Huh?  Sarah Palin is 4 years old?  Doesn’t reincarnation involve a person dying before being reborn?

Plus, the “dress and bearing children line” is really amusing.  Shorter Micheal Reagan:  “Gee, Dad, it’s nice you came back even if you are one of those female child-vessel things”.  Charming!

Reagan was awful in a lot of ways, but his son is right that he never really bought into the religious right lock stock and barrel like W. and Palin do. He hardly attended church. He just cynically used them for political purposes (yes, I’m damning with faint praise).

That said, I want Ron Reagan to run for Congress as a Democrat.

Has there even been a popular Republican who was not feted as the second coming of Reagan?

I mean, didn’t they all stand up there in that auditorium last year - Thompson, Romney, Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee, and the rest - and each, in their turn, claim the mantle of “Reaganesque”?

Chet, you’re correct. And when McCain/Palin loses, the post-mortem will be that they weren’t right wing enough, not enough like Reagan.

When Whitman was on NOW the other night, she talked about how the very right wing found people to run in districts, and they’d win in the primary because only about 9% of voters turned out, but then those same candidates couldn’t win against a moderate in the general, which was what was weakening the center of the Republican party. (At least one of the things.) It isn’t that candidates are right wing enough, it’s that they are too right wing and too one-note to garner a broad base. Broad bases are needed not only to be elected, but in order to govern effectively.

Reagan was awful in a lot of ways, but his son is right that he never really bought into the religious right lock stock and barrel like W. and Palin do. He hardly attended church. He just cynically used them for political purposes (yes, I’m damning with faint praise).

W. doesn’t have much use for church either. David Kuo says Bush used the religious right. Kuo has no obvious reason to lie.

Palin could be like Bush, pretending religiosity for the Republican base to get elected. The last time he listened to what he thought was God, it was his gut, preoccupied with his dad, that told him to go git Saddam. Thousands of bodies later, he’s still ruled by the nerves around his intestine. Very reminiscent of Palin’s tendency to fire dissenters and surround herself with an echo chamber.

“The last time he listened to what he thought was God, it was his gut, preoccupied with his dad, that told him to go git Saddam.”

...I always figured the “voice of god” Bush Jr. claimed he heard was Cheney whispering in his ear…

I think we all know what a great father Ronnie Reagan was. 

I think Michael Reagan knows it most of all.

No matter how stupid and evil Michael is (and he is both), I still feel for him, because of his adoptive father.

Hmmm… this explains alot of things.  Did they get Bobby “Exorcist” Jindal to perform some kind of wingnut ceremony reanimating St Ronnie Raygun into the body of Zombie Governor?
Will the secret rites show up on YouTube?

I have from the start thought Palin was a sociopathic opportunist who was no more a believing Christian than Richard Dawkins.

It’s the six colleges in five years thing. For some reason, that just gives it away.

If I’m remembering my childhood clearly, it seems that Reagan ought to be remembered as one of the most pro-science and technology presidents we’ve ever had. Granted, he mostly just wanted to use it for blowing stuff up, but still.

“And when McCain/Palin loses, the post-mortem will be that they weren’t right wing enough, not enough like Reagan. “

My favorite was that Man-on-Dog Santorum lost because his endorsement of Specter in the ‘04 primary made him not conservative enough.

If the right thinks simply running conservatives is the answer, I dare them to run Assrocket in MN against Klobuchar in 2012, and once Lieberman retires (I don’t see them seriously touching him,) to run Ann Coulter against hopefully Ned Lamont in CT, and to pull someone in the Limbaugh family into some major statewide Missouri race.

People who “pretend religiosity” generally don’t have daughters who decide to marry the baby-daddy at 17.  I would think she was a sham if the Bristol thing hadn’t happened, but that pretty much proves that, yes, she’ll put her money daughter’s uterus where her mouth is. 

Oh, god, suddenly that idiom sounds a lot less wholesome.  Sorry.

Two weeks ago, some Alaska Republicans were circulating bumper stickers with Ronald Reagan’s face and the slogan “Sarah Is A RINO.” Because she raised taxes on oil companies, for one thing.

Two weeks after that, all is forgiven.

(Republican In Name Only, by the way.)

Has there even been a popular Republican who was not feted as the second coming of Reagan?

It’s a corollary of Godwin’s Law as used by binary thinkers.  You’re either Reagan or That Other Guy With The Moustache.

I am so depressed today, because it appears to me that the repubs have a chance of winning this election mainly on the the basis of have chosen someone who can field dress a moose or some shit like that. what kind of stupid fucking country is this?

Broad bases are needed not only to be elected, but in order to govern effectively.

Which explains why Republicans have pretty much completely given up on actual governing.

Creationists in one form or another comprise about 45% of the US population.

Do liberals believe that people from this demographic excludes people from high office?

Sorry, that should be “should be excluded from high office”.

Creationists in one form or another comprise about 45% of the US population.

Cite, please?  Because aside from evangelicals (who make up nowhere near 45% of the US population, as much as they might wish it were true), just about every religious group that is common in the US, up to and including the Catholic Church and just about every mainline Protestant denomination, either does not explicitly espouse a belief in literal creationism or has explicitly affirmed that evolution is true.  And the only reason I can come up with that a person might prefer creationism to evolution is if they are somehow swayed by religious dogma.  Because creationism is an aspect of religious dogma.  People who aren’t religious and/or don’t buy religious dogma aren’t creationist.

The only way I could imagine that this could be even vaguely close to not a delusion would be if you also counted people who don’t know, don’t care, don’t feel that they are knowledgeable enough about evolution to say one way or the other, or simply don’t feel like talking about it at the moment.  And I imagine that most folks who feel that way would bristle at the “creationist” label.

