Derided by her critics as someone who comes from a town of fewer than 10,000 people, she went after Obama for his famous "bitter" comment about small-town residents, made at a San Francisco fundraiser.Who are these critics? Obama has been derided "by his critics" for being black, but I didn't know he was supposed to be having an argument with Stormfront. Come on. That is just fucking lazy.
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Basically, it seems fine these days to argue against what you wish your opponents were saying, as opposed to what taking the time to counter what they actually are saying. Weak-sauce. Get over it you say? Fine, we expect from party apparatchiks, but from actual journalists, come on:
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Who are these critics? Well, here's the statement that the Obama camp put out immediately after Palin was tabbed:
"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same," said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.
There have also been a ton of surrogates on TV harping on the size of Wasilla - and then there was this from the candidate himself:
COOPER: And, Senator Obama, my final question -- your -- some of your Republican critics have said you don't have the experience to handle a situation like this. They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience, as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state of Alaska.
What's your response?
OBAMA: Well, you know, my understanding is, is that Governor Palin's town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month.
Wow, Obama runs a big campaign! Really well! Putting him up there with George W. Bush and Richard Nixon. I mean, come off it already. There's no reason to think that good campaign management translates into being a good President.
Ta-Nehisi - This is the genius of the Palin pick. The McCain version of the four corners offense will be to throw straw man after straw man out there to be attacked until election day. If McCain-Palin debate Obama-Biden on the issues and the record of the past eight years, it's a loss for them.
We're six days into the nomination, less than 24hrs removed from her first major speech. They've already burned quite a bit of material. We'll see how this all holds up once people realize they only difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney is lipstick.
T-N C,
I think Asher just sonned you. As he points out, Obama's own peeps were being dismissive of Palin for being mayor of such a small town. And what Palin said about Obama's comments in San Francisco was fact as well.
One additional point about using Obama's well-run campaign as evidence of his executive mettle: when Bush ran a well-run campaign, everyone attributed its success to Karl Rove. Obama has his own Karl Rove -- his name is David Axelrod.
Here is the exact quote,"Derided by her critics as someone who comes from a town..."
Please show me an example of Obama criticizing Palin for coming from a small-town, not a quote of Obama criticizing Palin's experience leading a small town. Those two are not the same, and conflating them is the definitive strawman.
No. Asher is wrong. This is why the argument is a straw man.
No one is deriding being a small town mayor. There's nothing wrong with being a small town mayor. Barak Obama was not saying that being a small town mayor is a bad thing, or that small towns are bad things either.
He was saying that being a mayor of a small town does not qualify you to be vice president. Thats kind of a no-brainer. Running a small business does not qualify you to run Microsoft. Whether that's a smart line for Obama to take...well...it probably isn't.
But neither he, nor anyone else, has ever criticized her for being FROM a small town. Because that would be stupid.
In fairness, Fred, Obama walked back the statement once the press got to him - but like I said, he brought up the size of the town in that interview. Aside from my partisan bias, I don't really get the point of the argument. Isn't it your current job that should matter, not your first? Everybody starts out somewhere.
Seems like a picayune distinction to me, T-N C, especially when you connect the dots from Obama's previous derision of rural gun-toting, church-goers, but fair enough. I retract my declaration of sonning.
Asher writes: "Aside from my partisan bias, I don't really get the point of the argument. Isn't it your current job that should matter, not your first? Everybody starts out somewhere."
Her current job doesn't give her any foreign policy experience, either.
This is a woman who - in one of her first acts as mayor - tried to fire the town librarian because she (Palin) wanted some books banned. She's a provincial goober with a tiny little mind.
RE: Asher
Who brought up the fact that she was mayor of Wasilla as an example of her years of executive experience? Or the fact that she was on the Wasilla city council to show that she's been in an elected position longer than Barack Obama? You're right, your current job should be what matters. But the McCain folks are the ones who made Palin's experience as mayor of Wasilla a salient issue by claiming it as executive experience in response to criticism that she's unprepared. If they're going to bring it up, then the Obama campaign is perfectly within its rights to laugh then out of the room. Being in charge of a town of 7,000 people is irrelevant in preparing to be next in line to the most powerful position in the world. Either it matters or it doesn't, and the McCain campaign decided that it was relevant experience. As such, let the laughing ensue.
