consider this quote:

The good senator from Delaware warmed up slowly, erroneously claiming that McCain voted with Obama on a budget resolution, and asserting wrongly that Obama wanted to return to the Reagan-era marginal income tax rates. He also embarked on an appallingly wrongheaded monologue about the constitutional history of the vice presidency. But when the talk turned to national security, presumably Biden’s purported area of expertise, he went completely off the grid.

from this article

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/08/sarah-barracuda-palin-and-the-piranhas-of-the-press/

Good luck, both on the job and money budgeted for the job!

California.

Yes, the “win” vs. “lose” mindset is confusing to me, especially since there are no judges scoring anything! There is no prize–no ribbon, no trophy, no money, no notoriety at the end of a “discussion” so why treat it as a debate?

It does, however, explain the nature of the tone, the style of writing, the choice of words, in essence, the sarcasm I have tried to point out on occasion on this blog and others. I try not to do that, but if I do, I ask you to call me on it.

Paglia is good at identifying cultural pulses because she is willing to look outside the Beltway, something writers/pundits on the East Coast are not only not willing to do, but not ABLE to do–they have been immersed in a culture for so long, they can’t see beyond that culture, kind of like the young person in college who has stayed there so long he or she doesn’t even know another world, the world of work and bills and crying children and runny noses and broken bones and making hard, practical choices, choices that place others ahead of yourself.

I do think that the thing that attracts so many to Palin is that she is indeed not polished; right or not, they believe that means she is speaking from the heart (that’s up to them to decide for themselves, not me), but they prefer her style and words to the words of pols whom they absolutely know are speaking from a script, a script meant to mislead or a script meant to say absolutely nothing at all.

Also, regarding the article, I never knew there was ever, ever a negative story about Chelsea Clinton, nor do I think I deserved to know one since Chelsea is not an elected official, yet I despise how American “journalism” has devolved over the last decade or so.

While the government does not issue paychecks to those who call themselves journalists and while it would be incorrect to say we have a direct state-run media, we do have a state-influenced MSM that is, in many ways, hard to distinguish from Pravda. Of course, the non-MSM is no better, whether it’s a left or right wing outlet/site.

Journalists who remain neutral in their writing are a thing of the past.

Here we are in CA without a budget, issuing IOUs, the speaker of the Assembly having walked out of the room, refusing to meet with the guv, and one has to search for comprehensive articles on the topic. The local news shows devote about 60 seconds on the eleven o’clock news to the subject; the newspapers just a few columns. Then too, what percentage of Californians read newspapers or anything else? Too few.

Unless you are one who was issued the IOU, people in CA act as if it’s business as usual, and you know what? It is–because business as usual in California means the state is deadlocked, unmovable, ungovernable! What else is new?

Thanks, Carole. Actually I think it was responses to a number of your posts that helped me to start seeing the dynamic that was breaking down our chances of productive conversation. On other threads, you wrote lengthy and thoughtful posts only to have one sentence pulled out and seized upon. (LOL. It happens to me a lot but I could be a bit more objective when someone else was the victim.)

In this thread, though, I didn’t feel that you were debating…or even being testy. You seemed to be trying to explain the appeal that Palin has to some people and why it could actually make her a viable candidate. (If enough of those people get motivated to vote…). Just presenting a point of view. And then Michael, exasperated, declared “you win”. LOL. You were involved in a discussion and he was involved in a debate.

I hunger for us to move on past the same tired and repetitious conversations that this site is famous for…I dream of the day when we’ll actually stay with the actual topic of the discussion without detours. Of the day when instead of dismissing each other’s points of view, we’ll actually find some common middle ground that we could successfully articulate to a very needy world. If the dynamic that some are debating while others are discussing is a principle cause for our dysfunctional conversations, I’m very up for addressing and resolving that dynamic.

Back to topic: My appreciation for Sarah Palin’s qualifications still mirrors Michael’s but the dynamic that Carole expressed is sobering. If Obama (and most of our presidential candidates) are perceived as ‘elitist’, there could be sufficient momentum to back a ‘homespun’ people’s candidate. Every elitist criticism of her could be summarily discounted and rejected simply because it sounds elitist.

Great explanation–you have captured the difference.

I suspect that often we all start by “discussing,” or trying/intending to, then end up debating.

(we happily detour over one misspoken word or phrase while skimming past paragraphs worthy of being highlighted or elaborated upon).

Lord knows, neither of us is guilty of that, huh Eddy? 🙂