interlopers from one or another pestilent Arabian backwater.”
Wow,its pretty clear where your coming from. Why don’t you just throw in some racial slurs while your at it. A few “Towlheads” cracks would just about be the cherry on top wouldn’t it. Unlike you ,I love America. You of course say you do as well,but you dont. Your more like the guy who follows his ex-girlfriend home and leaves her bloody and beaten in an alley. Your dont love America,your just obsessing over it. If you loved America,you would understand that everyones entitled to their opinions here. You would understand that the diversity of opinion in American politics is what makes the country strong. You would understand that the freedom to speak your mind is what makes America a great place to live. You would listen to these British who are very angry with the direction of the US (like most europeans are) and take note. You would understand that its probobally a good idea to understand how strongly they feel about these issues,even if you dont agree.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:30 pm 97. zeppenwolf:Before you start attacking me for being unamerican,for siding with people who hate America,think for a second. (and consider for a fact that they dont hate America,they are very worried about what we are doing,its a very different thing)Im not suggesting that they are correct in their opinions. Although in some cases I do have to agree,we are on the wrong track) Im suggesting that it is very important to understand how they feel. How can we make decisions if we dont know all the facts. (and in a democracy,we the people,should be making informed decisions) Should we invade Iran to stop them from getting nuclear weapons? Perhaps. Its on the table. The reactions of our allies of course have to be taken into consideration. Perhaps the down side would be too great. Perhaps instead it might be a better idea to give the Israelis the satellite imagery and let them bomb the targets so we can pretend we had nothing to do with it.(its not like the Arabs could hate them anymore anyway) Sometimes there is more than one way to get what you want. The trick is to find what works best. (And is best for America)
> They don’t seem to understand that politics in the U.S. are nothing like that in the UK or the rest of Europe.
But this is not quite correct, as the article clearly points out: the qualities of Leftism are universal. A lefty here in the US is much the same as a lefty over there.
A refusal to grow up; an “ends justifies the means” lack of morality; a disdainful elitism; etc etc you know the animal.
This is why it’s so absurd for our own lefties to obsess about how much the rest of the world likes us, (or loathes us). It’s THE LEFT that hates America, whether the American left or the European left or any other left. And just like in America, the British left controls the media, the beauracracies…
There are still some Brits with sense over there. But I’d recommend they pack their bags and cross the pond some time before sharia sets in.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:34 pm 98. Richard:I am English and think Palin is excellent. But as siobhan says, you are right about the english media. Although Domic Lawson has written a couple of sensible pieces. I apologise.
Oct 5, 2008 - 7:58 pm 99. fred:Someone should remind the British elites and chattering classes that their foreign policy will no longer be joined at our hip. They are part of the E.U. now and have no independent foreign policy or military. Everything of significance comes from Brussels.
The title of Mark Steyn’s book, “America, Alone” says it all. And I would rather we do have a policy that does not have to pass muster in Europe. However, it may be a long time before we can recover that, as B. Obama will be putting our cherished independence on a four year hiatus.
I pray to God that we survive the next four years.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:06 pm 100. Jeff:I don’t know what America is thinking and why they are all so accepting of Sarah Palin into this political scene instantly. It’s as if they are completely mesmerized by her, but for all the wrong reasons. Here is a woman that will just be a heartbeat away from the Presidency and that is NOT an understatement.
Most Americans also fail to understand that this woman’s view of the world is very limited. It’s almost as if she only has a minor grasp of what is going on in the world. Her interviews with Charlie Gibson on ABC and Katie Couric on CBS is proof enough that she absolutely does not have enough knowledge of the world around her and she also has a very limited knowledge of our own politics.
We all need to really look at this election objectively. Since the completion of the vetting process of both VP candidates, Biden has gone on to accommodate roughly about 84 interviews with the press while Palin has done less than 4 interviews with the press. That is a MAJOR unbalance in the two comparisons and it truly shows McCain’s apprehensiveness about her ability to speak on her own accord, without his physical presence. What does this portray, first and foremost? It portrays that this Presidential ticket does not have the full and utmost confidence in his VP ticket to fend for herself and answer any questions that the American public needs to know. It truly shows that his vetting process was not done in a wise manner but more so in a political manner. Here is a woman that exudes family values; taking care of 5 kids while being the Governor of Alaska, maintaining a healthy marriage, having decent morals and values, and is completely a Washington outsider. This is a classic profile of a candidate that has never been tainted, in the eyes of the American public that has lost faith in the judicial system. This pick was merely done to appeal to the American families with values and tradition but what else could be said about this VP ticket? Does it show the American public anything about her ability to make all the necessary decisions in regards to foreign affairs, national defense, economic legislation, and the overall ability to govern the most powerful country in the world?
We must keep in mind that McCain IS in fact 72 years old and if elected, he WILL be the oldest President to ever be elected. The last oldest elected President was Ronald Reagan at 69 years old, when he was elected in 1980, but he was in fairly good health. McCain, on the other hand, will be 3 years Reagan’s senior, if elected. He also does have a history of skin cancers which are not completely cured, among other ailments that he suffered during his years as a POW in Vietnam. Can we, as the American public, be completely confident that if anything happens to McCain while in office, that Palin will in fact be fully ready to tackle anything and everything that this country will have to face? America MUST search deep down and answer this question, honestly.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:13 pm 101. ProgMeister:I’d have to agree with the Brits on this one, doggone it ….
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:26 pm 102. RE:All this noise and yet the fact remains, Gov. Palin still has far more experience the other ticket’s presidential nominee – except at voting ‘present’, of course.
Oct 5, 2008 - 8:38 pm 103. Gringo:me2:
. For your information if you lived in a country which had a murder rate like the UK you guys would think you were in Utopia ….you never actually look at facts. The facts are that crime in the US is among the highest in the world….