Not really. One attacks someone simply because of where they grew up. The other specifically attacks their professional experience. It isn't the same at all.
You attacking me for being from Baltimore, is not the same as you attacking Kurt Schmoke for having been the mayor of Baltimore. If we're saying those two things are synonymous, I'm not sure what else there is to talk about...
Furthermore,
In the post right below this one, you see Karl Rove attacking Tim Kaine's experience as the mayor of a small-town. It's almost the exact critique Obama levied at Palin. Are you telling me that Karl Rove was actually attacking Tim Kaine for being from a small-town? Seriously?
Okay, no foreign policy experience. Here's a list of some Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Presidential candidates - you tell me which ones had foreign policy experience going into office.
G.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
Michael Dukakis
Ronald Reagan
Jimmy Carter
Spiro Agnew
Adlai Stevenson (not only did he run for the Presidency twice without any foreign policy experience - the guy was Governor of Illinois - JFK then makes him our Ambassador to the U.N. - without any foreign policy experience!)
Franklin Roosevelt
Calvin Coolidge
Woodrow Wilson
Grover Cleveland (one-time Mayor of Buffalo)
and so on.
Anybody else here from a town under 10,000? Again, I'll ask the question. If so, can you see the mayor of your town becoming President of the United States in two years? Especially if the only experience that person is going to gain is a regional position overseeing a state with 2% of the budget of California? Experience still matters. The noise campaign, which assumes that simply saying Palin and Obama have comparable experience makes it true, will eventually break.
I guess Mr. Coates's point is that the WaPo sentence should have read, "Derided by her critics as the former mayor of a town of less than 10,000 . . . ." Fair enough, though it's more of a stylistic point than anything of substance. Palin's response would have been appropriate in all events, since making fun of people for their first job is not too different from making fun of their birthplace.
RE: Asher
Where was foreign policy experience mentioned? It's a matter of whether being a popular governor of the United States' only rentier economy for 18 months proper qualification for the vice-presidency. If it's not, do you respond by saying that being mayor of a town of 7,000 is experience enough? Because that's what the McCain campaign is doing. They could have stuck to the 18 months as governor, and that would've been fine. Instead, they go and bring up her mayoral experience. The head of a large university would have more executive experience (and responsibilities) stemming from his position than the mayor of a town of 7,000 people, yet it would be absurd to say, "Hey, he was the president of Clemson" in response to a criticism that a candidate lacked experience.
y81,
If by "stylistic" you mean it doesn't mean the same thing, then I agree with you. Like I said, listen to that Karl Rove clip and tell me that the only diff between what Rove said and deriding Tim Kaine as being from a small town, is "stylistic."
T-N C,
No, Rove wasn't attacking Kaine for being from a small town. But Rove also didn't deride small towners for 'clinging to their guns and their faith'. That was a criticism of being from a small town, wasn't it? Obama may not have said that about Palin specifically, but by the dog-whistle extrapolation standards Obama advocates are attempting to apply to, say, derision of community organizing, he might as well have. I guess it was that dog whistle I was reacting to.
Asher, here's the point you're missing with your list. As Andrew so pointedly demonstrated this week, nobody can seem to fine a single on the record comment of any substance from Palin regarding foreign policy. To use the example of Bill Clinton, he was a Rhodes Scholar who was a political veteran on a national scale going back twenty years prior to his nomination for President. Not all "lack of foreign policy experience" is created equal. Obama is on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and has helped to draft (contra Palin's claims) legislation on nuclear non-proliferation. He has shown that he possesses the necessary breadth of knowledge and stature to visit with foreign heads of state and not get blown out of the water. Do you not see the distinction?
I think TNC's point is solid in general, but this specific example does get a little slippery because of some sleight-of-hand in the WaPo article. As is noted in the TPM post, the Obama camp released a statement implying that being mayor of a small town doesn't necessarily count as big league experience. That is very different than "deriding her... as someone who comes from a small town," which implies that living in a small town is, in and of itself, mockable.
