She is RIGHT...you betcha!

[Marshall]

Historians agree: Palin was right about Revere

posted at 9:25 am on June 6, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
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One if by land, and two if by sea … and then what? According to historians interviewed by the Boston Herald, Paul Revere then warned the British not to challenge a roused and armed populace. That came as news to many observers who had rushed to criticize Sarah Palin for her response to a gotcha question at the Old North Church:

Sarah Palin yesterday insisted her claim at the Old North Church last week that Paul Revere “warned the British” during his famed 1775 ride — remarks that Democrats and the media roundly ridiculed — is actually historically accurate. And local historians are backing her up.
Palin prompted howls of partisan derision when she said on Boston’s Freedom Trail that Revere “warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”

The first to dispute Palin’s critics was … Paul Revere himself. In his own account of the ride, written twenty-three years later, Revere recounts how the British captured him, and how he attempted to dissuade the British from advancing. Revere warned that he had roused the local militias and that there would soon be 500 or more armed citizens coming together to repel the British.
A Boston University history professor told the Herald that Revere did indeed warn the British as well as the Americans earlier in his ride:

Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”

Of course, Revere wasn’t planning on getting captured. He and others riding to the alarm (William Dawes and Samuel Prescott) wanted to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of British action first, and rouse the militia second. Dawes and Prescott managed to elude the British and complete the mission, but Revere was captured. Furthermore, his warnings sufficiently rattled the British that they let him go — but without his horse. He returned on foot to Lexington, where he managed to hide a trunk with Hancock’s letters to keep it from being captured, but missed the battle.
Andrew Malcolm notes the “faux gaffe” and gives a history of such in the media:

This phenomenon is actually not a new one in American politics, although its immediate spread is obviously hastened by the Internet. Speaking of which, Al Gore did not invent it. Nor did he claim to, as often as you’ve heard otherwise.
In 1999, the hapless former journalist, who should have known to make a better word choice, told CNN that in Congress he “took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Democrat Gore never used the word “invented.” That was part of another willful misinterpretation that fit expectations of Gore’s boasts and was gleefully spread by opponents as further proof of his unseemly hubris. It lives on to this day.
Perhaps you remember how one day during a photo op President George H.W. Bush was overheard asking a store checkout clerk how this price scanner thing worked?
That quote was immediately transmitted as proof of how disconnected that Republican chief executive was, that he had no knowledge of something as ordinary as a checkout scanner.
The fact is, asking such inane and often obvious questions as “what are you doing here?” is a bipartisan ploy used by politicians to fill the awkward time void they are hanging around someone working while photographers snap their photos several hundred times.

Frankly, I had forgotten much of the history of Revere’s ride until this incident, and I had to look it up for myself to recall what Palin meant by her response. Tom Burnam covered it succinctly and accurately in his indispensable Dictionary of Misinformation, a book I have had on my shelf for more than 30 years. If all people know of Revere is Longfellow’s poem, which is what the reaction to Palin’s remarks seem to show, then they know far less than they think.

[Marshall]

Howard Dean warns Democrats Sarah Palin could beat Obama in 2012


By Alexander Bolton - 06/04/11 03:33 PM ET
Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Democrats capture the White House in 2008, warns that Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012.
Dean says his fellow Democrats should beware of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama would crush Palin in a general-election “I think she could win,” Dean told The Hill in an interview Friday. “She wouldn’t be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win.”

Dean warns the sluggish economy could have more of a political impact than many Washington strategists and pundits assume.
“Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover,” Dean said. “Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,” Dean said.
Dean spoke to The Hill the same day the Labor Department revealed the national economy added only 54,000 jobs in May and the national unemployment rate had risen to 9.1 percent.
Last month the private sector created 83,000 jobs, about a third the average for the previous three months.
Dean said he doesn’t think Palin will win the GOP nomination or would have the advantage over Obama in 2012. But he warned it is dangerous for Democrats to dismiss her.

Palin said Friday that she was "still weeks away" from making a decision about a presidential campaign.


“Anybody who gets the nomination could win the presidency,” he said. “Do I think she’s going to get the nomination? No. But that process is so difficult and really tests candidates in ways that no other process can."
Dean knows the rigors of presidential primaries first hand. In 2004, his unconventional campaign briefly put him in contention for the Democratic nod before the eventual winner, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), pulled away.
“Anybody who survives the process can win the presidency,” he added.
Dean said Republicans made the mistake of underestimating Bill Clinton in the rest of the Democratic field in 1991 when former President George H.W. Bush seemed to have a strong advantage but the economy was still mired in recession.
“I can remember Bill Clinton, I think, was one of the seven dwarfs,” Cain said. “This goes on every four years and I think it’s best not to pay attention to that kind of talk.”

