Palin's education, can someone clarify?

[Anonymous]

I just applied for a mid-level government job and had to send in my transcripts for my BA and MS to "prove" my qualifications for that grade level. Funny thing is that you can be VP without that sort of educational requirement. I am very, Very worried about her lack of higher education, and if she will support it if they win - student loans are federally subsidized - which is the only way I could afford to go to college coming from a blue collar family.

Also, her husband seems to be her shadow governor with a lot of input in her political life - him not having a college degree scares me as well. I am from rural/blue collar Massachusetts (and think the hick in Alaska are more hickish then MA), and would not like anyone I know from there to have a strong influence in political decisions... there is a very ethnocentric view of America

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Actually the original PP just did a beautiful job of separating out Palin's educational trajectory from a judgment of her ability to be vice-president. Meaning that attending many public universities doesn't condemn one to a life of mediocrity (she points out) just as attending Smith (as you have noted) doesn't ensure one will be a success in life. Rather, the original PP came to the conclusion separately that Palin does not have what it takes to be v.p. based on her current performance as a candidate.

Not that I disagree with your critique if you apply it to many of the comments on this thread -- but I think this one rises above most of them.

I'm the PP you're replying to and I perhaps (no, obviously) didn't make it clear that I think the PP I was quoting had already commented a number of times in this thread denigrating Palin for her education, or lack thereof. It's possible that I'm wrong, but reading through the full thread I reached that conclusion. If one wants to simply compare current performance as a candidate, while disregarding the similarities of Palin and Biden in educational background, I would argue that Biden has recently made a number of poorly conceived remarks that lead me to question his performance as a candidate. I would also argue that the original PP did not come to the conclusion that Palin doesn't have what it takes based on her current performance. If she did, she'd be forced to equally consider Palin's and Biden's performances while giving great weight to the 36 years Biden has spent in the Senate, and his two prior presidential runs. If you do that objectively, you might be forced to concede that despite his great advantage in years, Senate experience, and presidential campaign experience, he's not doing all that much better than Palin. He just talks a whole heck of a lot. No, I think the original PP made her decision based on ideology, just as I did. Not based on Palin's performance as a candidate. Probably 95% of the negative comments about Palin on DCUM need to be considered within the context of the posters' deep ideological differences with Palin.

Hey, I wasn't arguing anything about Biden or most of the comments on this thread. I just thought the one particular comment you had attached your response to was more careful about separating out the critique of educational credentials from Palin's actual performance. You may be right in your conclusion about ideology being the prime factor behind most of our arguments -- but I do think the PP deserves credit for a more nuanced response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

For someone who has had opportunities to develop an intellect, you certainly do make great leaps in logic. Any intelligent person knows that there are some great state schools: Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Cal & probably a couple of others I'm not listing off the top of my head. I called it the "University-of-I-Don't-Know because I thought it was a nice play on words with the University of Idaho, which is distinguished for nothing I will be the first to point out that there a lot of really bad private schools, too.

Not everyone who lives outside of a metropolitan area is a hick. People who believe in creationism; who eschew birth control; who speak in tongues at Church; who names their children hick hock jock truck and trock; who have an exceptionally limited education; wjp kill moose and hang them in their house, and cannot have a competent conversation in public -- are hicks. That's right: she cannot speak a single sentence competently on her own in public. She reads speeches written by others and practiced such that they can be recited from rote memory.

And then there's still the problem with the hair.

Admittedly, it's a gut reaction, not an intellectual one. I have no idea how good or bad the University of Idaho is; I suspect she went there because that is her birthplace (possibly family there?). My back just gets up when people attack a person based on the school they attended. I have a good friend who graduated in the top 10 of my high school class (large class) who went to an average state school because, and only because, her parents refused to apply for financial aid out of pride and they couldn't afford private school tuition. She did really well there, but yet it took her 3 months to find a job after graduation. I also worked in recruiting for a few years and saw the attitudes towards state schools--kids in the top 10% of their class at Mason didn't get half the look that kids at Harvard with grades too low to want to provide a transcript. Again, I have no idea how good Idaho is, or how well Palin did there.

"Hick" is inflammatory for anyone. Half of the celebrities out there have limited education and kids with ridiculous names (and, FWIW, I kind of like her girls' names. . I don't think most people call them "hicks." Although I have no specific examples to highlight, I suspect it's exaggeration to say she can't speak a sentence in public that makes sense. I only saw one interview, and other than a few missteps, I didn't think she sounded terrible. She did make it all the way to the governor's office. While you may very well disagree with a lot of her choices, I don't think people can honestly write her off as a dumb hick.