Why do they seek to reward incompetence?

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I've asked this before but I've never gotten a satisfactory answer. Why do conservatives actively seek to elect idiots and incompetents? They seem to bask in their ability to choose the worst people possible.

Why haven't John McCain and that boob Sarah Palin be laughed completely out of the election? And Bush, still with 27%; it's incomprehensible.

Quote:

Keith's final Campaign Comment imagines an alternative, parallel reality where Barack Obama made the verbal gaffes that McCain has made and poses the question, would Obama be considered a realistic candidate for the office? And if not, why should anyone consider McCain a realistic candidate?

We all know exactly what would be happening tonight if Senator Obama had made all those mistakes, contradictions, gaffes, Freudian slips, and hypocritical pronouncements. He would have long since ceased to be taken seriously by any measurable part of the voting public, as a viable, responsible, self-aware, mentally vigorous, non-dangerous, non-risk. We'd all be going home to our beds well before midnight tomorrow night.

But while all that is hypothetical, this is not: This cascade of incompetence and irresponsibility I have enumerated tonight -- all the sound bites, all the foot-in-mouth moments, all the no-brainers-gone-wrong - all these, John McCain has said. No hyperbole and no hypotheses are required.

This is who John McCain has showed us he is.

Transcripts below the fold:

I ask you to imagine an alternative universe where the candidates are the same, but what each has said and done, has been reversed.

What would be happening tonight if Senator Obama had stumbled, over everything from arcane details, to sweeping policies of the utmost importance, and not just once or twice, but endlessly?

What if Senator Obama couldn't tell Iran from Iraq?

Iraq from Afghanistan?

Sunni from Shi'a?

Somalia from Sudan?

What if Senator Obama had gotten up before a crowd and started off by saying "You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator McCain's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately."

And who finished by saying…

VIDEO OF BARACK OBAMA: I COULD NOT AGREE MORE. I COULD NOT DISAGREE WITH HIM MORE. BUT I COULD NOT AGREE MORE WITH THE EXPLANATION SENATOR MCCAIN OFFERED A FEW WEEKS AGO.

What would we be asking ourselves about his capabilities, if it had been Senator Obama who had identified General David Petraeus as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

And Vladimir Putin as the President of Germany?

And Spain as a country in Latin America?

What if it had been Senator Obama who not only used his POW experience at every turn, but wrote of giving to his captors, not the names of his fellow servicemen, but of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers football team - only to, when he spoke in Western Pennsylvania, change the story so that he gave to his captors, the names of the offensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team?

What if it had been Senator Obama who, out of nowhere, had blurted out an inexplicable, perhaps Freudian, slip, while intending to say "My Fellow Americans"?

VIDEO OF BARACK OBAMA:TO CHAIRMAN DEAN AND THE SENIOR SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS DICK DURBIN, AND TO MY FELLOW PRISONERS I ACCEPT YOUR NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

And what would be happening tonight in the minds of tens of millions of voters if it had been Senator Obama who had his people negotiate, behind the scenes and off the record, to force favorable coverage of his campaign at three television networks?

Or if it had been Senator Obama repeatedly mocking a research study on the DNA of bears… until he was suddenly reminded he had voted for it?

Or if Senator Obama had an advisor who claimed that Senator Obama's work on a sub-committee had led to the invention of the blackberry?

Or if Senator Obama had tried to get one of the presidential debates postponed or cancelled… and threatened to boycott another one, the Town Hall, because he didn't like the network the moderator worked for, all the while complaining that the other guy wouldn't debate him or agree to ten… Town Halls.

What would be happening tonight in the souls of a nation, if after all that, at the first debate, it had been Senator Obama who would not as much as look at Senator McCain, and then finally addressed him, at the second one, in a weird and cryptic manner?

VIDEO OF BARACK OBAMA: IF WE COULD HAVE INTERVENED IN THE HOLOCAUST, WHO AMONG US WOULD SAY THAT WE HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION NOT TO GO IN? THAT ONE.

What would a country heading into the most important vote in its modern history be thinking tonight, if it had been Senator Obama who viewed a collapsing economy and insisted that if in office, he would fire the head of the SEC (even though a president cannot) - and then the next day tried to correct himself by calling on the head of the FEC to resign?

What if it had been Senator Obama who, on September 24th, had quote "suspended" his campaign so he could focus only on the "cratering" economy… just nine days after having insisted that there was little wrong?

VIDEO OF BARACK OBAMA: THE TRUTH IS, THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ECONOMY ARE STRONG. WE ARE JUST SUFFERING FROM A MENTAL RECESSION, YOU NATION OF WHINERS.

Where would America's collective head be tonight, if it had been, in the middle of a campaign in part focused on elitism and celebrity and personal wealth, Senator Obama who couldn't remember - or wouldn't admit - how many houses he owned?

VIDEO: HOW MANY HOUSES DO YOU HAVE? BARACK OBAMA UH, YOU KNOW I THINK THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION TO ADDRESS TO MY STAFF...AH AH AH, I MEAN, YOU'D HAVE TO ASK MY STAFF.

What if Senator Obama had deflected all serious questions about the troubled finances of a worried nation, by virtually concocting a preposterous every-man, a fictional character, a plumber without a license, a small businessman who owned no business, an average Joe who had a lawyer, a book agent, a publicist, and maybe a recording contract?

VIDEO OF BARACK OBAMA: I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THE NEXT THREE WEEKS DEVOTED TO TALKING ABOUT JOE THE PLUMBER WHO IS AN AMERICAN HERO

JOHN MCCAIN: NO, HE'S NOT

BARACK OBAMA: YES,HE IS.

