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Go Home I Guess Some Men Can't Handle A Gal With A Little Experience

THE PLANK OCTOBER 31, 2008

I Guess Some Men Can't Handle A Gal With A Little Experience

BY MICHELLE COTTLE

 Reading through ABC's "The Note," I ran across McCain's response to concerns expressed by Bush 41 Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger about Governor Palin's readiness to assume the presidency in the event of a crisis:

Responds McCain, on "GMA": "Larry has never had a chance to meet Sarah." Then
this head-scratcher: "She's got more experience than Sen. Biden and Sen. Obama
put together." 

I'm sorry, I know McCain wants to stand up for his runningmate, but what the hell is he thinking? Worry if you like about Obama's oft-debated greenness, but Democrats spent much of the primary season joking that if presidential races were decided on experience alone, Joe Biden (or maybe Chris Dodd) would have captured the nomination without breaking a sweat.

The only thing I can figure out is that, ever since picking Palin, Team McCain has been desperately redefining "experience" to mean only executive experience, in the hopes that Palin's two years as governor will somehow trump all. But this overly narrow definition has long struck me as not only ridiculous but utterly self-defeating when you consider that McCain himself has less executive experience than the manager of your local Walmart.

There are, I'm sure, many wonderful things to say about Sarah Palin. For instance, never have I seen a GOP candidate so excite the party's male punditocracy--nor prompt quite so many posters at campaign rallies about what real men really like in their women. (Guns and lipstick? Wow! Who knew?) But no matter how McCain tries to slice and dice definitions, his VP pick is absolutely unprepared to step into a president's shoes. 

McCain made his bed, and he deserves not one inch of slack for his decision. Not to carry the metaphor to an unseemly place, but there were other, more experienced gals he could have asked to climb into that bed with him. Instead, he opted to take a risk on the saucy, smilely, winky, obscenely unprepared one. Clearly, not even he can quite come to terms with that reality. 

--Michelle Cottle

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24 comments

TOP TEN WAYS IN WHICH THE PALIN HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN BIDEN AND OBAMA PUT TOGETHER

=========================================================================================

10. Neither Obama nor Biden has ever uttered the immortal words, "Do it, Todd, give it to me, DRILL BABY DRILL!"

9. ...

- icarusr

October 31, 2008 at 12:20pm

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Paying off the citizenry with buckets of oil money.

- cspencef

October 31, 2008 at 1:06pm

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9. Paying off the citizenry with buckets of oil money.

- cspencef

October 31, 2008 at 1:07pm

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8) Better at seeing the world in all its complexities, and being able to engage all possibilities with hypotheticals such as "how can I ban books," and "why won't you let me ban books" and "ban the goshdarn book, you miserable liberal bitch!"

- boneill

October 31, 2008 at 1:43pm

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7) how many times has biden been on SNL?

- perkowitz

October 31, 2008 at 2:40pm

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7) Has exercised more financial decision-making in one shopping trip to Neiman Marcus than Obama and Biden ever have.

- mundye

October 31, 2008 at 2:53pm

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6) Governed Alaska by BlackBerry, hence technologically more versed

- ironyroad

October 31, 2008 at 3:06pm

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TOP TEN WAYS IN WHICH THE PALIN HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN BIDEN AND OBAMA PUT TOGETHER

=========================================================================================

10. Neither Obama nor Biden has ever uttered the immortal words, "Do it, Todd, give it to me, DRILL BABY DRILL!"

9. Paying off the citizenry with buckets of oil money.

8. Better at seeing the world in all its complexities, and being able to engage all possibilities with hypotheticals such as "how can I ban books," and "why won't you let me ban books" and "ban the goshdarn book, you miserable liberal bitch!"

7. How many times has biden been on SNL?

6. Has exercised more financial decision-making in one shopping trip to Neiman Marcus than Obama and Biden ever have.

5. Governed Alaska by BlackBerry, hence technologically more versed.

- icarusr

October 31, 2008 at 4:37pm

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Did McCain mean more parenting experience?  Alaskans paid for her kids to take junkets with her and she has almost as many offspring as Obama and Biden combined, so it would probably be true.

- stgla

October 31, 2008 at 4:53pm

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4. has attended more colleges than both obama and biden put together. and in less time too!

