Re: Palin – I thought it Might be This
Read some of the comments from other, not anonymous McCain staffers here.
Those who are complaining about the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as President-Elect Obama’s chief of staff should chill out. I can’t think of any expression but “abysmally stupid” for the idea that this would be a bipartisan position. It’s a position for a loyalist with an arsenal.
A roundup at the Moderate Christian Blogroll blog.
Laura at Pursuing Holiness notes one and presents a course of action. I think bloggers often move past fair use, but news outlets and going way too far the other way.
Via FiveThirtyEight.com’s Significant Digits, which I read religiously and daily, I discovered the Timeline of the Far Future on Wikipedia. I am particularly concerned that in 600 million years C3 photosynthesis will become impossible.
The nature of a free press is not that it is always right, always responsible, or required to print what any person or group wants, but that it is free. It can challenge authority and it can be challenged.
Dave Warnock says emphatically NO!
I’ve been somewhat dismayed at this brouhaha.
I think Palin was a disaster, and appeared way out of her depth. But on the other hand, some of the recent reports have been over the top. Most specifically, I never considered the “Africa is a country” slur to be at all plausible. The basis for this was only ever third hand innuendo, with no record of context or names for who inferred that Palin was unaware Africa was a continent, or why.
A whole pile of folks who should have known much better jumped on this story at once, apparently willing to believe the worst on the basis of nothing. It was shameful; especially from people who would generally like to think of themselves as part of the “reality based community”… folks who like to think of themselves as rationalists and people who follow evidence and reason. But in a couple of cases that went out the window.
An alternative picture on whether Palin thought Africa was a continent or not is given at ABC news, by Palin staffer Meg Stapleton. Read it here: Palin Aide Fires Back at Reported McCain Camp Slams.
But “she knows it’s a continent,” Stapleton said. “It was just a human mistake, just like Obama saying 57 states. I don’t think anyone ever doubted that Obama knows there are 50 states.”
One can reasonably say we have a “he said, she said” situation. But the onus is most definitely on the anonymous sources who give no detail; and in the absence of better documentation, Stapleton’s story on this is far more credible.
The failure of some allegedly pro-rational bloggers to handle this with more common sense and reason is very disappointing.