Now that's what I call a real redneck
The USA’s next commander-in-chief (if the world is unlucky) got her passport last year. In other words, she’d never expected to travel out of the US, and probably not even out of Alaska, before she became McCain’s running mate. And now she’s slated for a position in which she gets to decide what happens to people around the world, in countries she’s probably never heard of. It almost makes Muscat’s redneck shenanigans look impressive. At least he’s dealing only with microscopic Malta.
NEW YORK (CNN) — Before heading out for a trio of well-publicized meetings with foreign dignitaries Tuesday, Sarah Palin received a briefing from the director of national security, Adm. Michael McConnell.
The appearances with world leaders, taking place on the sidelines of the United Nation’s General Assembly meetings in New York, come as the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain tries to convince voters that Palin is ready for the world stage. Palin’s top foreign policy adviser informed reporters of the meeting at a small briefing after Palin’s visits with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The adviser, Stephen Biegun, formerly a top member of the National Security Council under President Bush, characterized the intelligence briefing as “routine” and said it was the sort of meeting that “is standard for candidates for the vice president and president.” Biegun said several officials were present to brief Palin. Although Palin held photo-ops with the leaders, she refused to take questions from any reporters.The Alaska governor initially said that no reporters would be allowed to sit in on her meeting with Karzai. She planned to allow in only photographers and one television crew, but she changed her position after at least five U.S. news networks protested.
CNN does not send cameras into candidate events where editorial presence is not allowed.
Nonetheless, Biegun said, “these are relationships that she intuitively understands are very important for the next president and vice president of the United States.” In those get-togethers, Palin kept the focus primarily on energy issues and the growing influence of Russia, according to Biegun.
Palin found Kissinger particularly engrossing; their meeting had been scheduled to last 30 minutes, but the two met for nearly an hour and a half.“In talking to Dr. Kissinger,” Biegun said, “she certainly had a lot of questions about how the United States can develop a cooperative relationship with Russia, what are some of the unique challenges to the current state of Russia’s political development, and having been in particular, some of the recent developments we’ve seen with Russia: backsliding democracy, Russia’s incursion into Georgia.”
Asked about her meetings with Karzai and Uribe, Biegun said Palin “liked them very much” and “established a great personal rapport.”With Karzai, Palin chatted for half an hour about McCain’s desire to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. With Uribe, she listened for about 20 minutes as the president discussed the country’s security situation and its handling of guerrillas.According to Biegun, “rather than make specific policy prescriptions, she was largely listening, having an exchange of views, and also very interested in forming a relationship with people she met with today.”
Biegun is helping prepare Palin for her debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden on October 2 in St. Louis, Missouri. He would not say what specific topics Palin was concentrating on in her study sessions. James Hoge of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Palin meetings are meant to “show, just as [Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack] Obama did when he went to Germany and gave a speech in Berlin, that she is comfortable on the international scene, that she can hold her own in conversations with foreign leaders. Democrats warn that Palin’s carefully scripted photo-ops, some of which will include McCain, could backfire by bringing attention to the holes in her résumé.
“The big risk that they run with this strategy of having her meet with these leaders individually is that they end up with three days of stories about how she doesn’t have foreign policy experience,” said Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist and CNN contributor. But Republicans point out that Palin is just following in the footsteps of other national candidates such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, former governors who needed to beef up their international policy credentials.
“The first thing you do is burnish their foreign policy credentials. You buy them a Rand-McNally, you meet with generals, you get a lot of flags on the stage, and you give a big speech on foreign policy to display you have some command of the world,” said Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor.As a 44-year-old governor who just got her passport last year, she has had to fend off accusations that she is not up to speed on foreign policy. In a recent interview with ABC, she admitted that she has never met with a head of state. Asked last week for specific skills she could cite to rebut critics who question her grasp of international affairs, she replied, “I am prepared.” “I have that confidence. I have that readiness,” Palin told voters at a town-hall meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “And if you want specifics with specific policies or countries, you can go ahead and ask me. You can play ‘stump the candidate’ if you want to. But we are ready to serve.” McCain stepped in, pointing out that as governor of a state that has plenty of oil and gas, Palin was familiar with energy. She knows it to be “one of our great national security challenges,” he said. He also cited her nearly two years as commander of Alaska’s National Guard. “I believe she is absolutely, totally qualified to address every challenge as the next vice president of the United States,” McCain said.
