Is Sarahcuda really more “Main Street” than Huck? Dude, the guy used to eat squirrel — that he cooked in a popcorn machine. How much more “authentic” can you get? I ask you.

Y’know, AP, I don’t even like Huckabee, but you’re just being a jerk.

There are actually other people in this country that deserve to breath the oxygen you lay claim to.

“Sarah’s HK speech is actually 100 times better than you could gain from the tweets. Go to her Facebook and find out for yourselves. technopeasant on September 23, 2009 at 10:14 PM

“powerpro on September 23, 2009 at 10:14 PM

Jenfidel on September 23, 2009 at 11:09 PM

theotherone on September 23, 2009 at 11:12 PM

Sarah, knows how to assemble a “kitchen cabinet” and pick knowledgeable advisors, to gin up her run in 2012…!

Palin drafted Randy Scheunemann, the top foreign-policy adviser to her 2008 running mate, John McCain, to craft the speech.

Her credibility to the average American is too low. We need a new face to lead the charge in 2012.

tflst5 on September 24, 2009 at 9:45 AM

Are you an American or a jackass?

Why, oh why, can’t Ed do Sarah stories?

Got a problem?

Allahpundit on September 23, 2009 at 4:19 PM

Yes.

“The loosening of lending standards was first ordered in 1999, which was signed by then-President Clinton.” Steve Z on September 24, 2009 at 10:43 AM

Ah… but where and when, were these “affairs of finance” finally consummated?

I might have ventured that the complacency, laisser-faire attitude and yes, perhaps even dereliction of duty may have actually begun, during Hank Paulson’s tenure at Goldman Sachs [1994-98] during Clinton’s administration.

“…In 2004, at the request of the major Wall Street investment houses—including Goldman Sachs, then headed by Paulson—the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure.”

“…Creating the collateralized debt obligation (CDO’s) forming the basis of the current crisis was an active part of Goldman Sach’s business during Paulson’s tenure as CEO.”

During Mr. Paulson’s later stint [2006-09] as Geither’s counterpart in the Bush administration…

“… Paulson told bankers that they would be forced to accept government bailout money, whether they wanted it or not. One of the documents, a talking points memo, gave bankers the ultimatum: “If a capital infusion is not appealing, you should be aware that your regulator will require it in any circumstance.”

“The government ordered the loosening of lending standards.”
As I understand it, a very liberal, do-gooder Republican named G.W. Bush signed the American Dream Downpayment Initiative in 2003.

The loosening of lending standards was first ordered in 1999, which was signed by then-President Clinton.

In 2005, Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee, joined by John McCain (who was not on the committee, but became very instrumental in the effort) tried to tighten lending standards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the effort was filibustered by Democrats.

If McCain had done a better job of explaining this last fall, Sarah Palin would have been Vice President by now.

Palin:

And how can we think that setting up the Fed as the monitor of systemic risk in the financial sector will result in meaningful reform? The words “fox” and “hen house” come to mind. The Fed’s decisions helped create the bubble. Look at the root cause of most asset bubbles, and you’ll see the Fed somewhere in the background.

AllahPundit:

Ending the Fed is currently job one among the Paulnuts and an occasional hobbyhorse for Glenn Beck.

I respectfully disagree with AP’s analysis here. Palin never mentions “ending the Fed” as an institution in its Constitutional role (since 1913) of regulating the money supply by “creating credit” and adjusting the lowest lending rates to banks. She only says that the Fed should not be given ADDITIONAL power “as the monitor of systemic risk”. She therefore should not be lumped in with Ron Paul, who has long advocated the abolition of the Federal Reserve, a position supported by at most 5% of the population. Although she did not state it explicitly, she would probably prefer such power to be vested in an Executive agency such as the Treasury Department, with Congressional oversight and according to Congressional statutes.

In her previous paragraph, Palin said that “The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who, as I say, couldn’t afford them.”

The “government” here means Congress and the President, which forced lending institutions (including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also private banks) to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them, starting in 1999. As I wrote above, Senate Republicans tried to repeal this in 2005, but were thwarted by a Democrat filibuster in the Senate.

The Federal Reserve is NOT part of the “government”, but a consortium of private banks to which Congress gave power to “create credit” and regulate the money supply, which it has exercised with varying degrees of responsibility and competence over the years. Many analysts blame the Fed for precipitating the October 1929 stock market crash by suddenly tightening credit, causing massive defaults by investors who had bought stocks on “margin” with borrowed money, and a selling spree. However, the Fed’s policies in the 1980′s brought the rampant inflation of the late 1970′s down to reasonable levels, and maintained relative stability of the economy through the 1990′s.

