The first rule of what will become the new Christian Nationalist party, should the Republicans be exiled in disgrace in a few days, will be that no one ever takes responsibility:
“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.
“I think she’d like to go more rogue,” he said.
The emergence of a Palin faction comes as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party: Some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.
“These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves,” a McCain insider said, referring to McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin’s campaign. Palin’s partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin’s avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News’ Katie Couric, whose sometimes painful content the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week.
“A number of Gov. Palin’s staff have not had her best interests at heart, and they have not had the campaign’s best interests at heart,” the McCain insider fumed, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign.
Got it? The vapid moron made a total fool of herself, got completely humiliated by Katie Couric because she couldn’t answer even the most basic questions, and it is all the fault of… the person who scheduled the interview.
Well, it isn’t all Nicole Wallace’s fault. It is also partially the fault of the liberal gotcha media. And the viewers, who unfairly judged her a moron. They share some blame, too. But the one person who is most definitely not to blame, and, as you can see from this story, is really the big victim- that would be our mavericky maverick from Alaska, Sarah Palin.
Someone should ask her if maybe her disastrous performance was just God’s will.
The best thing about the upcoming circular firing squad is that once former true-believers like Nicole Wallace are screwed over royally by the wingnut fringe of the party, they will start to go all Scott McClellan. Take it from my experience- nothing hardens your resolve like being called a traitor after watching the Mayberry Machiavellis destroy your party. If you missed McClellan last night on Larry King, you really missed a treat. I personally don’t care much for the guy, but it is clear that he is done with the GOP for a good long while:
Now, I consider myself a centrist. When I went to work for then Governor Bush, I did so because I believed he was someone who was committed to working across the aisle to get things done, as he had done as governor of Texas. I thought we could bring that same sort of bipartisan spirit to Washington and change the tone. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.
I’m supporting Barack Obama for two primary reasons. First, I believe that he can change the way Washington works for the better.
They never should have lied to him and used him to lie. Now you can laugh at McClellan if you want- I take him at his word that he really thought he was doing the right thing going to work for Bush. I thought I was doing the right thing, too, when I voted for him. But I really understand to some extent where he is right now- he is pissed. He feels used. He feels betrayed. He feels angry. And he knows who did it, and he is not going to fall for the same bullshit again.
I don’t think McClellan will ever be a Democrat, but I do think that the narrowing of the Republican party down to the vicious, ignorant, bitter core of Palin acolytes and Rovian hacks is a good thing, and the Christian Nationalists that will take over the party will be more than willing to throw aside the McClellans, the Powells, the Buckleys, and everyone who who they deem has shown insufficient fealty to the cause.
We should support that. The more we can marginalize the rancid remains of the GOP into a discredited Palin wing, the neo-cons with their hillbilly yokel Christian right front, the better.
Whammer
I had a scary thought about Palin, which might relate to the current circular firing squad.
If they had all played her inexperience like it wasn’t a big deal and hadn’t pretended that she should be able to answer questions about anything, it actually might have worked.
So when asked about foreign policy, if she said "you know, as Governor of Alaska, I was really focused on the people of my state, but as far as foreign policy is concerned, I want to make sure that Amurica is safe from scary brown people and all those Chinese people and from Putin’s scary head and we’re all Georgians now, doncha know" — that probably would have worked.
Pretty much down the line, one mistake they made is by saying that she had executive experience because she was mayor of Wasilla, which doesn’t even have a fire department of its own, and Gov. of Alaska, which doesn’t do much either.
The thing that worries me is that they probably could have celebrated her ignorance by focusing on her "bedrock values" and mavericky maverickness, and it just might have kept a bunch of the folks that have now abandoned her in line.
I blame Nicolle Wallace, who, after all, used to work for CBS, so she can’t be trusted.
Unrepentent Dennis - SGMM
Palin’s potential "still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters" will remain unrealized for her entire political career.
joeyess
I was watching Maher last night and he had on his panel Matthew Dowd. Dowd proceeded to cede the fact that Obama will probably win and added the usual caveat that Obama needed to govern from a left-centrist point of view. If he runs hard left, his presidency will fail.
Isn’t that convenient? Bush and these cretins run this country into a ditch with their rightwingnut bullshit, entrench us with debt, war, and an economy that is teetering on the edge of the abyss and Obama gets saddled with all of that, and now he must run as a centrist.
This is the GOP playbook: Run as divisively as possible, wreck everything with their ideology and them claim that to run in the opposite direction will spell disaster for the country.
That takes balls.
Fuck them.
Maher, to his credit, called bullshit and said he was wrong. That this country needs fundamental change.
I can only hope that Obama takes a wild left hand turn the moment he is sworn in. I doubt that that will be the course he chooses, but that is what I think is needed.
The Grand Panjandrum
Take responsibility? That would require mature adults and it appears the GOP cut all those folks loose a while back. Just yesterday Daniel Larison was writing about the GOP’s inability to take any responsibility for the impending losses on election day.
The willing suspension of disbelief became the unspoken motto of the remnants of the GOP some time ago. With almost no reasonable people left in the party it could be a very long time before we see its resurgence.
charlotte
Shorter Sarah: Responsibility is only for the anti-Americans.
bleh
The key task now, it seems to me, is to widen and deepen the natural fault-line in the Reagan coalition, i.e., the one between the boardroom and the megachurch. (I consider the Neocons a splinter that managed to effect particular policies but depended on the political power of the two big groups to do it. They were belligerent enough that it more than compensated for their suspicious intellectualism.)