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She learns from the best.
John McCain thinks Spain is a rogue state in South America
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/09/john-mccain-thi.html
Not another idiot in charge of the world… PLEASE!! PLEASE!!
This article makes Palin sound worse than Bush… at least Bush had his father in the White House to ‘look up’ to!
Let’s hope that Obama wins…
Not to mention that she’s as pro-choice as GOF, has been known to make homophobic statements, does not know what the “Bush doctrine” is, and even tried to cross out polar bears from the endangered species list in case they hinder oil exploration in Alaska. My fear is that, of late, Americans seem more to be opting for jerks rather than real politicians.
Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s running mate because she supposedly plugged the gaps in his CV : she’s young, female, and shoots guns but she’s ‘safe’ because she’s a married mother of five.
I too hope to have the Democrats winning this time round. I like Obama, but I admit I would have preferred to have Hilary Clinton. Having a woman governing America wouldn’t have been bad. (Undoubtedly, it’s a matter of opinion.) Of course, it depends on what calibre of woman. I seriously cannot imagine Palin ruling America.
Anyway, hope the democrats will triumph.
Here’s another mess Sarah Palin got herself into
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/sarahpalin/3063657/Sarah-Palins-Alaskan-town-charged-rape-victims-for-examinations.html
The population of Wassila – where the rape rate is 2.5 times the national average – is under 9,000 yet Palin says she didn’t know what was going on. Never mind that that’s no excuse. How’d she cope with running a country of several million or making policy decisions that affect billions of people around the world?
My goodness,
And these people affect the world so much!
She lies too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tc7BF_Fd7I
So, would I be right if I venture to say that Palin is just another Ox too? With anything that goes with the word, of course. . .
[Daphne – No, because it’s an insult reserved exclusively for men, like the English equivalent. Incidentally, both the Maltese and English versions have long since lost their misogynistic connotations, before you all rush at me.]
Daphne, some time ago I also read an interesting article on the CNN website which said that Palin used to form part of some congregation or prayer group of sorts and she herself admitted that during prayer meetings people used to talk in tongue, although she denied (contrary to some reports) ever doing it herself. Honestly, how can someone like that be taken seriously?
[Daphne – Yes, I know – but the thing is that lots of people do that here in Malta too, and they hold down very responsible jobs for which they are taken seriously. My first and only experience of this talking in tongues thing was at a friend’s wedding around 18 years ago. We were there at what seemed to be an ordinary mass, and suddenly, most of the congregation put their heads down and began babbling like lunatics. I was terrified.]
Oh, well then I guess we have to find something really “decent” for Ms. Palin. . . Come on Daphne, I bet you can come up with someone really cool. Perhaps Otello will then notify Ms. Palin about it and you will have to endure her wrath besides Otello’s :)
Guess it scarred you for life Daphne :)
This may all be true, but political systems are judged by results. And the US is not the world’s wealthiest and most influential country by coincidence.
[Daphne – No, not by coincidence, but by dint of the fact that the vast majority of the population are still so close to their immigrant origins that they take nothing for granted, work like hell, have ambition and initiative, and above all, aspire to success rather than denigrating success in others and envying them. It’s not the politicians who built the USA’s wealth, but the people.]
Bernard: You’re talking only of the positive economic results but political systems have political effects too.
One of the results of the US political system is that a small town mayor may well get to decide what happens to people she is not aware of in places she’s never heard of, much less visited. That’s not the sort of concern that’s usually at the top of voters’ list of priorities, particularly when they’re concerned about their own economic security, but it’s still something that can have actual consequences for many people who do not have a say in who becomes the next president of the USA.
I certainly won’t argue with that – but I think their political system does a better job than most at not preventing people from pursuing happiness their own way. I guess it’s federalism + separation of powers + weak parties + cultural factors. Some of it may look funny to us, but our strong attachment to parties and ideologies, elitist politicians and centralized states might seem frightening to many Americans too.
My guess is such a system would handle a President Palin almost as well as it would a President Obama (and as it has in the past survived Carter and Bush).
Give me the US of A anytime, warts and all. Everybody hates her (except me) but it’s a case of ‘if she wasn’t around to put out other people’s fires’ we’d be communicating in Arabic (Libyan to be precise) or Russian.
[Daphne – I join you in not hating America.]