[MsElena]

She can run all she wants, the GOP won't give it to her.

I'll move to Canada if she runs and wins though.

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by MsElena

I'll move to Canada if she runs and wins though.

Don't forget your long-underwear........

[charlestudor2005]

@Marshall

You wouldn't say a conservative was wrong no matter how factually errant s/he was. Palin could have said Alaska was surrounded by the country of China, and you'd agree. Likewise, she could have said Texas abutted the Canadian border and you would have agreed. Again, denying facts in the face of reality for the purpose of aligning yourself politically. It's a fool's errand.

[Karl Hungus]

She's just a media prank. She gets out there and drives around on her bus and says really outrageous stupid things, and you know what, the "lame stream media" eats it up and follows her around to see what crazy antics she will get up to next. She is the heir apparent to the Rush Limbaugh legacy, but like Rush, not really cut out for the rigors and scrutiny of public life.

[Doove]

Hey Marshall, after Barack Obama mangled the number of states by saying he'd been to all 57 of 'em, imagine how ridiculous liberals would have sounded if they insisted there really were 57 states.

Sarah Palin isn't just an ignorant moron, but she's making her followers look like ignorant morons too.

[Guest040616]

Governor "Quitter" Palin is one of the few political figures in recent American history who can make George W. Bush appear to be somewhat intelligent!

[Marshall]

Obama, lost in thought

By Dana Milbank, Published: April 26

When I covered George W. Bush’s White House, my job was made easier by the simplicity of the subject. The president had a few defining mantras — Cut taxes! Rally the base! Terrorists hate freedom! With us or against us! — and most of his decisions could be understood, even predicted, by applying one of the overarching philosophies.
With President Obama, there is no such luxury. The political right is befuddled as it tries to explain him: First, Obama was a tyrant and a socialist; now he’s a weakling who refuses to lead. The political left is almost as confused, demanding to know why Obama gave away so much on health care and in budget negotiations. Nearly everybody puzzles over Obama’s ad hoc responses to Egypt, Libya and now Syria, grasping for a still-elusive Obama Doctrine.
Seeking a template to understand the enigmatic president, I consulted three leading academics in the fields of psychology and behavior. With their help, I put Obama on the couch and came away with a reasonably coherent diagnosis: There’s too much going on in the poor guy’s head.
“What distinguishes Obama particularly is the depth and carefulness of his thinking, which renders him somewhat unfit for politics,” said Jonathan Haidt, a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia. “He is a brilliant social and political analyst, which makes it harder for him to play hardball or to bluff.”
Obama’s strengths and weaknesses come from his high degree of “integrative complexity” — his ability to keep multiple variables and trade-offs in mind simultaneously. The integratively simple thinker — say, George W. Bush — has one universal organizing principle that dominates all others, while the integratively complex thinker — Obama — balances many competing goals.
Philip Tetlock, a professor of psychology with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, found that politicians on the center-left (where Obama dwells) tend to have the highest degree of integrative complexity, followed by politicians on the center-right. Politicians on the far left and far right are the most simple.
Though Tetlock hasn’t applied his methodology to Obama, the 44th president would seem to be the very model of the complex thinker. Among the complex thinker’s advantages, says Tetlock, is the ability to see quickly the trade-offs among policy options, to update his beliefs after finding evidence that disproves his preconceptions, and to predict probable outcomes with accuracy. Among the disadvantages: The complex thinker can suffer from “analysis paralysis” and confusion; he can be perceived as unprincipled or disloyal to the values that elevated him to power; and he can be seen as too willing to make trade-offs.
One type of thinker isn’t necessarily better or smarter than the other; it depends on the circumstances. A simple thinker such as Winston Churchill, for example, was a better answer to Adolf Hitler than the complex Neville Chamberlain. “Leaders need to be simple enough for people to relate to,” said Tetlock, “but complex enough to explain to people that they can’t have everything.” Obama was simple enough during his campaign, but, as president, became submerged in subtlety.
As Obama’s capacity for complex thought can become a liability, so, too, can his cool rationality. Politics often rewards the emotional over the rational. Nuclear deterrence, for example, works only if your enemy thinks you are crazy enough to destroy the world.
Such “strategic irrationality” can be useful in negotiations. If your opponent thinks you really might do something crazy — like, say, shut down the federal government over a small budget dispute — then you have more power to bluff. But because Obama is unfailingly rational, opponents aren’t afraid of him doing something crazy.
“If the logic of a threat doesn’t make sense, it can still work if [your opponents] think you will be in the grips of an emotional reaction that’s not under your control,” says Robert Frank, an economist at Cornell University who specializes in behavior and emotion. “With Obama, it doesn’t seem there would be any emotional reaction that is not under his control.”
In an ideal world, complex and rational thought would be virtues. But in politics, these attributes can make Obama seem ambiguous, without toughness or principles. “It isn’t because he lacks a moral compass — it’s because he understands there are a lot of moral forces at play,” U-Va.’s Haidt says. “This is why people get frustrated with him. The more of a partisan you are, the more simple-minded you are.”
What’s a complex guy to do? Simple. “It is important,” Haidt says, “for the president not to be rational and fully honest.”