- perkowitz

October 31, 2008 at 7:31pm

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3.  Palin has two X chromosomes while Biden and Obama have only two X chromosomes when put together. "Heck of a job, Pali"

- Nusholtz

November 1, 2008 at 4:46am

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Can I get a raising of the hands here? Has anyone noticed the pathetic little pregnant teenage daughter of Palin's standing onstage behind her mother at her rallies, usually holding a hand scrawled sign, and with that vacant and forlorn look on her face? She looks as though she'd rather be anywhere in the world than where she is, thnking "mommy, why can't I just go HOME?" But she knows she has to go home and bear a child she is obviously too young to cope with (she looks more like she's truning 15, not 18) and be forced to marry a young punk like Levi. By the way, if somebody as rougish as Levi had walked up my driveway to take my daughter out on a date he'd have been met by buckshot!

- frilz1

November 1, 2008 at 7:13am

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Something tells me that  after the election there will be no PR reason for the marriage to take place. Levi will then rebel and it will be a case of "Bada bing bada boom, I'm tru wit chu."

- lesserliz

November 1, 2008 at 8:55am

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2. Has stonewalled more ethics investigations than Obama and Biden combinaed

- krlong014

November 1, 2008 at 2:20pm

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Frilzl

   My wife complains that Gov. Palin always gives the baby to her daughter to hold, which seems to be true, although they showed a clip last night on halloween where this is the first time we have seen him holding the baby.  Has anybody kept track?

- Nusholtz

November 1, 2008 at 4:10pm

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Nusholtz, I always assume Bristol was holding the baby to hide her own pregnancy, though it's not so important now that it's out.

- satyendra

November 1, 2008 at 8:09pm

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1. Palin, unlike Obama & Biden, has decades of experience as a Pentecostal wingnut.

- JosephCuomo

November 1, 2008 at 8:55pm

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satyendra

I had another suspicion but it would be rude to state it here.

- Nusholtz

November 2, 2008 at 9:32am

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1.  Palin's spent more time on Canadian radio.

- guptatomic1

November 2, 2008 at 10:17am

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Please stop whatever you are doing & listen to this link!

www.youtube.com/watch

- frilz1

November 2, 2008 at 3:04pm

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JosephCuomo makes a good point.  It can be taken one step further:  Palin has had the witches of her soul exorcised, while Obama and Biden are clearly still possessed.

- Lyn39

November 2, 2008 at 3:34pm

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Lyn39-

Watch these two youtube videos of Palin at her Pentecostal church:

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

These  two videos are parts one & two of Sarah Palin speaking at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in June of this year. Palin was a member of this Pentecostal church (Assemblies of God is the world's largest Pentecostal denomination) from the time she was baptized in her teens until 2002, when she began to seek state-wide office. She remained a member there for decades before switching to the independent evangelical Wasilla Bible Church (a non-Pentecostal, though biblical literalist, church) in 2002. She has also apparently worshipped at Wasilla's Church on the Rock, an independent Pentecostal church, as well as Juneau Christian Center, another Assemblies of God church. When she was sworn in as governor, the invocation was given by Pat Riley, her pastor for many years at Wasilla Assembly of God. Sarah P, as governor, then had the street in front of that church renamed Riley Avenue.  

When Palin spoke at Wasilla Assembly of God in June of this year, she spoke in the language of that faith: referring to her oldest son, Track, an Army private, who was about to be sent to Iraq, Palin asked. . . .for prayer 'that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God.'

"That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for--that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan,' she said.

SP also uses Pentecostal language (in the first video) when speaking about her support for a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline originating in Alaska's North Slope. Palin says: "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built. So pray for that." (Note the presumption implicit in this statement: that one can literally know what cannot be known, ie, God's will, especially with regard to a gas pipeline.)

What strikes me here is that SP seems not only sincere in her use of such language, but clearly at ease with the beliefs she is espousing and apparently takes for granted (that God's will can be known, and applied to political action).

You might also note that at one point Palin quotes a particular line from the bible (at about six minutes in), and asks God that those assembled before her--"spiritual warriors" (Masters Commission students) who are apparently now going out into the world to preach--be visited with "the spirit of revelation, also including that spirit of prophesy--THAT GOD'S GOING TO TELL YOU WHAT'S GOING ON, AND WHAT IS GOING TO GO ON." [emphasis added]

This is direct evidence that Palin believes what many Pentecostals believe: they presume to know what cannot be known. They presume to know God's will. They presume to know the future. Which is profoundly irrational, and profoundly dangerous.  

