DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: BT on February 12, 2010, 03:06:24 AM
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The Sarah Palin Non-Scandal of the Day: Deployed Bracelet Edition
BY Mary Katharine Ham
February 10, 2010 7:38 PM
First off, let me say that moms with children deployed can wear pretty much whatever they want with their kids' names on it, and it's just fine by me. If Sarah Palin wants to wear a Track Palin sandwich board, she can have at it, and I'll tell her it looks great on her.
As it is, Sarah Palin is being a bit more traditional, wearing a metal, engraved bracelet with her son's name on it, and boy, is the Left angry about it. No, really.This week, the bracelet got a bit of attention thanks to the other Sarah Palin non-scandal of the week. When the former governor of Alaska gave a speech at the Tea Party convention Saturday, she did it with notes scribbled on her palm, giving the supporters of President TelePrompter apoplexy and causing them to produce copious close-ups of Sarah Palin's left hand.
It was in one of those close-ups that Eric Robinson, writing in the Yale Daily News, stumbled on Palin's alleged big blunder. Robinson, an Afghanistan and Iraq vet, pegged Palin's bracelet as a black, memorial bracelet, reserved for soldiers killed in action:
What has me troubled is a black bracelet firmly clasped around her left wrist.
I hadn?t noticed it until I watched MSNBC?s ?Hardball? on Tuesday, but it is a memorial bracelet; something familiar to veterans who have lost friends and family in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wear one commemorating a friend of mine who died in Baghdad in October of 2006, and I know many other veterans ? and some still in the armed forces ? who wear these bracelets as a reminder of the sacrifices their friends made on behalf of the units in which they served and the country they swore to protect.
The liberal blogosphere predictably jumped all over the allegation, working themselves into the incredibly high dudgeon that can only be achieved with a potent combination of kind bud and insufferable college-dorm moral superiority.
The problem is, it looks like it's not a black bracelet at all. The owner of HeroBracelets.org wrote a post on his site bragging about Sarah Palin wearing the "Deployment Bracelet" he gave her, which is bronze, not black. Looking at the close-up of Palin's hand from the Tea Party convention, it seems entirely plausible that her bracelet is indeed a dark bronze or copper, which was mistaken for black in the light.
Sarah Palin's braceletSarah Palin's bracelet
You can also see in other pictures of her, including her Newsweek cover, that the bracelet she's wearing looks bronze, not black.
A commenter who says he is Chris Greta, founder of HeroBracelets.org, left a comment similar to the HeroBracelets.org blog post on Robinson's column at Yale Daily News, detailing how he gave a "Deployment Bracelet" to both Palin and Joe Biden when he heard their children were deploying:
We sent her those bracelets during the last election. When we learned that her son, Track and Senator Biden's son were both being deployed overseas, we sent them both Deployed HeroBracelets with their son's names...
So she isn't out of line for wearing the Deployed HeroBracelet. There are ten's of thousands of families around the country wearing them right now. On the HeroBracelets web site, we've got hundreds of letters from families, many vowing to not take the bracelet off till their loved one comes home.
Chris Greta
Director HeroBracelets.org
www.herobracelets.org (http://www.herobracelets.org)
The blog, Legal Insurrection also noted that some vendors do offer black deployment bracelets, which this comment section at GoArmyParents.com shows the parents of the deployed recommending to one another.
Crooks & Liars, to its credit, has updated its anti-Palin rant in light of new information, with this hilarious Emily Litella moment:
Crooks & Liars: "As a mother, I am flabbergasted by the symbolism of this on many levels. I understand wanting to keep something close to me to remind me of my son as he risks his life on the battlefield--a button with his picture, maybe one with the crest of his specific branch of the military or even the ubiquitous yellow ribbon. Remember how Jim Webb wore his active duty son's combat boots while campaigning? But to wear a bracelet that someone had to order that would clearly indicate it's a memorial bracelet for your child that's alive? Horrifying."
