Palin: “America’s Starting To Reach Her Potential”
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, McCain, Palin, VideoMaybe it’s just me, but that’s kind of an odd thing to say when discussing the topic of elitism.
To me, its her use of the word “starting.” I mean, aren’t we the greatest country in the history of the world? Haven’t we already well exceeded our potential and the best is yet to come?
Watch and you tell me what you think…
By the way, another note…she really needs to learn how to give shorter answers. Because once she really gets going, well, that’s when the platitudes start flooding out of her and she sounds like she’s just making stuff up. That’s not to say that she is, she just sounds like she is.
And McCain seems more like the McCain we’ve known and loved in the past. Although he does realize that he’s essentially branding himself an elitist since he has been in Washington for so long.
Moving on…
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October 23rd, 2008 at 7:40 pm
But does he realize he just branded as “elitist”–and by association, “unAmerican”–the two cities that were attacked on Sep 11?
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Is her “starting to” as good as Michelle Obama’s “for the first time”? They STILL go on about that, maybe we should hit them back with this.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Justin, your thinking is sloppy here. You seem to fundamentally lack an understanding of the term potential. Any achievement that is as yet unrealized is potential.
People like to talk about exceeding their potential, but that’s a little bit like giving 110%. Logically speaking, once anything realizes its full potential, it can not exceed it. So when one speaks of someone exceeding their potential, they’re implying a temporal component, in essence suggesting that the previous judgement of potential was in fact an underestimation. Or else they are referring to some 3rd party judgment as to the bounds of their own abilities.
So in judging whether America has “already well exceeded its potential” my answer is that this is only true if we’re talking about the judgement of past pessimists.
Your characterization is especially peculiar given that you lean liberal. A basic part of the liberal litany is that we can and must do much better, especially when it comes to social justice, equality of opportunity, and so on and so forth. So if you believe that these things are both necessary and possible, then you MUST concurrently believe that America has NOT reached its potential.