What would the national psyche be like tonight if it had been Senator Obama who had sung a mocking song about "bombing Iran"?

What would be happening if Senator Obama had accepted the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, or Pastor Rod Parsley, or had a running mate who attributed their big break in politics to the laying on of hands by a minister who began his career in -- Kenya -- by slandering a woman as a "witch" and hounding her out of her home?

What would we be thinking if it had been Senator Obama who, at a critical moment, exaggerated a public claim about the "suspension" of his campaign, and lied to a national television figure about it?

And what if it had been Senator Obama who had been somehow nominated by his party, months and months ago, even though it had been he who had not reproached the use of the rankest of sexist terms - in public - about Senator Hillary Clinton?

VIDEO OF BARACK OBAMA:LET'S GO TO THIS LADY HERE. LADY: HOW DO WE BEAT THE BITCH ? THAT'S WHY I HAVE THAT STICK!

We all know exactly what would be happening tonight if Senator Obama had made all those mistakes, contradictions, gaffes, Freudian slips, and hypocritical pronouncements.

He would have long since ceased to be taken seriously by any measurable part of the voting public, as a viable, responsible, self-aware, mentally vigorous, non-dangerous, non-risk.

We'd all be going home to our beds well before midnight tomorrow night.

But while all that is hypothetical, this is not:

This cascade of incompetence and irresponsibility I have enumerated tonight -- all the sound bites, all the foot-in-mouth moments, all the no-brainers-gone-wrong - all these, John McCain has said.

No hyperbole and no hypotheses are required.

This... is who John McCain has showed us... he is.

http://crooksandliars.com/node/23866

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Another fine example. But it's not only incompetence that repubs/conservatives seek to reward, they want to develop lying into high art.

The USA has been going thru a long period where truth has been given short shrift. The likes of Karl Rove, the devil incarnate of Lee Atwater has led the assault.

Where are all those lying neocons now?

Quote:

Thinking About Bill

Nora Ephron

As I listened to Sarah Palin's recent phone call with "Nicolas Sarkozy," I couldn't help thinking about Bill Kristol.

I think about Bill Kristol far too much. I almost never used to. Before he began writing his Monday column in the New York Times, I rarely saw him on television. Whenever I did, I was mostly mesmerized by his uncanny resemblance to Bob Woodward (whom he no longer resembles) and his incredibly self-satisfied, smug, smirky demeanor. It was my theory that his need to please the Republican White House -- a need that seemed to trump his alleged intellect and even the factual evidence on hand -- must stem from some unresolved issues with his father, the famous Irving Kristol, one of the first neo-conservatives. But I didn't dwell on it, because I saw so little of him. And in any case, I truly couldn't stand him. I just couldn't stand him.

I don't enjoy being in this position. I much prefer to be perversely fond of people others find problematic. I am crazy about Pat Buchanan, for example, and I have fantasies of following him around for a day in order to find out what it's like to never ever be off the air. I am utterly entranced by Keith Olbermann, and I watch his show in much the same way others go to hockey games. Don't get me started on Chris Matthews: I am practically in love with the guy. But it seemed impossible to find a way to like Bill: he was just too irritating.

And then, unaccountably, amazingly, astonishingly, he was hired by the New York Times to write a once-a-week column. You cannot imagine the thrill of horror that passed through New York on hearing the news. The Times already had a conservative columnist (of whom I was already perversely fond), and one conservative columnist was quite enough, thank you. Then Kristol's column began. I read it religiously every Monday. And slowly but surely, I became infatuated with him. How could I not? The man could not write his way out of a paper bag. His column was simply awful. Reading it was like watching someone dance on the head of a pin: his need to prove to his base that he hadn't gone over to the other side was so strong, his need to please his constituency was so moving, that I began to wish he would quit his job as editor of the Weekly Standard and become a Times columnist full-time. It was certainly not going to inconvenience him: the column couldn't have been taking him more than about twenty minutes to write. And it was great having him there, visible, so people like me could see what people like him were like. He was wrong about everything. It was such a comfort.

In recent months, I have thought about Bill more and more. Every time someone turned over a rock, he crawled out from under it. In Jane Mayer's recent New Yorker piece on Sarah Palin, for instance, he turned out to be the man who'd discovered Palin, during a cruise of Alaska, and brought the news of her potential stardom back to the New World. And of course he was one of the reasons why we'd gone to war in Iraq. Iraq. Sarah Palin. The man was uncanny. Last week I watched him on Jon Stewart, insisting that McCain might yet pull an upset. "It's not a psychodrama," he said. "It's only an election."

People like me sometimes wonder what it would be like to be involved in mistakes that end up killing people; we wonder about sleepless nights and remorse and guilt. Bill Kristol exists to remind us that these are pathetic liberal fantasies, and that some people are never sorry. Only last week I saw Kristol on television continuing to defend Sarah Palin: she was a bright woman, he was saying, who'd simply been mismanaged by the McCain campaign.

Which brings me back to Sarah Palin's radio phone call with the Canadian comedian who pranked her into thinking he was Nicolas Sarkozy. As I listened to it, increasingly horrified, I couldn't help thinking about Bill Kristol and hoping that somehow, he would have to spend eternity locked in a room listening to a continuous tape of it.

There are rumors that the New York Times is not going to renew his contract. I just pray they're not true.

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Why do they seek to reward incompetence?

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