Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

It’s a doggy dog world.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

T R E 4 5 O N

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

He really is that stupid.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“woke” is the new caravan.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2008 / Famous People

Famous People <3 Palin

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So much for the celebrity meme, as we learn that famous people loved Sarah Palin’s performance last night:

As it appeared in the Washington Post.
As it appeared in the Washington Post.

Apparently one of the crazy Kossacks took a screen shot of that at the WaPo this morning, where they had forgotten to insert an actual person’s name as the origin of the quote. Later on, they learned that the “famous person” was supposed to be Peggy Noonan, who offered us this steaming pile of nonsense today.

The Mighty Wurlitzer misses a note here and there, but the beat goes on.

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    Zifnab

    You’re getting some crazy mileage out of that "Clown Shoes" tag, John. And not a single one is undeserved.

  2. 2.

    mantis

    At least they didn’t accidentally run the "McCain Wins Debate!" ad again. I guess.

    Peggy Noonan is famous? Where, in her head after the five martini lunch?

  3. 3.

    Svensker

    I just LOVE Noonan. Has Taibbi ever done an article about her? If not, please do one soon, Matt.

  5. 5.

    Polish the Guillotines

    She had him at "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?"

    I read about that far. Then my thoughts went all impure on me and I had to stop.

    The Nooner’s really trying hard to pay penance for the Hot Mic Incident(c).

  11. 11.

    Comrade Warren Terra

    some off-topic Palinalia: her tax forms are now out (PDF). She reports her 2007 income as:
    Governor’s salary: ~$122,400
    Todd’s salary: ~$46,600
    Interest & dividends
    Business income: ~$5,000
    Capital gains: ~$2,500
    Other gains: ~$2,500
    Alaska Permanent Fund: ~$3,000
    Now, it was my understanding that as Governor, in 2007 and 2008, she’s had hundreds of $300 per-diems, and other travel expenses paid, and $25,000 in gifts. It was my – extremely poorly informed – impression that these were reportable and taxable as income. I don’t see those in this tax return; the $125,000 for the Governor was pure salary;. I assume we’ll get well-informed commentary somewhere, but if those are taxable gains they all happened in 2008, I missed them in the PDFs, or there’s a problem.

  12. 12.

    Stuck in the Fun House

    Think Progress is making the point of her appearing to be reading her answers. I was thinking the same thing watching and wondering how she could be allowed to bring Cliff Notes to a debate.

  13. 13.

    The Other Steve

    Peggy Noonan’s article is actually quite devastating to Palin. She’s basically same this populism crap they’re trying to feed is divisive, and it didn’t work so well with Bush.

  16. 16.

    ricky

    "Peggy has an inspirational style when composing the written word for delivery by actors suffering from dementia. But put her unawares behind an open mike and she has the real ring of authenticity."
    Unknown critic

  17. 17.

    jnfr

    @Stuck in the Fun House:

    We had the same question. I insisted that you aren’t allowed to bring a script or notes to the debates – I know I saw Obama, for example, take some notes while in his, but assumed he only had a blank pad – but it sure looked like she was reading an awful lot. She can’t even memorize!

  19. 19.

    Comrade Warren Terra

    It’s a darn good thing the comments can be edited, because the first version I posted used html that worked fine elsewhere, and in the preview, and got really messed up here.

  20. 20.

    Comrade Jake

    Remember Palin talking about divestment from Sudan during the debate?

    Turns out, her administration did just the opposite and opposed the measure. She’s got the blatant lying part down, you’ve got to hand it to her there.

  21. 21.

    SpotWeld

    When you’re "brought into the fold" for your loyalty, not competence, names are just redundant. Your assigned number will do just fine.

    Number Six.

  22. 22.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @SpotWeld:

    When you’re "brought into the fold" for your loyalty, not competence, names are just redundant. Your assigned number will do just fine.
    …
    Number Six.

    I am not a number. I am a free, and freedoms are so good for us which is why it’s so hated by those that would take them from us, doggone it.

  23. 23.

    JGabriel

    The Other Steve:

    Obviously Sarah Palin must have done quite well, because you are mocking her!

    No, we’re not. We’re cari-cari-cari-caricaturing her.

    .

  25. 25.

    Comrade Jake

    538 compares the ground games between the two campaigns in battleground states:

    You could take every McCain volunteer we’ve seen doing actual work in the entire trip, over six states, and it would add up to the same as Obama’s single Thornton, CO office. Or his single Durango, CO office. These ground campaigns bear no relationship to each other.

