Sep 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
The Argument From Osmosis
Frank Gaffney: Sarah Palin understands national security policy “through osmosis” because “Alaskan territory is also along the trajectory of ballistic missiles launched eastward out of Stalinist North Korea.”
52 Responses to “The Argument From Osmosis”
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September 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I see the booze is flowing in St. Paul….
And Newt Gingrich adds that Palin has been commander of the Alaska National Guard for 2 years.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
That’s awesome, because I learned national security policy through osmosis by never being anywhere in the immediate vicinity of Frank Gaffney.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I think I’ll tell the kids to move next door to a brain surgeon.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
To be fair, you can be pretty knowledgeable about foreign policy without ever having sat across the table with Putin. One just need to make a very serious, thoughtful argument and write a book…
In general, very few elected officials outside the president, VP, and a few members of the foreign relation comitee can claim legitimate foreign policy experience.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
This is far beyond self parody for Repubs.
Unless they think that they want to appeal to the snails for their vote.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
and NYC is the actual target of probably hundreds of Russian ICBMs. which, i guess, qualifies every NYer for the job of McCain VP.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Wait — “osmosis” is a scientific concept; is Gaffney sure that the Republicans are officially for such things? Isn’t there an Exxon-funded Osmosis-Skeptic movement? Is this an example of the argument for man-made osmosis, which the skeptics believe is more of a natural cycle?
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
That sounds like “faith-based” education to me.
I’ve been using Microsoft products for years, why haven’t I gleaned any of Bill Gates $billions by osmosis?
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Frank Gaffney understands proctology through osmosis because he is a complete arse.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Well, it’s as sensible as the suggestion that she’s been in secret contact with Putin and Medvedev on behalf of Alaskan secession and selling the state out to the Ruskies. I suppose the problem with both theories is that no doubt she hasn’t a clue even who Putin and Medvedev are.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
That was clearly a parody, though. I mean it’s got to be.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I once tried to study for a biology exam through osmosis. I fell asleep on the book hoping that some of the info would “osmos” into my brain and I wouldn’t fail the test. It didn’t work very well.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Folks, it all depends on her performance. If she comes across as smart and likable, all of this exultation about her incompetence will only have succeeded in helping her beat expectations. Remember Bush in ‘04? Kerry trounced him in the debates, but expectations for Bush were set so low that many thought the debates a draw because Bush failed to drool on himself. Palin may self-destruct, in which case McCain is done. But I bet she’ll come across as attractive, smart, and down-to-earth. Don’t kid yourself. Nothing is done yet.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Yeah, it *sounds* like parody, but take a look at the links. Also check out the “Little Girls and Little Boys Go to Hell For Premarital Sex” or whatever it’s called. So…trenchant…
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Unfortunately (from the Democratic point of view), I think Palin will ‘perform’ very smartly at the RNC, and as long as she maintains composure and the party line at the VP debate, I think her performance will be considered a success there as well.
I certainly hope she doesn’t gain the VP position this time around, but I think she represents one model for how to reform the Republican Party over the next years. It’s not a good model, in my view, but other Republicans may try resurrecting the old style Republican moderates who used to be common in the Northeast and Midwest. Palin combines cultural populism, occasional political compromise, right wing economic ideology, and of course right wing religious fundamentalism, and that certainly has a chance for a lot of success.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
that article is real?
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Oh, and don’t forget another water-carrier, David Brooks, today: “she seems to get up in the morning to root out corruption.” Sounds like a comic-book superhero. What’s it going to be today?
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
And Bristol apparently learned sex ed by osmosis from Sarah?
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
that article is real?
It is getting harder and harder to tell the difference between Republicans and parody. I don’t actually know the answer, in this case.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
man, it’s like the republicans are holding a fire-sale on intellectual respectability.
all integrity must go! reputations knocked down to just pennies on the dollar!
gaffney has, now and then, been a serious person. and he stoops to this?
oy, what a hangover these guys are going to wake up with. how it’s going to smart. and how they deserve it. they’ve killed a lot of people, and have a lot of blood on their hands.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I’m speechless. The GOP has jumped the shark like Fonzie could only dream of.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Republicans require voters to be fairly dumb and ill informed. How else do we explain how George W. Bush was elected twice? How else do we explain the Palin pick? I know we keep saying that John McCain is the same as Bush but he’s managed to find a female version of Bush. It’s really quite amazing. This reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry finds a woman that is so similar to himself that it feels like he’s dating himself. All this to say, John McCain hearts Bush so much that he found the female George Bush.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
IMO the fact that people are focusing on her lack of national security experience is more evidence that this was a last minute, half-assed decision. If the Republicans had planned this out for a couple of days ahead of time, they could have come up with a story on how McCain is the National Security person and she is all about the domestic subjects XYZ. Still have the problem that she really isn’t that experienced, but they’d be in a lot better shape.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Since when are governors of states that might, according to some possible theory, have anything to do with purely hypothetical wars responsible for figuring out our foreign policy? That’s the President and Congress’ job.
A woman who ran a fishing shop in Alaska automatically becomes a Russia expert when she becomes governor of that state? Really?
