She frightens me.

I think she's hot. I'd love to dominate her while she's holding that gun over the corpse of the dead moose that she's just shot in that cute little business woman outfit and those glasses. I can see her now.

i think she would clearly be the hottest head of state ever.

Ugh. Do not want.

I second rudekker.
Anyway, please spare the us possibility of president Palin

Don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of Mrs. Palin's, but I think the threat posed by her is no greater than by any other charismatic and well liked figure in the American far right. To single her out as a weak link in this movement, gives the rest of the American far right waaay too much credit.

Yes, she can be elected to the head of her PTA.

Other offices? Pfft - she couldn't even hack it as governor of Alaska for a full term

Palin wouldn't be receiving as much attention from the party and news media unless she was a legitimate aspect of the political process. Her role is limited to supporting candidates and identifying with the hard-lining ultra-conservatives who believe the party let them down in the 2008 election. She has no clout as a potential presidential candidate unless she runs as a Tea Party representative.

I would have to "refudiate" any who think Palin would never become the president. Please do not "misunderestimate" her power. ;)

Of course, in reality, I am 100% opposed to her ever becoming president, but with the sensationalist media and the willingness of the general public to eat up whatever political commentators say without thinking for themselves, it's a decent possibility. Which scares the fuck out of me. (And I'm a horny teenager, so it takes a hell of a lot to do that!)

"And I'm a horny teenager"

+1 le roi

Dude...we have a President that had *ZERO* executive experience, half a term as a senator under his belt, had *extreme* radical connections, zero foreign policy experience....he had less experience than Bush, for god's sake. Hell yes Palin can get elected...as if she could do any worse than the bozo currently occupying the White House...

Oh please "*extreme* radical" connections? What utter bullpoop.
Actually am I the only one who thinks that sounds like the name of a show from the 90's about extreme sports?
EXTREME RADICAL CONNECTIONS DUDE!

Um, actually Obama did have some rather unnerving connections. The biggest one that I can think of was his former pastor (forgetting his name atm). So he definitely did have some frightening connections. Personally I don't think that Palin will be able to recover from the media hellstorm she got in her 08 run, but we'll see. American's have a reputation for being stupid.

What connections? And as if Bush and Palin don't have 'unnerving connections' (the unnerving would depend whether you support their views or not). All modern US presidents would have some connections they don't want people to know.

Mafialligator...yeah, confessed domestiv terrorists don't fit the label extreme radicals. I'm sorry...what was I thinking!?!? <rolls eyes profusely...> Go back and drink your left-wing Kool-Aide, moron...

Uh, I didn't think his former pastor was such a big deal. He said some stuff, but he wasn't advocating or engaged in any actually radical action. I think he just yelled a lot. And the weather underground thing was even sillier. He had tea at a party with one dude who used to be involved with it once or twice. It's the end of the world as we know it. *rolls eyes*

If you like Obama, that's fine. But to *deny* his radical connections, or try to compare them to almost any other politician to hold the white House just makes you look like a lap-dog, Kool-Aide sucking fool. It pretty much means you are immune to facts and will buy into any white-wash argument as long as it doesn't disrupt the reign of your master..

He "had tea" at.....give me a freaking break, you moron. As I said, you will do anything to white-wash the truth. I'm sure Bill ayres just had Obama over for tea to be polite. I don't think I can roll my eyes enough to broadcast the utter disgust I have for your lack of integrity. Get real, fool.

"Naw...I only had a beer on occasion with Hitler....he's really quite funny, you know..." says Himmler...

Regarding his pastor...perhaps you should do a study on black liberation theology...But that would surely be asking too much, and might strain a few of your brain cells. Besides, as we note already, you are immune to truth when it might affect your opinions.

Oh please. A I'm not even american, so... he's hardly my master.
B. He had a connection sure. I'm sure he shook hands with the guy and spoke to him. But it's such a tenuous connection as to be completely meaningless. Has Obama ever espoused or condoned the guy's actions? Has he ever undertaken such actions on his own? I'm sorry, but to say Obama has these extreme radical connections makes it sound like he's some kind of revolutionary, and then you look at it and you see, oh, what that actually means is "he's met this guy who used to be a domestic terrorist, served his time, and is now an active community volunteer." Your words paint one picture, reality paints another. I could, with much more justice say that FDR had connections to a mass murderer. He did, after all meet with Stalin.

krellin, I can see this is a sensitive topic for you. And you're right, I haven't done tons and tons of research on the topic, but from what I understand, the connections are pretty tenuous.
Now. I don't appreciate being insulted. I don't appreciate being called a sheep. Your venom is completely unwarranted. i suggest you dial back the rhetoric if you wish to have an intelligent debate. Thank you.

