RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Sarah Palin for VP

lowering taxes and arranging to have them raised more than ever in history on your successors watch isnt exactly a "tax cut"

How?

That's sorta how I felt when Bush did that early in his first term. My guess is Obama will be handing the next president after him a much better economy than what was given to him.

In a very moderate way

That's a really weird statement Bush's budget did not ever call for a tax increase in 4 years, Obama's calls for the largest increase ever in 4 years. You'll have to find where Bush submitted a budget seeking an immediate cut with an increase due after his first term.

How is someone who is socializing everything he can be moderate? Or do you just not understand the words you are using?

He cut taxes and then ran up the deficit. He then handed the next president an economy that was in a bad recession that could have became a depression.

Don't dodge the question. How is obama moderate? He wants to socialize health care and has socialized one of the largest automobile companies. He's the most liberal president we've ever had. He is nowhere near moderate.

You exagerate wildly so that is part of the answer. The car thing is just temporary and most people want a government health care option.

Socialism is socialism. It has nothing to do with what people want. Words have meanings. How can someone be as dense as you?

I don;t think Ameriblog isn't most people.

[Bush] cut taxes and then ran up the deficit. He then handed the next president an economy that was in a bad recession that could have became a depression.

"Bush's Fault"TM

The problem with that is the democratic party moved closer to the middle since the 70's while the GOP hasn't. And I'm not saying that the GOP should try to get democrats to vote for a different party but there are the votes inbetween the two that both of them need to get to win.

Palin can add another notch to her belt when it comes to influencing health care "reform."

On a Facebook post, former Gov. Sarah Palin puts the lie to The New York Times' assertion that "the rumor that government-sponsored 'death panels' to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere" (emphasis added by The Stiletto).

Had Times reporters Jim Rutenberg and Jackie Calmes read her commentary -- which was posted the day before their article was published -- they would have known that the death panels are real, and where to read up on the details. Palin makes a solid case that health care "reform," as originally envisioned by Democrats, would lead to rationed care and put a price tag on the value of people's lives based on their economic productivity.

Palin cites and explains the ramifications of Section 1233 ("Advance Care Planning Consultation," pages 424 to 434) of the House's proposed bill, "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,'' and quotes from "Principles For Allocation Of Scarce Medical Interventions" (The Lancet, January 31, 2009), a paper co-authored by one of President Obama's health care policy advisors, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel -- whose brother, Rahm, is the president's chief of staff.

Dr. Emanuel, a bioethicist, believes that doctors and hospitals should apply a rationing scheme he calls "complete life" for such medical services as ICU beds, heart transplants and vaccines during a flu pandemic. Under this scheme, adolescents and young adults would get priority over infants and the elderly, because "they have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants -- have not yet received these investments."

Though the paper's authors admit that their scheme is ageist, they do not even bother to discuss exceptions to their hierarchical valuation of human life. For instance, is the average 14-year old more "valuable" to society than, say, Pablo Picasso in his later years? Objectively, no -- but (s)he is valuable to a circle of family and friends, and that should be enough. Ditto Grandma, even if she isn't in Picasso's league as a world renowned artist. And so is -- too bad it doesn't go without saying -- Trig Palin. But try convincing Dr. Emanuel's fellow bioethicist, Peter Singer, who believes that the lives of animals deserve more protection than the lives of people (see second item in this link).

Believe it or not, the rationing scheme Dr. Emanuel advocates in The Lancet is a softening of his views on which lives are worth saving. Though Palin was mocked -- surprise! -- for her "death panel" analysis, it's now Dr. Emanuel who is backpedaling from an article he co-authored 13 years ago, The Washington Times reports:

"When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago ... I thought we would definitely have to ration care, that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care," said Dr. Emanuel ... during a phone interview. ...

He wrote [in a short article published in a bioethics journal in 1996] that "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed."

"An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia," he wrote in the paper published by The Hastings Center, a nonpartisan, non-profit bioethics research institute. ...