    One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn’t the same.

  26. 26.

    KCinDC

    Obviously someone accidentally went live with the ad before negotiations were complete about which pundit would say it and how much the campaign would have to pay them for saying it.

  29. 29.

    Ugh

    Obviously someone accidentally went live with the ad before negotiations were complete about which pundit would say it and how much the campaign would have to pay them for saying it.

    I really do wonder how that shit works. There must be some massive campaign finance criminality that goes along with the wingut noise machine.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Peter J

    Famous people might love Palin, but it doesn’t seem like the Palins are very charitable, they donated 3.3% of their adjusted gross income to charity in 2006 and 1.5% in 2007.

  32. 32.

    GSD

    I heard Peggy the Snake on NPR today….She says that "no one" has been harder on Karl Rove and his hardball tactics, than Peggy Noonan.

    What a filled to the brim scum bag she is.

    -GSD

  36. 36.

    Comrade The Moar You Know

    Now, it was my understanding that as Governor, in 2007 and 2008, she’s had hundreds of $300 per-diems, and other travel expenses paid, and $25,000 in gifts.

    Government per-diems and travel expenses are not taxable, period, although $300 per day seems somewhat high. Might not be for Alaska. The gifts…I have no clue.

    You can check out Federal per diem rates at the GSA site: GSA per diem rates

  37. 37.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @Scott H:

    So, now the whole being a "star" attribute is a good thing?

    It’s right there in section 25, paragraph 4 of the Wingnut Handbook: "You will refer to any action as ‘bad’ until such time as you are required to refer to it as ‘good.’"

    I mean, come on. It’s right there.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    Famous people might love Palin, but it doesn’t seem like the Palins are very charitable, they donated 3.3% of their adjusted gross income to charity in 2006 and 1.5% in 2007.

    On this one, I will gladly cut the Palins slack. They have kids. Kids come first.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Peter J

    So, now the whole being a "star" attribute is a good thing?

    It’s been clear for a while that message discipline really isn’t the McCain campaign’s strong suit.

    Not going to complain about it though. Somewhere there’s a parallell universe where the McCain campaign actually isn’t a fuck up, be glad that we’re here and not there.

  42. 42.

    Tom Hilton

    At least they didn’t accidentally run the "McCain Wins Debate!" ad again. I guess.

    I think this is even more hilarious than the "McCain Wins Debate!" ad. YMMV.

  45. 45.

    TheFountainHead

    not to sound too much like a Kossack, but I’m stuck on this goddamn bus trying to get through the Lincoln tunnel (did someone threaten to blow it up again?) and pretty much every single person on this bus is talking about Obama or trashing Palin. I’d also like to announce that I have decided that Obama’s campaign needs to play "Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" as loud as ducking possible on victory night just to scare the living crap out of the mouth-breathin’ right!

  47. 47.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Comrade Warren Terra:

    It’s a darn good thing the comments can be edited, because the first version I posted used html that worked fine elsewhere, and in the preview, and got really messed up here.

    Generally, if it looks right in preview, it’s wrong.

  48. 48.

    Dennis - SGMM

    @Brachiator: Wait until she "writes" her book. That little six figure income will look like peanuts. Just wait, I can see it now: "Barbie Spice Does America Dontcha Know!"

    She will never understand when her fifteen minutes of fame are over. She’ll show up on the talk shows for a while until they’ve wrung out the last drop of stupidity then it’s on to the Wasilla Cable Access Channel. There will be the occasional YouTube clips of her show with titles like "Remember Sarah Palin?" The vice-presidential run is her springboard to obscurity.

  49. 49.

    Not My Fault

    @Brachiator:

    On this one, I will gladly cut the Palins slack. They have kids. Kids come first.

    You left out the vacation home(s?) and the float plane.

  50. 50.

    Comrade Incertus

    I have decided that Obama’s campaign needs to play "Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" as loud as ducking possible on victory night just to scare the living crap out of the mouth-breathin’ right!

    PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean?

    Can I do the beatdown on Dana Perino’s lectern?

  53. 53.

    Politically Lost

    Is it sexist to think that Noonan is a douche bag?

    The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

    Bush in a skirt indeed. Heh.

    When Palin’s nomination (after the initial, "Palin who?" thing) didn’t result in a collective laughing fit from this nation; it was a sure sign of the apocalypse.

