you should go to matinees more often.

she may think she’ll answer the call, but no one’s home.

I’m reading the Anchorage Daily News again. And I read in my local paper that Joe the Plumber was in Austin on Friday for a wingnut “teabag” party (interestingly people were protesting government spending by having the rally in a public taxpayer supported park. Even better: some in the crowd were using the 4th of July and dressing up in red white and blue to bring back the whole Texas secession idea. What a bunch of idiots)

I blame John McCain for Sarah Palin and Joe the fucking Plumber. Thanks a lot asshole.

newvaluation, palin didn’t get “shoved into” anything. she leaped at the chance to show off her qualifications.

what caused the look on her face to change was that tens of millions of people failed to swoon for her.

matt, your recollection of the obama/plumber conversation is flawed. as you’ll recall, he wasn’t a plumber, didn’t make $250K a year, and would actually benefit from obama’s tax plan.

who looked bad in that scenario?

after that, mccain was responsible for promoting the fictitious joe-the-plumber character.

democrats who don’t like palin aren’t sexist: they’re smart.

“matt, your recollection of the obama/plumber conversation is flawed. ”

Actually, its not. Check out youtube. And he was a plumber, he was simply not licensed to do commercial work. And so far, Obama has not produced a tax plan, merely continued Bush’s. So the alleged “benefit” has not materialized. As to who looks bad between a Presidential candidate and your average blue collar worker when the Presidential candidate stumbles in response to simple questions? That’s pretty obvious.

However, if one actually believes that you can expand healthcare by only raising taxes on those making over $250,000 and meet all your other financial obligations as the baby boomers retire and hit SS and Medicare, well, perhaps you are also in the market for oceanfront property? Obama also said that if the stimulus were passed unemployment would not rise over 8% and he would oppose any tax on health benefits. So forgive me if I don’t put too much stock in politician’s promises. Joe the Plumber v. Obama is campaign stuff, this is reality.

“Matt, this would have been a golden opportunity to gain some credibility for your arguments.”

I make no argument about her fitness for VP here, nor would I think Democrats want to engage in a VP fitness test with Biden out there on the speaking circuit lately. I’m simply pointing out that Democrats can no longer trumpet their tolerance given the particularly personal attacks on Palin. In a lot of ways, they were remininiscent of those by Republicans on Hillary, which the Democrats so decried. I think women get treated pretty unfairly in politics in general, and what Palin did was make it clear that neither party had cornered the market on sexist personal attacks.

And from a literary standpoint, I love the Animal Farmish nature of many of the comments by Democrats here.

Matt,

I’m not commented to promote or defend Biden. I’m not commenting even to promote or defend Obama. I’m simply citing that if Hilary left her Senatorial position 2 years before her term was up, you would cite her as a quitter.

Where is the sexism entering into this? Is it Kirk “ashamed” to admit that she is appealing. You may not have typed it on this site, but you’ve implied it to me personally.

You’re no better than the rest of us.

To finish that last thought - for example, I don’t whine about Bush’s spending and the deficit, and then sit mute while Obama explodes it even more than Bush even thought of doing. I don’t whine about Bush’s ties to corporate America and then sit mute when Obama spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to save union and Wall Street cronies who made bad business decisions and should be reaping the consequences. I don’t whine about the surge in Iraq and then sit mute while we embark on yet another nation building project in Afghanistan. My outrage isn’t a factor of party affiliation. If something is bad policy, it’s bad policy whether Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid proposes it.

“Your Hillary analogy reminds me nothing of Palin’s obligations to the state of Alaska.”

Well, if she runs for President, then it will be relevant to me. Since I’m not Alaskan, I really don’t care that much.

“Again, my original point is that you’ve had an opportunity to denounce her actions.”

What do you want me to denounce? Why should I denounce because she doesn’t want to be governor of Alaska? Again, if she runs for President, that will be a very valid criticism. Right now she’s just someone who resigned from a job which affects me in no way whatsoever. If Hillary quit her job as US Senator for the state of NY, which does impact me a little since she’s a US Senator, I wouldn’t care either. I don’t know what I could endorse Palin for, since she’s not running for anything I can vote on.

” I can only continue to view what may be inciteful rhetoric as simply trolling the liberal blog.”

There was nothing terribly inciteful (perhaps you meant to type “insightful” because that would definitely be true) about my rhetoric, except that it disagrees with a position someone else has taken. It seems that liberals these days find any disagreement to be trolling, hate speech, inciteful, take your pick. Where is the tolerance for opposing viewpoints that they are constantly preaching? Where are the cries for open mindedness? Is their openmindedness only for those who agree with them? It would seem so.