In the United Kingdom, 1.2% of the population of the UK reported themselves as victims of robbery; in France, 1.1%, and in Sweden, 0.9 % : versus 0.6% of the population in the US. Some of the difference in those robbery rates may be that in the US a robber knows he may be shot by a potential victim.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:08 pm 104. Christine:RE,
You and most of the ignorant people that think like you are idiots if you think that Sarah Palin has more experience than Barack Obama. A woman that knows squat about everything that goes on in the world. On the first Presidential debate, Obama seemed more experience when it comes to foreign affairs and all other matters that relate to our country than even John McCain, himself. He was running circles around the wrinkly old dude.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:09 pm 105. nlcatter:Palin success? even her car wash failed
catching fish? oh thats an intellectual challenge!
on par with her attempt to ban a book about Gays.
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:29 pm 106. iconoclast:In other words, longtime Americans with deep roots and not recent immigrants, Americans who never have cause to doubt the American dream.
This is particularly amusing and ill-informed. Some of the most “conservative” Americans are recent immigrants, particularly those coming from countries with an over-abundance of leftists….
Oct 5, 2008 - 9:36 pm 107. Dave:All right you anti-Palin bozos both here and abroad. I like her lots better than I like you.
Do you know why? Well I will tell you why.
She is on my side and you are not.
Got any questions?
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:20 pm 108. David H:As a Brit living in the Socialist paradise of Europe, all I can say is I would just love to have a Sarah Palin to vote for instead of these so called superior elites who are busy wrecking democracy and freedom in Europe.
Obama and experience, don’t make me laugh, I wouldn’t trust him to run a bath!!!, just as I do not trust Mr Brown to run a shower (called the Labour government…)
I had a good look at Palins governorship of Alaska and she is a doer, that is the sort of person I respect, not a sneaky, lying vainglorious snob like Obama who fits in very nicely with the undemocratic scum we have in Europe.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:41 pm 109. el gordo:Everybody drinks in Alaska.
Yeah, and everybody does a little blow in Hawaii… but the upper classes can relate to that.
The irony is delightful. Has this twit ever watched British tourists disgracing themselves around the mediterranean every year? And the binge drinking, vomiting crowds at home? They are hard to avoid, you know. There is no evidence at all that Americans, never mind Alaskans, are even a fraction as irresponsible
Oct 6, 2008 - 1:20 am 110. SeanO:with their liquor.
I am an Englishman living in Ireland. You think that the British media are bad, you want to see the virtual apoplexy exhibited by the Irish and the journalistic “betters” at the merest mention of Mrs Palin. With the typical loathing of most things American, the Irish can spit bile with the worst of them whilst smiling and pretending to be “de noice oirish people”.
Oct 6, 2008 - 2:26 am 111. Dave Surls:“Did he consult the allies? Of course not.”
Yeah, we haven’t “consulted” with the British in regard to who are leaders are going to be since George III was running the show over there.
After 232 years I’d think y’all would be getting used to the idea, but apparently you’re a bit slow to catch on.
Oct 6, 2008 - 3:12 am 112. Adam:fred: “Someone should remind the British elites and chattering classes that their foreign policy will no longer be joined at our hip. They are part of the E.U. now and have no independent foreign policy or military. Everything of significance comes from Brussels.”
Huh? So that’s why our military forces went into Afghanistan and Iraq, and other EU countries didn’t send theirs in? Deary me, you really don’t know much of anything, do you?
“The title of Mark Steyn’s book, “America, Alone” says it all. And I would rather we do have a policy that does not have to pass muster in Europe. However, it may be a long time before we can recover that, as B. Obama will be putting our cherished independence on a four year hiatus.”
You seem to think that Barack Obama has something else in mind other than protecting and serving America – why not quote something rather than trying to proclaim something with no evidence? Obama is going to do nothing to your independence; change is obviously needed, deal with it.
Oct 6, 2008 - 3:42 am 113. Andrew Ian Dodge:I can’t believe the left has resorted to calling an idiot. I mean is that the best they can do? By implication they are calling all Alaskans idiots since she has an 80% approval rating. Can any British politician or party touch that? Not bloody likely.
Oct 6, 2008 - 3:47 am 114. sheep:Smokey, Harry Truman spent 10 years in Congress. You people will believe anything shoved down your uneducated throats. Listen to George Will on your own side.
People are apoplectic because she could be president and she’s an Applebee’s hostess. Come one people.
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:07 am 115. sheep:Alaskans are swimming in cash. They get money because of the abundance of natural resources. If that’s the starting point, barring criminal behavior (see Young or Stevens) most politicians have high approval ratings and yes, Ms. Palin is an attractive figure. Much as in high school where popular kids won elections, Ms. Palin has garnered support. She’s spent her whole life in a literal or metaphorical bikini. Alaskan politics are no different, but a far cry from being a stateswoman for the United States of America.
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:25 am 116. jerryofva:I come back Monday morning and what do I see? None of the posters suffering from Palin Derangement Syndrome chose to defend poor Joe Biden. In their own minds my post was not worthy of rebuttal. The truth is that they have no talking points to rebut with since they have not found them on the Daily Kos. The blue shirts of the Obamacorp don’t consider Joe Biden to be important any way. It’s all about Obama.
But if you want to get down and dirty over who is ignorant of the Constitution here is a post on liberal blog Talk Left. When you get down to the last paragraph it says:
“I submit that of the 3 people on the stage that night, Palin was the one who got it right on that question. Ifill had no idea what the issue was about and Biden was the one who got it just plain wrong. It is ridiculous that the Left and the Left allies in the Media tried to use this episode to attack Palin. For it was the Media and the Democratic candidate who embarrassed themselves in this episode, not Sarah Palin.”
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/5/104254/995
Oct 6, 2008 - 7:31 am 117. logdon:Ashamed to be British? You bet! The latest is welcoming back twice evicted Mandelson. Fraudster, cheat, all round slime merchant and he’s our breath of fresh air? The waft of ordure infects our left wing like a pigsty. They lie. They feather own nests. And they, incredibly cling to the belief that they’re the good guys.
