I came away from the Vice Presidential debate with one conclusion - Sarah Palin, as EJ Dionne of the Washington Post writes, is "profoundly uninformed." She did not have the ability to answer the tough questions - when she was in over her head she spoke about Alaska and Joe Six-Pack.
I have, after seeing the vice presidential debate, been at a loss of words to describe Sarah Palin’s performance. I think for the most part my inability to either write or verbally express what I am thinking is caused by an overwhelming feeling that Sarah Palin performed unbelievably bad -she was profoundly uninformed, profoundly ignorant on key issues, and profoundly disappointing.
This morning, I woke up and read many reviews of Sarah Palin's performance. I could not believe my eyes and ears - many experts gave Sarah Palin good reviews saying she did no harm, and that she exceeded expectations. I thought to myself, were our expectations so low that we would come away thinking that Sarah Palin held her own? Did anyone else see that every time Sarah Palin wanted to avoid an answer that she would talk about Joe Six-Pack, talk about being a hockey mom, and talk about Alaska? I was, to be frank, profoundly disturbed that my view of Sarah Palin was greatly different from those reporting on the debate.
I began to think to myself that maybe I am just seeing it wrong, maybe Sarah Palin is profoundly informed, maybe she did a great job helping her candidate, John McCain, and maybe she did no harm. I then came across an opinion piece by EJ Dionne of the Washington Post. I sighed a breath of relief, I was glad someone else was able to see through the canned remarks, I was glad that someone else could see, as Mr. Dionne puts it, that Gov. Sarah Palin was “profoundly uninformed.”
EJ Dionne writes, "When Palin described John McCain's health-care plan, she talked about his offer of a $5,000 tax credit so families could buy insurance. She failed to mention that McCain would pay for the credit by taxing existing insurance benefits. Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden - politely - pounced on her omission, warning that McCain's plan could lead millions to lose their insurance coverage. Palin didn't come back to defend her running mate.
Nor did she come back when Biden challenged her false claims about how many times Barack Obama had voted for tax increases. Palin just plowed forward, piling one attack on top of another, with leavening references to "Joe Six-Pack" and "hockey moms."
Oh, yes, she did correct Biden on one thing. When he said the Republican energy slogan is "drill, drill, drill," she quickly reminded him that "the chant is drill, baby, drill." Thanks for clearing that up.
Palin came off as profoundly uninformed, as someone who had given little thought to the issues that will matter.
EJ Dionne is right on target. Palin is profoundly uninformed; she gave no thought to any question proposed to her. It is obvious that Palin had been given canned answers, and that she was told to repeat those answers over and over. It is even more obvious that when Palin could not talk about issues such as Iraq or the economy, she was programmed to talk about being a hockey mom, the governor of Alaska, being a mayor and being a maverick. Sarah Palin's performance, particularly on substance, shows she is ill prepared on the issues, and demonstrates a profound ignorance of the role she would play as Vice President.
I am profoundly disturbed that Sarah Palin could be elected to an office placing her in a position to be President of the United States.
The pundits say all of us will forget about Joe Biden and Sarah Palin’s debate, because neither did any harm. However, I believe voters should not forget Sarah Palin because she showed that she is profoundly naïve and profoundly unprepared to lead.
In closing I must say I am profoundly disturbed that Sarah Palin is on the Republican ticket for Vice President.
I am even more profoundly disturbed that she may be Vice President.
Stuart James
* * *
Gov. Palin is running as a VP and not as President. She is profoundly intelligent, profoundly a fighter, and will pick up on everything she profoundly needs to know in a profoundly short time. Face it, she is just as profoundly informed as Govs. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were to be President. Carter was profoundly a flop and Reagan was profoundly a winner, but who is profoundly counting?
As for the Obama tax cuts on the upper class (making $250,000 or more per annum), this profoundly encompasses only about 1.5% of Americans. That will not profoundly help anything. Taxes will profoundly get raised on the rest of us. The Bush tax cuts are due to expire soon and that will profoundly be part of the Obama strategy of profoundly continued liberal taxation and spending (if Americans vote him into office due to profoundly relentless attacks and smears by profoundly left wing liberal media nuts on conservatives).
Jack Varner
Hixson
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Yes, Mr. James, but when you're as cute as Sarah Palin is, who cares?
I bet she sells iceboxes to Eskimos on the side.