    What I’d like to know is by what mechanism a media can be created whereby things don’t somehow get by the straight face test. I mean come on. How is it that she was ever taken seriously. How is it that when Biden was confronted with Palin bragging about McCain "suspending" his campaign for the good of the country and the financial system, that Biden and the MSM didn’t turn into a joke line.?(only on comedy central I guess)

    The oft repeated "satire is dead", does not convey how crazy things are.

    The illness I’m afraid has metastasized to such an extent that radical surgery of both the media and the elected branches of government is required.

  55. 55.

    SamFromUtah

    What I’d like to know is by what mechanism a media can be created whereby things don’t somehow get by the straight face test. I mean come on. How is it that she was ever taken seriously.

    The thing to remember is that the party behind Palin a) owns the media and b) has claimed and exercised the right to disappear and torture people they don’t agree with.

  56. 56.

    28 Percent

    you think the real famous people who are REAL AMERICANS will not support her because her authenticity is too real for them but you are wrong. Sarah Palin understands the world like incentives like if you don’t let banks fail then the rich people who own them will never learn and if you pay for rape kits that only encourages women to cry rape and if you pay health insurance claims then people will keep on getting proctologist exams willy nilly and what about FEMA if we have the GOVERNMENT doing good disaster recovery that only encourages more hurricanes. You people are supposed to be global warming freaks who complain about more hurricanes so you can take away all our SUVs but yet you encourage them by FEMA i guess that shows you for the HYPOCRITES you really are.

    Nice try! thanks for playing LOSERS!

  58. 58.

    Comrade Grand Panjandrum

    Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States of America.

    I gonna turn the porch light on and put up my American Flag. Everything is going to be alright brothers and sisters. Everything is gonna be alright.

  59. 59.

    mantis

    I think this is even more hilarious than the "McCain Wins Debate!" ad. YMMV.

    I meant if they were saying McCain won the VP debate. How about "Famous Person Wins Debate!"

  60. 60.

    El Cid

    Famous Person: "I loved it! It was great! Much better than CATS ! I’m going to see it again and again!"

  61. 61.

    Polish the Guillotines

    What I’d like to know is by what mechanism a media can be created whereby things don’t somehow get by the straight face test. I mean come on. How is it that she was ever taken seriously.

    You’re reading my mind.

    I think a big part of this goes back to the ’80s when the networks decided the news divisions needed to become profit generators. Up til then, they were prestige operations supported by the ad revenues from the entertainment divisions. That’s when you started seeing all these consultants pop up pushing the "happy talk" format and the tabloid "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy. And at the same time, you see all the foreign bureaus disappear due to cost-cutting, bottom-line concerns.

    Then you get the 24-hour cable channels in the ’90s. How the hell do you keep people engaged for 24-hours? You scour the country for missing cheerleader stories, I guess. Blame Murdoch for instigating a tabloid arms-race on cable.

    Add to it the GOP’s decades-long assault on the media, which pretty clearly neutered journalism.

    But, then again, go back through history and look at the shit political campaigns flung at each other via the printing press. Hell, Alexander Hamilton probably would’ve been our 2nd president if he hadn’t been compelled to publicly admit to an affair.

    It still sucks, though.

  63. 63.

    Conservatively Liberal

    I am not a famous person and I can’t stand Palin, but I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

    I am glad that the wingnuts are fainting from the happy vapors that Palin induces. After this election, people are not going to take the Republican party seriously for years to come. How in the hell are you supposed to take the Republican party seriously when they back someone like Bible Spice? In the primary, the McCain hate on the right was palatable. You could see it, hear it and feel it, they just hated him to no end. But they lined up behind him like the good little mindless idiots they are when he won. So then he chooses Palin and they still line up behind him.

    It is clear that the hard core right can care less about who they choose to lead our country because all that matters to them is that they have that "R" next to their name, not a "D". That is the only qualification they care about, nothing else matters. They have devolved into a party that is ruled by popularity contests devoid of any substance. They don’t care one whit about the country and what we are facing, this is just a popularity contest to them.

    I had to duck out last night due to pain issues. Listening to (her grating voice and trying to process) what Bible Spice said didn’t help one bit either. I saw a word cloud of her performance last night and the most prominent word in it was "also".

    "Also"?! It sure don’t take much to impress a wingnut, that’s for damned sure.

