Analysis of my recent analyses: Prediction of my prediction
After a reader recently pointed out that I was wrong about my prediction of a Hillary Clinton coronation back in December 13, 2006, I was to look back a little regarding my recent analyses.
Before reading or listening to the pundits, I concluded that John McCain won the first and second debates, while Sarah Palin effectively won her vice presidential debate against U.S. Sen. Joe Biden.
Before each debate, McCain had been slipping or losing in the polls, and after each event he gained a little. Palin's performance gave McCain a fighting chance to take a lead by bringing the ticket closer, by a few points, to the Obama/Biden ticket, as I predicted. Last night after viewing the debate, I immediately predicted that McCain would gain a point or two, and according to a recent Reuters/C-Span/Zogby daily tracking telephone poll from Oct. 5-7, 2008, McCain recovered about a point.
By deciding to think for oneself and to be right more than wrong, is encouraging; it is also a good test regarding one's political instincts. Try it sometime. Watch an event, and before talking to or listening to someone or the media, decide for yourself who won or lost, and why. You'd be encouraged, too!
My prediction back in December 13, 2006 (the same day that I was wrong about Obama not becoming the Democrat nominee), I predicted that if the Democrats win the White House and control the Congress, "With some tactical changes, all in all, little will change in Iraq during the next 12-18 months militarily . . . . With responsibility comes political moderation and electoral consideration."
Wait and see if I'm right that if Obama wins and the Democrats hold on to Congress, I'll bet you my old tennis balls, that my prediction will reflect reality. Let's see.
Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Oct 8, 2008
Paglia: Pro-Obama, pro-Palin
I was so impressed with segments of pro-feminist academic and cultural icon, Camille Paglia's comments defendng Sarah Palin that I decided to do a first, import a generous portion of her Salon.com article.
Nobody's dummy
Liberals underestimate Sarah Palin's vitality and -- yes -- smarts at their own peril. Plus: Obama's presidential air, Biden's condescending mugging, feminism's lost sisters.
By Camille Paglia
Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin's performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn't -- judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.
The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.
And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex -- I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry -- including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.
One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is "dumb." Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can't see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism -- the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.
As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a lover of poetry (my last book was about that), I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English -- beginning with Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when there were no grammar rules.
Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse -- which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.
The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey's witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin's cadences and charm, she can't capture the energy, which is a force of nature.
Paglia above exposes the vulnerability and consequence of feminism, and the positive effects of an authentic woman in Sarah Palin and a secure husband and loving father in Todd Palin, faithful spouses both. Breath of fresh air, is it not?
Nobody's dummy
Liberals underestimate Sarah Palin's vitality and -- yes -- smarts at their own peril. Plus: Obama's presidential air, Biden's condescending mugging, feminism's lost sisters.
By Camille Paglia
Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin's performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn't -- judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.
The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.
And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex -- I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry -- including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.
One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is "dumb." Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can't see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism -- the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.
As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a lover of poetry (my last book was about that), I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English -- beginning with Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when there were no grammar rules.
Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse -- which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.
The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey's witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin's cadences and charm, she can't capture the energy, which is a force of nature.
Paglia above exposes the vulnerability and consequence of feminism, and the positive effects of an authentic woman in Sarah Palin and a secure husband and loving father in Todd Palin, faithful spouses both. Breath of fresh air, is it not?
Oct 7, 2008
VP Debate: Palin the overcomer
2008 Vice Presidential Debate: Palin Ties Biden in substance , Palin wins in style, Palin overcomes
Again, before listening to the pundits, my view at 10:30pm EST, October 2, 2008:
As almost 100 hundred viewers looked on, both of the candidates were seen as stronger defenders of the top ticket while holding their own. U.S. Sen. Joe Biden was distinctly disciplined while Gov. Sarah Palin sufficiently competent and looked straight into the camera as well as her opponent
Palin v. Biden
Palin said of the Obama/Biden Iraq plan, “Your plan is a white flag of surrender” and used Biden’s previous words against Obama’s Iraq plan before switching his position supporting the plan when he became the vice presidential nominee. Biden posed with a big smile, then attacked U.S. Sen. McCain without answering the accusation.
Palin attack’s Biden
Palin continued to used Biden’s previous words and record against his ticket’s position without stumbling once. Palin quoted former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General Petraeus and Al-Quaida in relation to the central role of Iraq in the War on Terror.
Biden/Palin: no major blunders
Biden, though not as folksy, was equally firm and confident in his answers and views. He answered like a senior senator, no major blunders and faithfully protected and advanced Obama’s plans and rhetoric. Midway through the debate, Biden switched gears by attacking McCain by tying him to George Bush, mentioning that the McCain plan looks no different than Bush’s (saying Bush’s name five times in a row).
Biden did make minor mistakes by stumbling on the word characterization and calling Bosnians “Bosniacs.” Besides these minor items. Biden was forceful and articulate.
A mistake was also made by Palin. She referred to Gen. McClellan as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; David McKiernan is the top general. This misstep was inconsequential as Palin went on the offensive.