I think I read somewhere that her pregnant daughter’s
boyfriend actually called himself a redneck on Facebook.
At the same time as saying he didn’t want to get married
and have children. That posting was removed pretty
quickly. It didn’t fit in with ma-in-law’s image.
As Matt Damon said the thought of Sarah Palin becoming
President is like a bad Disney movie.
In my opinion, she was chosen as Mc Cain’s running mate in order to attract the women voters who would have voted for H. Clinton, had she been Obama’s VPN, and not on her credentials. I have, ever since, wondered how women feel about this.
[Daphne – Women are embarrassed when one of the few women on the world stage is a bad ambassador for the abilities of women in general. We suffer from minority issues, despite being the world’s only true majority.]
igifieri daphne kif qed tighd int Roosvelt Reagan u Clinton ma kkontribwewx fis sucess tal istati uniti.jien nahseb li veru n nies trid tkun imma il gwida politika taghmel differenza kbira.Nahseb is sucess politiku jidher l aktar bl elezzjoni ta roosevelt fin 1933 meta l amerika kienet ghoda falluta mid depression tal bidu tat 20s u hu rega wassalha ghall prosperita b ghadd ta inizjattivi godda.
[Daphne – Il-kultura Amerikana hija kompletament differenti ghal dik tal-Ewropa, Rene. Hija kultura ta’ ambizzjoni, success u inizzjattiva.]
Funny that the Republican Party is closer to the PN’s conservative values than the Democrats who are left leaning. The Palin choice simply reflects the Republicans unashamed desire to pander to their hard core base which they thought they were going to lose with McCain who has turned out to be a two faced politically immature turncoat.
Just wanted to point out that the President is the commander-in-chief and that Palin is running for Vice-President. The 1st sentence should be corrected.
I had read this really insightful article in The Guardian which really goes to show how easily someone like Sarah Palin could be US president. The psyche of the people of “middle America” reminds me a lot of many of our co-nationals! I am posting the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/04/sarahpalin.johnmccain
You don’t need to have been to Harvard to become US President and, as we know, a degree from that university does not necessarily make you a good politician.
Americans have elected all sorts: Truman and Carter had been farmers, Johnson a teacher and of course, Reagan an actor. Clinton was a lawyer I think and there were probably others; lawyers are everywhere.
At the moment there is an electoral campaign so the candidates are emphasizing their differences just as Obama and Clinton were doing this summer but eventually, whoever is chosen will behave in the same way: they’ll favour American interests. I don’t think there was ever any President who did not put American political and economic interests first; the methods may vary slightly but not the motives. We should therefore not expect any dramatic changes, whether it’s Obama or McCain.
As for Palin, she represents the average American. Far from wanting to take over the rest of the world they ignore it and are not dismayed if a politician mixes up Zapatero with Zapata, since neither name has any bearing on their daily lives. Reagan was also notorious for his lack of general knowledge, especially geography, but he became one of the most popular and influential post-war Presidents.
Thanks, but no thanks. Sarah Palin to nowhere :)
to all those who haven’t understood , you need to click more youtube videos about this lady
It seems that most of the comments are against McCain/Palin ticket.
Have you considered the possibility of the USA having a president whose name is Barack HUSSAIN Obama ?
[Daphne – Oh, scary one that.]
@ Joseph cauchi…what’s in a name? what was Stalin’s name???
“Daphne – No, not by coincidence, but by dint of the fact that the vast majority of the population are still so close to their immigrant origins that they take nothing for granted, work like hell, have ambition and initiative, and above all, aspire to success rather than denigrating success in others and envying them. It’s not the politicians who built the USA’s wealth, but the people.” You couldn’t have put it any better. In my ten years living and working here in the US I have never ceased to compare this to Malta where unfortunately the opposite often holds true. Of course such comparisons are also a bit unfair because the political, social, cultural, economic reality in Malta is very different. And please don’t all jump all over me – there are also many other things that sometimes make me wish I was back in Malta.
As to whether Palin/McCain are the wrong choice for the US and the world, I honestly don’t know. If I could vote, I certainly would not vote for them but when it comes to foreign policy there has historically not been much to separate the two parties. JFK went into Vietnam, Clinton bombed downtown Belgrade, pandered to the Cuban – American lobby and we could probably go on and on. Both were Democrats.
Joseph Cauchi: Please save comments like that for the hanut tat-te.
