08 July 2009

Palin for President?

“You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions.”
- Noam Chomsky


72% of Republicans said they would support Sarah Palin for President in 2012. At the risk of pointing out what might seem to be obvious to some, let me just say why it would be a bad idea for Palin to be President.

Leadership suggests a capacity to predict consequences of an action. The complexity of the decisions you make is limited by your ability to predict consequences.

Listen to Sarah talk. Tell me this woman is responsible in this sense. Tell me she can predict consequences of any system that is at all complex when she can't articulate anything that is at all complex. Sarah very quickly gets lost in syntax and grammar. One can only imagine what happens in that head of hers when she is considering something like the economy or foreign policy.

7 comments:

Gunner Sykes said...

Well. sure. Here it goes. Sarah Palin can, indeed, predict consequences. She didn't become a governor by sheer chance.

No, Ms. Palin has the courage and integrity to look certain consequences in the eye and spit. In some people's eyes, that may disqualify her for the presidency,

She has my vote.

Oh, by the way, she is not inarticulate, She just doesn't use teleprompters and speaks from the heart, saying what she means.

I expect that may disqualify her as presidential timber in some people's eyes, too,

Personally, I'm tired of Harvard-educated stuffed shirts telling me what's best for me. I believe I can figure that out for myself. I believe Sarah Palin will count on Americans to do exactly that.

Bob Dylan was right. You really don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows. The Obama administration is shaping up as a gigantic failure.

It's not too late to become a Palin supporter. All you have to do is shed your pretensions and hobknob some with us little folk.

After you overcome your initial distaste, you'll find that we actually can think and even occasionally bathe.

Ron Davison said...

Gunner,
You're like the liberals who don't like the fact that the generals are willing and able to go to war. You confuse your wish for less government policy with Palin's apparent in ability to handle complex thoughts. Tired of Harvard educated guys who can think? Tired of military guys with guns? Well, we can wish for a world of peace and minimal government intervention but if should need someone able to fight or think we'll want someone other than the pacifists or Palin.
"Sure she's not all super sophisticated but she's one of us." We've already heard this sales pitch, Gunner. It'll be a long time before we're ready to sample that merchandise again.

Anonymous said...

Of course, Obama is great at articulating nothing!

Life Hiker said...

It just cracks me up that people who are unwilling to put up their own honest profile take shots at blog postings from fully-disclosed authors.

The old adage "consider the source" has lasting value. I've tried to evaluate these sources for credibility, but, unfortunately, there's nothing there.

Kinda like Sarah Palin.

And, incidentally, you can look me up, my friends.

Allen said...

Sarah Palin blew onto the political scene as a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a gust of wind and not a sustained blow. The GOP believed she could provide a much-needed spark to Senator McCain's campaign. And she did for a brief period in time. But then her perceived limited experience together with her multiple home-state issues brought to light sent her stock into a steady decline. She absolutely captured the hearts of many, many Americans. But a major problem for Palin was the legacy of GW Bush . . . a legacy that many Americans thought was too close in substance and style to Palin's.

I initially thought Palin was a serious threat to the Obama/Biden ticket. Key word is initially. It just seemed as time moved onward, the more we learned about Palin the more the concerns cropped up like crabgrass in an untreated lawn.

I believed there was a potential for Palin to start gaining experience and building for the future. Then she went and resigned from office, citing as one major reason she didn't want so much time and money being spent having to deal with probes and such into her actions. Doesn't she realize her leaving office doesn't necessarily stop the probes? I read the transcript of her speech and still don't understand how this might be a positive step for her *AND* the state of Alaska.

The book on Palin most certainly isn't closed. But the chapters we're reading right now make me wonder if the ending will be positive for her.

Eric said...

This debate won't probably go away anytime soon but for some reason I consider it fascinating. While I believe and acknolwedge Sarah Palin has strengths I do not believe they are the strengths needed to become president. Alot of what the President does requires a considerable understanding of business knowledge, law background and lets not forget an ability to speak to people. My opinion is that alot of people felt an emotional attachment to Sarah Palin and thus believed she was a worth candidate as vice president and potentially president. Selecting a leader of our country will no doubt involve an emotion reaction to a candidate but ultimately your vote should be to the most qualified. The US has become arrogant and forgot that we have a world economy in which we are losing our toehold. It's time we start respecting other countris and their cultures and find ways to work with them rather than against them.

Norman said...

Using Requisite Organization Theory, my assessment of Sarah Palin => Level 2. Given the complexity of the problems POTUS is responsible for, it seems to me that anything less than Level 6 falls short of what's required to manage this complexity.