  64. 64.

    Grrrr

    Totally unimpressed by the advertisement that scrolls onto the screen… and won’t go away! If part of the new redesign is annoying animated advertisements obscuring the content, I give up. I love this blog but not enough to put up with terrible ads. No survey for me!

  67. 67.

    Chuck Butcher

    Noonan’s 2nd paragraph:

    The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

    Noonan 3 paragraphs from the bottom:

    They knew presidential popularity is a jewel to be protected, and to be burnished when possible, because without it you can do nothing. Without the support and trust of the people you cannot move, cannot command. You are left, like Mr. Bush, talking to an empty room.

    We saw this week, too, a turn in the McCain campaign’s response to criticisms of Mrs. Palin. I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America—small towns, sound values. "It’s time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I’m not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it’s possible they are—but this is subtly divisive. As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party types" (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House. Good move. That ended well.

    And so, the McCain campaign read this before they advertised it? Noonan’s opening paragraphs are pure unadalterated nonsense based on Palin getting out alive but the closing is not what I’d call real complimentary. If I were running a political campaign I’d avoid advertising this article. But then, I like the other guy.

    Regarding Joe Six-pack:
    Democrats and Guns
    We’d have welcomed her out to see if she actually can do this stuff. There is, tease, a pretty woman candidate on a shooting range and a BIG gun.

  68. 68.

    kommrade jakevich

    Verily, the fucktardery of the fReichtards knows no bounds. Really, how fucking hard would it have been for someone at Camp McPOW to read the damn ad before they hit release?

    Too hard apparently. Either the idiot in charge of pushing the button [ahem] over-exerted himself during the long wink session with the Blood Countess’, or they’ve outsourced a lot of their work to a non-English speaking country.

    Turns out, her administration did just the opposite and opposed the measure.

    Thanks. I was trying to guess the things that would turn out to be big steaming lies (rather than mild manglings of the facts) and that was one of them. Stupid bitches.

  69. 69.

    littlesky

    and if you pay health insurance claims then people will keep on getting proctologist exams willy nilly

    You betcha.

  70. 70.

    Conservatively Liberal

    Totally unimpressed by the advertisement that scrolls onto the screen…

    What scrolling advertisement? I use SeaMonkey (Mozilla) with its built-in pop-up blocker and ability to block images from specific servers, plus the FlashBlock and Script Manager add-ons, and it does a great job of blocking out stuff like that.I get BJ with Flash ‘play’ buttons and blank spots where the ads would be, so I get all of the BJ goodness without the fluff.

    You do have to right click on the ad images and select ‘Block images from this server’, but all I do is go to sites that have tons of ads and get the basic training for the ad blocking done right away.

    :)

  71. 71.

    Soylent Green

    Peggy Noonan wrote:
    She’s about to get jumpers, the old political name for people who are so excited to see you they start to jump.
     
    Then could they please hold the rallies on the Golden Gate Bridge?

  72. 72.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @Conservatively Liberal:

    In the primary, the McCain hate on the right was palatable. You could see it, hear it and feel it, they just hated him to no end. But they lined up behind him like the good little mindless idiots they are when he won. So then he chooses Palin and they still line up behind him.

    Almost agree. They were just three months away from the election and the fundy base was somnambulant, and they’re the GOP’s get-out-the-vote machine. McCain wanted Lieberman as veep, but a Jewish "Democrat" would’ve been McCain’s political death sentence with the base. Palin was a pure and simple bone-toss to the bible wavers. (Remember: Earlier in the summer, James Dobson was adamant that he’d never be able to support McCain. The day after Caribou Barbie was unleashed, lo and behold, Dobson can now support McCain.)

    Obama has the mother of all ground games and a war-chest to match, and McCain’s was non-existent pre-Barbie.

    On January 21st, Sarah Palin would disappear. Vanish. Oh, sure, she’d show up to some mega-churches to fundraise now and again, but from a policy-making standpoint, they’d bury her deeper than Jimmy Hoffa.

  73. 73.

    kommrade jakevich

    Bwahaha! Stop! Stop! You’re killing me, also though. But!

    Palin said she had been "annoyed" in her interviews with CBS News anchor Katie Couric and had been caught off guard when asked what newspapers and magazines she read and to name Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with — questions Palin appeared not to be able to answer.

    Her responses, Palin said, were "an indication of being outside that Washington elite, outside of the media elite also."