[Marshall]

Liberals Saying Obama Sounds Like A Fool Because He’s Just So Darned Brilliant

May 28, 2011 by Michael Eden
Do you remember how liberals went off on Bush as stupid for eight years (not including the primary season leading up to the 2000 election) because of the way he talked?
Bush and the word ”nuclear” was a favorite, of course. And there were always a few awkward sentence constructions from a president who - unlike Obama - wasn’t slavishly attached to a teleprompter:

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he’s been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

.

The same left that ridiculed George Bush over his every verbal slip are now rushing in with “intellectual” defenses as to why Obama sounds like a babbling fool every single time he can’t read his lines off a screen.
Case in point from today’s Los Angeles Times:

Meghan Daum: Obama’s fast brain vs. slow mouth
It’s not that the president can’t speak clearly; he employs the intellectual stammer.
Apparently, a lot of people consider President Obama to be bumblingly inarticulate. “The guy can’t talk his way out of a paper bag!” a reader wrote to me recently. “Sarah Palin is a brilliant speaker. It’s the president whose sentences are undiagrammable,” said another in response to a column I wrote about Palin. It’s not just my readers, nor is it exclusively conservatives, who hold this view. A Google search of “does Obama have a speech impediment” turns up several pages of discussion among the president’s supporters and critics alike.Admittedly, the president is given to a lot of pauses, “uhs” and sputtering starts to his sentences. As polished as he often is before large crowds (where the adjective “soaring” is often applied to his speeches), his impromptu speaking frequently calls to mind a doctoral candidate delivering a wobbly dissertation defense.
But consider this: It’s not that Obama can’t speak clearly. It’s that he employs the intellectual stammer. Not to be confused with a stutter, which the president decidedly does not have, the intellectual stammer signals a brain that is moving so fast that the mouth can’t keep up. The stammer is commonly found among university professors, characters in Woody Allen movies and public thinkers of the sort that might appear on C-SPAN but not CNN. If you’re a member or a fan of that subset, chances are the president’s stammer doesn’t bother you; in fact, you might even love him for it (he sounds just like your grad school roommate, especially when he drank too much Scotch and attempted to expound on the Hegelian dialectic!).
If you’re not, chances are you find yourself yelling “get to the point already!” at the television screen every time Obama’s search for the right word seems to last longer than the search for Osama bin Laden. And thanks to its echoes of the college lecture hall, you may think it comes across as ever so slightly (or more than slightly) left wing.
That’s kind of ironic, given that the godfather of the intellectual stammer is arguably none other than the paterfamilias of the conservative movement, William F. Buckley Jr. With his slouch, his glazed-eyed stare and a speaking style that suggested the entire Oxford English Dictionary was flipping through his mind while he searched for a word like “dithyramb,” he makes Obama’s extemporaneous speech seem canned — not to mention pedestrian — by comparison. In fact, if the people critiquing Obama’s meandering speech patterns were to see an old “Firing Line” segment, I daresay they would think Buckley was drunk or otherwise impaired.
Granted, Buckley didn’t hold political office (he made an unsuccessful run for mayor of New York in 1965). He was more an observer than a decider, which is pretty much the opposite of what you need to be to lead a nation. Obama, as much as his critics might hate to admit it, is more than a phlegmatic egghead. He’s proved he can act decisively; whatever his faults, he’s leading the nation far more effectively — albeit less colorfully — than Buckley would have led New York. (When asked what he’d do if he won the mayoral election, he famously responded, “Demand a recount.”)
Obama’s problem is not that he’s an intellectual (for the sake of argument let’s define it as someone who is scholarly, broadly informed and distinguished as a thinker). It’s that he sounds like an intellectual. Unlike other presumed political brainiacs — Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich, for example — he isn’t able to bury his ideas behind a folksy regional accent or good-old-boy affectations when he wants to. Nor is he effective at “keeping it real” when he falls into traditionally African American cadences that he clearly never used when he was growing up.
By speaking as though he hails from everywhere, he ends up being from nowhere. The result is that people look at him and see not a Hawaiian or a Chicagoan or even a black man, but a university man.
Of course, the president enables that stigma by stammering his way through town hall meetings and other public dialogues as though they were philosophy lectures. Irritating? Sure. But inarticulate? Sorry, folks, but you’ll have to find another adjective. And take your time. The right word is usually worth waiting for.