Palin on the offensive
Palin on the attack: Biden “voted for the [Iraq] war, then voted against it, like other Washington politicians “who voted for it before voting against it.” On the other hand, Palin propelled McCain as one who has fought and knows how to secure victory.
Prevention and cooperation not preemption is the changed that is needed in American foreign policy said Biden. Wry smiles and a wink was Palin’s response claiming to bringing Wasilla main street in the streets of Washington. “There you go again Joe, doggonit, it ain’t so,” saying that Biden going back to attacking George Bush.
Biden as an independent VP
Biden would play his VP role as an independent counselor and experienced advisor as Obama wants. For supporting McCain as president, Palin’s experience as an executive as a former mayor and governor, while being connected to the heartland of American as a mom, wife and middle class consumer would carry the people’s needs to Washington. She agrees with McCain that in terms of worldview, American is an exceptional country and a beacon on a hill as Ronald Reagan has often said.
Last word for Palin
Palin concluded, despite media attacks against her, “We’re going to fight for America. I thank God that I know the pains and joys of the American families. There is really only one person who have fought for you, John McCain.”
Biden’s blessing
Biden concluded with “guaranteed health” for the troops and that “dignity, respect and love for country equal success.” It’s time for American to get up again. May God bless all of you and may God protect our troops.
Palin overcomes
Palin was “forceful and confident” according to centrist Roll Call editor, Morton Kondrache. Although Biden did very well, the pounding against Palin in the media called for a low threshold of victory for her. So I agree with an undecided female from the Midwest Anheuser Busch plant interviewed by pollster Frank Luntz immediately after the Fox News broadcast of the debate, “It was hers to win or lose, and she won.” Palin overcame.
Again, before listening to the pundits, my view at 10:30pm EST, October 2, 2008:
As almost 100 hundred viewers looked on, both of the candidates were seen as stronger defenders of the top ticket while holding their own. U.S. Sen. Joe Biden was distinctly disciplined while Gov. Sarah Palin sufficiently competent and looked straight into the camera as well as her opponent
Palin v. Biden
Palin said of the Obama/Biden Iraq plan, “Your plan is a white flag of surrender” and used Biden’s previous words against Obama’s Iraq plan before switching his position supporting the plan when he became the vice presidential nominee. Biden posed with a big smile, then attacked U.S. Sen. McCain without answering the accusation.
Palin attack’s Biden
Palin continued to used Biden’s previous words and record against his ticket’s position without stumbling once. Palin quoted former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General Petraeus and Al-Quaida in relation to the central role of Iraq in the War on Terror.
Biden/Palin: no major blunders
Biden, though not as folksy, was equally firm and confident in his answers and views. He answered like a senior senator, no major blunders and faithfully protected and advanced Obama’s plans and rhetoric. Midway through the debate, Biden switched gears by attacking McCain by tying him to George Bush, mentioning that the McCain plan looks no different than Bush’s (saying Bush’s name five times in a row).
Biden did make minor mistakes by stumbling on the word characterization and calling Bosnians “Bosniacs.” Besides these minor items. Biden was forceful and articulate.
A mistake was also made by Palin. She referred to Gen. McClellan as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; David McKiernan is the top general. This misstep was inconsequential as Palin went on the offensive.
Palin on the offensive
Palin on the attack: Biden “voted for the [Iraq] war, then voted against it, like other Washington politicians “who voted for it before voting against it.” On the other hand, Palin propelled McCain as one who has fought and knows how to secure victory.
Prevention and cooperation not preemption is the changed that is needed in American foreign policy said Biden. Wry smiles and a wink was Palin’s response claiming to bringing Wasilla main street in the streets of Washington. “There you go again Joe, doggonit, it ain’t so,” saying that Biden going back to attacking George Bush.
Biden as an independent VP
Biden would play his VP role as an independent counselor and experienced advisor as Obama wants. For supporting McCain as president, Palin’s experience as an executive as a former mayor and governor, while being connected to the heartland of American as a mom, wife and middle class consumer would carry the people’s needs to Washington. She agrees with McCain that in terms of worldview, American is an exceptional country and a beacon on a hill as Ronald Reagan has often said.
Last word for Palin
Palin concluded, despite media attacks against her, “We’re going to fight for America. I thank God that I know the pains and joys of the American families. There is really only one person who have fought for you, John McCain.”
Biden’s blessing
Biden concluded with “guaranteed health” for the troops and that “dignity, respect and love for country equal success.” It’s time for American to get up again. May God bless all of you and may God protect our troops.
Palin overcomes
Palin was “forceful and confident” according to centrist Roll Call editor, Morton Kondrache. Although Biden did very well, the pounding against Palin in the media called for a low threshold of victory for her. So I agree with an undecided female from the Midwest Anheuser Busch plant interviewed by pollster Frank Luntz immediately after the Fox News broadcast of the debate, “It was hers to win or lose, and she won.” Palin overcame.
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