Palin denounces her critics as cowardly

Saturday 08th November, 04:28 PM JST

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Betzee at 08:00 PM JST - 12th November

If nobody can explain exactly how media bias influenced the election results, then it falls into the realm of conspiracy theory rather than explanation for an outcome.
sailwind at 08:16 PM JST - 12th November

Doesn't get much more non-biased then this to answer your question.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625140638.htm

Notice the science daily part.
Taka313 at 08:16 PM JST - 12th November

Sail,

I have to admit, I am totally flummoxed.

You have thrown out a couple of strawmen arguments on this thread and they've all had pretty big holes poked into them.

Yet, you cling to your strawmen for dear life while completely turning your back on the subject of this story. The subject that I have repeatedly tried to get you to face.

You are not well represented in the main stream media because the main stream media is shaped by what sells. Because society has moved to the left, so has the main stream media. Since you have moved to the right, you are further outside the main stream

AND AGAIN, none of this has any bearing on the fact that john mccain knowingly and willfully hired smear agents to take the low road on this campaign and that they turned on the campaign when they saw the writing on the wall.

john mccain made a moral and ethical mistake in hiring these people and it came back and bit him, his running mate and his party in the butt. Big time.

Your pouting about it isn't going to change that one bit.

Taka
Taka313 at 08:21 PM JST - 12th November

Sail, However...I will commend you your extremely effective job at hijacking this thread to keep the focus off john mccain's moral and ethical mistake in hiring smear merchants to work his campaign, after claiming he would run a clean campaign.

americanwoman would be proud.

Taka
sailwind at 08:50 PM JST - 12th November

Taka

Did it occur to you that your idea that Mccain lost the election was due to him hiring smear merchants to work his campaign is just your opinion?

Others such as myself have a much more different idea why he lost.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/generalelectionmccainvsobama-225.html

Go to the second graph and move your curser over where McCain took the lead after his convention and poll bounce. Then stop at Sept 17 when both were almost exactly tied and watch the blue line continue back in Obama's favor after that all the way till election day.

On Sept 17th guess what happened? Lehman Brothers went bankrupt the start of the economic meltdown. He lost the election because as another famous Democrat had put it "It's the economy stupid".

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/generalelectionmccainvsobama-225.html

McCain blew it with his the that underlying foundations of the economy were still sound. That was the day he lost the election.

As fair as Media Bias. I'm not mad that McCain lost or "pouting". I feel cheated not on the Republican side but as an American. I want to know what Obama is all about. I don't and I don't think that anyone here really does either. I don't want dirt on the man. I want to know what kind of man he is. The Media Cheated me by not doing the same type of reporting that they did on Palin or McCain.

And if you could actually step back for a moment from trying to tear my position down.

They cheated you also.

I fail to find any of this amusing when our new President is pretty much a cypher to all of us and he shouldn't be. This is were bias brings us. To a place that not only I but a few others posters on this thread have noted also. The place that scares them a little as it does me a not so free press after all and just a little more assault on our personal freedom.

Joe the Plumber didn't need to be investigated by the press just for asking Obama a question.
Betzee at 11:52 PM JST - 12th November

Sailwind,

Obama was ahead for most of the time after he sealed the nomination, a process that yielded a lot of new Democratic voters in places like NC. So it was his election to lose, not McCain's. And that could have happened:

Last June, Joel Benenson, who was Barack Obama’s top pollster during his Presidential run, reported on the state of the campaign....There was good news and bad in Benenson’s presentation. Obama led John McCain, forty-nine per cent to forty-four per cent, among the voters most likely to go to the polls in November, but there was also a large group of what Benenson called “up-for-grabs” voters, or U.F.G.s, who favored McCain, forty-eight per cent to thirty-six per cent. The U.F.G.s were the key to the outcome; if the election had been held then, Obama would have probably lost.

Obama had his base sewn up and was free to court the U.F.Gs. He won them over with his response to the financial meltdown. It wasn't just McCain's erratic reaction, what happened on Wall Street called into question basic tenants of Republican free-market ideology.

McCain was far more constrained in his campaign than Obama. He was viewed with suspicion by the Republican base. By all accounts he wanted to chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate but was told his nomination would be contested on the floor in Minneapolis if he did so. Instead he chose Sarah Palin to placate them. But her appeal beyond the base proved quite limited.

David Brooks, a conservative, is not optimistic about the ability of the Republican Party to come back to the center. He concluded yesterday, "the Republican Party will probably veer right in the years ahead, and suffer more defeats. Then, finally, some new Reformist donors and organizers will emerge. They will build new institutions, new structures and new ideas, and the cycle of conservative ascendance will begin again."

