Fair & Balanced Reporting : David Brooks Considers Sarah Palin Fatal Cancer of the Republican Party

Palin Represents ‘Fatal Cancer’ to GOP, Top Conservative Pundit Says

Wednesday, October 8, 2008 by AtlanticCanadianScot | Discussion: Internet

FrankenbarbieConservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who has expressed doubts about Sarah Palin's readiness to serve as vice president, said this week the Alaska governor represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party

From

(CNN) – Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who has expressed doubts about Sarah Palin’s readiness to serve as vice president, said this week the Alaska governor “represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party.”

Brooks praised Palin’s debate performance and called her a natural political talent, but told a New York audience Monday that “experience matters”: “Do I think she’s ready to be president or vice president? No, she’s not even close to that,” he said.

“…Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas,” he also said, in remarks first reported by the Huffington Post. “But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas, but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices."

 

Other prominent conservatives, including George Will and David Frum, have publicly questioned Palin's readiness to be vice president. Prominent conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, an early supporter, said late last month that recent interviews have shown the Alaska governor is "out of her league" and should leave the GOP presidential ticket for the good of the party.

Brooks himself has also written skeptically about Palin. "Sarah Palin has many virtues," he wrote in a recent column. "If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she'd be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

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Daiwa
Reply #281 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:15 PM

Night Train -

That is worthy of a thread of its own.

Island Dog
Reply #282 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:22 PM

ID, you've been blinded by too many commercials. McCain has surrounded himself with questionable people just as much if not more so than Obama.

What people blew up buildings and killed people inside the U.S. has McCain been hanging around with?  Better yet, did McCain launch his political career with one?  Well 0Bama did.

Obama was NOT raised a Muslim! he attended a public school while his family lived in Indonesia after his step-father moved them there for a year. public schools there teach Islam. that doesn't mean he was raised a Muslim.

Actually he was.  These are things that the media doesn't report, but it's well known and even his familiy acknowledges it.  Why is 0bama hiding his background?  Ayers, Rezko, Khalid Al-Mansour, etc.  The list goes on and on.


 

Draginol
Reply #283 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:23 PM

Excalpius

Your spin is most impressive.

Your blinders to the truth are even more so.

LOL. Yes, your personal interpretation defines universal truth.

Island Dog
Reply #284 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:24 PM

On the same token:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. stock market would fare better in the first year after a victory by Republican presidential candidate John McCain than by his Democratic rival Barack Obama, according to a majority of economists at U.S. banks and research groups polled by Reuters.

But the survey of 29 firms taken alongside a regular Reuters economic poll also found that economists had mixed views on the two candidates' economic plans.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "very good," 12 economists gave McCain's proposals higher marks, while nine rated the two candidates equally and eight preferred Obama's policies, according to the poll released on Wednesday.

 

Draginol
Reply #285 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:36 PM

Snidely Whiplash
ID, you've been blinded by too many commercials. McCain has surrounded himself with questionable people just as much if not more so than Obama. Don't fool yourself. there are quite a few shady people and dealings in McCain's past, too. the same can be said for you and me. we've all done something we aren';t proud of. I don't use the race card! If you want to vote for McCain, do so. I feel badly for you or anyone else who truly believes McCain is a man worthy of leading this country. He's proven his unworthiness with the completely shoddy methods of campaigning recently, his dishonesty about events in his life, and his pick of Palin. Hell, Palin still she she didn't do anything unethical in Alaska. Obviously, she can't read the report. I think the trooper should have been fired immediately for using the stun gun on his step-son. He's an ass for doing that. the fact is, she refuses to admit her wrong-doing.
.

You know, it really gets a bit old seeing the same bullshit over and over from some of you.

If people hold different political philosophies and opinions from you, it's not because they're necessarily ignorant or racist or stupid.  

Sometimes people can look at the same data and come to a different conclusion. A little respect for other people's intelligence can go a long way.

Nothing bugs me more than when people insist that their opinions are the same as facts.

As someone who wouldn't be caught dead voting for either Obama or McCain, I am just shocked at the patronizing and arrogance directed towards other individuals purely because their political philosophies are different.