Okay. I understand. Obama sounds so stupid because he’s so damned BRILLIANT. And here, look. There’s a conservative out there who did the same thing.
Or not. I don’t recall William F. Buckley Jr. having moments like this one:
But that is a fact. And such things are hindrances to most of the mainstream media’s “narratives.”
I don’t recall Buckley telling us about the 57 states (with one left to go) he’s visited in those sophisticated tones of his:
Nor do I remember Buckley making a visit to Westminster Abbey and getting the date wrong by three years as Obama just got through doing:

I don’t remember Bush – who of course was a moron (just ask any liberal) doing anything this braindead either.
Nope. It’s brilliant, intellectual “university men” who ascend to such marvellous heights of intellect.
One fellow pointed out that “Bush could not pronounce Nuclear but he knew what it was (Iran, Obama).” And, of course, that stupid Bush was right, and those “brilliant” Democrats were all wrong.

THE NATION – Democrats rip Bush’s Iran policy – Presidential candidates say a new intelligence report shows that the administration has been talking too tough.
By Scott Martelle and Robin Abcarian
December 05, 2007
Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.
While the candidates differed somewhat over the level of threat Iran poses in the Mideast, most of them sought to liken the administration’s approach to Iran with its buildup to the war in Iraq.
“I vehemently disagree with the president that nothing’s changed and therefore nothing in American policy has to change,” said New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. “We do know that pressure on Iran does have an effect. I think that is an important lesson.”
Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the new intelligence report indicated that Iran dropped its program before international pressure came into play.
“It was like watching a rerun of his statements on Iraq five years earlier,” Biden said. “Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America. Iran should be dealt with directly, with the rest of the world at our side. But we’ve made it more difficult now, because who is going to trust us?”
The debate was aired without a studio audience over NPR, live from the Iowa State Historical Museum. It covered Iran, China and immigration, offering the contenders a chance to delve more deeply into subjects that often receive less detailed debate treatment.
Clinton and Biden were joined by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel.

