I'm perfectly happy to discuss her positions; I just think Huckabee does a better job of it. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 09/02/2010 10:29:40 AM
I don't need a reminder what Kepler's Laws are or what the proper firing technique is for a rifle, I certainly might want a reminder to talk about them. This is her Q&A session after a speech, the whole thing is on youtube, it's actually rather humorus because you can see her look at her hand repeatedly if you're watching for it, but it's farily unnoticeable if you're not thinking about it. She usually says something pertaining to one of those things immediatly after.
These things happen in public speaking, they are very common. Look, all through SOTU Biden was a bit fidgety and about ten minutes into I realized he just seemed that way because he was reading Obama's teleprompter and reacting to jokes or comments a moment before Obama said them. It was actually rather humorous once I noted it, but hardly a big deal. During Brown's speech, the 'we can do this moment' is funny as all heck, but you have to be really reaching out of genuine malice to think he meant they could insert a curling iron up Coakley's nether region. You also have to know the context for that statement to understand why someone said that specific thing, it wasn't a random nasty comment, it has to do with some specific thing that went on in her previous job involving a case where that horrific act was done to a child.
When you're used to looking for these things they pop up noticeably, one of the reason I prefer radio or text format's, the video often distracts me from the content. A public speaker should know better than to tap their pen during a debate for instance, but many do it anyway because their stressed and distracted and it's a habit. It's good for a chuckle but it's not really a big deal, like Obama bowing to people, he's a tall guy and he obviously considers it a respectful gesture, he needs to stop doing it, but other than it's humor value it's hardly an indication of some mass deficiency in his qualificaiton to be POTUS, like Bush Sr's tendency to vomit on foriegn leaders. You start looking for it you'll notice all sorts of tells, like people who sip from a glass of water before answering questions because they aren't just parched but use it as a way to buy a moment of time without seeming to stall. I do it with cigarettes. Going 'uh... um...' for five seconds comes off stupid whereas taking a sip of water or a long drag on a cigarette seems dignified. I don't see what the hassle is all about on this and it just seems like petty sniping.
In some ways you're right that this isn't ad hominem because you're not using personal attacks to disprove her arguments, your not even talking about her arguments. No one does, they never discuss her points, they just sneer and abuse, it's outright dismissal via abuse. These type of comments don't even rise to the low level of ad hominem. "I don't consider Gov. Palin to be a foriegn policy expert" as a counter to something she said about Afghanistan is ad hominem, most of the crap thrown at Palin is just nasty slurs. "Well, Mr. Brokaw, in response to that I just like to say my opponent is a drooling incompetent" is not ad hominem.
These things happen in public speaking, they are very common. Look, all through SOTU Biden was a bit fidgety and about ten minutes into I realized he just seemed that way because he was reading Obama's teleprompter and reacting to jokes or comments a moment before Obama said them. It was actually rather humorous once I noted it, but hardly a big deal. During Brown's speech, the 'we can do this moment' is funny as all heck, but you have to be really reaching out of genuine malice to think he meant they could insert a curling iron up Coakley's nether region. You also have to know the context for that statement to understand why someone said that specific thing, it wasn't a random nasty comment, it has to do with some specific thing that went on in her previous job involving a case where that horrific act was done to a child.
When you're used to looking for these things they pop up noticeably, one of the reason I prefer radio or text format's, the video often distracts me from the content. A public speaker should know better than to tap their pen during a debate for instance, but many do it anyway because their stressed and distracted and it's a habit. It's good for a chuckle but it's not really a big deal, like Obama bowing to people, he's a tall guy and he obviously considers it a respectful gesture, he needs to stop doing it, but other than it's humor value it's hardly an indication of some mass deficiency in his qualificaiton to be POTUS, like Bush Sr's tendency to vomit on foriegn leaders. You start looking for it you'll notice all sorts of tells, like people who sip from a glass of water before answering questions because they aren't just parched but use it as a way to buy a moment of time without seeming to stall. I do it with cigarettes. Going 'uh... um...' for five seconds comes off stupid whereas taking a sip of water or a long drag on a cigarette seems dignified. I don't see what the hassle is all about on this and it just seems like petty sniping.
In some ways you're right that this isn't ad hominem because you're not using personal attacks to disprove her arguments, your not even talking about her arguments. No one does, they never discuss her points, they just sneer and abuse, it's outright dismissal via abuse. These type of comments don't even rise to the low level of ad hominem. "I don't consider Gov. Palin to be a foriegn policy expert" as a counter to something she said about Afghanistan is ad hominem, most of the crap thrown at Palin is just nasty slurs. "Well, Mr. Brokaw, in response to that I just like to say my opponent is a drooling incompetent" is not ad hominem.
The difference in my mind between Obama reading a teleprompter for a whole speech and Palin needing her hand to remind her she wants to cut taxes is that there's a lot more detail in the former, and it's easy to forget stuff. "Cut taxes, drill ANWAR and Go, America!" is simple enough I only had to check her notes once, and I haven't been campaigning on them for two years straight.
I don't consider Palin a foreign policy expert for the same reason I didn't consider Bush one: They'd never had cause to look at it much until they decided to run for national office. I don't consider Obama a foreign policy expert for much the same reason, though that's not so much that he's never been to the US Senate as that he didn't even finish his first term before running for President. His extensive personal travel abroad mitigates that a little, just as having Bush 41 for a dad did for Bush 43, but not enough. If you want to parse it that much, fine: Palin isn't necessarily stupid, but a disproportionate number of things that come out of her mouth are (like claiming live within 1000 miles of the Bering Strait made her knowledgeable about foreign policy; that was far more plausible when Bush said it about Mexico. )
It's not about the issues; there have been plenty of staunch conservatives in the Republican Party who were far more knowledgeable, experienced and articulate than the ones embraced by the fundie right. Huckabee and Bob Dole are good examples, but you didn't see the people they represented flock to their banner because instead of stuttering a mumbled response to tough questions then waving an American flag they actually knew their stuff. Believed their own hype enough they didn't need a cheat sheet to remember what it was. I doubt you'll see Mike Huckabee turning up at a rally for a Republican Governor who tried to force every school girl in the state to take the (less than a year old) HPV vaccine, then shoved toll roads paid for in full by bond initiatives down the states throat, but that's what Palin was doing before she made the tea party where this video was shot. Perry's not even going to get renominated (which is actually bad, because Hutchison is a lot more like Huckabee than Palin when it comes to qualifications) but evidently he and the former Governor of Alaska don't realize that yet.
It's not that no one takes the far right seriously, it's that the constituency keeps ignoring good candidates like Dole and Huckabee in favor of gaffe machines like Quayle, Bush 43 and Palin. "Unfit for Command" indeed....