Oct 6, 2008 - 7:37 am 118. logdon:Yet more!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/race-for-whitehouse/palin-the-pitbull-brands-obama-pal-of-terrorist-952477.html
Oct 6, 2008 - 8:19 am 119. nlcatter:jherryova – i use my relatives in alaska as sources not Obama campaign
biden meant syria – us/france 1982 kicked out – lebanon – muslim = syria
and palin to ostupid to even catch the hezbollah gafee cause she dotest know what the group is
Oct 6, 2008 - 8:41 am 120. nlcatter:defend Biden? why he does not possess andy of the attributes – corrupt, lying, book burning creationist that palin does.
do I pick on her errors? NO, just her IDIOCY and Immoral behaivor
BTW – Biden got it right on the VP role
Oct 6, 2008 - 8:44 am 121. Frank Logan:To sheep, Matt, nlcatter, Jeff, and the other Dupes on this thread…………
It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
— Carl Sagan
There are only two categories of liberals: The Power Seekers and the Dupes. The Power Seekers understand perfectly well what they are doing, undermining and dividing America, and they do it for their narrow goal of short term gains of power. Almost all liberal leaders, whether elected officials, union leaders, civil rights gurus, professional feminist, some political columnist or college professors etc., are in this category. The Dupes are a little different. They are the true believers, who believe in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that liberalism improves peoples lives.-IiyaSomin
Power Seekers are able to appeal to the emotions of the Dupes, who are overwhelmingly feelers rather than thinkers. The Power Hungry know that they are ignorant, so they have no qualms about repeatedly telling them lies or contradicting themselves. They know if they tell a lie often enough, most liberals will come to believe them (”Bush lied, people died” or “Iraq is an illegal war”or “Corporate greed keeps the little man down”, “Republicans historically have been the oppressors of blacks”). Any political discussion with a Liberal inevitably leads to the recitation of a number of talking points, provided by the Power Seekers, and no facts. Liberals have transitioned into a world of tolerance over truth, sound byte over substance, feelings over facts, image over text, & short term expediency over long term stability. Dupes are smug in their ignorance.
Oct 6, 2008 - 8:47 am 122. david levavi:Michael M.
…and consider for a fact that they dont hate America,they are very worried about what we are doing,its a very different thing…
Wishful thinking Mike. And dead wrong. They hate our guts.
As for Iran, look at a map. We have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and two carrier groups at sea near the Gulf. Iran is surrounded on three sides. It didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen by accident. Iran has been the chief concern from the very beginning. The “towelheads,” as you refer to them, are worthless folks and were never the real threat.
Next time, if you want to call me a racist, why not simply use the word? Add Zioninst. Zionist Kike, if you like. And when you’re all done, have the courage and honesty to sign off with your full name.
Judy, NYC
AJ Liebling wrote a devastating review of Graham Greene’s, The Quiet American in the New Yorker Magazine (4/07/58) when Greene published his viciously anti-American novel. Available online if you search. Liebling’s review explains everything you ever wanted to know about the roots of leftist British hostility to the US.
I’ve read your posts before. Keep up the good fight.
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:00 am 123. nlcatter:so frank logan wants to censor books
“As a rule, the city’s department heads attended every city council meeting. One evening, as the session wound down, Palin mentioned to Mary Ellen Emmons, the library director, that something had been bothering her–a book she thought was overly indulgent of homosexuality. “She said there was no room in our library for that kind of stuff,” recalls Chase. Emmons curtly disagreed, but Palin was adamant. She suggested the librarian could at least keep such books in the reference section, where visitors would have to request them. “We don’t believe in censoring books,” Emmons finally told her, at which point Palin trailed off muttering.”
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:05 am 124. sheep:Yes, because I detest Palin, I must be a flaming liberal who wants to run your lives and tax you to death. Oh simple simple people. You would be surprised to hear how fiscally conservative I truly am. But hey, it’s much easier to live in a black and white world, right? That did wonders for Bush.
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:15 am 125. jerry:Dear NC:
I guess you didn’t bother to read a left-leaning, Democratic Party supporting blog. Go read the post and you will see that Biden got it wrong and Palin got it right.
Biden meant Syria and 1982? You are really delusional. If anything Syria kicked the US and France out of Lebanon in 1982. What are you trying to do, make Biden appear dumber then he really is?
You have no relatvies in Alaska. It never ceases to amaze me that Kos-trolls like you think that you can play the BS card and have people believe you.
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:15 am 126. Frank Logan:To nlcatter and sheep……..You’re Dupes. It’s obvious to everybody else.
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:40 am 127. kelly k:In this day and age, anyone who swallows whole the BBC or the Guardian’s anti-Americanism is a willing dupe.
It’s a shame if more Europeans don’t read a variety of political blogs. They don’t know what they’re missing. If I didn’t read blogs, I wouldn’t, for example, know that people like Siobhan and Beema are out there.
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:44 am 128. nlcatter:frank logen is a moron
wants to censor books
lie about not supporting earmarks
fire employees to benefit your family
and belevies dinosaurs roamed 6000 years ago
logan is moron
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:07 am 129. nlcatter:lets see, sister, neice, neighbor, military comrades all live/lived in alaska at 1 time
thats 4 at least
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:08 am 130. jerry:NC:
Interesting that you chose the personal rather then substantive comments. Please address the substance. I still think you are making it up but let’s let it drop and go ahead and address the content.
Oh, you do know that the dinosaur BS was based on anti-Palin satire don’t you? It wasn’t meant to be a hoax but morons like you believed it to be actually true.
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:20 am 131. Frank Logan:To nlcatter
Any political discussion with a Liberal inevitably leads to the recitation of a number of talking points, provided by the Power Seekers, and no facts. Every thing you write shows you are a Dupe. Keep it up. We’re all laughing at you.