Ron Paul and his sparse followers might want to abolish the Fed and return the power to create currency to the U. S. Treasury (part of the “government”) as stipulated in the original, unamended Constitution. This would greatly reduce the temptation to deficit spending, but the transition period could lead to a long deflationary spiral, devastating to the economy and the American people.

Sarah Palin is smart enough to realize that the Fed can’t be abolished overnight, but that its power should be decreased, and not increased.

“Lack of government wasn’t the problem, government policies were the problem. “

WOW… I’m seeing a real third party alternative here…P&P; Palin and Paul…

Palin drafted Randy Scheunemann, the top foreign-policy adviser to her 2008 running mate, John McCain, to craft the speech.

You go girl…!

I can’t believe we’re really discussing these sorts of semantics. How about we let dictionary.com do the talking?

First one:

fun⋅da⋅men⋅tal⋅ism
  /ˌfʌndəˈmɛntlˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [fuhn-duh-men-tl-iz-uhm] Show IPA
Use fundamentalist in a Sentence
See web results for fundamentalist
See images of fundamentalist
–noun
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.

Now that one doesn’t really work because it doesn’t appear applicable to other religions, but it gets a certain point across: infallibility of holy book. Hence, Muslim fundamentalists follow their book to the letter. How about the next one?

fun·da·men·tal·ism (fŭn’də-měn’tl-ĭz’əm)
n.

1.

A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

Rigid adherence, that’s hitting pretty close to the mark. People like SaintOlaf, as I mentioned earlier, who rant on about the Orthodox Church being the ONE TRUE CHURCH. Does that nail the meaning of fundamentalism for you?

I think you know what I’m talking about, but you, like Jenfidel, are seeing me as some sort of anti-religion nut because I don’t bow down and acquiesce to your demands that I not say things that might offend you. Hence, the beauty of America: no right not to be offended. Yet, you keep overlooking that glaring point: I defend faith on a regular basis, and get long with the vast majority of faithful.

MadisonConservative on September 23, 2009 at 10:03 PM

Fundamentalism first occurred as a Christian movement around the beginning of the 20th century. It was a response to a movement rather quaintly called “modernism even though it’s now over a hundred years old,” which essentially rejected miracles and the supernatural in favor of a naturalistic approach to Christianity. In a nutshell, modernism suggested that God didn’t really do any miracles, and the writers of the Bible were just superstitious people who didn’t understand that miracles are impossible.

So when Jesus fed the 5000, the modernist would suggest that He probably just shared the little boy’s lunch, then inspired by his generosity, others in the crows shared their lunches until everyone was fed. And Jesus didn’t really calm the stormy sea, He just told it to be still, and suddenly his followers were no longer afraid of the storm.

The problem with this is that some miracles are at the absolute core of the Christian faith. For instance, if Jesus were not really resurrected, if He just fainted and was revived, then Paul said that everything he preached and taught would be just a lie, and it would be better to have no faith than a false faith.

So in a remarkably ecumenical manner, representatives from virtually every Christian denomination met together and asked the question: what doctrines were so fundamental to the Christian faith that they couldn’t be altered and still have a recognizable Christian faith. After these long and involved conferences, a volume of articles was published caled “The Fundamentals of the Christian Faith.”

Obviously, you can’t really condense these volumes to a paragraph or two, but a very brief summary generally boils “fundamental” doctrines down to a) special creation, b) sinful nature of man, c) virgin birth d) death of Christ as a “substitute” or sacrifice e) resurrection f) return of Christ, often called “Second Coming”, and the ever-famous g) belief that the Bible is inspired and without error, often described as being “literally true.”

The really important point here is that Christian fundamentalism had a very well-defined meaning and origin, even a history. Fundamentalist as applied to Muslims is much more of a vague term, though it makes at least some sense in that jihad is as fundamental to the Muslim faith as evangelism is to the Christian faith.

The difference between the two dictonary definitions is obvious. The first refers to the actual movement I described briefly above. The second is more an example of using the first definition loosely as a pejorative.

Of course, if you throw around fundamentalist like the left likes to throw the word “fascist” at conservatives, you just cause confusion. Which is why so many on the left are baffled to hear Obama described as fascist, since they think it’s a synonym for “racist right-wing jack-booted thug.”

I think it’s worth correcting the record on this, since MadCon and others like to throw around the word “fundamentalist” like KosKids throw around the term “fascist.”

But I’ll stop there, because Sarah Palin gave a really great speech in Hong Kong that shows a real grasp of the issues facing this country, and that should be the real topic.

Must be the huntress in her.

theotherone on September 23, 2009 at 11:33 PM

She is showing instinctive wisdom.

That’s something you’re born with.