I won't vote for McCain because I don't like his political positions. But I certainly think he's "worthy" of leading the country. Similarly, while I won't vote for Obama, I don't think he's some sort of terrorist. But I think there's plenty of legitimate concern that the man has surrounded himself by people (Ayers, Wright, etc.) who overtly hate our society as it is and whose motto is "change" without defining very explicitly what he hopes to change. It certainly makes me nervous.

But I think both people are decent people and that people support these men not out of ignorance but because they believe that these men represent the way they think the United States should be administered.

If you're for Obama, you probably are unhappy with Bush's foreign policy decisions, you believe that it isn't fair that some people make so much more money than other people, and think that the federal government should ensure a basic standard of living for its citizens.

If you're for McCain, you probably support, to a certain degree, Bush's foreign policy including the invasion of Iraq. You probably believe that it is not the government's business how much people make and that generally, the federal government should try not to be involved in people's daily lives.

I hold the latter position but won't support McCain because he doesn't really have a political ideology other than getting elected (Campaign Finance Reform, poor undertanding of economics, etc.). He might make a good secretary of defense but not a very good President.

But nothing pisses me off more than seeing people showing such naked intolerance for the opinions of other individuals. Thinking Obama would be a terrible President does not make someone ignorant or evil or stupid or racist. 

 

BigDogBigFeet
Reply #286 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:38 PM

Well gosh there ID and Daiwa you would think that the FBI would be compelled to arrest BO by now.  Wow, they must really be slacking, lax or bribed not to have arrested him by now.  Especially, since your word for it is so good.

Personally, since reality is irrelevant and ya just have to fling it, I heard McPhalin was part of a secret organization of Commi sympathisers who are planning on taking all the equity the government buys up with taxpayer IOUs from the bailout and gifting over to China and Russia.  It's all part of the secret right wing neo-cons socialism plot for America.

Island Dog
Reply #287 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1:10 PM

Well gosh there ID and Daiwa you would think that the FBI would be compelled to arrest BO by now.

I didn't say Obama was a terrorist, nor do I think he is.  However, there is no doubt this man has very questionable associations, that are being covered up by the media, and lied about by 0bama himself.  If you are not concerned with that, then once again, there is nothing else to say.

AtlanticCanadianScot
Reply #288 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1:12 PM

Whoa, you know the McCain camp is losing ground when even dyed-in-the-wool and dead in the eyes conservatives are jumping ship. First Bill Kristol abandoned his position as puppetmaster Sarah Palin supporter and told McCain to fire his entire campaign staff, Charlie Crist is much too busy going to Disneyland to help McCain's campaign in Florida and now snarly conservative/crazy man Dennis Hopper is even calling it for Obama:

“I voted for Bush, father and son, but this time I’ll vote for Obama,” Hopper said in Paris, which is also in the tank for Obama. “I pray God that Barack Obama is elected.”

You can almost see the Newsbuster headline right now: Easy Riding Drug Fiend Supports Liberal Candidate

Regardless, conservatives just lost a big supporter with Hopper. Now who will star in pro-American-themed films like American Carol and Swing Vote? If Obama manages to win over James Woods, there will be no Neo-cons left in Hollywood besides Andrew Breitbart. Then the Jewish bankers will have won

BigDogBigFeet
Reply #289 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1:29 PM

The fact is 0Bama has surrounded himself with terrorists, and many other questionable people.

If he's surrounded himself with terrorists as you put it aren't you trying to compel people to believe he's also terrorist?

starkers
Reply #290 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 1:45 PM

Christ, you are deluded.

I effing hope so.... it'll be the only way I'll get thu this without losing my sanity and end up counting the beads on grandma's rosary as I sit in the corner of my padded cell for some intellectual discussions with the lunatic I call my psychiatrist.

Yup, I suppose you could pick up a 200 page book on Barack Obama and end up reading 300... er, read more into it than there really was, but at the end of the day it'll have the same pages it was published with.

In other words, Barck Obama may have said that he admired/respected certain individuals for various reasons, but no matter how little he may have said regarding them, whether or not he had a close personal relationship with somebody with a skeleton or two in the closet, McCain/Palin followers will make a mountain out of a molehill and have him committing acts of terrorism and/or treason to further their cause.