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:20 am 132. nlcatter:my nephew was a cop in Palmer
he liked to arrest Palins when they drove drunk,
hmmm is that true , ddid a Plain get a DUI?
hmmmm?
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:33 am 133. nlcatter:ciao
i dont have time to waste on morons
who question my facts about relatives in alaska truth when their candidate lies about earmarks etc
and morons who beleive in creationism
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:54 am 134. jerry:NL:
Please move back to the substance. Please tell me in light of the explanation of the role of the VP on Talk Left why Palin was wrong?
Please tell me why Biden was right about the US and France kicking out Syria in 1982.
And just for grins and giggles please tell me why Biden was right when he said President Roosevelt addressed the nation on TV in 1929.
What is your nephew’s name so we can check out your bonafides. No name and it is prima facia evidence that you are lying. You can send the name to the author of this article so she can check out your claim. DUIs are a matter of public record. If Sarah Palin had one it would have come out when she ran for Governor.
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:56 am 135. SarahBiggestFan:She is the biggest celebrity in the world, next to the likes of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. She promises the whole world but cannot go into even the slightest details of any of her promises. She uses the word “maverick” as if it was bestowed upon her from God. She was a literal unknown over 4 weeks ago but came into the center stage as quick as the biggest celebrities like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. What does America really know about our new biggest celebrity? Why do we love her with so much intensity? What has she done to deserve such recognition? Does she have a solid plan for our economy or our safety in this dangerous world of terrorism?
This new biggest celebrity in our lives is just a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Her Presidential nominee will be the oldest President in history, if elected. Can we feel confident that this new biggest celebrity name Sarah Palin can be the most qualified person to turn this country around from the worst economic crisis in over 70 years? Is she absolutely the most qualified, even with her high celebrity status, to lead the most powerful country in the world out of its biggest financial crisis?
Oct 6, 2008 - 10:59 am 136. jerry:I can’t speak for Sarah Palin but I can ask you to you believe that Barry Obama can lead us out of the financial wilderness despite the fact that he was instrumental in causing it and was on the take from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
Oct 6, 2008 - 11:11 am 137. grackl:@ D Dubya,
Oct 6, 2008 - 12:04 pm 138. Javelin:in order keep from embarrassing yourself further, make sure you check your facts before posting. Obama is not a foreign national, he’s American and was born in Hawaii. Actually, even without knowing that, you should have known he could not possibly be a foreign national, as that would prohibit him from running for president in the first place. (Note, I’m not defending Obama per se, as I’m not a “supporter”, I’m just defending D Dubya from his own stupidity.)
More faux populist trash so they can hide that Palin is just a pretty dimwit put in the race to appeal to the stupid, ignorant and proud of it base.
Oct 6, 2008 - 12:23 pm 139. nlcatter:obama didnt lend out 125% of house value
obama didnt lend $ to those without proof of income
Obama didnt make anyone do that
And what bill about Fannie Mae did Obama even vote AY on,
Oct 6, 2008 - 1:22 pm 140. nlcatter:since you all say he only votes present!
are you a product of Brit schools? is that why you are so inable to draw a conclusion.
1 The VP has no role in MAKING laws,
he only has role of breaking tie,
akin to Veto by president who also does not make laws.
2 Biden point was about contradicting Bush doctrine, (that thing palin didnt know about ) going in MULTIlateral, so it
doesnt matter which country, with which country, or what year, or what opponent,
and PL owas kicked out and Syria is mainly out and france did help and US went in also.
3 his point was FDR as PRESDIENT got on public AIRWAVES to comfort the nation
doesnt matter what kind of airwaves
or biden getting year wrong,
you woudl be the kind of teacher who fails a 3rd grade student who says Columbus arrived in new world in 1493 despite writing an earth shattering exposotion onm how it effected the economy of the caribbean
Oct 6, 2008 - 1:31 pm 141. nlcatter:Mr palin had the DUI
use GOOGLE
MORON
Oct 6, 2008 - 1:32 pm 142. Kelly:Good grief who cares about the media jackasses in the UK? Shouldn’t they be out studying the Koran to impress their new masters?
Oct 6, 2008 - 1:53 pm 143. Marc Malone:Wow. the obamabots are out in force today! Hate-America columns really get their support!
Oct 6, 2008 - 2:07 pm 144. jerryofva:NC:
Your posts are becoming irrational cant. You clearly haven’t read the article because if you did and understood it you would know the VP is a member of both the Executive and Legislative branches and as President of the Senate he very much has a role in the legislative process.
I can’t make any sense of your response to the Lebanon point becauce you confuse nations, terrorist groups and years. Let’s make it clear that in 1982 Syria drove both the United States and France from Lebanon.
It is a big deal if you don’t know who President was in 1929 or if TV existed. It shows that your understanding of history and the lessons it teaches is poor.
One thing that scares me when I read your (and similar hatred) is that I fear that during the course of the election that some sociopath like you will attempt to assassinate Senator McCain or Governor Palin.
Oct 6, 2008 - 3:07 pm 145. Frank Logan:To nlcatter…..You are not a power seeker. Definitely a Dupe and probably a loser.
Oct 6, 2008 - 3:07 pm 146. nlcatter:haha GRE 800 sats 1480 triple 9 member
work on ICBMs = Rocket scientist
oh yeah , a loser for sure
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:39 pm 147. nlcatter:a faux pas on year of TV and FDR offiec does NOT obviate the point
FDR calmed the nation
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:41 pm 148. Frank Logan:Bush scared the nation
Javelin, Welcome to the group of Dupes, of course you’ve always been one…..Any political discussion with a Liberal inevitably leads to the recitation of a number of talking points, provided by the Power Seekers, and no facts. Liberals have transitioned into a world of tolerance over truth, sound byte over substance, feelings over facts, image over text, & short term expediency over long term stability. Dupes are smug in their ignorance.