The charges of rationing, or concerns about his language in journal articles, Dr. Emanuel said, is somewhat understandable given that he was "writing really for political philosophers, and for the average person it's not what they're used to reading, even if they've had a good liberal education."

Palin can also put another notch on her belt when it comes to influencing health care "reform" -- the Senate will drop language "encouraging" doctors to initiate conversations with patients about hospice and palliative end-of-life care from its bill, The Boston Globe reports:

Senator Chuck Grassley, the Senate Finance Committee's top Republican and one of six committee members trying to hash out a bipartisan bill, said yesterday that the provision could be misinterpreted and that it will not be contained in the committee's proposed legislation. ...

Yesterday, Grassley criticized the House bill, saying there was a difference between a "simple education campaign, as some advocates want,'' and paying "physicians to advise patients about end-of-life care'' and rating doctors "based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care.''

Public support for Obamacare and Congressional Dems has fallen another five points from just two weeks ago, with just 42 percent of U.S. voters now in favor, according to a nationwide Rasmussen telephone survey. Oh, and voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats now on health care (44 percent to 41 percent).

Palin was hardly the only one to look at the House bill and realize its implications. In a commentary posted on The Daily Beast, "thinker" Lee Siegel -- who believes "the absence of universal health care is America's burning shame" -- calls rationing end-of-life care "morally revolting":

Determining which treatments are "cost effective" at the end of a person's life and which are not is one of Obama's priorities. It's one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal health care affordable.

This is the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right. ...

[T]he argument that fruitless tests and "senseless" procedures are bankrupting the health care system, that is an insult to the intelligence. No one knows which tests and procedures will be effective beforehand. No amount of "study" and research is going to address the particular case and the particular condition, let alone the particular, desperate, irrational will to live -- which, in animal terms, is pragmatic and rational.

The Stiletto seems to recall pundits across the political spectrum writing Palin off as irrelevant after she voluntarily stepped down from public office in July. Guess they were -- what is the word? -- wrong.

Sarah Palin's decision late last week to endorse the Conservative Party candidate over the Republican nominee in a special U.S. House election in Upstate New York is the latest example that the former Alaska governor's allegiance is to her conservative principles rather than the party's edicts.

"Republicans and conservatives around the country are sending an important message to the Republican establishment in their outstanding grassroots support for Doug Hoffman: no more politics as usual," Palin wrote on her Facebook page.

She also cited President Ronald Reagan's belief that "blurring the lines" is not the way to rebuild the party and added: "The Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race."

Palin is the highest-profile Republican to endorse Hoffman over state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) in the Nov. 3 special election for the seat vacated by John McHugh, who President Obama named secretary of the Army. The race has rapidly developed into a battle for control of the party's direction.

Palin joins former senators Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Fred Thompson (Tenn.) and former House majority leader Dick Armey (Tex.) in Hoffman's camp. Among those who have endorsed Scozzafava is former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) .

Of his decision to back Scozzafava, Gingrich wrote last Thursday: "We have to decide which business we are in. If we are in the business about feeling good about ourselves while our country gets crushed then I probably made the wrong decision."

Several other nationally known Republicans have delayed making an endorsement, although Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty expressed doubts about Scozzafava's conservative credentials late Friday.

At issue is the debate between the "head" choice (Scozzafava, because she is the party's candidate) and the "heart" choice (Hoffman, because his belief system hews closer to core conservative principles).

That divide isn't likely to go away no matter who wins the district in eight days. The head-vs.-heart dynamic is already shaping up in a higher-profile race in Florida's U.S. Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House speaker Marco Rubio. And if Palin runs for the party's presidential nomination in 2012, she could be the choice of the movement conservatives, while Pawlenty and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney are likely to battle for the establishment banner.

Talk about timing. With former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin readying the release of her own 432-page campaign tell-all, Going Rogue: An American Life, now would be the perfect time to pop out another Palin book, and that's exactly what Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti has done with The Persecution of Sarah Palin.