What total bollocks!  McCain is trailing in the polls and 99.99% of it is sour grapes.  McCain is a senile doddering old fool who has lost his grip ages ago, and Palin comes across as a bigoted redneck with a pitbull mentality... and that's exactly what you'd get if you vote for that ticket.  McCain is not likely to finish a 4 year term, given his age, health and rapidly losing the plot... I mean, what was he thinking, getting Palin to ride on his ticket... cos she is the last person on Earth any sane person would want as their president. Nope, she should do herself and everybody else a favour, go back to Alaska and sell moose burgers and yellow snow slushies.

I have no trouble admitting that I didn't like the woman at first sight (on TV with the sound turned down)... just her facial expressions and body language told me that she was beffudled and in over her head... not to mention slimy with her own skeletal remains back home in the closet... and then I turned up the volume.  What I heard was apprehension, evasiveness and confusion throughout the interview... and not something I'd want in somebody who may just be a heartbeat away from the Commander in Chief of my country.

And do I think Sarah Palin is a racist?  You bet yer sweet bippy I do.  I heard one of her racist diatribes, thinly veiled as patriotism, and I was disgusted at the crap she was spewing forth about Barack Obama to appease an equally ignorant and racist audience that was thriving on her every (racist) world

If there's anything I hate more than a lying politician, it's a racist lying politician... especially a narrow minded bigot who has eff all idea what she's talking about...re blacks and Islam, etc.  My first wife was/is black (Australian Palm Island Aborigine) and I have a white son and black daughter with her, both of whom are great kids that I love equally, so I am very intolerant of racism and religious bigotry, being she (my first wife) was brought up a non-Christian and taught my kids in the Aboriginal way about God, which as their mother was her right, and didn't bother me cos my kids learned some valuable lessons and grew up to be decent people and good parents themselves.

Anyhow, I'm out of here... gotta wind down for a wedding on Satuday (my mother is remarrying, aged 75) and I want to clear my mind of all this political heavy stuff to better enjoy/celebrate the day with her.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #291 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:09 PM

I suppose people have to justify themselves backing a poor candidate and that's why we see so much back and forth BS. I side with Frogboy in that I will not be voting for either because I don't believe in voting against someone. Looks like I'll be voting Walken!

MadDeez
Reply #292 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:09 PM

ayres may not be apologetic for what he did but obama has never said he agreed with the beliefs of ayres. my ex-wife's second husband is a three-time convicted child molester. does that make her guilty by association? no, it doesn't. she honestly didn't know. his family and friends never told her about it. when she found out, she divorced him. obama has denounced the actions of ayres. get over it, people! i don't agree with the beliefs of many people posting here but still consider tham as friends. does that make me a republican? hell, i'm not a democrat, either.

 

ok, i'm done. take care, folks.  

 

Daiwa
Reply #293 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:33 PM

she honestly did know

As to Ayers, he did know.

Daiwa
Reply #294 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:36 PM

Christ, you are deluded.

I effing hope so.... it'll be the only way I'll get thu this without losing my sanity and end up counting the beads on grandma's rosary as I sit in the corner of my padded cell for some intellectual discussions with the lunatic I call my psychiatrist.

OK, Starkers, I'll leave you alone for awhile, 'till you can heal a bit, even if you're still pretending Ayers was 'just a guy who lived on BO's street'.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #295 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:39 PM

I just came across an excellent article... remember we are all friends.

Idealists once looked at this presidential campaign, between two candidates who fancy themselves as free of conventional party ties, and thought it might produce the election that finally pulls Washington out of the deep rut of partisan divisiveness it fell into in the 1990s.

Today, three weeks before Election Day, it sure doesn't look that way.

If it were Election Day today, who do you think would win?

A McCain supporter wearing a shirt with the images of both presidential candidates at a rally in Davenport, Iowa, on Saturday.

Instead, partisan animosity is growing rather than waning. Democrats charge, essentially, that the McCain campaign is engaging in character assassination against their candidate, Barack Obama. The Republican National Committee says it is spending $2 million to beef up security at campaign offices because of acts of vandalism and "violent intimidation tactics" by Obama supporters. Campaign rallies are turning ugly; charges of racism are starting to appear.