Joseph:
You just managed to reach new levels of stupidity. Don’t like to make personal attacks, but what on earth does that have to do with anything? Please, oh please tell me you were joking.
As regards to my question about Barack HUSSAIN Obama, most of you find no objection! However, when the election is over,the American people, those who actually matter and vote, will have taken “my” question into consideration. Just wait and see!!!
[Daphne – That’s why they’re described as rednecks. And there were objections to your comment. But obviously, they were far too subtle for you to register.]
I think Joseph Cauchi means is that there have been no objections to Obama’s middle name.
This is unfortunately part of the electoral campaign, the scare-mongering, insinuations, etc
Hey, have you given a look at this one?? Sarah Palin, in the clip, is being prayed upon…..so as to BE PROTECTED FROM WITCHES. Oh, what a pity, no voodoos to make her become a little more State’s woman like then.
Here’s the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/oliverburkemanblog/2008/sep/24/uselections2008.sarahpalin1
Oh please, Mr Joseph Cauchi tell us that the cacophony of idiocy you uttered is just a joke. I seriously cannot imagine (I don’t want to) you being serious on that one. What has the name got to do with all that? For God’s sake, don’t strive to utter such nonsense statements.
It seems only Antoine Vella actually understood my question.
li qal joseph cauchi jaghmel hafna sens, l amerikani ha jivvutaw (li in fondo in fondo huma konservattivi bhalna l maltin).Jidispjacini nighdilkom li Obama m ghandu l ebda cans li jigi elett
Bernard: The presidential election in the USA is not an experiment in a laboratory.
Ian: That’s not entirely incorrect, but neither is it entirely correct. Sarah Palin’s seen as the potential next commander-in-chief because 1) McCain’s age is a concern 2) Palin’s relative “youth” compensates for that 3) she would have to step into McCain’s presidential shoes if he croaks when in office – hence the jibes and serious concerns about her lack of experience and limited political knowledge and ability.
Antoine Vella: Favouring America’s interests isn’t quite the same thing as being unaware of or indifferent to the world outside. Given that the ability to protect America’s interests demands awareness and knowledge of the world outside the geographical confines of the USA, it’s discouraging to see that a person who first obtained a passport when in her forties feels she’s qualified to do the job.
Mario: Palin was chosen as McCain’s running mate because, in marketing speak, she offers complementary benefits to the political consumer. In their rush to fill in the gaps in their candidate’s political package, McCain’s advisers discounted the negative effect of Palin’s other attributes.
Please don’t make the common mistake of assuming that women only want to vote for women on the basis of their gender rather than on the basis of their identity. Much of the lampooning of Palin is done by women on the basis of her lack of credentials and not, as Laura Bush notoriously said in an interview earlier today, because of sexism.
Palin is a bad advert for her gender if her gender is the main reason people are expected to vote for her. She’s an even worse advert generally if people are expected to vote for her because she can handle a gun, particularly when she’s never been anywhere you can only get into by presenting a passport.
There is another thing about Palin that seems to be given little importance by her critics. She believes that the universe was created in one week, exactly as the Bible says. For me this is of more concern than her love of guns or lack of experience – it’s straight from the Middle Ages.
I can’t understand how so many people accept this theory in the country that has discovered DNA and pioneered genetic engineering. The fact that she doesn’t seem to be lampooned about it makes me suspect that, perhaps, even some of her critics believe it as well. Certainly, a large number of Obama’s electoral base do, so it’s not something to do with left or right politics, although the irrational belief is more prevalent on the right.
Sarah Palin reads Daphne’s articles on The Malta Independent — official!
The vice-presidential candidate reads “all” newspapers, she claims
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y
In the latest instalment of Katie Couric-induced TV torture, John McCain’s running-mate is asked to describe the newspapers and magazines she reads and replies “all of ’em”, which therefore, following a logical process of reasoning, includes The Malta Independent. Commentators have pounced on this interview excerpt because it looks as though Palin is unable to name a single newspaper or magazine, but really, it’s clear that she simply doesn’t want to offend rival publications (including The Times of Malta) by singling TMI out for praise. (A sensible precaution during an election campaign, of course.) According to high-level sources, Palin especially enjoys Taste, Marie Benoit’s articles and the Weekender, though she does feel the Sports section’s dog-sledding coverage leaves something to be desired.
P.S – Plagiarised from The Guardian.