David Saluk
* * *
I seldom agree with everything Mr. James says, but this time he is entirely correct. Mrs. Palin exhibited only “canned” responses to questions during the debate showing to all her lack of knowledge and substance. She is without doubt unqualified to assume the high office she has been cynically positioned to run for.
This wretched candidate is an embarrassment to the Republican Party. Each time Mrs.Palin speaks she demonstrates her lack of the knowledge, refinement, education and judgment needed for this high office. The party placing and directing her campaign demonstrates its lack of judgment by presenting her candidacy. She is not a candidate of any substance or talent whatsoever. However big-eyed attractive she may be, she is nothing more than a trained directed Barbie Doll. The highest activity she can aspire to is that of cheerleader. Her candidacy is a desperate effort via smoke and mirrors to capture votes by appealing to a low denominator perhaps her entertainment value. Let her go on the American Idol television show, not run for office where she is a breath away from the presidency of the greatest country on earth.
Presenting Mrs. Palin as a candidate for the vice presidency is a sad day for the Republican Party. To run such a candidate is an insult to the electorate and illustrates the evaporation of discerning leadership within the Republican Party. One could feel sorry for Mrs. Palin and the pitifulness of her candidacy, but any possibility however remote Mrs. Palin might assume the office of president of the United States is a nightmare vision.
Ed Lindberg
Chattanooga
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I feel so sorry for those who feel Sarah Palin has no experience.
I find it refreshing to hear someone speak about and to Joe Six-pack and Alaska. This proves that Sarah Palin is truly an outsider and not a programed slave to the Washington System and the money of the Lobbyists. I am personally sick of hearing the speeches and rhetoric spewed by all of the professional politicians that are supposed to represent me, Mr. Joe Six-pack.
What I find profoundly disturbing is I am supposedly represented by multi-millionaires like Biden, Corker, and the list goes on and on. America is no longer represented by the majority, it is the wealthy who control our country. Both the Democrat and Republican Presidential nominees have no idea of the plight of the common man in this country. Our only hope is in Sarah Palin.
Dwayne Cales
Hixson
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Again Mr. James has profoundly missed with his attempt to toss a profoundly stinky bomb in the punch bowl.
Just exactly who is more profoundly affected by government action and government's profound ineptitude than "Joe Sixpack" or those "Hockey (and Socker) Moms?"
Even a profoundly casual observer could detect that Sen. Biden was for gay marriage before he was against it the other evening, and that he kept referring to change. What change? He's been up in DC since Nixon was elected. What change has he stood for and what profound change has he effected, exactly? None, at least none that has profoundly affected "Joe Sixpack" in any manner but to inhibit his ability to be all that he can be ... to stand in the way of his ability to excel ... to take away his hard earned money at the point of a government gun.
Anyone with an IQ that's 2 points higher than that of a carrot could see there was no debate on Thursday. That was nothing more than a question and answer session with a "moderator" who has a vested interest in one of the candidates winning this election. If her guy loses, her book has no value. The "debate" was stifled, and profoundly so, as she cut from one question to another as soon as each candidate made a statement, with no opportunity to rebut the other. That's no debate.
I am profoundly weary of all these attempts to denigrate this vice presidential candidate and the profound attempts to attack her with minutiae. She's a babe. So? She's also very married and they've obviously gone through the same troubles as "Joe Sixpack," Joe and Jane Schmuckatelli, and those Hockey/Socker Moms out here who go to work for a living so they can pay for the salaries and benefits of government. She's obviously intelligent and a quick study of the issues, issues which some apparently find it difficult to comprehend even after years of occupying a seat in Congress. She may wear her hair in an old-timey style, but it's her hair and she can wear it any way she wants with no affect upon her intellect. It's obvious she ain't skeered of a microphone or camera, and except for that way up north accent she's quite well spoken in front of either. It's obvious their family has had some problems, just as every American family has, but her children are well behaved and seem to be happy.
Her husband doesn't look comfortable in a tie, and it was a bit crooked, but that's a good thing, too. He doesn't strike me as a Blasé Bob red tie guy so someone obviously chose his attire for the evening, but that's something that probably should be expected too.
She has a sense of humor. I can't help but believe her comment about "Obama and O'Biden" wasn't necessarily a slip of the tongue. She doesn't seem to be prone to such things. But she also knows how to connect with her audience and how little things like a wink can assist in doing so.