But why should it matter that Bush was right, and we are now facing a disastrous crisis that it’s just a damn shame that liberals basically ENTIRELY created with their abject REFUSAL to deal with a crisis, and their DEMONIZATION of anyone who tried? Bush said “nuclear” funny, and that’s really all that matters if you’re properly sophisticated and, you know, professorial. Bush was stupid even though he was entirely correct and the liberals who attacked him (including the three top liberals of the Obama administration with VP Biden and Secretary of State Clinton) were entirely wrong.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’re right and how many times they’re wrong. Because they won’t acknowledge the truth and because the facts don’t really matter worth a damn to them.
There’s a concept in psychology called “accommodation and assimilation” that fits liberals in their steadfast refusal to follow the rules of normal learning. In normal psychology, one assimilates new information into one’s worldview and accommodates one’s worldview as new facts come in that run contrary to the picture one has of the world. Liberals don’t bother with that nonsense. Rather, they rigidly adhere to their doctrines and simply paste-over whatever reality happens to get in the way.
I think of Harold Camping and his followers. It didn’t matter than he falsely predicted the end of the world before in 1994. It didn’t matter that the Bible that he’s doing all his “calculations” from specifically says no man can know the day or the hour of such things. It doesn’t even matter that his prediction for the end of the world on May 21 turned out to be wrong. Such facts don’t work, so so much the worse for the facts. Now we’re assured that the world will end on October 21. Really. Better get ready.
Like Harold Camping and his followers, liberals are immune from any genuine learning. They simply lack the character to deal with reality in an honest way.
Obama is brilliant because he graduated from Harvard, but Bush is stupid even though he graduated from Yale. Previous Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry was brilliant because he graduated from Yale, even though Bush had also graduated from Yale and even though Bush actually had a better accumulated grade average (77 versus 76) than Kerry. Oh, and by the way, even though Bush also actually had a higher IQ than Kerry. But so what? Kerry had that arrogant Massachusett’s tone that just sounded so… so smart. And of course, Bush was stupid because he had a few gaffes; ergo sum Obama is brilliant whenever he’s off his teleprompter because his gaffes are supposedly somehow kind of similar to brilliant people’s.
Or Bush was evil because of Gitmo, and rendition, and the Patriot Act, and domestic eavesdropping, and indefinite detentions, and military tribunals, etc. etc.; ergo sum, when Obama goes back on his demagogic rhetoric and pursues all the same policies that he demonized when Bush did them, it is Obama magnificently adapting his foreign policy. Bush was evil for using enhanced interrogation and Obama was righteous to dismantle the CIA program that relied on such intelligence – even though Obama should get all the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and even though enhanced interrogation and the CIA program that Obama dismantled were absolutenly essential to getting Osama bin laden.
Or Bush was a poor leader because he wanted to raise the debt ceiling versus Obama showing his magnificent leadership in demanding that we raise the debt ceiling. Or Obama standing for the Constitution when he attacked George Bush for wars that he got congressional approval for, versus being the bold defender of human rights when he launches a third war in Libya without bothering to get congressional approval. Or Bush was a partisan hack and a failure as a leader because he divided the country, but the fact that Obama divided the country far more than Bush EVER DID after promising to “transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics” and “end the partisan and ideological wars “ is entirely due to conservatives. Because Democrats have a moral obligation to attack a Republican president, but Republicans have a moral obligation to bow down before a Democrat messiah. That sort of thing.
One has to wonder how their heads don’t just explode from containing all the contradictions. But it turns out that when you live in your own little world – and particularly when you get to control the media and shape the “narrative” for society to consume - irritating things like facts and contradictions just don’t really matter.

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

@Marshall

You wouldn't say a conservative was wrong no matter how factually errant s/he was. Palin could have said Alaska was surrounded by the country of China, and you'd agree. Likewise, she could have said Texas abutted the Canadian border and you would have agreed. Again, denying facts in the face of reality for the purpose of aligning yourself politically. It's a fool's errand.

The experts said she was correct. Didn't you read the first article?

Factually errant?........This coming from you Chuckie? Don't you remember when I said the US was the world's energy superpower and you vehemently disagreed....after I posted a report from the government saying the US was the world's energy superpower, you never said anything more about it.......

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by Karl Hungus

She's just a media prank. She gets out there and drives around on her bus and says really outrageous stupid things, and you know what, the "lame stream media" eats it up and follows her around to see what crazy antics she will get up to next. She is the heir apparent to the Rush Limbaugh legacy, but like Rush, not really cut out for the rigors and scrutiny of public life.

Outrageous stupid things? Like what? Supporting the US Constitution? Agreeing with the Founding Fathers? Do you disagree with the US Constitution and Founding Fathers?

I realize you liberals have Palin Derrangement Syndrome and you hate her. Of course, that's just an emotional reaction about how you feel, or how your liberal elites told you to feel.....


Intellectually speaking, what exactly is it about Palin's policy positions that you liberals disagree with?

[Sensia]

Originally Posted by MsElena

She can run all she wants, the GOP won't give it to her.

I'll move to Canada if she runs and wins though.

I might be right behind you! LMAO..

God I cannot stand Sarah Palin.. *shudders* at the thought of her being our president.

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by Doove

Sarah Palin isn't just an ignorant moron, but she's making her followers look like ignorant morons too.

No serious person here believes you are qualified to determine who is a moron and who isn't......

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by bigtex

Governor "Quitter" Palin is one of the few political figures in recent American history who can make George W. Bush appear to be somewhat intelligent!

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I'll bet you have no problem with Obama quitting the senate! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! He barely did a year in the senate before he stopped attending senate activities and went out campaigning.....he only got through half his term and quit.....

Palin is smarter and more qualified to be president than Obama.....did you like the articles I posted? Already the liberals know he failed and are trying to come up with excuses for his failures while trying to deflect criticism that he's too dumb to be president....

Are you jealous that Palin quit her governorship and used the time to raise her profile and make some huge money? HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! You liberals don't like it that she is now rich and in the elite class.....HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

Truth is, the white middle class loves Sarah Palin because they can tell she is one of them and says and does the things they believe in.....


BTW: Bush and Palin had better grades in college than Obama