Press bias against Palin because she's a woman or Rep?

[Aristotle]

Cais, why do you hate Palin so much? Seriously. Give it a rest already.

I don't even understand why Palin is getting so much discussion. You'd think she was the Presidential candidate. Vice Presidents are incredibly irrelevant. We could completely dump the office and it would have almost no effect on our country or our political process. People can go on and on with the "McCain is old, blah blah" but the reality is he will most likely be fine and serve out his 4 or 8 years if he wins. Presidents dying in office are exceptionally rare, and unless I am forgetting someone it hasn't happened since FDR (and even then, he had to serve 4 terms for it to happen).

Furthermore, do I really have to post the experience data again? Our best Presidents have had minimal or ZERO experience before becoming President. I don't see why people keep ignoring this.

The sad reality is we are going to end up with a US Senator as a President no matter who wins, and that is a bad thing. We will get a coalition builder and a compromiser instead of a leader.

No matter who wins, we get hosed as a country with a weak, wishy washy person as President. That's not good no matter how you slice it.

[Gromgor]

Originally posted by Aristotle
The sad reality is we are going to end up with a US Senator as a President no matter who wins, and that is a bad thing. We will get a coalition builder and a compromiser instead of a leader.

No matter who wins, we get hosed as a country with a weak, wishy washy person as President. That's not good no matter how you slice it.

This is actually the only real positive I found in GWB. For good or bad, you knew what his policy was. He was reliable in that regard.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Malacasta You regularly complain about the way men are portrayed on tv ads to be made to look ridiculous

Yeah, I think it is lame the way the media portrays men, and in particular fathers. But that's an extremely widespread phenomenon. We are talking countless advertising campaigns and virtually every single sitcom on television. But I am not such a weak willed pampered wimp to think this affects me personally. I don't sit around crying that those ads and tv shows are holding me back or keeping me down. Because they aren't. I am responsible for my own life and my own success. No matter how many lame ads or shows people make, I am still responsible for my own success and my own family.

I just shudder at the effect it is having on our society, as less and less value is put on fatherhood and thus less people feel like they have any responsibilities or duties as father. If you don't think that's a serious situation we have going, fine. But I think you're dead wrong.

Originally posted by Malacasta
and yet you have absolutely no idea what it's like to be beaten up, or raped because of your gender, because you didn't know your place. Same goes for race and sexuality.

Oh give me a break. There you go trotting out that canard because you think it is unassailable. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt. This is not an issue of women being raped. This is an issue of hyper sensitive pansy ass pampered westerners having so little backbone and so little real problems that they have to invent things to get offended about. Do you have any idea how weak your argument becomes when you have to drag rape into the discussion? That has absolutely nothing to do with this. You are just dredging up a sensationalistic, horrible crime because you think everyone else will just have to bow out and kowtow to you. Sorry, try again.

Seriously. A couple of people calling someone a MILF on an internet forum is not in any way connected to women being raped.

Give me a break. Come back to planet Earth please.

Originally posted by Malacasta


(snip rant about Palin's politics)

...

She doesn't need sexism to destroy her. But I don't see why women's rights should be set back to the '50s just because some assholes have a thing for milfs.

This isn't about her politics. I disagree with pretty much every single political stance I've read from her.

The issue is the absurdity of your final comment. What hurts women is the mentality you are putting forth. The idea that they are such meek little sheep that someone commenting on a woman's appearance somehow weakens or diminishes her. Most successful women use that sort of thing to their advantage, and most successful men wish they had such a simple weapon in their arsenal.

If Palin becomes VP, that moves women's rights forward, not backward. It is absolutely absurd to argue otherwise.

The truth is, if she were to win and have any affect on policy, it would be everyone else's rights that move backward. She is that new breed of Republican that have no right to call themselves conservative. Conservatives believe in limited government. Using government to force your personal religious and moral beliefs on the masses is neither conservative nor limited government. Women's rights would be the least of our worries if she was able to get the study of evolution banned and instead require the teaching of creationism as the only possibility.

[Blog]

Originally posted by Aristotle

I don't even understand why Palin is getting so much discussion. You'd think she was the Presidential candidate.

This is a good point that argues in favor of bias because she's a woman, I don't even know what state Biden is from, Delaware? Something north east, yet I know Palin's husband races snowmobiles and has an oil related job.

This thread has turned into Palin name calling mostly, if you don't like Palin, I will start a new thread just for you.

[Malacasta]

Ari, I agree with your final sentence. But abortion is an important issue for women's rights. It's about the government and religion dictating what women can do to their own body. She campaigns against abortion.

[kestra]

Shocker! Once again, the media problems began with the *ONE* time they did something moderately leaning right. I'm so surprised you would think this Kestra.

You call what the media did in the run up to the Iraq invasion "moderate"? I'd hate to see what you would classify as extreme.

Sorry, but the problems with the media started WAY before their oh-so-horrible patriotism (god forbid) during the Iraq War.

Agreed. I was speaking in regards to recent history, and not journalism spanning the 20th century.