I actually look forward to that. One-party rule means mediocre governance. The Democrats could put up anybody to run for Governor of California and s/he would beat the Republican, who will by necessity be a social conservative. Arnie, a social liberal, only got in through the process process.
LFRAgain at 12:37 PM JST - 13th November

I fail to find any of this amusing when our new President is pretty much a cypher to all of us and he shouldn't be.

What you find hard to swallow is that you can’t find anything truly bad about the man to vilify him. In fact, it seems that he might actually just be a fairly good guy. While this may nor fit well into the Far Right's constructed reality in which anyone “Liberal” is Godless, morally bankrupt, and evil, the truth of the matter is Obama’s a decent person.

This incessant drumbeat that Obama is a mystery suggests some sort of vast “Left Wing Conspiracy” to hide information about Obama. By excising it from . . . the Internet. Is that what you're suggesting is at work here? Now that is something I find amusing.

Joe the Plumber didn't need to be investigated by the press just for asking Obama a question.

If I'm going to stand up in front of national media and confront a candidate with something that is factually incorrect (i.e., "Obama will raise my taxes"), then I should be prepared for some increased interest.

Besides, any scrutiny “Joe” received from that point is the fault of the GOP. The GOP had no problem whatsoever with shamelessly parading "Joe the Plummer" around like a good luck charm at public rallies, and even less of a problem every time the media showed him "confronting" Obama in reruns, as if they had finally “got” Obama. The whining from both Joe and the GOP only started when this sudden national good luch charm for the GOP turned out to have a background that wasn't altogether truthful, like not coming close to the income bracket that Obama’s tax plan proposes to raise taxes on, for example. Or not actually being a licensed plumber.
sailwind at 12:42 PM JST - 13th November

What you find hard to swallow is that you can’t find anything truly bad about the man to vilify him.

Go through my entire posting history and find one time that I tried to "vilify" the man.

One time, just one time.

I've praised him on more occassions than you can count. How many times did you give Palin or McCain the same OBJECTIVE scrutinity, that I have showed through-out this entire campaign.

Your bias is showing as to my "so called" motives.
76waystofly at 12:46 PM JST - 13th November

Sarah Palin: you should be gosh-darn tootin' ashamed of yourself; paying $120K for a DKNY outfit! Anyone who's anyone knows spending less than $200K before leaving Saks Fifth Avenue would look like a pauper!

Incidentally, how much were Biden's eyelifts again?
sailwind at 03:49 PM JST - 13th November

If I'm going to stand up in front of national media and confront a candidate with something that is factually incorrect (i.e., "Obama will raise my taxes"), then I should be prepared for some increased interest.

And if you may some things in your background that you may not really be made public (messy divorce for example). And you now have the precedent of the Media which at no time that I can recall ever went after a citizen for asking a Presidential Candidate a question....Your not going to ask the question. You know have put yourself under DEFACTO censorship.

Your handle is looking a lot more shaky if you endorse this kind of thing.

That is not letting Freedomring, that is supressing it one papercut at a time.

Next campaign only people with pristine records will be allowed to ask questions of Candidates. That is not good.
LFRAgain at 04:02 PM JST - 13th November

Sailwind,

How many times did you give Palin or McCain the same OBJECTIVE scrutinity, that I have showed through-out this entire campaign.

I've been consistent on McCain from the start: I like him. He's intelligent, passionate, honorable, and a very capable statesman. I challenge you as well to find anywhere in my posting history where I've stated otherwise.

And as I've said time and time again, I think he got screwed by his campaign team. Quite honestly, I think an Obama/McCain ticket might have been the perfect magic formula to get this petty partisan bickering to stop and get the country back on the road to being a beacon of hope to others.

I've been consistent with Palin as well. I've only formed opinions about her where the evidence warranted it. She had two national interviews and opportunities to prove that she was Vice-Presidential material, and she blew both of them by being poorly prepared. You know it, I know it, OTHER Conservatives know it, and the entire country knows it. Where, precisely, is my lack of objectivity in scrutinizing her and the GOP for this selection of a running mate for a man who deserved much better?

It’s more than apparent you have some biases yourself if you’re unable or unwilling to see my criticisms as valid.

Go through my entire posting history and find one time that I tried to "vilify" the man.

I never said you tried to vilify Obama. I said that you seem to be profoundly frustrated that you can’t find any dirt on the man with which to vilify him, despite your best efforts. I suspect that you want to dislike the man, but, out of some sense of honor, can’t bring yourself to do so arbitrarily. But the fact is that no matter how deep you dig and, you keep coming up with nothing, and that seems to really bug the hell out of you. I'd like to know why.