Part two (the second video above) begins by replaying a segment from part one, and doesn't launch into new material until about four minutes in, but it's also worth watching, especially for what the current pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God says (at about 5:20) as Palin stands beside him: "I believe Alaska is ONE OF THE REFUGE STATES--come on you guys--IN THE LAST DAYS, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to this state and the church has to be ready to minister to them." [emphasis added]

This is clearly a reference to Pentecostal, post-Trib eschatology, in that he believes that Alaska will serve as a sanctuary for believers during the horrors of the coming Tribulation, and the last days of human history. (Post-Tribs like Pat Robertson, unlike Pre-Tribs such as the late Jerry Falwell, believe that Christians will live through a seven-year period of unprecedented horror and worldwide catastrophe, the Tribulation. Many survivalists, for instance, are post-Trib. Pre-Tribs believe they will be raptured into heaven before the Tribulation begins.)

Another moment worth noting (at about seven minutes in): Palin's former pastor, Pastor Riley (the one who delivered the invocation at her inauguration as governor, and the one for whom she had the street in front of this church named), breaks down in tears when thanking the lord for working his will through those assembled, and through SP in particular (ie, by making her governor), and asking that God's "touch will be upon us."

One last thing: watching these two videos has gone a long way toward convincing me that the GOP candidate for VP is indeed a true-believing Pentecostal, who, via supposed divine intervention, presumes to know what cannot be known ("what is going to go on"), and accepts the fundamental core beliefs of the Assemblies of God church.

- JosephCuomo

November 2, 2008 at 3:55pm

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Lyn39-

One other thing about Sarah Palin's relgious beliefs.

There is a distinct difference between Pentecostals or Charismatics (like Pat Robertson and Sarah Palin) on the one hand, and Fundamentalists (like the late Jerry Falwell) on the other. And while the styles of these two groups do differ significantly, I would suggest that the differences  derive, in large part, from narrow, but significant differences in their interpretations of theology.  

Both Pentecostals and Fundamentalists are dispensationalists, a form of millenarianism, or "premillennialism" (founded in 1830 by John Nelson Darby), which divides human history into distinct periods (or dispensations). We are, in the dispensationalist view, about to enter the end times, quite literally the end of the world, which will be preceded by a period of seven years of unprecedented horror, known as the Tribulation.

Within this dispensationalist belief system, there are two particulaly glaring differences between Pentecostals and Fundamentalists, one of which is that the former are usually post-Trib, and the latter usually pre-Trib. While pre-Tribs believe that they will be raptured out of this world (into heaven) before the Tribulation, Pentecostals (again, like Robertson) believe that they are going to have to live through the imminent (prophesied) seven years of horror, and so must prepare themselves (spiritually, but also quite literally) for a massive, prolonged, worldwide holocaust (ie, the confluence of vast, all-out warfare, famine, plague, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and more) lasting for seven long years (after which they will be raptured into heaven). Many survivalists, for instance, are post-Trib, and that is apparently what drives them to dig bunkers in their backyards, and to stockpile canned goods and gasmasks and weapons.

(The post-Trib belief system is also the rationale behind Palin's pastor, in the video to which I link above, proclaiming that Alaska is "one of the refuge states. . .in the last days." The belief is that when the Tribulation comes, true Christians will flee the lower 48 to flock to Alaska for safety from the oncoming holocaust.)

The other significant difference between Pentecostals and Fundamentalists is that the latter do not believe in extra-biblical miracles, and Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians do. These are people who believe in faith healing, the laying on of hands, the intervention of prayer (to move the path of a hurricane, for instance), speaking in tongues, and (among the wackiest of the wacky) snake handling. (It may also be the case that the Pentecostal belief in extra-biblical miracles derives from a need to know that God has armed them in this way, in order to be able to confront the imminent terrors of the Tribulation.)

It always seemed to me that Fundamentalists (again, like Falwell) were actually embarrassed by the biblical excesses of Pentecostals.

Which means that even among the wingnuts of the Christian Right, Sarah Palin belongs to the more extreme, the more irrational, wing of the wingnuts.

And there's video to prove it, such as those I link to above, but also this one:

www.youtube.com/watch

In this youtube video, Sara Palin stands on the altar while three others lay their hands upon her, one of whom (at about 1:45) prays that "every form of witchcraft" be ridden from the GOP VP nominee.

- JosephCuomo

November 2, 2008 at 3:57pm

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Can anyone contradict what JosephCuomo has to say?  Very impressive.  I am always worried about a politician who believes they are carrying out God's will, because I am thinking to myself, "What about us, what about our will?"

- Nusholtz

November 2, 2008 at 8:23pm

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