    There you have it folks. Anyone who can name a magazine or a newspaper is a member of the media elite also.

    Tomorrow I begin my program of pointing and laughing at people with McCain/Palin bumper stickers.

  74. 74.

    tBone

    Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

    They knew presidential popularity is a jewel to be protected, and to be burnished when possible, because without it you can do nothing. Without the support and trust of the people you cannot move, cannot command. You are left, like Mr. Bush, talking to an empty room.

    The above passages no doubt sent starbursts ricocheting around Lowry’s pants, but sweet baby Jesus, I hate Noonan’s writing. It’s like a perfume factory in the middle of a feedlot – the cloying sweetness makes the stench of the bullshit that much worse.

    "It’s time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I’m not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it’s possible they are—but this is subtly divisive.

    Every time she went into one of her Joe Six-Pack or Hockey Mahm routines during the debate, the CNN metrics tanked. Apparently the undecided Joes and Janes in Ohio recognize patronizing faux-empathy when they see it.

  75. 75.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @tBone:

    It’s like a perfume factory in the middle of a feedlot – the cloying sweetness makes the stench of the bullshit that much worse.

    So much win.

  76. 76.

    Jill Howell

    At one point in the debate you could see Palin turn over a PAGE OF NOTES, she wasn’t reading from.
    Noonan doesn’t think Fey’s spoofs "brutalize" Palin? Wow.

    To spoof someone well takes talent, but to utterly nail a political figure while not brutalizing him takes a real gift, and amounts almost to a public service

    I love how Noonan and Brooks can see and hear so clearly, from their perch, into the hearts and minds of the Joe Six-Packs of the world. They must be using those new eavesdropping/spying devices I keep reading about.

  77. 77.

    Jon H

    Polish the G wrote: "On January 21st, Sarah Palin would disappear. Vanish. Oh, sure, she’d show up to some mega-churches to fundraise now and again, but from a policy-making standpoint, they’d bury her deeper than Jimmy Hoffa."

    Nope. She’d be active, but she’d be a puppet. All they need is her signature and authority to empower the two-bit Cheneys in McCain’s administration.

    But they need her for that. She wouldn’t be driving the policy, but she’d be useful to make it happen.

  78. 78.

    justme

    So, can we get the Palin/Fargo youtube done with "Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" kinda low in the background?

    Also, if we can’t trust these idiots to place an ad in the paper, how are we supposed to trust them with the launch codes?

  79. 79.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @Jon H:

    Nope. She’d be active, but she’d be a puppet. All they need is her signature and authority to empower the two-bit Cheneys in McCain’s administration.
    …
    But they need her for that. She wouldn’t be driving the policy, but she’d be useful to make it happen.

    Fair point. I can see that. Nevertheless, she’d be way out of reach of the press.

  80. 80.

    gwangung

    Polish the G wrote: "On January 21st, Sarah Palin would disappear. Vanish. Oh, sure, she’d show up to some mega-churches to fundraise now and again, but from a policy-making standpoint, they’d bury her deeper than Jimmy Hoffa."
    Nope. She’d be active, but she’d be a puppet. All they need is her signature and authority to empower the two-bit Cheneys in McCain’s administration.
    But they need her for that. She wouldn’t be driving the policy, but she’d be useful to make it happen.

    She’d figure this out by the third year of the Presidency, methinks…

  81. 81.

    tBone

    Nevertheless, she’d be way out of reach of the press.

    Yeah, Palin’s done as a national political figure if McCain’s campaign doesn’t pull out of its death spiral. Quayle served a full term as VP in an undisclosed location, and his post-WH career was still ruined by the enduring image of him as an empty-headed dipshit from the campaign four years earlier.

    I’m sure they’ll try to trot her out in 2012, but outside of the Cheetoh Brigades, people will just point and laugh.

    McCain really did us a favor by plucking Milfy McMoosehunter out of obscurity – another few years of seasoning, and she could have been dangerous.

  82. 82.

    Comrade Darkness

    So, now the whole being a "star" attribute is a good thing

    This whole being a "hypocrite" attribute has always been a good thing.

    It is, really. It is a social marker. Like a "drunk the koolaid" badge that proves you are willing to throw away all personal rights to think for yourself, and are therefore a safe team player, all the way.

  83. 83.

    Stuck in the Fun House

    It’s like a perfume factory in the middle of a feedlot – the cloying sweetness makes the stench of the bullshit that much worse.

