The fairest comment on Sara Palin
to date, came from Judge Judy on Larry King Live, which I saw at the rerun of the CNN program tonight:
KING: Governor Palin, who Anderson just mentioned, will be a guest on this program on Wednesday night. I know you voted for her opponent. What do you make of her?
SHEINDLIN: I think she's -- I think she's smart. I think she started from very humble beginnings. We heard her father speak. This was clearly -- she is probably an aberration in her family. She raised a family of her own. She became a mayor of a little town. Then she became a governor of a state in the United States. And anybody that thinks that this woman is stupid is just plain mean- spirited and wrong. I think that if she had sought this job that was foisted upon her, and not prepared for it, that would be one thing. But I think she got a call one day and said, listen, we would like you to be vice presidential ...running mate in Alaska, where she was dealing with her kids, with a pregnancy. She was dealing with all kinds of things and not necessarily those things involving international politics, involving the national economy. And she walked into a situation, really pretty much cold. She took over a room and she took over -- that night she took over a country.
So you may have some issue as to whether she was ready to be vice president or ready to assume the office of president, were she called upon to do that. But to suggest that this is a stupid woman is just idiotic.
KING: Was the press unfair to her?
SHEINDLIN: Yes, I think they were. I think they looked for her to make mistakes. I think there was a certain gloating when that unfortunate prank was pulled on her with the president of France. I think instead of being outraged that somebody did something like that, as they would have been for another candidate, they sort of were snickering that she was so dumb that she fell for it, or that someone wasn't smart enough in her office to have put her on the phone.
I think there was a mean-spiritedness that I sensed. And I didn't vote for her. But there was a mean-spiritedness that I find objectionable, I don't know if it was because she was a woman. I don't know if she was a woman that came into the national attention after Hillary Clinton, who was a very popular woman, and there was a sense that maybe they were trying to change one woman out for another, which I think is sort of ridiculous. You can't do that with people. But I think she is a smart lady. I think she was underrated. I think she needs a little more time if she wants to get into the national picture. But I think that the criticism and the vitriol and the mean- spiritedness have to stop. It's disrespectful.
posted by The Contentious Centrist @ Sunday, November 23, 2008
5 comments
5 Comments:
"I think there was a mean-spiritedness that I sensed. And I didn't vote for her[Sarah Palin]. But there was a mean-spiritedness that I find objectionable, , , , But I think that the criticism and the vitriol and the mean- spiritedness have to stop. It's disrespectful." Judge Judy Sheinlin on L.King.
I watched that show and thought what an irony that Judge Judy, high priest of entertainment law, who is rude, vitriolic, intimidating, sarcastic and mean-spirited to the people who come before her to be treated judiciously, finds American citizens rude and mean-spirited because they thought Sarah Palin being a heart beat away from being the president of this country. horrifying if not out and out irresponsible of McCain. . It took words, not sticks and stones to get rid of her. We've learned you CAN fool most of the people most of the time and I think people weren't going to take any chances this time.
People who work in glass courtrooms Judge shouldn't .....
"An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made)."
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
I don't consider it an ad hominem to say I experienced Judge Judy's comments as ironic. It is called, the pot calling the kettle black.
It really doesn't matter what you call it. What matters is the content of your comment, which readers here can process and judge for themselves how accurate, cogent or intelligent it is.
I have watched Judge Judy's program from the beginning (1996) and used to find it entertaining. Her show is a bit played out at this point but she's been on the air for over a decade so I cut her some slack.
In all my years watching her, she's only rude--I would say short tempered--to those who deserve it. You know, the people trying to push their $2000 cell phone bill on a former friend or ex-lover, fathers (or mothers) who don't pay child support, belligerent people who start fights in bars, get the crap beat out of them, and sue the person who beat them up, people who trash apartments and want their security deposit back, etc.
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