Oh for ... ugh look they served on the boards of non-profit organizations together. So you're right, it does go beyond the casual contact I thought. Clearly this is a far more sinister situation than I ever would have realized. Non-profit organizations? What next will we find out they also volunteered at a soup kitchen together? The horror!

Mafialligator - your not a church goer are you... Rhetorical question. If you were, you would know that the "United Church of Christ" this reverend preaches at and Obama *regularly* attended is one radical church. It is unlike most UCCs (I went to one for a time until I convinced my wife to go Lutheran) and they are what is commonly called "holy rollers". Very evangelical and, in this case, very anti-white/anti-"man". Obama couldn't help but be exposed to that crap if he went there every Sunday as he professed to do as a good Christian.

I'm not at all a church goer. But being exposed to something doesn't mean you agree with it. (I'm talking to you and krellin aren't I?) Perhaps the problem here is I have a skewed definition of what counts as radical. But from what very very little I have heard of what the Rev. Wright was saying, I didn't hear anything so completely offensive that someone who wasn't looking to be offended would be...errr that sentence got pretty jumbled. You know what I mean. Again, has Obama ever actually espoused those points of view? Has he done anything to further an agenda that is in line with those points of view. Guilt by association is a very poor argument. I just don't see his actual record as being particularly radical or anything.

Please don't lump me with Krellin. Guilt by association doesn't generally apply, but in the evangelical churches, the pastor *is* second only to God and the followers take to heart all that he preaches. I'm not saying Obama is overtly anything, but it will have an influence on his life view just as if it were his own father or mother saying these things.

Oh I didn't mean to lump you with him. That's not what I meant! I suppose? I dunno. But Obama still doesn't seem like a guy driven by an evangelical furor? Just, not at all.

Not saying he is, just saying there will be a tickle of racism floating in the back of his head, eben though he now *is* "the man".

The family that raised him is all white. I'm sure that mitigates it a little for him. I wouldn't worry about Obama being racist.

Also, I can see this debate has become another debate I had months ago, and also, waaaay off topic. So no more on Obama, back to Palin. Scary, but no more so than any other far right republican. Discuss.

This reminds me of all the shit they used to accuse President Clinton of doing. If you read the right wing paranoids, he had personally killed Vince Foster, dealt cocaine, raped and killed a few women, and a flurry of other terrible things.

And it turns out after all that witchhunting is that he fucked around on his wife with a slightly chunky White House intern.

Which is a private matter between him, his wife, the intern he ejaculated into(and on apparently), and possibly his daughter. Definitely not worth the thousands or millions of government dollars spent on it.

Same shit, different decade. It amazes me that we on the Left even try to cooperate. Its been fairly clear since the 2008 election that the reactionary Right has no interest in giving Obama or any other Democrat even the benefit of the doubt. He's a radical Marxist, he's best friends with a terrorist, he's a Muslim, he was born in Kenya, he's secretly the reincarnation of Groucho, etc etc etc.

Yes, we get you don't like him. The new wave thing is to talk about how all Government is bad, and we have to "take back America". I heard the same shit 15 years ago, and it failed. We had 8 years of Bush starting a bullshit war in Iraq, tanking the economy, and turning what WAS a budget surplus into a massive deficit. Fiscal responsibility my ass.

tl;dr: The reactionary right has no intention of accepting Obama as president, and they will do anything and accuse him of anything to undermine him. That is what modern American politics is all about now.

<3

Sarah Palin...
sympathize with most of her political positions, but don't think she would make all that great of a president.

She could possibly get elected, but that would be very dependant on who she was up against.

If anyone is interested here is the site I use for informed poll analysis
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/first-look-at-palins-primary-math.html

But I personally thin Palin's unfavorables are too high for her to win in a general election, Republican primary yeah she can win if she manages to get the tea party groups to stay together, stay sane(relatively!) and beat establishment guy Romney but I think Obama would crush her in a general election. I expect her and Romney to start hoeing into each other, He will try to paint her as unelectable and inexperienced while she will throw stones at him from the right accusing him of being a Bush era big spender Washington insider.

re: the church obama went to and that pastor, um , not sure what all the fuss is, I read some of the things that paster (but not all I admit) said and I though, yes, if you have an imperialistic foreign policy, coddle dictators/sell weapons to states at war/perform covert operations ending in death and destruction and occupy other countries you are bound to get some blowblack ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_%28intelligence%29 )
stands to reason no? Not saying that blowback was justified or anything just that it is to be expected. "chicken come home to roost"

Jack klein, you hit the spot, and you can bet next time a republican sits in the Whitehouse we will start hearing the whining gasbags at Fox say that to speak out against the sitting president is akin to treachery and how a massive invasion of peoples privacy is not an expansion of the government in any way ,shape or form.
The moderate left she stop being a bunch of pansies, I will give the right one thing, they have balls and they know how to use them.