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:41 pm 149. nlcatter:let me repeat for intelectually challenged.
legislators make laws i.e. legislate
Pres can let sign a bill into law
but noone says he is part of LEG branch
VP can only let bill go to PRes for poss signing
and only when tie exists
Pres can veto bill from becoming law
VP can only stop bill going to PRes when a tie exists
so VP has less part in making laws than president
I didnt say he had no role in legislative process, even the PRES does, but VP does not LEGISLATE!
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:46 pm 150. nlcatter:I would be upset if some sociopath tried to assinate Palin, becasue it would garner votes.
but if such a stupid person had not been born,
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:47 pm 151. nlcatter:that I would have liked.
bonefides? so you can get him fired?
you ARE a moron
but will give you – his name starts with a T.
you GDFM. and he won a lawsuit against the police department in Alaska so he retired rich after only 15 years.
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:49 pm 152. nlcatter:ill even give yo uLebanon since biden messed it up so many ways , I dont know what year he was really meaning
but his point was no Bush doctrine.
but you as a dumb palinite dont know what that is.
Oct 6, 2008 - 4:51 pm 153. Frank Logan:nlcatter
Oct 6, 2008 - 5:25 pm 154. Judy, NYC:You appear to be talking to yourself. You have proved my point that you are a Dupe and a loser. Out
today the dow flung itself headlong out the window. i am confident that barry obama, that sage, has a plan to turn our economy around. especially with franklin raines as his advisor, the guy who accidentally left a hair dryer on and melted the freddies, walking away with $$90,000,000 (ninety million dollars) after 6 years of employment. we will speak of this never to be revealed jobs, housing and liquidity “plan” in years to come. huddled around our open carton houses, we’ll be wondering what his plan was, or where it could be buried. the elites, settled into roomier cartons with thicker cardboard and fewer rips, may recall it as the forever elusive centerpiece of the strange candidacy of barry obama. the world’s only candidate for messiah, and whose only friends were crooks or the deranged. and, sarah palin is a dimwit?
Oct 6, 2008 - 5:56 pm 155. nlcatter:1 palin is STILL a dimwit – dinosaurs 6012 years ago.
I posted 3 in succession, and since you replied , I am not talking to my self , you MORON
and I found that PLO is who Biden was talking about as example of NOT following the Bush doctrine will get success.
Oct 6, 2008 - 6:34 pm 156. jerryofva:NC:
You seemed to tied up in knots over this. You need to stick to the Daily Kos talking points. You don’t seem to be very coherent once you try thinking on your own.
Oct 6, 2008 - 6:35 pm 157. Michael Hiteshew:So the Left, where ever they are, are sanctimonious, hypocritical, intolerant bigots. Who knew?
Oct 6, 2008 - 6:36 pm 158. jerryofva:NC:
You are showing yourself to be an irrational moron. The PLO was not evicted from Lebanon by the US and France. They were evicted by the Israeli Defense Force let by Arial Sharon.
Oct 6, 2008 - 7:14 pm 159. nlcatter:after France and USA shelled syrian/plo positions and provided safe conduct
PLO did not LEAVE becasue of IDF.
Oct 6, 2008 - 7:49 pm 160. skink:magnificent website
I love bigotry, especially when delivered without a trace of self-knowledge or irony. I truly hope you elect Palin and get a head of state as hypocritical as this website.
and just to betray my English pedantry – the preferred spelling is ‘pyjamas’ – from the Persian I believe. A slight irony given your predilection for bombing the place.
Oct 6, 2008 - 9:03 pm 161. David H:Whenever Daily Kos fanatics appear en masse throwing insults and their usual lies and fascist bigotry you realize that they are running scared.
Do they even know how to use capitals, Skink should realise that that should be Magnificent with a capital M, just like that. It just goes to show that the USA is catching up with the UK in terms of the quality (or lack thereof) of education. A little joke, full of irony and the use of a big word, wow I am impressed, you got me there, made you point with devestating skill…, you have changed my my world view completely with that cutting remark, well done, not…
And this nc chap, has the debating skill of cow manure, you put your foot in it and go ugggh.
Back to the matter in hand, I was just on TOL (Times on Line for you Kos chaps) and found the typical MSM hatefeast, with one even saying that Palin has the intellect of a whelk, which is a chewy mollusc for those Daily Kos people who are unlikely to know that.
The BBC leads with the Obama highlights McCain scandal and nothing about the multiple scandals around Obama. The BBC is loathed in the UK, did you know that only 17% of Conservative voters actually have any respect for the BBC and see it as completely biased against them.
If you think that the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian and to a lessor degree the Times is representative of the people of the UK, then you would think that CNBC, CNN etc. speak for the American people, they do not. I can tell you that every single Brit I know would rather have Sarah Palin then Brown and his corrupt cronies.
The UK media attacked every single Tory leader since John Major and make them seem incompetent and one dimensional and they were successful, but they cannot hide that Brown is a complete disaster, they keep trying to paint him as some heavyweight thinker with massive ability, that is yet another example of just how out of touch the UK media is.
Oct 7, 2008 - 12:07 am 162. Dobie:Hey Trolls,
I keep hearing about McCain’s and Palin’s lack of qualification. What are Obama’s?
Oct 7, 2008 - 3:04 am 163. Andrew Ian Dodge:Well there is a degree of sexism in the reporting as well. Then again Palin evokes memories of Thatcher and the left really hate her in extremis.
Oct 7, 2008 - 4:54 am 164. david levavi:skink:
Pedantic indeed. Here in the America, the preferred spelling is stink. From the head, I believe. Like a fish, as we say in the provinces.
Glad you support Sarah Palin, Stinky, however twisted your reasons. We’ll remember your support when next your remnant fleet comes adventuring in America, bullying and bombing our neighbors as you did Argentina over your colonial claim to the Malvinas Islands.