With his 226-page defense of Palin and slap-down of the media coverage she has faced since being selected by Sen. John McCain as his 2008 veep, Continetti is likely to ride the next wave of Palin frenzy that will accompany her book release set for November 17. If you like Palin, it's a good read. If you don't, well, check it to see what the other side thinks of the potential 2012 presidential candidate
. We won't review it here because Whispers just received the book earlier today. But here are some highlights:

— The press, duh, didn't like Palin and didn't fact-check all of its stories on her. Worse, writes Continetti, the press had it out for Palin because she didn't fit the image of an Ivy League-educated national candidate, just as former President George W. Bush didn't. "The left recoils at a certain swagger, a manner of speech, and a lack of cultural embarrassment that the two share. Neither Bush nor Palin mind the fact that they are not part of this country's cognoscenti. But until Palin showed up, one could have written off the liberal reaction to Bush as simply anti-Texan bias. That wasn't it, however. Palin proved that at its root the reaction to these folksy Western politicians is a form of anti-provincialism; revulsion toward people who do not aspire to adopt the norms, values, politics and attitudes of the Eastern cultural elite," he writes.

— McCain's aides messed up her debut and campaign. First, the book says that the McCain press office had no biographical information ready when Palin was picked. Not only had the campaign not done its homework to defend Palin, but it wasn't prepared for the media backlash. In their defense, aides note that had the campaign flooded the state with officials snooping for info on their veep pick, McCain's surprise would have been ruined. Continetti does cite some press tactics that worked, such as the anti-Obama "Celebrity" ad.

— Liberal-leaning feminists, especially comic Tina Fey, the 30 Rock star who portrayed Palin on Saturday Night Live, were jealous of Palin. "Palin's sudden global fame rankled those feminists whose own path to glory had been difficult. To them, Palin was less a female success story than she was the beneficiary of male chauvinism," writes Continetti. He holds out Fey and her TV character for special criticism. "It was telling that Fey should be the actress who impersonated Palin. The two women may look like each other, but they could not be more dissimilar. Each exemplifies a different category of feminism. Palin comes from the I-can-do-it-all school. She is professionally successful, has been married for more than 20 years, and has a large and (from all outward appearances) happy family. And while Fey is also pretty, married, and has a daughter, the characters she portrays in films like Mean Girls and Baby Mama, and in television shows like 30 Rock, are hard-pressed eggheads who give up personal fulfillment—e.g., marriage and motherhood—in the pursuit of professional success," he writes. "On 30 Rock, Fey, who is also the show's chief writer and executive producer, plays Liz Lemon, a television comedy writer modeled on herself. Liz Lemon is smart, funny, and at the top of her field. But she fails elsewhere. None of her relationships with men works out. She wants desperately to raise a child but can find neither the time nor the means to marry or adopt. Lemon makes you laugh, for sure. But you also would be hard pressed to name a more unhappy person on American TV."

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — College students ditched class, employees skipped work and some huddled in the cold overnight just to make sure they get an orange wristband Wednesday that would let them meet Sarah Palin.

Thousands gathered outside a Barnes & Noble and chanted "Palin! Palin! Palin!" for the kickoff of the former Republican vice presidential candidate's "Going Rogue" book tour, which has taken on the feel of a political pep rally.

"She's a person of faith, she has a family, she has gone through a lot of the trials and tribulations we have. I'd vote for her in a heartbeat," said Lana Smith, a dispatcher at a bus company who took the day off work and had been waiting in line since 5:30 a.m.

"Someday I hope her name is up in lights and I'll have had the privilege of meeting her," Smith said.

County music played as Palin's tour bus, painted to resemble the cover of her book, pulled up to the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids.

"I just can't tell you how good it is to be back in Michigan," the former Alaska governor told the crowd, which chanted "Palin! Palin!"

"Alaska and Michigan have so much in common, with the huntin' and the fishin' and the hockey moms, and just the hardworking, patriotic Americans who are here," Palin said.

Wearing a "Palin Power" bumper sticker across her red sweat shirt, 72-year-old Rachel Baragar praised Palin's honesty and down-to-earth manner.

"She could be your next door neighbor," said Baragar, of Caledonia.