Isn't Sarah Palin a nazi?

"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve" - George Bernard Shaw

As a liberal (albeit with a slight list to port) I can usually find some good in moderate politicians of left and right but in the US you seem to come up with some real extremists from the right. Palin is the latest in a long line that I remember starting with Tricky Dicky (does anyone else see the similarity with Gordon Brown?).

@TGM +1

Sean: I see that as the fundamental difference between what is happening to Obama vs Bush...

Yes, both sides say some batshit things. (Comparing either of them to Stalin or Hilter is a gross perversion of history, and shows that you're either completely ignorant, or shameless enough to want to score political points by any means needed.)

The refrain from the right over the period 2001-2008 or so that anybody who wasn't with them was really helping the terrorist was bullshit.

On a related note, it was particularly handy for me, being a leftist myself, to discuss the War on Terrorism with some of the young Republican men here at college. At some point during the discussion, they would imply (or sometimes have the balls to just outright say it) that I was a traitor for not having a hardon for the invasion of Iraq. I could then come back with the fact that I'm a veteran, and was enlisted before 9/11, and was at sea during the Iraq War... kind of shut up the jingoists.


I actually hope they run Palin in 2012, because I can't think of much more that would ensure Obama would be re-elected.

I've BEEN to "Obama's church," and the hatchet job that was done on his pastor was one of the most ridiculous things ever. Two vital facts were overlooked in the media:

1) Jeremiah Wright's church belongs to the United Church of Christ--a white denomination. The UCC is about 90% white, and it would be well over 90% if Wright hadn't gotten involved. From the earliest points in his career, Jeremiah Wright has worked in organizations that were mostly white--by choice.

2) Trinity UCC is located 3 miles from the national headquarters of the Nation of Islam. Rev. Wright is known for being one of the few Christian pastors who can reach young men. A lot of his militant language is being delivered in the context of that ministry. If he had backed off of that language under pressure from national media and political figures, it would have damaged his ability to reach young black men in the south side of Chicago. So he chose his local mission over his national reputation, which is the kind of thing a pastor is supposed to do.

Not about Palin, but it REALLY irritates me to see Rev. Wright described as a radical. I got a much warmer welcome in his church than black visitors get in any white churhc I've ever been in. The whole hoo-hah about him is totally absurd.

@Pastoralan - do you live in the Southside of Chicago?

@Krellin: "Yes, she can be elected to the head of her PTA.

Other offices? Pfft - she couldn't even hack it as governor of Alaska for a full term."

Is that a joke? Have you seen the development of American politics? People are dressing up in 18th century "minuteman" outfits and declaring the need to take their country back. Call them crazy or call them legitimate, but the point is that they need a leader, someone who agrees with them and has agreed with them before they existed as a party. That person is Palin. She is the dividing force between country club republicans and the evangelical right. I wouldn't be surprised if she was not only a legitimate contender during the primaries, but the Republican nominee in 2012. Whether she'll get elected is up to the moderate right in this country.

I'm glad to hear that different perspective. Having gone to a UCC and having my mother-in-law still be a UCC member, even they didn't have any accurate information andthought he was some kind of radical who they wanted to distance themselves from. But, under the circumstances you list, it sounds like he was getting a bum rap.

@pastoralan: thanks for that insight

Can Palin get elected? Yes. It's unlikely in 2012, but she's certainly doing a good job of staying in the spotlight far longer than any other vp nominee that was on the losing side of an election. It's far more likely that she'll stay on the media/pundit route since she has become such a polarizing figure, but in the end it's a strange world and stranger things have happened.

@anybody who has said thus far that Palin is electable (presumably to the Presidency)

Give the GOP some credit, there are several GOP up and comings who could possibly dethrone Obama in 2012 and Palin is by no means one of them. The GOP does not nominate candidates who have shown themselves to be extreme prior to the primaries.

Side note: I'm rooting for a Pawlenty/Jindal ticket, I think they'd have a reasonable shot.