I think we should take Michael Reagan’s quote and publicize it under a headline like “Ronald Reagan’s long awaited post-mortem transexual return”, and ridicule Michael relentlessly.

Oh, wait, I forgot we don’t lower ourselves to that (even if they do).

People under the age of 18 make up X% of the US population.

Do liberals think they should be excluded from office?

Cites for % of Americans who believe in some form of creationism:

Gallup (45%, 2001): http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/creation/evol-poll.htm

CBS (51%, 2005): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/22/opinion/polls/main965223.shtml

Christian Post (46%, 2006): http://www.christianpost.com/article/20060606/nearly-half-of-americans-believe-in-creationism.htm

Harris (39%, 2007): http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Americans_believe_in_God_and_hell_U_12042007.html

The Straight Dope (summing up a bunch of other polls, 44 to 47%, 2006): http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2680/nearly-half-the-u-s-population-believes-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old

So, the existence of this largish plurality having been demonstrated beyond a reasonable person’s ability to doubt it, 45% or so of the American population believes in creationism. Does this, in the liberal view, disqualify those Americans from holding high office?

To be fair, Opoponax, a lot of the anti-evolution BS I’ve heard (including a lot that comes from Wingnuts (Delay springs to mind)) seems to indicate that their primary opposition to evolution isn’t that they object on religious grounds, but that the idea that humans “came from monkeys” offends them. In other words they dislike reality, so they refuse to acknowledge it and get piss if you try to make them. The religion stuff is mostly just a smokescreen.

Dan, I don’t think somebody who believes in creationism should hold office if they are going to make policy based on that religious belief.  Regardless of what the creationists tell themselves, a scientific theory is not the same as a layperson’s theory.  A scientific theory has proved again and again by various independent scientists.  Hence, the theory of evolution is not a guess or speculation.  It’s a fact. 

I have no problem with a religious person holding office, but not if that person is going shove their peculiar brand of belief down everybody’s throat by legislating their beliefs.  Unfortunately, it seems that the evangelicals feel the need to do just that, and they are generally the ones who believe, however crazy it might sound to a rational person, that the earth and everything on it is 6,000 or 10,000 or whatever number they want to pull out of their ass to match the written form of an oral story-telling tradition years old.

dan, I don’t think it should exclude them from running. OTOH it will definitely exclude me from ever voting for them in pretty much the same way - and for the same reasons - that I would never vote for a flat earther.

Palin is Bush in a dress-- only LESS educated, MORE culturally isolated and with less curiosity about the rest of the world. (She just got her 1st passport last year.) She’s anti-science, anti-sex education and thinks there is nothing wrong with government censorship at your local library. Oh, and abuse of power? Got that. Firing people who don’t completely agree with her? Yup. Her record is truly scary.

Palin is Bush in a dress-- only worse.

Rise, wash, repeat.

I don’t think somebody who believes in creationism should hold office if they are going to make policy based on that religious belief.

This is exactly how I feel.  If you’re one of those people who honestly doesn’t give a shit, doesn’t like thinking about it, has no real opinion on the matter, whatever, then OK, sure, run for office (though you might want to stay away from the school board). 

If you actively Believe In Creationism as a political position and want ID taught in schools (actively want it, not just “would be OK with that, I guess"), you do not belong in public office. And I don’t care if that’s 90% of the population.  You don’t declare something a scientific fact by what the majority of Americans think about it.

And, yes, Ruby, I too would agree that the folks who get offended at the idea that “we came from monkeys” are probably more ignorant than religious.  Though those are the folks I would doubt are really and truly honestly creationist at the end of the day.  They’re just stupid (though a case could be made that they’re too stupid to be running a country).

Should Druids be excluded from office or do we only support the christianist mythos in public office?

And since when did a plurality mean that the position was correct?  Please.  You’re going to have work much harder to get that kind of tripe into the discourse.  If you point had any value Britney Spears would be one of our culture’s most treasured musicians.  The more interesting question is, persecuted christian, can someone who does not believe in genesis get elected to office?  And why doesn’t that bigotry bother you?

And that’s my one and final troll response to day.

I’m confused. Does he actually believe his father was reincarnated as Sarah Palin? If so, does he actually understand reincarnation? I’m not sure it involves Quantum Leap-ing back 40 years after you die.

http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/

Dan, Grand High Emperor of Bananas wrote:

If I’m remembering my childhood clearly, it seems that Reagan ought to be remembered as one of the most pro-science and technology presidents we’ve ever had. Granted, he mostly just wanted to use it for blowing stuff up, but still.

I believe you are mistaken.  Just look at Reagan’s non-response to issues of pollution and global warming. 

This is the same man who claimed that most air pollution came from trees.

Dan in Denver:

So, the existence of this largish plurality having been demonstrated beyond a reasonable person’s ability to doubt it, 45% or so of the American population believes in creationism.

So what? I’d bet that at least 45% of San Francisco fans believe that there’s absolutely no way the 49ers are going to lose to Seattle next Sunday.

Lots of people believing something that is wildly inconsistent with the available evidence doesn’t actually make it true. Science is no more subject to the will of the electorate than the results of a football game.

Does this, in the liberal view, disqualify those Americans from holding high office?

Well, let’s ignore for the moment that someone who espouses creationism is highly likely to hold other equally objectionable beliefs, and address your question, such as it is, directly. Insofar as believing in creationism demonstrates an inability to deal honestly with the world around them that will in all likelihood be gleefully applied to every other aspect of the job, then yeah, I’d say it’s pretty much a deal-breaker when it comes to holding high office.