Talk show host Bill O’Reilly says he thinks former Gov. Sarah Palin has “huge political ambitions.”
In his interview with Palin on “The O’Reilly Factor,” he asked about her experience and whether she thinks she is qualified to be president.
Here is part of that exchange, as reported by Fox News:
O’REILLY: One more question about President Obama. A lot of people are very nervous about him now. He’s not having a good time in the White House now. You pointed out his lack of experience. You don’t have that much experience. You walked away from the governorship after, what, two years, 2.5 years?
PALIN: Going into my lame duck session, my fourth legislative session deciding I wasn’t going to run again and not wanting to put Alaskans through a lame duck session.
O’REILLY: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama’s lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage?
PALIN: If you’re talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I’ve been elected to a local office since 1992 and was the city manager, strong mayor form of government, was a chief executive of the state, was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We have to remember, too, that I wasn’t running for president.
O’REILLY: Now, but that’s the key question because John McCain is up there in years. You had to be qualified to take that office over.
PALIN: Right, but I’m saying I was running for vice president just like Joe Biden in running for vice president. I’ve never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience. He…
O’REILLY: Well, he’s got a lot of experience. Let me be very bold and fresh again. Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?
PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that has to be me.
* * *
Palin said that closing Guantanamo Bay is a mistake. O’Reilly said he agrees with Palin, then he added that if the U.S. has to close the prison for PR purposes, then he would argue that the prisoners should be sent to a prison in Alaska. He said, “I’d build a little prison up there way away from everybody and see how they like it up there.”
PALIN: You know, we do have a vacated base up there.
O’REILLY: Sure.
PALIN: And that too, where perhaps…
O’REILLY: Let me…
PALIN: …but hey, let’s hear what Alaskans would say about that. Terrorists on our homeland.
O’REILLY: You know what I think Alaskans would say? Yeah, come on, bring them on up. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 88, Alaska, minus 15. OK. Barack Obama, socialist?
PALIN: Scares me the road that he has us on, not seeming to understand what it is that built up America’s economic system, the free enterprise principles, the shrinkage of government, not the expansion to allow the private sector to grow and to thrive and to do what it does best and our families keep more of what they earned, so that they can reinvest and prioritize instead of government doing it for them, which is a step towards socialism. So some of the steps we’re taking economically right now scare the heck out of me.
O’REILLY: Do you think that he wants to change the country into an entitlement society?
PALIN: We’re going to see, depending on his cap and tax bill that he will no doubt support coming out of Congress, that the health care bill, whatever that’s going to cost us and whatever the answers are there to all of our questions about the health care, we’re going to see, if he decides that he can kind of shift gears, change course, and move us back to more of a free enterprise, free market principles that built up this country, then my answer to you is going to be no, he’s not hell-bent on changing the capitalist society that we are. But if he is stubborn about this, then my answer to you is going to be well, his actions speak louder than our words, and yes, he’s going to change our capitalistic society.
Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have HIGH-DEMAND careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching.
The question is who creats the high-demand for politicians like Obama. Certainly not the public. I think particularily for someone like Obama, the demand is created by himself.
No Sarah, I don't want you negotiating with Iraq, Afghanistan, China.
What is your problem? You are not qualified to be president of the USA. END of Story
Obama was not only an editor, but the president of the Harvard Law Review. As such, he had to work well with others - it's part of the job. The students who staff the Review vote for the President - they would not have voted for a loner. Editors conduct meetings, make assignments, and work with staff to select publishable material from hundreds of lengthy and complex legal manuscripts submitted for each of eight publications per year. Presidents of the Review do not operate in a vaccuum, or nothing would get accomplished. Obama cut his administrative teeth at Harvard's law review.
If you've ever been on faculty at a university, you'd know that it's not possible to be a "1-man show" in such a position - you deal with students, other faculty, the administration - very little time is spent in solitude - and interaction is even more a part of law school life.
Legislators on the state and local level are also social creatures - you cannot get elected to Congress without friends who support you first and foremost. Several of Obama's cabinet members are long-time friends and colleagues.
Finally, and just because the constant barrage of misinformation that surrounds Obama makes me crazy, here is a statement from the University of Chicago Law School regarding Obama's tenure there:
UC Law School statement: "The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined."
I stand by the prediction of a loss to HarperCollins on the book, though - here's the story from Daily Finance: http://tiny.cc/iKN2X (I post citations in tiny urls since another casuality of the DNM transformation was the ability to link).
Sarah Palin or Obamanation in 2012?
Regardless of your political views re: Palin or The Empty Suit - oops - Obama, PLEASE don't use his thin life-time jobs experience as proof of his qualifications.
Editor of Harvard Law Review - ok, his first campaign and people liked him. 1-man show #1.