UPDATE: Looks like the original writer and I should have fact checked more closely.
A correction or retraction has yet to appear on Robinson's piece, nor have the following three outlets added an update:
Daily Kos: "This blatant disregard for the norms of military families, and one of the most recognizable symbols of grief, while completely unsurprising, needs to be highlighted."
Huffington Post also gets in on the act.
Democratic Underground: "She is deranged."
It is times like this that I find the drive to tear down Sarah Palin so astonishing. The palm-writing story was dumb enough, but if you're going to take Palin on, there is perhaps no ground less advantageous than the service of her son and her genuine love for him. Yet many on the Left are truly convinced, to an embarrassing degree, that she's wearing a black memorial bracelet for her living son in a warzone out of some sort of ignorant, malicious opportunism. Which is supposed to gain her...what exactly?
Maybe she was just rarin' for yet another opportunity to reveal her political adversaries' overwrought, often pathetic obsession with her? Mission accomplished, then.
http://weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/sarah-palin-non-scandal-day-deployed-bracelet-edition?page=2 (http://weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/sarah-palin-non-scandal-day-deployed-bracelet-edition?page=2)
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"my point is that his(her) work seems to have come in for way more than its fair share of criticism, and particularly for a torrent of MSM abuse. The question that has to has to be asked is why? Why this torrent of abuse, nit-picking criticism and universal denunciation in the MSM?"
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They always fear what they don't understand.
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Seems like everybody is "getting" Palin now.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Palin is a fucking idiot. A bird-brain. A fly-weight thinker and problem solver. But that's the old news. The new news is that the whole country is finally getting it.
From a poll reported in the Feb. 11 Washpo:
<<Although Palin is a tea party favorite, her potential as a presidential hopeful takes a severe hit in the survey. Fifty-five percent of Americans have unfavorable views of her, while the percentage holding favorable views has dipped to 37, a new low in Post-ABC polling.
<<There is a growing sense that the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve as president, with more than seven in 10 Americans now saying she is unqualified, up from 60 percent in a November survey. Even among Republicans, a majority now say Palin lacks the qualifications necessary for the White House.
<<Palin has lost ground among conservative Republicans, who would be crucial to her hopes if she seeks the party's presidential nomination in 2012. Forty-five percent of conservatives now consider her as qualified for the presidency, down sharply from 66 percent who said so last fall.>>
http://www.americablog.com/2010/02/over-70-think-sarah-palin-is-not.html (http://www.americablog.com/2010/02/over-70-think-sarah-palin-is-not.html)
How long can you guys keep denying the obvious?
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Seems like everybody is "getting" Palin now. Not to put too fine a point on it, Palin is a fucking idiot. A bird-brain. A fly-weight thinker and problem solver.
I guess using Tee's assessment tools, so is Howard Zinn. Whoda thunk it
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What you don't understand is she doesn't have to be elected, if she gets a whole lot of other people elected, then she has succeeded.
We know she can draw crowds, raise money and rally the troops.
That's the real danger to folks like you who take the easy demonize the messenger route.
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I love it when liberals keep Sarah in the spotlight.
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Not to put too fine a point on it, Palin is a fucking idiot.
No, she is not. Okay, she's not a genius, and needs some more education about certain things. But then, that is true for almost all of us. It does not make her an idiot. The knee-jerk Palin-phobia that seems so rampant, however, may very well be idiotic. It is certainly stupid.
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Almost borders with BDS, IMHO
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Not to put too fine a point on it, Palin is a fucking idiot.
No, she is not. Okay, she's not a genius, and needs some more education about certain things. But then, that is true for almost all of us. It does not make her an idiot. The knee-jerk Palin-phobia that seems so rampant, however, may very well be idiotic. It is certainly stupid.
clearly had Obama stole her ideas the country would be in better shape than it is today. Between the two it's easy to see who the idiot is.
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<<clearly had Obama stole her ideas the country would be in better shape than it is today.>>
Clearly. [sarcasm alert!]