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
As that state’s governor, Sarah Palin would know more by osmosis – if nothing else -
There certainly is nothing else, so osmosis it is! Wheeee!
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
By this logic, I’m an expert on our policy to deal with aliens should they ever arrive and try to conquer Earth, since I live in NJ, and New Jersey is inhabited by humans, a species visitors from another world might find interesting for various reasons.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
as long as she maintains composure and the party line at the VP debate, I think her performance will be considered a success there as well.
The way to change that is to change the focus of the debate. The name ‘Dick Cheney’ hasn’t featured too heavily so far, but if Biden makes the Veep debate all about cleaning up after Cheney — someone loathed by the country at large, but adored by the GOP base — it makes life much more difficult for Palin. She can’t repudiate Cheney, but she can’t act as if she’s going to take over where he leaves off.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
they could have come up with a story on how McCain is the National Security person and she is all about the domestic subjects XYZ
But that wouldn’t work either. All she knows about is oil and ethics reform. Her state doesn’t even tax its residents.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I agree that the focus should be on the office of the VP in its modern incarnation, under Cheney, as an apparently unaccountably empowered office able to do whatever its occupant seems to feel.
Now that you’ve got the potential of someone else beholden to extreme right ideological views, an fairly well documented record of using public power for personal and ideological causes, and right wing religious fundamentalism too, the Democrats had better be ready to help the citizens view it this way too.
If the Democrats let the Republicans bluster through with their fraudulent ‘but the VP just goes to funerals and whatnot’, it’s their fault.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
This supports the theory that the McCain candidacy is really just an elaborate revenge plot against the party that nominated George Bush instead of him in 2000. I bet he gets a kick out of seeing guys like Gaffney tap dancing like that.
My guess is that McCain knows he’s only got 6 months to live and wants to screw over all the party movers who acted so early in 2000 and cemented the nomination for Bush before the first primary.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Osmosis we can believe in!
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I believe that Palin, in her role in the Alaskan Independence Party, contacted some Russian guys on the other side of the Bering Strait about any previous leans against Alaska. It was then that she saw through that guy and then into the heart of Putin. The view then sort of bounced and glanced off Medvedev. This is the very osmosis moment that converted her beauty queen experiences and lead her to become the governor of the largest concentration of Federal lands. (Nothing to do with all of the other guys being investigated for corruption.)
The combination of summer black flies and moose meat soon completed her transformation into a full fledged Russian expert. This of course caused great disappointment for Rice who wasted her time getting a PHD in the subject but that’s another tale.
Miracles do happen.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
So this means that everyone in Alaska has the foreign policy experience to be Vice President?
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Sign me up of Secretary of State.
One of the first things I did with a compass in grammar school (apart from my homework) was figure out the blast radius of Soviet ICBMs and try to figure out how many times over I would have been destroyed. I was inside the blast radius of a strike at the local Pratt & Whitney plant, the Sikorsky plant, and would have had about a 50/50 shot of long term survival from the radiation of a stike at Electric Boat in Groton, CT.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:21 pm
jbd at 13 is right. Or to quote Dick Motta, “The opera isn’t over til the fat lady sings.”
We’ve had an austounding couple of days. Palin looks a pretty bad choice and not to have been vetted, so big points against McCain et al. But we Dems still need to make sure that this become an election about issues, we still need to work hard.
Or we could just contend that Obama knows something about the Islamic world because he’s lived there….oops, that one could backfire even though its true.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I keep telling you people that the whole point of the Palin pick is the photos of her visiting Alaskan servicemen in Kuwait in 2007.
McCain is running on his “war hero POW” crap – and Palin fits the bill as a “war monger woman” who can shoot a gun.
Or as some wag put it, “Tina Fey with an AK.”
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
My hometown was a Soviet nuclear target, so this is good career news for me. Might have a shot at National Security Advisor.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
HA. I used to live near a TeeVee. I studied law by watching Perry Mason and Lionel Hutz J.D. I learned about science and the potential of quantum teleportation at light speed by viewing massive quantities of Star Trek, X-Files, Lexx, Babylon 5. I updated my home surgery chops by watching ER. I am fit for president because I studied The West Wing, Mayor McCheese, and Mayor Quimby. My go-all-night manliness expertise on sexuality came about through viewing pornography. OK, that last one may actually be true, but I commit to nothin’.
The wave function in this universe has collapsed and can’t get back up.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
For pure Republican hackery, nothing beats (though many equal) David Brooks’s column on Palin. He seems to have had a lobotomy in the interim between this column and his column criticizing McCain. Not a whiff remains. The hagiography (per os et per anum) is back intact. Except with extra Palin goodness added.
Connoisseurs of bile rising while you read won’t want to miss it.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Here’s the unfunny part. Gaffney’s background suggests he could end up in a McCain administration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gaffney
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 am
At any given time, there are at least 3 GPS satellites over her head. Therefore, she’ll know where The Terrorists are! Conveniently, she’ll also be able to stuff and mount bin Laden’s head without professional assistance.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 am
This is the most entertaining time ever to be an obsessive blog reader.
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