Oct 7, 2008 - 5:49 am 165. jerry:NC:
France and the US saved the PLO leadership from destruction by giving them safe conduct out of Lebanon. The IDF had destroyed PLO forces and infrastructure in South Lebanon. Had the US and France not intervened Arfat and his cronies would have been killed or captured and there would have been a better chance for peace in the region. By saving the PLO leadership the US and France condemned the region to 25 more years of conflict.
The VP is part of the legislative process as presiding officer of the Senate.
The US and France haven’t driven anybody out of Lebanon except maybe Israel.
Herbert Hoover was President in 1929
And the only time President Roosevelt addressed anybody using TV was a short broadcast to the New York World’s Fair in 1939
This is what happens when you give someone credit for putting the discovery of the new world in 1493
Facts are not flexible. You either know them or you don’t. It is clear that you don’t.
Oct 7, 2008 - 6:58 am 166. rayy:I for one don’t really appreciate her using her family as “campaign accesories”, especially her son in Iraq.
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:13 am 167. nlcatter:and us stopped england /france from taking suez cancel in 1956
and gave supplied to israeal or israe lin 1973 or it would be gone
SO !
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:29 am 168. nlcatter:obama and mccain are qualified
creationist PALIN is NOT!
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:30 am 169. jerry:NC:’
Look, we have already established that your knowledge of the Constitution, World Events and basic facts is deficient so no wonder you can only repeat Daily Kos lies and talking points.
There is no evidence that Sarah Palin is a creationist and even if she were that hardly disqualifies her for the Vice Presidency.
The debate and the campaign has shown that Joe Biden doesn’t know the role of the Vice President and despite his long service in the Senate does not have grasp of basic facts and world events. That should disqualify him from holding the office of the Vice President.
So here is the real assessment of the candidates qualifications.
McCain: fully qualified.
Palin, by virtue of knowing the constitutional role of the Vice President and being one of the nations Govorners, qualified for Vice President
Biden: by virtue of serving in Senate for 36 years, marginally qualified for Vice President despite for not knowing basic facts about the nation’s history or Constitution.
Obama: Not having sufficient experience and being knee deep in corrupt Chicago politics; being on the take from Fannie Mae; not qualified for either President or Vice President.
nclatter: mentally deficient and therefore not qualified to take part in any discussion outside of the Daily Kos or Democratic Underground.
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:12 am 170. kelly k:“and just to betray my English pedantry – the preferred spelling is ‘pyjamas’ – from the Persian I believe. A slight irony given your predilection for bombing the place.”
Yes, skink, people from different countries use different spellings. Sometimes–you better sit down for this–sometimes, they actually have totally different words! Maybe you’d like to spend three or four hours pondering the important differences between “aluminum” and “aluminium.” Knock yourself out!
Meanwhile, I’ll get on Wikipedia and try to find out when it was that the US bombed Iran.
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:51 am 171. nlcatter:a creationist is not qualified
a corrupt governor is not qualified
a book burner is not qualified
Oct 7, 2008 - 11:10 am 172. Marc Malone:Jeez nlcatter, but you do go on.
Palin has stated that she thinks Creationism should be taught as a theory alongside Evolution as a fact, and let people make up their own mind. Why do you have a problem with that?
Corruption requires a quid pro quo. Has Gov. Palin made some such deal that we don’t know about?
Book-burning: she asked where the librarian stood on input on book selection. Do only the librarians get to make the choice as to which books the library carries, or does a mayor, who is responsible for the budget get some input, too?
Do us all a favor, go to another site… and stay there. You don’t add to the dialogue here. You’re just comtemptuous of us, so why come here?
Oct 7, 2008 - 1:03 pm 173. Azmus:The Brits just continue to demonstrate the wisdom of the American Revolution.
Oct 7, 2008 - 6:58 pm 174. nlcatter:im not allowed to talk how the Moral majority pinup girl screwed aroudn before marriage, her daughter followed her lead, about DUIs in the family, her pastor etc
so I will pick on the easy stuff.
Jeez nlcatter, but you do go on.
“Palin has stated that she thinks Creationism “should be taught as a theory alongside Evolution
you dont teach astrology along side astronomy
and you dont teach alchemy in a chemistry class
or creationism in a science clas.
“Corruption requires a quid pro quo. Has Gov. Palin made some such deal that we don’t “know about?”
MAYOR Palin voted to increase Prize for contest her husband enters – there!
Book-burning: NO
she asked for a book oin GAYS to be put in a refenece section Librarian said “we dont censor books”
so why come here?
because a moronic hypocritical Palin is such an easy target
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:51 pm 175. skink:oh, you guys are so predictable.
you reactionaries are so slow moving and dimwitted, it’s like hunting moose. such an easy target, it’s barely sport.
if you thought the media were one-eyed for the VP debate, you’re going to love it when they give McCain a pasting for his performance in the second debate.
watch the blood pressure ‘my friends’, you can’t afford to go to hospital.
Oct 7, 2008 - 8:14 pm 176. nlcatter:debate over obama won
palin is history
no need to be here
bye
see me on other PJ blogs
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:08 pm 177. Vic F.:Heady words from some of you that are liberal twinks that think that defending yourself is declasse’ – Your political correctness, the legacy of Chamberlain and a declawed police force will bring you yet another bombing in the tube or worse, British public buildings that would make an IRA strike look like child’s play. It seems that the only people who “get it” are the military, with special emphasis on the SAS.
Remember we beat you in two wars, saved you in two more. We now value you as an ally, Shall we try again ? You would probably want your military to use Nerf bullets and hit Islamic Terrorists with foam bats
Oct 8, 2008 - 12:05 am 178. skink:“America will lose the war. And we will win it.”
“America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth,” Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. “And the American fighting man is second to none”.
“Exactly”, agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. “In a few years you will be gone, and we will still be here.”
Nately could scarcely believe his ears. He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why the why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up.
“America is not going to be destroyed!” he shouted passionately.