Sen. Biden is a lawyer, but he has trouble understanding what's written in our US Constitution. Sen. Obama is purported to be a Constitutional scholar and to have taught Constitutional Law, but he too has difficulty with this wonderful document.
The profoundness and profundity of these profoundly shallow attacks upon this candidate is profound. How about some issues?
How about some discussion of why these men who've been in DC for so many years but have failed to effect any substantial change during all of those years? How about some discussion about why these men have failed to reduce the size of government during their tenure? How about some discussion about how these men have done nothing more than further mortgage the futures of my children and grandchildren, and want to do more if they're elected?
I need a Marlboro, and another cup of coffee.
Royce E. Burrage Jr.
Royce@OfficiallyChapped.org
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Mr. James, who would serve America better; someone who is a bit uninformed, not Washington D.C. but who is honest, moral and a quick study; or a profound liar such as Biden and or Obama?
Yes, even an uniformed schmuck as myself caught several Biden lies; i.e. on taxes, Obama saying (video on U Tube) that he would sit down with dictators the first year in office, and at least a dozen more.
Sean Hannity is partisan, like you. But he enumerated more than a dozen lies, not mis-statements that O'Biden made. If Biden is as intelligent as the biased media says, why did he insinuate that he was "...forced down..in Afghanistan...) by the enemy, when it was snow?
McCain also is an idiot. He wants Cumo Jr. to take care of some federal money when he should probably be indicted. McCain wants Al Gore in his Cabinet. Human Events (Aug. 18, page 15) has a full page article on how Mr. Gore cashes in financially on this made up man-made global warming. The climate is changing, but very little is caused my the United State any more.
Of all four who are on the ticket, Sarah Palin is probably most fit to lead the free world. She is the only one with executive experience. She has been vetted by how many lawyers in Alaska trying to dig up dirt on her? Was it 30 or 36 that the left wing Democrats sent up to her own state only to find that most people there love and trust her.
Your party, the National Democrats, stand for two things consistently, abortion on demand at government expense (I believe that it is in the Democrat National Platform) and higher taxes on the small business person such as myself and my clients.
Please remember that it is Obama who said our military was and is killing innocent civilians in the middle east. Thank God for Nexis/Lexis.
Carnell Storie
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Let me preface this by saying in no way do I believe that Sarah Palin has performed well in most of her big moments on the national stage. Save for her rousing nomination speech at the Republican convention, her other spotlight moments have been somewhat of a train wreck that have become fodder for the media and late night television.
However, I believe on Thursday night anyone with a truly open mind or unbiased opinion would at least say that she performed well and by all means is a not the uninformed candidate that tripped onto the national stage as MSNBC would like you to think.
Do I believe that Sarah Palin is ready to be President? No. But if I am being fair, then there is not a way that I could say that Barack Obama is ready either.
Daniel Dreaden
Brentwood, Tn.
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I am profoundly confused. I thought the whole purpose of the debate between Biden and Palin was for 'me' to watch and to decide what my opinions and thoughts are regarding the two Vice-President candidates. I must be profoundly wrong since someone is trying to tell me what I saw and what I heard. I must now profoundly re-think the purpose of watching debates.
I should now just check with my profoundly informed fellow bloggers and just check my constitutional rights at the opinion poll. This will be so profoundly easier, I won't have to think anymore. Uh, 'profoundly not'. I don't care what your opinion is. It is like rear-end, we all have one. One of my opinions is that Biden speaks out of both sides of his mouth.
When asked about the possibility of a Obama-Biden White House, and Biden becoming President due to the demise of Obama, Biden said he would continue to promote the Obama's plans for running the country. How dumb. At that point Biden would be President and he should put his stamp on his presidency.
And wasn't it just a year ago Biden was telling everyone that would listen, that Obama wasn't fit to serve as President but that he, Joe Biden, should be the one that should be elected. Wow, how things profoundly change but stay the same.
Johnny White
Ringgold
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I think Sarah Palin has had a profound effect on unifying the Republican Party and attracting others. Unfortunately for McCain either serendipity or providence has not been on his side with all of the economic woes, so it might not be enough to have a great VP choice.
Neither John McCain nor Obama has articulated a clear way out of this mess and since this has all happened under a Republican presidency, it favors Obama. Obama, if he does not screw up his lead could just win, and if this is the case in profound trouble does not begin to describe the situation in which our country will find itself.
Racie Miller