A "professor of law" Ok, and this qualifies one with real-world experience to run an organization? BTW - he taught at Univ of Chicago law school and was a "Senior Lecturer". I don't doubt he could have eventually earned a professor-ship. 1-man show #2.
An Illinois state legislator. 1-man show #3.
Are we seeing a pattern here?
US Senator - 1-man show #4.
With Obama, it's ALL ABOUT OBAMA. Don't you get it? He's an expert at promoting himself, looking after himself and getting what he wants, no matter what.
I cannot remember 1 president dating back to Eisenhower (yeah, I'm pretty old) who had NO FRIENDS / CLOSE CONFIDANTS on their staff / close at hand. What does this indicate? I real problem person - I'm sure a shrink would have a field day with this guy.
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Regan, Bush, Clinton and Bush II - Whether you liked their politics or not, each one had a small group of close-at-hand confidants.
Without long-term relationships on board, when the going gets tough the faster the rats will jump ship!
Obama? He has NO-ONE. The guy is a professional politician - even the US Senate doesn't particularly care for the guy - he was there 4 years, and at least 2 he was running for president.
I have no skin in this game, and I must say he is on track for a very, very failed presidency.
Nice try, but since the New York Times has not released the list since Palin's book came out you do not know if it made it onto the best seller list.
The current list accounts for sales up til November 14th.
These lists are an expanded version of those appearing in the November 29 print edition of the Book Review. Rankings reflect sales, for the week ending November 14, at many thousands of venues where a wide range of general interest books are sold nationwide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html?_r=1&ref=bestseller
By the way, roadie and poo - do you have your autographed copies yet? Oh wait - Palin isn't planning to bring that big ole bus wrapped in narcissism up the Alcan, is she?
Everyone encourage your kids to sit on Santa's lap this year, and wish for Palin to spontaneously combust.
Has Palin scheduled time with any real journalists? So far I've only heard of her being on Oprah, O'Really, Sean, and Rush, who are entertainers, not journalists, which means they don't ever have to speak the truth. One Lush Windbag example: http://www.truthout.org/1119091
For the record, Sarah, we don't have "free enterprise" in America, we have incredibly rigged enterprise, and for another, "free market principles" didn't build this country. The founders feared corporations and made specific rules to keep them in check, but they got personhood status anyway, which was the beginning of the end of citizen representation. If corporations tried to lobby the government back then like they do now, they'd have been put in prison. http://www.change.org/ideas/view/end_corporate_personhood We've now been sold down the river to China by the "free marketeers". The Communists own us now thanks to that "free market" Mrs. Palin speaks so highly of. http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/11/democracy-vs-communism-democracy-lost/ China joined the World Trade Organization the week after 9-11. While the world was reeling in horror six days after the tragedy, it was business as (un)usual at the WTO. http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres01_e/pr243_e.htm If this hadn't been done in the aftermath of such a huge disaster, the world would have screamed in protest with China's human rights record.
Palin's "free enterprise" has nearly killed the nation after their trillion-dollar bailout, and she and her friends STILL spout the rhetoric of deregulation and capitalist greed. Unbridled capitalism has been disastrous for American families with millions losing homes while crooked bankers keep their yachts on our dime. Interest on credit card debt is out of control. Insurance premiums are out of control. Pharmaceutical drug prices are out of control. War for profit is out of control. The drug war for profit is out of control. Palin's entire "free market" is out of control. The woman doesn't have a clue what all that rhetoric means. She's like a Chatty-Cathy doll. Pull the string and hear the meaningless rhetoric.
You dont have to be from the Ivy Leagues to understand her explanations.
I was at Barnes and Nob today and there was Palin's book front and center. They had a table behind that with some Alaskan authors and most of those books had dust on them. Palin is breaking records with her book and you morons are lucky if you can wind.
And the thought of the day, Ciao
Anyway, somebody needs to call Tina Fey and let her know she's got more verbatim comedy material. Unbelievable jibberish interspersed with soundbite rhetoric that goes nowhere. The end of every paragraph left me thinking, "What the puck, Hockey Mom?!"
She said, "But if he is stubborn about this, then my answer to you is going to be well, his actions speak louder than our words, and yes, he’s going to change our capitalistic society." So far, Obushma has done exactly as his last five or six capitalistic predecessors have done, and which is funnel hundreds of billions in taxpayer money to the uber-wealthy through bailouts, the wars, drug war, medical, world-police, and prison industries. Handing our nation over to corporate interests has been a bipartisan effort.
I for one look forward to the day the Newsminer goes under. Then, we can once again have a paper that shares the political views of the majority of Fairbanks residents.
Unbelievable.
Also make sure you tune into Fairbanks Focus where Dermot and his merry band of liberals discuss their leftist views in possibly the worst produced TV show outside of 3rd world countries.