    Yep, I call her Our Lady of the Long Knives. She butters up her victims with sugary bullshit, then rhetorically lops off their heads. You always know that will happen when she starts off her column citing the persons good points.

  84. 84.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @tBone:

    Yeah, Palin’s done as a national political figure if McCain’s campaign doesn’t pull out of its death spiral. Quayle served a full term as VP in an undisclosed location, and his post-WH career was still ruined by the enduring image of him as an empty-headed dipshit from the campaign four years earlier.
    …
    I’m sure they’ll try to trot her out in 2012, but outside of the Cheetoh Brigades, people will just point and laugh.
    …
    McCain really did us a favor by plucking Milfy McMoosehunter out of obscurity – another few years of seasoning, and she could have been dangerous.

    Yup. I just watched a clip of the 2006 AK governor’s debate that Sully posted. When she’s talking about her real passion — "life issues" — she’s lucid. Sure, it’s wrote memorization of the talking points, but there’s none of the "boy howdy" schtick.

    What I’m beginning to believe is that the McCain campaign actually has her off her game, which is part of why she’s such a train-wreck in an interview. If all she was talking about was abortion and prayer in school, she’d be coherent, and that’s the problem. They know you can’t win a general election with that kind of extremism, so they’ve gotta dial it all back.

    It’s also quite possible that they’re so goddamned incompetent that they assumed from clips like the gov debate that she’d be able to deliver the talking points on any other subject. Not so much.

  85. 85.

    rob!

    i love that "Famous Person" ad f**k-up.

    who does the McCain staff have working in their graphics department? unpaid art students, the blind, the criminally insane?

  88. 88.

    kommrade jakevich

    Like a "drunk the koolaid" badge that proves you are willing to throw away all personal rights to think for yourself, and are therefore a safe team player, all the way.

    Why do you think the TalEvan and the GOP have been making the beast with two backs for years? The modern Republican Party wants and needs people who will believe anything provided it allows them to be spiteful little bastards who are simultaneously vastly better than the everyone else and persecuted and down-trodden.

    The TalEvangical leaders … well, they want and need money, power and wet suits.

    ‘Tis a match made in the lowest ring of Hell.

  89. 89.

    Soylent Green

    Kos agreed with the wingers today:

    Palin is totally awesome, an asset to the ticket, and really, really competent to be vice president. So let her free. Take her out of Cheney’s undisclosed location and let her campaign. Let her do media interviews. Let her do town hall meetings. Take her out of tightly-scripted environments, shed the McCain chaperone (which is a bit creepy and quite a bit sexist), and "let Palin be Palin". I’m sure she’ll just do great. Because really, all that Palin awesomeness shouldn’t be limited to the single vice-presidential debate. It should be unleashed on the country! If not, Republicans will be deprived of a potent weapon in this final weeks of the campaign.

    Because if there is one thing we can agree on, it’s the benefit of seeing Sarah Palin speaking extemporaneously to reporters.

  92. 92.

    Brian J

    I just LOVE Noonan.

    She’s sort of like the conservative Maureen Dowd, except she appears to hate only liberals. I’ve never seen someone take such pride in writing about nothing.

  93. 93.

    jcricket

    who does the McCain staff have working in their graphics department? unpaid art students, the blind, the criminally insane?

    Yes. SASQ.

    You know, the best thing about Palin is that she is the perfect representation of what the Republican party has become. Talking points, emoting, faux–populism, hatred of liberals/elites/city dwellers. Anti-science, anti-pragmatism, etc.

    It’s all fine by me

    Republicans will likely react to losing this election by continuing their lurch further to the right into Norquist + Huckabee land (don’t ask me how those add together, it’s like Frankenstein). They will lose an entire generation of prospective voters under 18, all the new voters from 18-24 and alienate moderates and independents under 65 when they do this. An entire pool of potential future Republican candidates for office, will instead not run, or run as Democrats (don’t want to tarnish themselves by being associated with these idiots). And so on.

    Malkin, Limbaugh, Coulter, Red State, WND, Drudge – let them run the Republican party.

    Because reality has a "liberal bias" the world will trend our way – we just have to make it clear to people that’s the case and stop being afraid to articulate where we stand.