These are finer points of communication, so they tend to get chewed up and lost quickly in the back and forth. It's unfortunate and unhelpful when the loss in fidelity is intentional and opportunistic -- which, I believe, was TNC's point.
To my mind, President Bush is one of the master practitioners of the strawman fallacy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4757-2004May31.html
From Merriam-Webster:
deride
1 : to laugh at contemptuously 2 : to subject to usually bitter or contemptuous ridicule
Fred,
I'm debating WashPo's characterization of Obama's critique of Palin specifically. You may think--because of previous comments--that Obama does, indeed, look down on small towns. Frankly, I have no idea. But the point remains that Obama's actual critique and the paraphrasing made by WashPo aren't the same thing.
My only point is basically summed up by Rob:
"As is noted in the TPM post, the Obama camp released a statement implying that being mayor of a small town doesn't necessarily count as big league experience. That is very different than "deriding her... as someone who comes from a small town," which implies that living in a small town is, in and of itself, mockable."
TNC - That's a really weak basis for outrage - the Post was insufficiently clear that critics were deriding her experience in a small town, not her origin in one? The context, in which that paragraph follows directly from the prior one regarding her level of experience, makes it pretty clear that her experience and not her origins are the issue. Who exactly do you think bothered to read this article but would misunderstand what's being referred to?
This just feels like you're shoe-horning infelicitous phrasing into a broader critique of the GOP/press because you're fired up about more legitimate issues.
Oh and Whitey, the Obama press office description Asher noted came out immediately, before anyone else had a chance to raise the "experience" question, let alone for McCain to respond. Obama's team didn't just respond to something McCain-Palin made an issue themselves. And who cares? I don't think it was necessarily the smartest attack, but it's not like triviliazing the past experience of opposing candidates is either unusual or outrageous.
republicans have learned - through experience - that they can say whatever they want to say, and get away with it, no matter how untrue the statement.
its supposed to go like this.
interviewer asks question.
republican responds, saying whatever he/she wants to say, regardless of whether it is relevant or not.
and if a media person pushes back, then the response is bullying and intimidation.
that campbell brown/tucker bounds interview and the mccain campaign's reaction was a perfect illustration of what happens when the script doesn't play out the way they want it to come out.
The entire experience/inexperience issue is largely bullshit, unless you believe there is some magic formula to decide when an individual crosses the threshold of "experience", (you take the number of years in executive leadership positions plus number of bills sponsored and divide it by whether or not your a republican.)
The Palin pick doesn't prove or disprove whether Obama or Palin are "ready to lead" or some other similar nonsense, it only proves how little McCain actually cares or believes his own campaign's attacks on Obama. If he cared so much about this mythic "experience" factor he--a multiple cancer patient--wouldn't have chosen Palin. I'm not saying being mayor of a small town and gov of a small state means your unqualified to be president, I'm saying by McCain's own criteria "experience" must not matter that much when picking a leader, and guess what? He's right.
Palin is unfit to be anywhere near the White House not because of the amount of time she's spent in office or where she's from, but because of what she did when she was there, which we know includes attempting to ban books from public libraries, head up Ted Steven's PAC, use her office to get a personal enemy fired, and attempt to work in creationism, "abstinence" education, and similar drivel into public schools.
I look at Palin and see G.Dub, someone who is telegenic, likable and seems like "one of us" to your average voter, but like dubya is also authentically dim, shallow, and shockingly incurious about the world. Its her lack of intelligence not experience that makes her unqualified.
T-N C,
Fair enough. Your distinction is correct. I'm not a dog, so I have no business listening to dog whistles.
Obama is on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and has helped to draft (contra Palin's claims) legislation on nuclear non-proliferation. He has shown that he possesses the necessary breadth of knowledge and stature to visit with foreign heads of state and not get blown out of the water. Do you not see the distinction?