“Never?” prodded the old man softly.
“Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever?”
Oct 8, 2008 - 1:24 am 179. Tony:It’s interesting how you can all rip in to the english for apparently swallowing the media’s statements blindly after you’ve just done the exact same thing with this article.
Having the odd dig at the other is common on both sides of the pond. Learn to chill out and play along. Nobody’s perfect.
Oct 8, 2008 - 5:53 am 180. sesquiculus:Palin is best understood in the following terms. And yes, in spite of certain superficial similarlities, the US is fundamentally different from other “European” countries. Live with it.
James Madison (Publius) in Federalist Paper #46
arguing for the ratification of the US Constitution.
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of…..”
Oct 8, 2008 - 8:09 am 181. kelly k:“you reactionaries are so slow moving and dimwitted, it’s like hunting moose. such an easy target, it’s barely sport”
Wow, skink. You have absolutely no self-awareness, do you?
Oct 8, 2008 - 9:17 am 182. Floridian:To Nlcatter:
How old are you? Your juvenile rants, unsubstantiated accusations, and name-calling give the impression that you have not yet reached puberty. Do your mommy & daddy know that you’re blogging when you should be doing your homework & learning to spell? You may want to crack open a history book as well.
Oct 8, 2008 - 3:15 pm 183. Richard:This article implies that Sarah Palin appeals to “Middle America”. I think that is a huge exageration. If she appeals to any major group it is the bible in one hand, gun in the other, barely educated, rebel flag waving, tobacco chewing, racists of America. If the European news has caught on to the fact that America might once again elect an ignoramus for president and speak out about it, I say good for them for calling it what it is. McCain should NOT have to consult with any country in choosing his running mate!—-But he damn well ought to put some common sense and responsibility into his choosing process. It is obvious to any thinking person of the United States and of the World that John McCain has betrayed us all in choosing a running mate just as dumb or perhaps dumber than the president we have suffered under for the past 8 yrs. Thank God that the European press has more guts than our American press to tell the truth an not worry about the Right Wing crying that they are being biased!
Oct 8, 2008 - 3:20 pm 184. skink:Kelly K:
plenty of self-awareness right here. You can tell that McCain supporters know they are losing by how touchy they are, so it’s fun to poke them with a stick.
I’m just enjoying watching American conservatives being hoisted on their own economic petard, running around like headless chooks, terrified by the possibility that their country might have a black head of state.
people on these pages crap on about freedom and democracy but then consider an elected Senator to be an ‘enemy of America’. hypocrisy ain’t in it.
did you discover the meaning of ‘predilection’ when you googled it?
Oct 8, 2008 - 5:50 pm 185. B Dubya:Jesus, and I thought the damed Luap Nor bots were rabid.
Swarm, little fireflies…swarm!
Let the sheeple speak.
What a collection of absolute asshats.
Obama doesn’t pay you folks nearly enough. You belong on Broadway. Really.
Oct 8, 2008 - 7:35 pm 186. Dave Surls:“Meanwhile, I’ll get on Wikipedia and try to find out when it was that the US bombed Iran.”
The U.S. has never bombed Iran. The British have though. In 1941 they, along with the Russians, invaded Iran (a neutral country), killed a bunch of people, threw out a shah they didn’t like, and put in a new shah that was more to their taste.
One can only scratch their head in wonderment when Brits sneeringly refer to our “predilection” for bombing Iran. Presumably such strange behavior is a side effect of being a Euro-pedant.
Oct 9, 2008 - 5:17 am 187. skink:wow,
didn’t this site go quiet about Palin all of a sudden?
this Euro-pedant snob will take great pleasure in looking down his nose at this ‘unlawful abuse of power’ and ‘obstruction of justice’
I look forward to listening to you ’straight talkers’ try and spin this one.
Oct 10, 2008 - 8:25 pm 188. skink:I see that Time magazine has called Palin’s term in office in Alaska as ’shockingly amateurish’.
so it’s not just British media snobs looking doen their noses
Oct 13, 2008 - 5:18 pm 189. Marc Malone:skink – Time magazine is owned by GE. You’ve heard of them, right? The fortune 500 company that isn’t on that list anymore, because Immelt is running it into the ground? Oh, and they own Newsweek, and NBC, and MSNBC. All these media are sinking… because of their extreme left-wing bias. I don’t care if they call Palin’s government amateurish, as they themselves head towards collapse. They may be amateurish in AK, but they are much better off.
What abuse of power and obstruction of justice are you talking about? The Branchflower report is out now, and all it says is that Palin MIGHT have violated ethics. If it weren’t such a witchhunt, it would have said that they could find no specific instance of any violation.
Palin has enemies among the Pubs, and the Dems are on Obama’s team. That’s the worst they could do: She MIGHT have violated ethics? Please. No spin required. It’s called blowback. There’s no there, there.
Oct 14, 2008 - 8:49 pm 190. skink:Nice spin Marc, but my point was that it is not just British media that are ‘looking down their noses’ at Palin.
and then there’s Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, Bill Kristol, and a whole heap of others, including Republicans in the White House, who think Palin was a mistake.
I am nontheless impressed that you defend her so resolutely.
I have read Branchflower’s report, and there is no ‘might’.
“Finding 1:…I find that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110a..”
try again
Oct 14, 2008 - 10:44 pm 191. Pajamas Media » McCain’s Keys to the Keystone State:[...] to the chagrin of the pro-Obama media, Hollywood, snooty Brits, the French, envious “feminists,” yuppies, and even some conservatives, Sarah Palin [...]
Oct 29, 2008 - 9:29 am 192. svott:I totally agree, and im British. The sad thing is, if ‘The One’ is elected, im afraid America is going to end up just like old blighty. Britains gone down the toilet, I hate this place now.
Oct 29, 2008 - 12:58 pm 193. Toads:Shouldn’t the quote be “Use a condom or become a Muslim.”?