Pollster Peter Hart has found some startling new evidence of high tensions. In surveying voters over the weekend, Mr. Hart found that more than a third of each candidate's supporters say they have grown to "detest" either John McCain or Sen. Obama so deeply that they would have a hard time accepting the one they don't support as president.

"How do you knit a nation back together with this kind of animosity?" asks Mr. Hart, who co-directs the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Some of the tension now being seen is, of course, natural in the final days of an important and hard-fought campaign. Still, the atmosphere is a far cry from what once seemed possible, perhaps even likely, this year.

At the outset of Campaign 2008, part of the appeal of Sens. Obama and McCain was that they presented themselves as unconventional presidential contenders who could break out of the partisan patterns that have come to grip Washington.

Sen. Obama portrayed himself explicitly as a "postpartisan" candidate not trapped in the baby boomer right-left debate that sometimes seemed to consume a Congress led by Republican Newt Gingrich and a White House led by President Bill Clinton.

Sen. McCain was the now-fabled "maverick" whose biggest congressional achievements included legislation molded in partnership with liberal Sens. Ted Kennedy and Russell Feingold. His best friend on the campaign appeared to be a Democrat, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

So what happened?

 

Read the rest...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122393387064230201.html?ic

NightTrainthedark
Reply #296 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:41 PM
AtlanticCanadianScot
Reply #297 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:21 PM

Fox's Respected "Citizen Journalist

Fox's Respected "Citizen Journalist" Respected Only in the Jew-Hating Community


Martin (Photo: The Smoking Gun)

Yesterday, we were formally introduced to Andy Martin, the anti-Semitic "prodigious filer of lawsuits" who was the first man on record to incorrectly claim that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Now the Smoking Gun has gotten its hands on a fundraising letter Martin penned while making an unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat in Connecticut back in 1986. Martin is actually crazier-sounding than you'd think!

 

"Lest you think that the Jew threat is remote, or exists only in the Middle East, I can assure you that Jews are lurking in every city, or every street, in Connecticut, hoping to steal your home, your job," he intones, before railing against "blood-sucking Jew doctors," "Jew lawyers," "Jew corporate raiders," "Jew babies," and the "so-called Holocaust" (which he claims was really just a way to kill guilty "Jew spies.")

None of this, of course, was brought up on October 5 by Fox New's Sean Hannity, when he introduced Martin as an "Internet journalist" and allowed him to declare without proof that Obama was once "in training for radical overthrow of the government." Nor did Hannity bring up the fact that Martin is currently a wanted man in New York and Florida on outstanding warrants for harassment and a criminal contempt conviction. In the five smiley mug shots the Smoking Gun has posted, it's hard to see how his charm didn't come through on election day!

AtlanticCanadianScot
Reply #298 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:24 PM

Those Crazy Konservatives....

National Review Ousts Buckley's Son For Saying Nice Things About Black Guy

 

  • Last week conservative scion Christopher Buckley made a bit of a splash when he announced his intention to vote for Barack Obama. Buckley, who writes a column for National Review—a magazine founded by his late father—expected a bit of flak from that publication's rabid readers. Flak indeed there was. And now he's been exiled from the kingdom:

     

    Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR's editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.
    It's unfortunate that partisan feelings run so high these days that even a principled decision which contravenes the party line results in this kind of ostracism, but there's a bit of irony in that National Review has spent so many years fueling that hyper-partisanship in the first place. There's also a bit of irony in the speed with which Buckley's gentlemanly offer was accepted: Guy finally tries to do one decent thing and it bites him in the ass. Let that be a lesson to you.
  • Daiwa
    Reply #299 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:43 PM

    Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR's editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

    Very verbose way of implying something without stating it.  He offered his resignation and when it was accepted the headline is he was ousted?

    Guy finally tries to do one decent thing and it bites him in the ass.

    As in John McCain coming to BO's defense at his campaign rallies?

    Daiwa
    Reply #300 Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:44 PM

    I really like how Seansky uses character assassination to criticize character assassination.

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