<< Between the two it's easy to see who the idiot is.>>
You got THAT right.
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<<We know she can draw crowds, raise money and rally the troops. >>
As the polls clearly show, even her moronic fans are getting tired of her bullshit and her fucking idiocy. She's already yesterday's news. As a draw for Republicans, she's rapidly approaching Joe-the-Plumber status. We'll see what kind of crowds she draws in the summer and fall.
The other side of her former crowd-drawing prowess, of course, was her magical ability to galvanize the liberal base.
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<<clearly had Obama stole her ideas the country would be in better shape than it is today.>>
Clearly. [sarcasm alert!]
<< Between the two it's easy to see who the idiot is.>>
You got THAT right.
Try $4 TRILLION debt (at least) that Sarah would not have put on the backs of America. What did we get for all the money Obama wasted?
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Ahhh, Kramer, didn't you get the memo?? "The chosen" pulled us "from the brink". Couldn't dare allow the free market to fix itself. Had to have Government come in and provide big banks a 100% recovery on their dollar, and plush bonuses for all the big wigs. All the while keeping unemployment from going beyond 8%...........oooooops
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<<Try $4 TRILLION debt (at least) that Sarah would not have put on the backs of America. What did we get for all the money Obama wasted?>>
He saved your ass, that's what you got for it. What did you get for the $3 TRILLION that Bush blew on the Iraq War, is the harder question.
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What did you get for the $3 TRILLION that Bush blew on the Iraq War, is the harder question.
Fun with numbers.
Wasn't that 3 Trillion arrived at by projecting health care costs for returning veterans over 20 years?
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<<Try $4 TRILLION debt (at least) that Sarah would not have put on the backs of America. What did we get for all the money Obama wasted?>>
He saved your ass, that's what you got for it. What did you get for the $3 TRILLION that Bush blew on the Iraq War, is the harder question.
Bush is gone get over it
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<<Wasn't that 3 Trillion arrived at by projecting health care costs for returning veterans over 20 years?>>
Yeah, why, you think the cost of their care is going to come down substantially? Economists use formulas for projected future costs that factor in the historical movements of ongoing costs, and they are usually factored upwards, not downwards. There's a reason for that.
The $3 trillion includes future health care costs of returning vets as one element, and a substantial element. That's sound accounting and there is no way you can invalidate those numbers, which will remain a burden on the backs of U.S. taxpayers till liquidated some time in the next century.
Now suppose you address the real issue here, which is why all the wailing and weeping and gnashing of conservative teeth over Obama's spending (which I'd still like to see how and where it comes to $4 trillion) and none at all about the $3 trillion blown by Bush on his totally unnecessary war, a war, moreover, which you insist was not intended to profit America by a single penny. At least Obama can show an economic rationale for whatever it was that he has spent.
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<<Bush is gone get over it>>
Bush is gone but the memory (and the mountain of debt) linger on.
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Yeah, why, you think the cost of their care is going to come down substantially?
Perhaps we need to look at a 20 year projection of Obama spending initiatives if you want to compare apples to apples.
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<<Perhaps we need to look at a 20 year projection of Obama spending initiatives if you want to compare apples to apples. >>
Let's do that - - know of any wars that Obama started?
And are we to assume that the "$4 trillion" allegedly spent by Obama contains no future expenditures, that all the "$4 trillion" has already been spent? I think not.
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And are we to assume that the "$4 trillion" allegedly spent by Obama contains no future expenditures, that all the "$4 trillion" has already been spent? I think not.
My point exactly.
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The other side of her former crowd-drawing prowess, of course, was her magical ability to galvanize the liberal base.
Yes yes!
Could you explain this?
If she is the light weight, what makes her the most maddening?
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<<Wasn't that 3 Trillion arrived at by projecting health care costs for returning veterans over 20 years?>>
Yeah, why, you think the cost of their care is going to come down substantially?
If they had never gone to Iraq , none of them would have ever needed any health care.