  94. 94.

    tripletee (formerly tBone)

    No ricocheting starbursts, but K-Lo loves her some Palin too:

    Sarah Palin won this debate and puts the campaign in a great position to rail against the media. Whatever she did before this debate — prayed? – is what she should always fall back on. And my impression is what she does. And why she’s come so far so fast.
    …
    Sarah Palin is the breath of fresh air on the political scene so many hoped she is. And she’ll be honored to beat the guy who’s been in the Senate since she was in the second grade.

    K-Lo and the Hockey Mahm make a strong case for granting the English language protection under the Geneva Conventions.

  95. 95.

    yam

    @Polish the Guillotines:

    If all she was talking about was abortion and prayer in school, she’d be coherent, and that’s the problem. They know you can’t win a general election with that kind of extremism, so they’ve gotta dial it all back.

    Funny, but when people’s savings are gone and their house ain’t worth doodley, gays and abortion doesn’t really matter much…

  96. 96.

    ComradeJ. Michael Neal

    Government per-diems and travel expenses are not taxable, period, although $300 per day seems somewhat high.

    Where do you find this? I did a quick search of the Internal Revenue Code and didn’t see it. What is true is that, if you have a perdiem that is deductible, it is only deductible up to the amount of the federal government per diem. However, per diems are not deductible if they are not for legitimate business expenses, and staying at your own home doesn’t generally qualify. So far as I can tell, that is true regardless of who is paying the per diem.

  98. 98.

    Polish the Guillotines

    @yam:

    Funny, but when people’s savings are gone and their house ain’t worth doodley, gays and abortion doesn’t really matter much…

    Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

  99. 99.

    Zuzu Hussein's Petals

    1. I think the per diem payments were $60/day. And I think the tax question comes up this way:

    Anthony C. Infanti, a professor of tax law at the University of Pittsburg law school, raised the issue in a blog called “Feminist Law Professors.” Mr. Infanti writes that if Governor Palin was not engaging in business while in Wasilla, but simply preferring to spend the nights there, then the per diem payments would be taxable income.

    “If these are really just personal expenses paid by her employer, that sounds like taxable income to me,” Mr. Infanti wrote in his posting.

    NY Times

    2. IIRC, tithing is supposed to be 10% of your pre-tax, or gross, income. And then you add another 10% for missions if you’re really an on-fire, spirit-filled believer. Todd and Sarah have some ‘splainin’ to do to the brothers and sisters.

    3. Even with her veiled put down of Palin, Noonan is just insufferable. I saw her on TDS last night in her faux-Grace Kelly skirt suit and pearls and her faux- June Allison bob, and listened to her smarmy blather and was repulsed. Really, the woman is insufferable.

  100. 100.

    Zuzu Hussein's Petals

    RE Mr. Infanti’s take on the Palin per diem, I’m not sure if he’s considering the fact that Palin actually worked in Anchorage while staying in Wasilla.

    Beyond me.

  101. 101.

    jcricket

    Basically the taxable per-diem thing is about avoiding the possibility your employer will help you dodge taxes by "paying you" in a form other than salary.

    So if it’s a business expense reimbusement (like when you or I go on a trip and our employer pays us back for the hotel and rental car) it’s not taxable income (for you and me).

    But if they’re just paying $50/day towards your rent, gas, etc. it’s taxable income.

  102. 102.

    Jeff

    Has anyone brought up the fact that John McCain’s intervention in the bailout negotiations may have caused the House Republicans to throw the first vote so they would have to vote for it on Friday and the VP debate would not lead the weekend news cycle.

    Just the conspiracy theorist in me.

  103. 103.

    patroclus

    Hey, John McCain spent 5 and 1/2 years in a POW camp without so much as once having a faux endorsement from some nameless famous person captured on a pre-prepared website by some crazy Kossack only because some right-wing webmaster hack didn’t have the brains of a two-year old to post it with the shameless right-wing warmongering hack’s name on it AFTER she allegedly said it —

    all about the alleged performance of a 4-college sports journalism nincompoop who winks at right-wingers until starbursts come out of their, uh, TV screens and is a so-called legitimate candidate for one of the most powerful positions on the planet…

  104. 104.

    Kamishna ya Watu Xenos

    I’m sure they’ll try to trot her out in 2012, but outside of the Cheetoh Brigades, people will just point and laugh.

    One of the best parts of an Obama win this November will be the next Republican primary. It will be a delicious death match between Huckabee, Palin, and the Mittster. I get a thrill running up my leg just thinking about it.

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