You claim he’s an enigma, but what is there that we don’t know about him that we didn’t know about any other presidential candidate in any other campaign over the years. The media did its job: It dug. It searched. It chased leads leaked out by the GOP and found them lacking in substance. Hillary even did her job. She dug. She searched. And the absolute best she could come up with was Reverend Wright. Heck, I was even waiting for the 11th hour strumpet to pop up and claim an extramarital affair with Obama, to sink his bid. But no such scandal appeared.

What else do you want?

We know where he was born. We know where he spent his childhood. We know who his parents were. We know his religion, politics, and military service history. We know his voting habits. We know his family. And thanks to the media, which everyone seems to insist is so biased, we know that he had a working relationship with Ayers and we know that he had business dealings with Tony Rezko - which was ultimately left alone for the same reason McCain avoided career-ending involvement in the Keating scandal – His exercise of poor judgment. We know all of this. You know all of this.

So, what else do you really want?

He wrote two biographies. Why don’t you go pick one up and take a peek if you’re that concerned about how a man who has amply demonstrated his ability to work hard by graduating from Harvard Law among the best of his peers made it to where he is today. Don’t be surprised if you find hard work to be a major component.

You seem obsessed with “How” he got into Harvard Law School, so I’m going to just ask you straight out: Why is this so important?
LFRAgain at 04:30 PM JST - 13th November

Your handle is looking a lot more shaky if you endorse this kind of thing.

I'm not endorsing anything. I'm saying that if you put yourself out there, then subsequently allow yourself to be paraded in front of the media as "The American Who Asked Obama a Tough Question," then you've opened yourself up to closer scrutiny, for good or bad. In this, it didn't turn out so well for "Joe."

And if I may be so bold, please have the personal integrity to admit that if everything the media uncovered about "Joe the Plumber" turned out to be rosy, i.e., he indeed made more than $200k a year, making him a target of Obama's tax increases, had a plumbing license, and was a pristine example of the Grand Old Party base stereotype as a God-fearing, rifle-owning, patriotic family man, then you can be damned sure you and the GOP, and "Joe" would have been tickled pink to see the media reveal as much to America, holding in essence the ultimate “Real American” trump card.

The McCain campaign unscrupulously used “Joe the Plumber” and unfortunately, Joe got burned for it. You're not fooling anyone with this faux-outrage, nor are anyone else in the GOP.
sailwind at 05:01 PM JST - 13th November

So, what else do you really want?

Same thing one of his associates would like to know. A person that wasn't quite friends with the man but wasn't a distant abstract voter either.

One of neighbors and a member of his peer group.

I have pretty good company here in my views.

The Obama I (Don't) Know Richard A. Epstein, 10.21.08, 12:01 AM EDT One Chicago law professor writes about another.

My Obama number is one. I know him through our association at the University of Chicago Law School and through mutual friends in the neighborhood. We have had one or two serious substantive discussions, and when I sent him e-mails from time to time in the early days of his Senate term, he always answered in a sensible and thoughtful fashion. And yet, for assessing the course of his likely presidency, I don't know him at all.

It should come as no surprise that the traditionally liberal Hyde Park community is a veritable hotbed of support for Obama. So my manifest reluctance on his candidacy raises more than a single eyebrow: Loyalty for the home team counts. The odd point is how his many learned and thoughtful supporters couch their endorsement. Almost without exception, they praise the man, not the program. Their claim is that Obama has proved himself to be a consummate politician who understands that the first principle of holding high office is to get reelected. His natural moderation in tone and demeanor, therefore, translate into getting advisers who know their substantive areas, and listening to them before making any rash moves. The dominant trope is that he will be a pragmatic president who will move in small increments toward the center, not in bold steps toward the left.

But is it all true? The short answer is that nobody knows.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/20/obama-chicago-election-oped-cxre1021epstein.html

As far as Joe the Plumber let me be so bold and admit if Joe was the pristine stereotype Republican you talked about the media wouldn't have printed one thing about his background. Wouldn't make good copy or reading.
sailwind at 09:42 PM JST - 13th November

sailwind

Question, do you feel you know GWB or Cheny well enough?

Yes I do.....Plenty of critical press on those two.

Sorry not trying to be flippant here but seriously, what more do you want to know about Obama?

His role models while growing up, his real ones for starters. Unless they really are Rev. Wright and Ayres types which should give someone pause.

That wasn't negative by the way. I just don't see any moderating centrists influences in the mans life while he was moving up in the world. Press sure hasn't exposed any or background either to confirm it. If it is true that his core beliefs revolved around Wright and Ayres types and they shaped him when he was a younger padwan so to speak ...Gonna be a rough 4 years for all of us.
ALHQQ at 04:11 PM JST - 14th November

This chick needs a reality check