And those are just personalities. How about the way the media tries to squelch research and statistics that show how damaging it is for kids to grow up with only one parent, or to have both parents working?

Wow!! Seriously?
Ari, my god........You've really opened up a can of worms with that one. I'm curious what you mean by damaging.
3 in my family(myself included) own our own businesses, 1 works for the FAO at the UN, one is a highly revered and regarded member of Greenpeace Int'l, and one has been a school teacher for 25 years. We were all raised by my single mother. Once again, I have to ask you for your definition of damaging, because quite frankly, I think you just had the world's largest brain fart just now!!

How about the way the media tries to make home schooling look like the domain of freaks, instead of honestly reporting how it is actually turning out superior students to our broken public school system? How about the media's massive political correctness that is absolutely rotting our country from within, and making it impossible for us to even function?

On this one, we can agree. Freaky......

And by the way, stop perpetuating the myth that WMDs were not found. They were found, just not in the quantities expected. There are many reasons for that which I won't go into as it will derail the thread. But saying none were found is just false - another thing the media commonly lies about. It is enough of a failure that we were unable to find the quantities we claimed were there. It actually weakens the argument to say "none were found" when some were actually found.

And Bush merely shrugs his shoulders, in essence saying a la Tony Soprano:"meh, whaddya gonna do uh?"

[Aristotle]

First, to Malacasta: I consider it a near impossibility that abortion will be made illegal in the USA. Even our super right leaning Supreme Court has been repeatedly resistant to even hearing cases related to abortion, much less working to make it illegal on a national basis. The worst possible case would be it being made illegal in a few states, but if so, people simply can choose not to live there. One of the designed benefits of our federalist system is that individual states can provide different sets of laws so everyone is happy.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I am able to actually disagree with someone's politics without immediately jumping to the conclusion that they are evil demon spawn. I set the bar a little higher before I conclude someone's beliefs actually make them evil or even "bad." Everything I know about Palin's politics I disagree with. At least half of what Obama and McCain stand for I disagree with. But I don't think any of them are evil, nor do I think they have bad intentions for the country. I think they all want the USA to succeed, and they all believe they can lead the country in the direction of prosperity. It is really unnecessary to demonize people simply because you disagree with their philosophies.

If you want to demonize people for their beliefs, look for people with truly evil beliefs. Like hardcore Muslims who actually believe women are lower beings, who engage in female "circumcision", and prevent them from getting an education.

Second, to Kestra: How am I supposed to respond? If I disagree, then I am basically calling you a loser. Using yourself as an example is anecdotal at best, and illustrative of the trend at worst. So you really shouldn't go there. Furthermore, I bet your mother would actually agree that having another loving, caring parent to help would have been preferable for everyone involved. The fact that single parents succeed is a testament to their personal awesomeness, not that single parenthood is a good or even preferable thing.

Amputees that succeed are praised and respected for overcoming adversity. That doesn't mean we should all go cut off an arm or a leg, or that we should hail such a condition as superior. But that's pretty much what we are doing in the media when it comes to single parenthood (or two working parent households). And I think that analogy is apt. I share pretty equally in raising our kids, and the idea of doing it alone is terrifying. I'd much rather lose an arm. It would be a lot easier to live with 1 arm than it would be to raise kids by myself.

Look at the data. The media tries squelching it, but go look it up. Try looking beyond left wing sites that try to make people feel good about leaving their kids in the hands of day cares and nannies. I am not going to argue this further, because people will quickly get pissy and trot out examples of people who have to use such things out of necessity. Such people do what they have to do to survive, and to provide for their children the best they can. I applaud them. But there are people who use nannies and day care purely out of choice, and that is a terrible thing.

It is not just a coincidence that our societal problem of leaving child raising to non-family members has resulted in rapidly declining education, social adjustment, ambition, and international competitiveness.

I have probably already said too much, and there are people who will take the above personally. If anyone is going there, please don't. I don't know of a single person reading this forum who falls into any of the above categories. I am constantly impressed by what caring parents we have in our community.

[Katidyd]

Originally posted by Gaviani
Republican. Specifically, she's a Republican with the Audacity of Challenging Obama.

In the context of the Gibson interview it would be true that the questions are biased against her as a Republican but pertaining to the general bias it is foremost against the woman given that Hillary too was just as harshly screwed.

[Darion]

Originally posted by kestra
Wow!! Seriously?
Ari, my god........You've really opened up a can of worms with that one. I'm curious what you mean by damaging.
3 in my family(myself included) own our own businesses, 1 works for the FAO at the UN, one is a highly revered and regarded member of Greenpeace Int'l, and one has been a school teacher for 25 years. We were all raised by my single mother. Once again, I have to ask you for your definition of damaging, because quite frankly, I think you just had the world's largest brain fart just now!!

Please refer to the "Hasty generalization" section of the logical fallacy thread stickied at the top of the politics forum page.

[Cais]

Aristotle: Cais, why do you hate Palin so much? Seriously. Give it a rest already.

So, you dismiss valid arguments by claiming I 'hate' Palin.

How very typical.

Come back with something that makes sense, and I'll entertain it.