The memoir was released Tuesday but has topped best-seller lists for weeks. At the Barnes & Noble, about 1,000 orange wristbands were handed out, allowing wearers to get two copies autographed by Palin at the three-hour signing event.

College students Megan Patzky of Racine, Wis., and Sarah Cranmer of Chicago waited in line overnight and skipped their Wednesday classes at nearby Calvin College to get an autograph. Patzky planned to give the signed book to her father for Christmas.

After standing in the cold all night, Patzky and Cranmer were happy to get into the mall around 6:15 a.m. "We were hoping that someone would start selling coffee, but nobody did," Patzky joked.

"Going Rogue" follows Palin from childhood to her departure last summer as Alaska governor. The title refers to her independent streak as a candidate, stemming from complaints within the campaign of GOP presidential nominee John McCain that she had gone "rogue" by disagreeing with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan last October.

McCain halted his campaign in the state after internal polls showed Obama approaching a double-digit lead. Palin publicly disagreed with the move and said she'd "sure love to get to run to Michigan" to make sure residents know the Republicans had not given up in the state.

Before the pullout, Palin had campaigned with McCain in Grand Rapids. Her three-week book tour is expected to largely mirror the 2008 race with stops in cities such as Noblesville, Ind.; Washington, Pa., and Rochester, N.Y.

Many of those waiting at the Michigan bookstore said they would vote for Palin if she decides to run for president in 2012.

"I believe she's a good, strong person to do the things we need to do in this country," said David Zak, 70, who drove about two hours to see Palin. "I like her Christian philosophy. I like that she's pro-life. I believe she can do what needs to be done to get ahead."

Prediction: How the Media Will Report Sarah Palin's Book Tour

• First, expect the major national outlets (NBC, New York Times, etc.) to ignore this evidence of Palin's overwhelming popularity. They've been commissioning polls especially designed to show that Palin is unpopular, and they're not going to let facts get in their way.
  
  Second, to the extent that the elite media take notice of the huge crowds at Palin events, expect them to focus obsessively over any tinfoil-hat crackpots who turn up. Time or Newsweek will send reporters out to these book-signings, and the reporters will interview scores of Palin fans until they find one or two conspiracy kooks who think Obama was born in Kenya or that 9/11 was an "inside job." And those will be the only Palin supporters quoted in the MSM stories.
  
  Finally, expect the media to take the good-news-is-bad-news angle: If Palin is "bad news" for the GOP -- hey, Newsweek told you so! -- then the fact that she's drawing big crowds can only mean that the Republican Party is headed for oblivion, you see.

Fox News's Gregg Jarrett today used old stock footage of a McCain-Palin rally from last year to illustrate how Sarah Palin is "continuing to draw huge crowds" during her book tour. He was apparently not tipped off by the McCain campaign "Country First" sign in one of the shots, nor did he wonder why Palin would be using a teleprompter to plug her book.

Fox uses old Palin crowd footage
Fox's Sean Hannity apologized last week after the Daily Show caught the host showing footage of the larger crowd at the 9/12 rally when discussing a smaller, anti-health care reform event.

But today there was another instance of Fox running old footage for a more recent event.

ThinkProgress noticed Fox's Gregg Jarrett telling viewers that Sarah Palin was "continuing to draw huge crowds while she's promoting her brand new book," a statement accompanied by images of, well, huge crowds. The problem is the some of these images -- which Jarrett said were "just coming in to us -- appear to have been taken from the 2008 campaign.

Media Matters points out that one image in the Fox clip was from a Palin rally in Ocala, Florida from November 2008.

A Fox spokesperson was not immediately available for comment but I'll update when I hear back from the network.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfHfw6tQk-H-vSZ-tov9shiZYcVwD9C28E581

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — College students ditched class, employees skipped work and some huddled in the cold overnight just to make sure they get an orange wristband Wednesday that would let them meet Sarah Palin.

