From the fallout of the “debate” last night, I take it Republicans are impressed with Carly Fiorina’s performance. Never mind that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
… much of what Fiorina says is either untrue or incoherent, which her polished style of rapid-fire answers containing long lists of memorized specifics obscures. She is a master at what we used to call “dazzling them with BS.†She claims to have a well thought out plan for everything from dealing with the Ayatollah (only after conferring with her “good friend†Bibi Netanyahu) — by calling him up and demanding that he allows Americans to inspect his nuclear facilities anytime we choose or we’ll start “moving his money around the financial system†— to enlarging the sixth fleet and putting missile defense into Poland. The first bit of magical thinking is so common among the Republican candidates that it’s not worth commenting upon except to say that the presidency would be a part time job if it was that easy. As for her military “prescriptions,†let’s just say they are vacuous nonsense. Here’s what she said she would do about Russia
“What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states. I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Suleimani’s name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al- Assad.â€
That sounds very impressive, except, as Ezra Klein pointed out, the nuclear armed Sixth Fleet is gigantic already, the U.S. is already conducting military exercises in the Baltics and we already have 40,000 troops in Germany. Oh, and Vladimir Putin, General Suleimani and Bashar al-Assad will have been dead for decades, if not centuries, by the time a missile shield is installed in Poland.
But she lies with total conviction and authority. Charles Pierce:
She was steely-eyed in her prevarication. She was relentless in her determination to launch pure crapola into the stratosphere. She smiled rarely. She glowered effectively. The woman stares daggers better than anyone I’ve ever seen. And, on many occasions, she lied her ass off with a formidable brand of armored certitude. If you eliminate “telling the truth” from the assessment, Carly Fiorina was every bit the winner she is universally acclaimed to be this morning.
It’s the Dick Cheney thing — exude enough gravitas, and people will take you seriously even if you are spouting nonsense.
The most egregious lie was about Planned Parenthood, which was so bizarre I don’t even want to repeat it. Just see Sarah Kliff. See also Carly Fiorina won the GOP debate, but fact checkers will have a field day.
As for her alleged skill as a businesswoman: Not only did she run Hewlett-Packard into the ground; she’s apparently responsible for the demise of Lucent. See Carly Fiorina’s troubling telecom past.
I don’t know why the Republicans even broach the subject of foreign policy AT ALL. Nobody cares about it, and the track record of the GOP includes direct responsibility for three of the past four wars. And it’s pretty hard to argue Obama is doing anything OTHER than a pretty good job (Cuba, Iran), unless you’ve got “Obama Derangement Syndrome” (everything Obama does is wrong).
And she DID run HP into the ground; they don’t call her “Carly Scissorhands” for nothing.
But why belabor the point? It’s going to be Clinton v. Bush, anyway (though I’d rather see Sanders v. Trump, because I really like Bernie. And political theatre).
Carly is simply the HR drone who handed you your pink slip.
And, as I predicted, Walker is a ball of nothing. His sound bite on Morning Edition earlier this week was about staring down 100,000 protestors outside the Capitol, in Madison. He was BRAGGING about being an awful governor. Shameful!
Well, she managed to get me yelling at the walls.Simply put, I do not like this woman. My daughter thinks Fiorina is insane.
BTW, you could have left the “Cheney” out. 🙂
One more thing, my daughter works for a bio medical research firm. They recruit participants for their studies from the general public. many are disadvantaged minorities who depend on planned parenthood for birth control and health screenings. Erin was shocked to see that every one of the “contestants” in the clown reality show wants to destroy planned parenthood, which will create many more problems, especially the creation of more poor disadvantaged children. These republicans do not understand cause and effect.
You could just leave it at:
Carly Fiorina Is the New Dick !
It may simply be a matter of not understanding cause and effect. If the goal is to reduce the number of abortions, attacking Planned Parenthood is counterproductive.
However, if the goal is to dissuade women from having sex for purposes other than procreation by punishing the ones who get pregnant, then their actions at least make some sense.
Trump/Fiorina 2016! Let’s bankrupt America _twice_!
“The most egregious lie was about Planned Parenthood, which was so bizarre”
She is a GOP-bot, everything she says is programmed and Frank Luntz tested. The argument for Carly is as ripe with hypocrisy as is the argument for any of the GOPer’s. It was well documented when Carly ran for Senate she berated Barbara Boxer’s Hair, general appearance more than once. If Trump was smart and really wanted to separate himself from the Republican pack he should have just apologized to Carly, that would have been radical, and it would have taken away her only rational for being on that stage!
“Trump/Fiorina 2016! Let’s bankrupt America _twice_!”
Campaign motto: “If we build it, they can’t come.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rosa-parks-10-bill_55faee9ae4b08820d917b12a
Good catch on Rosa Parks, Swami.
A number of good choices in this thread. My personal choice would be Margaret Sanger. She made a really enormous contribution to the lives and health of women, everywhere.
“Dazzling them with BS” is apparently how Carly has lived her entire life. It got her to HP and now onto the national stage. She wouldn’t know the truth if it stared her in the face. Who will call her on it?
Great catch, Swami. I’d like to see Marilyn Monroe on the $10 bill ; she earned it the hard way.
I don’t understand why they’re replacing Alexander Hamilton on the $10 and not Andrew Jackson on the $20. Alexander Hamilton deserves to be on the $10.
Did any of the pundits who said that Carly knocked it out of the park notice that she thinks that you need two-thirds of the states to ratify a Constitutional Amendment? Would this bother anyone in the Republican base? She bungled a ninth grade civics question, but Chuck Todd never fusses over little stuff like that.
The transcript from the Kiddies’ table from the other night had Bobby Jindal lamenting that the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, and saying that if they had gotten rid of it, we would still have our 19th Amendment rights. Was this an error in the transcript or did he actually say that?
I could swear that women still have the right to vote in this country, health care reform or no. If Jindal was misquoted, this should be corrected. Did anyone hear this with their own ears?
erinyes .. Yeah she did. When I was in my formative years I devoted a lot of my thought to Donna Reed. I certainly wouldn’t have minded sitting across the breakfast table from her.
She not really running for president, she’s auditioning for Palins old job. This is a job application to be a fox like news contributor & keep any left over campaign contributions. This is money for nothing in its most moronic form. This is a gross failure of 200,000 years of evolution.