Sarah Palin explains the debate over raising the Debt Ceiling

[realthog]

Speaking on Sean Hannity's FOX News program:

"We cannot default but we cannot afford to retreat right now either. Now is not the time to retreat, it's the time to reload. And we reload with reality by giving facts and numbers to the American public so that those of us across the United States can start chiming in and letting our representatives know that we will not capitulate, we will not hand over more power, which I believe is unconstitutional, to President Obama to further manipulate our economy."

Comments

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

Well, that was clear as mud.

Though someone should tell her the president doesn't really have much control over the economy.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Well, that was clear as mud.

A bit clearer than her normal pronouncements, you mean?

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure the Teabaggers think she knows what she's talking about these days.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure the Teabaggers think she knows what she's talking about these days.

You mean they listen to you or me and then they listen to Palin and they can't tell the difference?

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Say what? Does she know what some of those words mean?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Does she know what some of those words mean?

My sense is -- and I'm not joking -- that she doesn't actually care if she knows what the words mean: so long as the burble contains enough keywords to which her core audience of ignorant rednecks will respond (and so long as FOX News continues to pay her), she's perfectly happy.

There's an interesting monograph by Harry G. Frankfurt you may have come across called On Bullshit (it's published by the Yale UP or the Johns Hopkins UP or someone like that). Frankfurt makes a useful distinction between the liar and the bullshitter: the liar is aware that some things are true and some lies (and grey areas, etc.), but chooses to tell lies if they're more useful than the truth; the bullshitter has no interest in the truth or falsehood of what s/he's saying, so long as it serves its immediate purpose.

This I think is the big difference between Palin and Michele Bachmann, IMHO. Palin is a bullshitter; Bachmann (unless completely loony, which is also a possibility) chooses to use lies for her personal political gain.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

That woman is insane. Why anyone would pay attention to her is beyond me. The media hounds like her, though, because she's a train wreck; Fox News loves her because she makes them look smart(Fox News is disgusting).

Michelle Bachmann is another hate mongering looney-toon. The Republicans are just plain insane in the membrane. I don't think we need to worry about Obama's re-election. I was unsure about him when he took office, only because my faith in humanity in general is gone and I wasn't altogether sure we'd find someone decent; but I have grown to like and respect him more and more. He's a good president.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

As I've just been saying to La Marquise above:

There's an interesting monograph by Harry G. Frankfurt you may have come across called On Bullshit (it's published by the Yale UP or the Johns Hopkins UP or someone like that). Frankfurt makes a useful distinction between the liar and the bullshitter: the liar is aware that some things are true and some lies (and grey areas, etc.), but chooses to tell lies if they're more useful than the truth; the bullshitter has no interest in the truth or falsehood of what s/he's saying, so long as it serves its immediate purpose.

This I think is the big difference between Palin and Michele Bachmann, IMHO. Palin is a bullshitter; Bachmann (unless completely loony, which is also a possibility) chooses to use lies for her personal political gain.

=====================================================

I have grown to like and respect him more and more. He's a good president

I like the man, but I could give you a very long list of the bad -- and often illegal -- things he's done as US Prez. As a single example, he's in breach of both international and US law in his refusal to bring charges against those who authorized torture during the horrific Bush years. I can understand his political reasoning here (he follows the law, and then his own and every future Dem administration will, when succeeded by a GOP one, find this used this in tantrumming-toddler fashion as precedent to gum up the courts with idiotic accusations against them), but I don't think that's sufficient cause to shirk this legal obligation.

I also think he should have scrapped the Patriot Act rather than strengthened it.

[mylefteye.livejournal.com]

Eh?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

How dare you betray America by making that comment?

And the right to bear arms. Apple pie, too.

Very important, apple pie.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Why isn't this woman teaching economics at Harvard? Clearly she knows so much more than anyone else about the subject. Especially about President Obama's magical powers of economic manipulation.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Why isn't this woman teaching economics at Harvard?

Because the Koch Brothers haven't yet bought her a chair there.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

That would be the overstuffed chair, I presume.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

The beef olive of academia, yes.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Is she serious? The problem is that a lot of people WILL listen to her and swallow her propaganda.

This is the phrase they will remember out of the whole talk"
"...we will not hand over more power, which I believe is unconstitutional, to President Obama to further manipulate our economy."

We need to be aware that many of the "people in the street" regard Obama as "the worst President ever". How quickly they forget the Nixons and the George W. Bushes!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

We need to be aware that many of the "people in the street" regard Obama as "the worst President ever".

I know, and it's boggling how they can believe this -- as if liberals had been running around whining that, say, George H.W. Bush or Gerald Ford was the worst president ever. I find a useful counter, when the boneheads are coming out with this tripe, is to ask them what Obama has done that they would have done differently.

This usually shuts them up, because of course they've not been paying attention enough to know what Obama has or has not done. Some will say, "Bailing out the banks" . . . at which point one has to explain patiently that this was the continuation of a policy started by their sainted hero Il Buce. ("No it wasn't!" "Go Google it.") Or there's healthcare reform, at which all one needs do is tell them to go find the relevant stats for things like life expectancy in Wikipedia. Or they could Google for frightwing dreamgirl Margaret Thatcher's numerous quotes extolling the virtues of having a National Health Service. Yes, the Iron Lady is to the left of Obama on healthcare . . .