A line of more than a thousand people — some sporting Palin Power stickers and Palin T-shirts — moved slowly into a Barnes & Noble store Wednesday to see the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor on the first stop of her "Going Rogue" book tour. During the hours they waited, some broke out in chants of "Palin! Palin! Palin!"

Scores more who couldn't get wristbands awaited Palin's arrival outside, braving the cold and yelling. "USA!" and "Sarah, Sarah!" at an event that took on the feel of a political pep rally.

"She's a person of faith, she has a family, she has gone through a lot of the trials and tribulations we have. I'd vote for her in a heartbeat," said Lana Smith, a dispatcher at a bus company who took the day off work and had been waiting in line since 5:30 a.m.

"Someday I hope her name is up in lights and I'll have had the privilege of meeting her," Smith said.

The song "Only in America," a standard on George W. Bush's 2004 campaign stops, played as Palin's tour bus, painted to resemble the cover of her book, pulled up to the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids.

"I just can't tell you how good it is to be back in Michigan," the former Alaska governor said after getting off the bus carrying her youngest son, Trig. "Alaska and Michigan have so much in common, with the huntin' and the fishin' and the hockey moms, and just the hardworking, patriotic Americans who are here."

Palin took time to shake hands with most of those whose books she signed, something 50-year-old Bill Buckner appreciated after Palin signed books for him and his 21-year-old daughter, Michelle.

"We are very, very honored that she came here. And coming to Grand Rapids as her No. 1 stop is even better," said Buckner, who had gotten in line around 4:30 a.m.

The memoir was released Tuesday but has topped best-seller lists for weeks. At the Barnes & Noble, more than 1,000 orange wristbands were handed out, allowing wearers to get two copies autographed by Palin at the three-hour signing event.

Tom Maike got in line at 1 a.m. after driving the 90 minutes from his home in White Cloud. Wearing a button on his baseball cap that said, "Don't blame me, I voted for Sarah," Maike said he plans to keep one of his signed books for himself and will give the other to his sister or his daughter — "whichever one talks me out of it."

Rachel Baragar, 72, praised Palin's honesty and down-to-earth manner.

"She could be your next-door neighbor," said Baragar, wearing a "Palin Power" bumper sticker across her red sweat shirt.

College students Megan Patzky of Racine, Wis., and Sarah Cranmer of Chicago waited in line overnight and skipped their Wednesday classes at nearby Calvin College to get an autograph. Patzky planned to give the signed book to her father for Christmas.

After standing in the cold all night, Patzky and Cranmer were happy to get into the mall around 6:15 a.m. "We were hoping that someone would start selling coffee, but nobody did," Patzky joked.

"Going Rogue" follows Palin from childhood to her departure last summer as Alaska governor. The title refers to her independent streak as a candidate, stemming from complaints within the campaign of GOP presidential nominee John McCain that she had gone "rogue" by disagreeing with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan last October.

McCain halted his campaign in the state after internal polls showed Obama approaching a double-digit lead. Palin publicly disagreed with the move and said she'd "sure love to get to run to Michigan" to make sure residents know the Republicans had not given up in the state.

Before the pullout, Palin had campaigned with McCain in Grand Rapids and the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights. Her three-week book tour is expected to largely mirror the 2008 race with stops in cities such as Noblesville, Ind.; Washington, Pa., and Rochester, N.Y.

Many of those waiting at the Michigan bookstore said they would vote for Palin if she decides to run for president in 2012.

"I believe she's a good, strong person to do the things we need to do in this country," said David Zak, 70, who drove about two hours out of his way on his way from Wisconsin to his home in southeast Michigan to see Palin. "I like her Christian philosophy. I like that she's pro-life. I believe she can do what needs to be done to get ahead."

___

Associated Press Writer James Prichard contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS that Palin shook hands with most of those whose book she signed, not with most of those in line.)

