Thomas Friedman in his column today asks, “How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?”
Friedman quotes Palin, in her debate with Joe Biden, as saying, “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”
Friedman points out that, while deriding taxes, Palin supports the government’s $700 billion rescue plan, she supports the surge in Iraq, she supports sending more troops to Afghanistran.
Friedman says, “I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.” Excerpts from the article:
- I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”
- I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.
- We are in the middle of an economic perfect storm, and we don’t know how much worse it’s going to get. … And we have not yet even felt the full economic brunt here. I fear we may be at that moment just before the tsunami hits — when the birds take flight and the insects stop chirping because their acute senses can feel what is coming before humans can. At this moment, only good governance can save us.
- Whether or not I agree with John McCain, he is of presidential timber. But putting the country in the position where a total novice like Sarah Palin could be asked to steer us through possibly the most serious economic crisis of our lives is flat out reckless. It is the opposite of conservative. And please don’t tell me she will hire smart advisers. What happens when her two smartest advisers disagree?
- And please also don’t tell me she is an “energy expert.” She is an energy expert exactly the same way the king of Saudi Arabia is an energy expert — by accident of residence. Palin happens to be governor of the Saudi Arabia of America — Alaska — and the only energy expertise she has is the same as the king of Saudi Arabia’s. It’s about how the windfall profits from the oil in their respective kingdoms should be divided between the oil companies and the people.
- At least the king of Saudi Arabia, in advocating “drill baby drill,” is serving his country’s interests — by prolonging America’s dependence on oil. My problem with Palin is that she is also serving his country’s interests — by prolonging America’s dependence on oil. That’s not patriotic. Patriotic is offering a plan to build our economy — not by tax cuts or punching more holes in the ground, but by empowering more Americans to work in productive and innovative jobs. If Palin has that kind of a plan, I haven’t heard it.
There’s no comparison between resumes; in fact, Obama is the least qualified of the 4. Even so, Palin is the only one of the three that I actually trust. I’m voting for McCain for 2 reasons: 1. Revent a rank amateur (not even a novice) Eurotrash wannabe from becoming President, and 2. hoping McCain dies in office so Palin can take over.
Friedman’s comments are preposterous. Senator Obama is more inexperienced that Governor Palin is, especially when it comes to leadership. The fact is Friedman does not like her politics. If she were liberal he would be praising for her experience.
“How in the world can liberal commentators write with a straight face that Obama should be president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?”
This country needs a leader.
So, Obama is a leader. Where was this leadership experience gained? As a community organizer? As a state representative? As a junior US Senator from Illinois? Get real!
None of these occupations constitutes leadership positions. People with their hands on his strings and telling him what to say are the real ones running this campaign and they will be telling him what to do when he is elected president. It looks as though we will be sucked into the socialist concepts of him and his cronies.
I must admit, the guy can deliver a speech. I haven’t heard anyone as good as him for 20, 25 years.
Let us all not forget, Palin is not running for President. McCain is. He is the ONLY qualified person in this contest to be president. Not Obama, not do nothing in my 30+ years in Congress Biden, not almost 2 years as governor Palin. Let’s quit assuming McCain is going to die in office and Palin is going to be president, sure it can happen but it’s only occurred once in the last 50 years.
This country is in the situation it is today because individuals like Friedman have espoused the socialistic engineering of our society on all fronts. Sure we need to move forward in this world and do better for all Americans, but, Friedman and his cronies march towards quasi or total socialism is not the answer. The slippery slope we are on now will only be accelerated by adhereing to the principals of the likes of Friedman.
Friedman is a socialist?
Friedman’s biggest contribution to public affairs was being a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq. He has since seen the error of his ways, but when it really mattered whether pundits of his stature thought the war was a good or bad idea, he was on the wrong side. Once we get into a war, soldiers start getting killed and people start getting concerned about the appearance of victory and what our adversaries will think if they get us to go beyond the limits of our power. Unfortunately wars are too easy to start and too hard to stop, particularly in the emotional state that came after 9/11.
Friedman’s view of that the communities that have a future will be centers of intellect and technology , set forth in works like “the World is Flat”, are hardly pictures of socialism. However they do not look all that promising for former manufacturing centers like Dayton, particularly those that allow their urban school systems to flounder from the effects of present and past poverty.
Actually Friedman’s view is that society’s economic structure determines the way people think…just like Marx did.
Friedman writes for the New York Times…columns trashing Sarah Palin are required for him to keep his job.
Assuming for the sake of argument that Friedman agrees with the statement Andy attributes to him that doesn’t make him a socialist.
William Kristol, a right winger, also writes for the New York Times. Friedman is probably well known and respected enough that he doesn’t have to do anything to keep his column.
Some people like Palin, some don’t. Many people are concerned that, while she is a good attack campaigner, she has been mostly mayor of a small city and briefly governor of a (population wise anyway) small state. There are many mayors of similar sized cities in Ohio and no one would think of making them president until they were much more experienced in the ways of national government. Her lackluster interviews and complete lack of trying to answer debate questions (even more than the rest of them), reciting talking points and phony sounding folksiness made it seem she is over her head. Her partisans try to compare her to Obama with inexperience but at least he has been dealing on the national stage for his time in the Senate. Had McCain picked a more experienced figure, even Governors with national presence like Romney, Huckabee or someone similar, he would have been in a much better position to raise that kind of argument. Even his detractors admit that Obama projects that he knows what is going on, even if it is not clear specifically what he is going to do, or if you don’t agree with what he says he is going to do. Palin does not. People might like her if they are part of the cultural conservative base, or they may like it that she is more like an ordinary person rather than someone who is part of Washington. But most people do not want to take an ordinary person off the street and make them president. Again Bush had some of these same qualities, and things have not gone well under Bush, so it makes being different from Bush attractive.
David Brooks, another conservative writer for the New York Times, said in today’s DDN that the Republicans are doing “class warfare” and losing the educated suburban business class, who has been part of their constituency, but are turned off by culture wars and don’t like the idea of Palin in charge of their affairs.
If Palin has it to be a national political figure she should serve a term or two in the Senate like Hillary has and see how she does.
Stan you make some good points, the one I like most is that a national political figure should serve a full term or two in the Senate and see how they do. I couldn’t agree more. That is why John McCain is the only true candidate in this race. He is the only candidate who has an accomplished record.
McCain’s big problem is that he is following Bush and Bush has made a mess of everything he has touched: Iraq, mortgage deregulation, no child left behind, income transfers to the rich, energy, America’s relationship with the rest of the world. If McCain is an independent Republican, he had to reach to find a second one in Palin. And he has gone along with Bush on most things, particularly the economy that pushed the War, McCain’s starkest choice issue, to the back burner. Bush’s economic people have actually taken some action, but not really in a way that makes McCain and Bush look like their ideas are great. What it has really done is make all the conservative anti-government and deregulation stuff look like a fairy tale. Add in that Obama is smart and a skillful presenter, moreso than McCain is. To the extent that the election is about Obama looking up to the job, he has undoubtedly succeeded.
In an ordinary election perhaps McCain would be poised to exploit Obama’s inexperience, associations and ancestry with the help of Rove type tactics. It now looks like it will take a huge dose of the “Bradley factor,” many successful legal challenges to Obama voters, or Obama being caught on tape conspiring with Acorn and Ayers to blow up the Pentagon. Barring that, we might need to be thinking of how Obama may be able to redefine politics after 8 years of Bush plus 6 more of Gingrich and successors. And what he may learn from Clinton’s and Carter’s failures to make government work in the face of obstruction. And of course what anyone is going to do given the toll that the war and bailout are going to take on the ability of government to respond to the needs of Americans.