It is astonishing that Brits hate the group that has saved them twice in the last 60 years (rural Americans who join the military), yet are oblivious to those who are actually a threat to Britain (Islamic immigrants in the UK). They outbreed white Brits 3 to 1.
Tony Blair, one of the last sane Brits, once said “Only two people ever died for you, Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, and the other died for your freedom.”
Oct 29, 2008 - 3:42 pm 194. Toads:Sarah Palin, a woman, is tougher than most European MEN.
She alone has produced more children than any random group of 4 European women.
She shaves her legs (a technology many European women have yet to master).
Oct 29, 2008 - 3:58 pm 195. John:Does anybody actually give a f*ck. I don’t, but then i’m bladderd and have just got back from a night club with rather cute birds phone number. Manchester United won and I’ve got a job. Women, booze, football and cricket is all we Lancashire lads need. Have a a nice life, I know I will.
Nov 1, 2008 - 9:45 pm 196. Andy p:I do notice that what we have here is the usual paranoia displayed by people on both sides about countries which neither of them know much about.
The intellectual’s in the USA talking about Britain when most likely they have never been there and if they have they probably only went to one area, im thinking England South East…a certain city comes to mind.
As for the Brit’s, well they, mainly the English, have a bit of a likeing for xenophobia, damn those froggy french and a pox on those hairy Germans. Surprisingly though ive found that if you travel around a bit in Britain you will find that average people do not dislike the US that much, in fact most people i know love the states and they have been there a lot on holiday and would love to go back.
Then we come to the Brits, England, Wales and Scotland, dislikeing America, now there is an interesting thought, it happens but to assume that ALL the people of these countries believe what a minute bunch of bigoted ill tempered over educated retards think is just naivity.
It’s usually either Jeremy Clarkson types, the most intelligent stupid person ive ever seen and yes im aware of the oxy moron, or people who have absolutely no idea about the countries of which they are speaking, least of all the United States.
The point im getting at is you shouldnt let a bunch of ignorant, biased bigoted, racists ruin it for the rest of us, im getting tired of these people who carry grudges around with them about certain nationality’s just because someone of a certain country said something about their’s. Blame the people, not the countries.
Nov 3, 2008 - 11:43 am 197. Andrew Ian Dodge:We shall see how shrill it gets when McCain wins. The US hatred will hit fever pitch when that happens.
Nov 3, 2008 - 2:10 pm 198. MrAnxious:I don’t think you can generalize anything. Something which both the comment posters and author of this article doesn’t take into account at all.
Nov 4, 2008 - 11:40 am 199. Talking Ocean:For those of you Brits that want to immigrate to America, come on over! I watched the 2nd interview Greta Susteren’s w/Govenor Palin. There is so much room in Alaska. Move to Alaska! I might do it. I live in Texas and don’t know if I can take the cold, but I like what Gov Palin has done in Alaska. Only in office 2 years, OMG! She was on the Oil/Gas board and resigned because of the corruption and blew the whistle on her own party member. Got him ousted. Went against an incumbant who was also corrupt and became Govenor. After she blew the whistle and got her own party member ousted she took on more corruption & the Big Oil Companies. She held that the Natural Resources belonged to ALASKA and these oil companies had to pay Alaska. The money’s earned went to the citizens. Every child in AK received a $1200 check and that doesn’t include the adults. The legislature was tied up for 30 yrs, she comes in and gets it rolling. And their bitch about her is tabloid stuff proven false; her lack of elitism, her realness, and her accent! LOL! She believes in less big government and more control to the ppl and the state level. I bet she would listen to you Brits. Just show up and say you’re trying to escape Socialism and she would lend a sympathetic ear! Start a blog, take petitions, lol…say there are alot of you that want to come to Alaska. Give it a try.
Nov 12, 2008 - 1:01 am 200. Talking Ocean:jerry
Nov 12, 2008 - 1:08 am 201. Talking Ocean:LOL! If the shoe was on the other foot. Could you imagine if McCain was one of those responsible for refusing Fannie/Freddie reform in 2005 that is the direct cause of the collapse we’re in? It would be broadcasted every 2 seconds in the MSM. That’s why they relied on their tabloid journalism and destruction of Palin. McCain was one of those who introduced the issue in 2005 and Palin’s job as Govenor of AK took the corruption head on. Her state is in a budget surplus and her approval rating is the highest in any state in the US.
Sioux Lady
Are you Native American? Did you know that Obama promised he would work hard at supporting Native Americans in regards to having a National holiday; like the blacks have black history month, Juneteenth….of course when the bill came across the table he voted “present”.
He is the biggest fraud ever to be elected as the US President. At least when ppl elected Bush all of his business was out there and ppl voted for him, Obama…LOL, free pass; nothing but “when I hear him speak I get a chill up my leg”.
I should move to Alaska. I think Gov Palin would have helped the Native Americans if she interacted and learned from them. She mentioned on her 2nd Greta interview tonite that the Federal Government did not hold their end of the bargain when Alaska came a part of the union. Sound familiar? To me she is fiscal conservative/libertarian…finally someone I could vote for. I voted for McCain BECAUSE of Sarah Palin!
Nov 12, 2008 - 1:14 am 202. DABB:194. Toads
That was hilarious!!! I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes! Thank you I needed that. It is so funny because it is so very TRUE!!!
Nov 21, 2008 - 2:56 pm 203. DABB:The REAL REASON Britain and Europe want the United States to be more like them! BECAUSE MISERY LOVES COMPANY!!!
Nov 21, 2008 - 3:00 pm 204. Sandrider:And now ? And now that the gag has finally come out of the campaign reporters mouths ? (by the way, after the War in Iraq is over, BOY, do they have a story to tell you !!)
Turns out it’s true. Woman’s a fool. Lost big time.
Peace and Freedom wins. Sorry, fascists. Better luck next time.
(try Austria …)
you betcha !
Dec 15, 2008 - 1:30 am