Where did I compare Palin and Obama? The proper comparison is between Palin and Clinton, Palin and Carter, Palin and Reagan... now yes, Clinton was brighter than Palin. Carter and Reagan, I'm not so sure about. As for the Sullivan "she's never talked about foreign affairs" argument, why would she have? It's probably the case that - until he began to run for President - Jimmy Carter never made any statements in the press about foreign policy either. These aren't matters that Governors get asked about, and politicians don't go around volunteering opinions about things that don't involve them. That said, I agree that she probably doesn't have opinions in this area; they'll be given to her, in the same way that McCain's education policy has been given to him without any real reflection on his part. Most policy is made this way.
tnc: Obviously the GOP is running one of its favorite plays - the "media hates us because it is a branch of the democratic party" play. Those who fall for it probably weren't going to vote for Obama anyway. Having said that, Biden has played Palin the best so far - good speech, she's qualified, but her ideas are all wrong. If Obama/Biden lose on that, then fine, so be it. But if Obama/Biden lose the way dems always lose presidential campaigns, if Lucy pulls the football away once again from Charlie Brown, then I'll be disappointed. Because the GOP is nothing if not predictable in their campaign strategy. "Have a beer with John and Sarah, they're one of you. Osama, er, Obama drinks wine and eats arugula, pay no attention to him."
Someone can bend over backwards rationalizing Palin's pick on the grounds of "experience" seven days a week and twice on Sundays, but ultimately you have to trust your first instinct (sorry, I just read "Blink" and its on the top of my head).
My instinctive response to the pick was "what?". I defy anyone to tell me that they felt differently.
I have to disagree Alex. The difference is important because of the implications for culture war. Stating that Obama's campaign minimized the value of her experience as mayor sounds perfectly reasonable. Stating that Obama derided her for being from a small town gets people worked up and makes Obama sound like a big-city east coast cosmopolitan elitist.
Asher - Well, then we pretty much agree on most points. Palin doesn't compare to that list. On the issue of Governors, you will actually find quite a bit from the current roster of Governors on a host of foreign policy issues. I agree that most policy is crafted by staff, but political head leads the way. I mean, Pete Wilson's people ran Arnold's campaign here in California, but Arnold couldn't be further from Wilson on a whole host of issues.
Blue Moon - re: the Charlie Brown campaign strategy...fool me twice...won't get fooled again.
Deleted.
amos,
I'm not saying the difference isn't important. I'm saying that few if any people reading this article in the Post will actually take it to mean that she was derided for being from a small town. And even if they did, it's pretty clearly because Dan Balz was slightly sloppy in his phrasing, not because he's making up strawmen like a party apparatchik.
As to making Obama sound bad, the article doesn't even identify him as one of her critics, even on the points where he plainly did criticize her. It doesn't even identify the critics as Democrats. All in all, not much to suggest the work of a GOP hack. Again, I think we'd all do well to calm down a touch - people on both sides seem to have gone on permanent Red Alert since the nomination, and that can't help but influence everyone to see outrages where there aren't any.
While I realize it's a point the Obama campaign can't go after, I think it is very, very relevant that Sarah Palin has only visited four countries if we're going to talk about her foreign policy experience. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't she only lived in Alaska and Idaho? Part of diplomacy is an ability to understand one's adversaries and allies and to understand where those individuals are coming from.
Amongst the various policy fields, foreign policy stands out for often being very much about people and understanding the psychologies involved. Sadat's Knesset speech is the perfect example of this, as he understood that he needed to make a show of peace to Israel's leaders and its citizens, a move that is widely heralded as a brilliant foreign policy maneuver. On the other hand, America's failures in Iraq can largely be attributed to a lack of understanding of the realities on the ground.
Now, I know that Barack Obama understands people who don't come from the same background he does. Coming from Hawaii, living in Indonesia, studying at Columbia, and ultimately ending up in the South Side of Chicago, he clearly has immersed himself in a variety of cultures that he did not necessarily belong to. While I'm not saying he has an innate understanding of the sentiments of the Iranian people, he has certainly demonstrated a clear understanding of the people behind the policy.