Much like Sarah Palin's own political debut, "Going Rogue" has burst onto the national scene demanding a response -- and normally sane and reasonable people seem unable to refuse that demand, whatever gaps in their knowledge there may be. Rush Limbaugh last week proclaimed "Going Rogue" to be "truly one of the most substantive policy books I've read," though that certainly raises questions about what other policy books Rush has read and by what lights he considers the Palin book to be one. For all I know, it may be true. There may truly be substantive discussion of policy, something that goes beyond the thudding "taxes bad"/"government small" rhetoric that characterizes the moments when Palin turns her personal narrative into a discussion of government workings.

I cannot claim to have completely read "Going Rogue" -- I had to skim the last 150 pages (or more than one-third). I only got the thing into my hands late Monday afternoon with a deadline of early evening. It's terrible, I know, but if I didn't read it all, neither can Sarah Palin claim to have completely written it.

One of the few surprises of the book: For a frontierswoman, Palin really doesn't like smokers -- especially if they're men working for John McCain. She describes the "jaded" "professional political caste" of the McCain campaign as "tumbling out of the bus in a pack, lighting cigarettes as they went so it looked like a walking cloud of smoke with legs," and, later, she gets a nasty jab in at senior adviser Steve Schmidt, who, she says, "used nicotine to keep . . . his cognitive connections humming along."

Her critique of the campaign's strategy is about as sophisticated as her discussion of policy, and just as circumscribed by her own experience. When she was pregnant with daughter Piper, she says, she pondered anti-smoking laws when confronted by cigarette smoke in a restaurant: "Instead of supporting [a ban] . . . I just stopped going to the restaurant. It eventually went smoke-free on its own, which is the way things like that should work."

A pregnant waitress unprotected by a smoking ban might feel differently, as might, say, a vice presidential candidate, were she surrounded by chain smokers in her place of work.

Despite being characterized by many as a divisive force in her party and the nation, former vice-presidential contender Sarah Palin gets a much higher positive rating than Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- and most think Palin has been treated unfairly by the press.

As Sarah Palin blankets the media on a whirlwind book promotion tour, the former vice-presidential contender is clearly back on America's radar screen. Despite being characterized by many as a divisive force in her party and the nation, Americans are much more likely to give Palin a positive rating (47 percent favorable) than another prominent female leader -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (28 percent favorable). Moreover, about six in 10 Americans (61 percent) think Palin has been treated unfairly by the press, according to the latest Fox News poll.

The national telephone poll was conducted for Fox News by Opinion Dynamics Corp. among 900 registered voters from Nov. 17 to Nov. 18, 2009. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Click here to see the poll.

Palin has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, along with a host of other Republicans. Among self-identified Republicans in the survey, Palin gets the highest favorable ratings (70 percent) amid a group of other possible contenders for the GOP nomination, including Mike Huckabee (63 percent), Mitt Romney (60 percent) and Newt Gingrich (58 percent). Palin's favorable score among all voters is 47 percent, up nine percentage points over last July's reading of 38 percent.

Another woman who has often been called divisive over the years is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When asked if they'd rather spend the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with Palin or Clinton, the choice does provoke considerable division -- with each attracting about 40 percent to a hypothetical turkey fest (Clinton 42 percent; Palin 39 percent). About one in seven Americans (14 percent) volunteers the view that neither would be welcome in their home next Thursday.

President Obama recently stated that he "probably won't" read Sarah Palin's new book. But his possible opponent in the 2012 elections trails him in personal favorability by only seven points (54 percent to 47 percent). Among the critical segment of independent voters, they are virtually even (Obama at 50 percent; Palin at 49 percent).

The largest number of Americans seem to feel that those who do buy the Palin book will do so because they really want to read it (35 percent). Just under one-third (29 percent) think book purchasers will do so because it's a trendy thing to do, and one-fifth (20 percent) feel people will buy the book to show support for Palin.

When we asked a similar question in 2003 about Hillary Clinton's book, a higher percentage thought buyers wanted to read that book (45 percent), but far fewer saw the purchase as a show of support for the former first lady (7 percent).

It may have been a savvy move by Palin to agree to an interview with Oprah Winfrey. The powerful talk show host garners the second highest level of favorability among all those tested in the survey (61 percent), behind First Lady Michelle Obama (63 percent).