Now, Sarah Palin doesn't seem to have ever really left her element, as far as her biography shows. And she's supposed to learn foreign policy at the foot of the "master", John McCain. I'm not even going to address the problems with McCain's view of foreign policy right now, but if McCain were to die within his first year or two in office, having someone as unabashedly provincial as Sarah Palin in office is a frightening thought.
The MSM are not journalists they are wannabe celebs big time they don't care about the truth, they only care about looking good and keeping their foot out of their mouth. They couldn't find a follow-up question if it hit them in the face.
I think its smart that the Obama camp is just stepping to the side and letting the press have at her.
Morning Joe today was a joke, one big parade of oooo look at me sheep. Joe actually said I just saw the next president of the united states. God help us all.
More Rachel Maddow, Andrew Sullivan and TNC. Less out of work hacks and wanna be actors.
Ta-Nehisi,
By expanding your point, clarity will results. MOST ARE LAZY, MOST OF THE TIMES. I like Fallows as you but he wisely views things from China; he is thoughtful and seems to get better with age. Fallows does not live in the meme and narrative world as much of the news culture as well as the political culture.
Now McCain & Co. are playing the "culture wars" drill , the sexism drill, the family drill, the base drill etc. That has nothing to do with the issues of the day, but the MSM, bloggers, and so on will drive the narratives that gets more play eyes.
The bar for Palin was at or below ground level, her success with the speech is no surprise. It is not easy to describe a moose with lipstick!!!
Asher-
In terms of intelligence, come on! Jimmy Carter was the commander of a nuclear sub for the US Navy long before he was the Gov. of Georgia. Being the captain of a nuclear-powered sub requires intelligence that I think surpasses any of our current Presidential candidates.
And Wilson was the President of Princeton University, not too many under achieving students get that plum post.
In terms of foreign policy experience, FDR was secretary of the Navy, rather relevant in my opinion. But by the time you get to Grover Cleveland, you are getting pretty damn silly. The office of the Presidency of the United States was in its weakest posistion in its entire history between the end of Ulysses S. Grant's last day and Teddy Roosevelt's first day. Any of the office holders in between simply are not relevant to any substantive discussion of the presidency in modern times.
Of course, the big difference between all of the names you mentioned except for FDR and Agnew is that they all ran for President. Thus the people were given the chance to decide their merits long before Election Day. (Well, for all I know, Coolidge and Cleveland might have been chosen in conventions by political bosses but you get my point.) Palin was hand-picked from AK and place into the spotlight by one man, John McCain.
raindog,
jimmy carter never commanded a submarine.
adin
In my view, you counter Palin's "I was a mayor" with, "she was a lousy mayor":
She demonstrated the typical Republican policy which was to cut taxes and spend lots of money, leaving the city in debt to the tune of two thousand bucks for each of Wasilla's 9700 citizens. We need people who are going to solve problems in the White House, not people who are going to create more problems.
See, it stays on message, mentions the population, but reinforces our message, which is that Republicans, and in particular, THIS Republican, isn't capable of governing. They aren't being serious, or upfront about what they are going to do with the country.
She isn't derided for "coming from a small town". Good grief, what on earth could possibly be wrong with coming from a small town, didn't Bill Clinton always claim to be from Hope, Arkansas (debatable, I think, but the name sure worked)? The difference is that three years before being a candidate, Bill Clinton wasn't the mayor of Hope, Arkansas. She is derided for treating being the mayor of a town of whatever 4-digit number their population is, which is her next most recent accomplishment after the 2-year governor stint. Her experiences as mayor are being used to describe how she would run a country, i.e. she will fight for individual civil liberties because she resisted attempts to change last call. This is clearly crazytown.
But it's important to keep this in context, the context being that the area around Wasilla has 42 meth labs. I think that explains a lot.
We Won't Get Fooled Again!
The issue is that Palin has taken so much money from DC up to Alaska that it makes 'fiscal reform' from the ticket a source of laughter.
She had hired a Jack "I'm off to jail for 4 years" Abramoff protege to do the earmark porking.
She ran a 527 soft money fund for Ted "I'm indicted for corruption" Stevens.
McCain cannot back up the rhetoric with facts.
He can only whimsically recall the nostalgia of his yesteryear.