The megachurchers need to see the boardroomers as unreliable on social issues and more concerned with Wall Street than with Main Street (both of which are true, by the way). The path to follow here is to publicly co-opt the boardroomers on social issues and to mount a whispering campaign on depressed Main Streets.
The boardroomers need to see the megachurchers as dangerous know-nothings (also true). The way to do this is to manage social issues so that the megachurchers have no choice but to go ballistic, thereby painting themselves as extremist. This goes hand-in-hand with co-opting the boardroomers.
This also allows DC Dems to tap back into the big money, which they’re always happy to do.
The danger is to avoid our own usual circular firing-squad, which easily could result from expecting a new Obama Administration to do everything all at once. We’re gonna need to practice the patience and tolerance we preach, and give Obama time to get traction on a few high-priority issues.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
They should rename themselves the "Native Sons and Daughters of America Party".
Martin
At this point, I think the only way to get a responsible and productive GOP is to turn it into a full-on cancer and kill it.
This election has made clear – the only ‘base’ left for the GOP are the neocons and theocons. Conservatives have either left the party or are struggling with voting their conscience or voting their party – who they now largely hate.
But the very people that would have exercised the loonies out of the party aren’t in it any more. I think the answer is to give them the run of the place. Let 2012 be Palin/Bachman at the top of the ticket. Let them put their ground game in ‘God’s hands’. Let them call every American without a King James under their pillow un-American. Make Hugh Hewitt the campaign spokesman. Let’s play this out.
In the meantime, let the conservatives regroup under a proper Conservative party. I’ll sign petitions to get them on the ballot.
And McClellan isn’t a centrist – he’s a follower. He’ll fall into the same trap again because he doesn’t know how to cut against the tide until he’s just about to drown. His endorsement is worthless.
D-Chance.
Get ready for it… it’s coming.
Obama’s MISTRESS~!
Oh, joy. Maybe this will be as effective as Ashley Todd and fake birth certificates…
NickM
"The neo-cons with their hillbilly yokel Christian right front" — it never ceases to amaze me that this is an apt description for a solid 35% of the population.
distributorcap
this whole election aftermath is gonna be one giant episode of Survivor……
maybe they should get Elizabeth Hasselidiot as their new leader — she is campaigning for them
Comrade The Other Steve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03fcGelz8Hw
DonnaInMichigan
Ok, the msm keep harping on the fact, that Palin is shoring up the base, for a run in 2012.
Just some fun facts:
1.) Her favorable polling in Alaska is down 20-25 pts.
2.) A little thing called Trooper-gate, that showed her to of abused her power, and practiced unethical behavior.
3.) There is a petition going around Alaska, as I write this, for a recall of Governor Palin.
4.) The Personell Board, just finished taking Sarah and Todd’s interrogations under oath, yesterday. If their findings are the same as the Legislators, then Sarah could be facing, fines, and possible JAIL TIME. She would definately be impeached, if she goes to jail.
Before the MSM gets all caught up in Sarah Palin "the sequel", coming to the campaign, near you in 2012, they should wonder if she is even going to survive her governorship back in Alaska. She is not as popular there, as we have been lead to believe, by the MSM/McCain Campaign.
MDW
Watching them try to divert blame from themselves to the totally unqualifed candidate they were wholly responsible for selecting is going to be fun.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
@Martin:
That’s really the issue here. It’s like what happens in moderate churches when a fundie gets some power, usually as a youth pastor or something similar. People who are otherwise good and sensible see who’s taking over and instead of fighting for control, find somewhere else that embraces them, which leaves the church to further devolve.
In the case of the Republican party, though, I don’t see this split lasting more than 4-6 years. There’s just too much potential for money and power sitting out there for a major party to lose its way for too long. It only took the Democrats 12 years to get their shit back together after 1994, and we’re the most unorganized fucks out there.
Elvis Elvisberg
Yeah, I wanted to say what ThatLeftTurnInABQ said– it’s a White Christian Nationalist party.
MattF
Also, you have to watch out about getting mad at little Sarah Palin saying nutty things about fruitflies. She didn’t write the fruitfly line– I’m sure that there was someone who thought "This will get those biologists riled up". PZ Meyers was never going to vote for Sarah Palin. There need to be some "Who’s in charge here?" type questions. It ain’t Sarah, at least not yet.
p.a.
New rule? That’s been SOP for quite a while now.
comrade scott
John: You’ve done a great job of explaining Scotty Dog’s mindset to a long time DFH like me. I mean I was glad that he opened his eyes but there was always something nagging at me in terms of "how could you have fallen for that shit in the first place?"
Everybody, remember that the Republican Party that John describes is the party of Major Frank Burns in terms of responsibility:
It’s either god’s will or somebody else’s fault.
Fulcanelli
Careful how you toss around that "Christian Nationalist" moniker, Mr. Cole, it has a certain cachet and appeal to it, and you know the wingers keep you on their radar…
p.a.
I put John’s whole quote in blockquote and the preview showed it that way. Anyone know why it got lost in translation?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Also add in that Palin and Putin have something in common – as the price of oil sinks, it is no longer good times when you are the head of a petro-state and your biggest revenue source gets pinched down.
Nylund
I like this Christian Nationalist term! It sums it up nicely. I just can’t think of a good shorthand version?
ChNa? Christna? Those look like China and Krishna, which are already taken…
Christian Nationalist is good, but it has way too many syllables. Can’t we get it down to no more than 3?
elmo
One of the most eye-opening things about this election cycle has been the disintegration of logic and reason over at K-Lo’s House o’ Crazy. Like Andy McCarthy, who was an AUSA for Chrissake, buying into the Berg lawsuit. Stanley Kurtz (who has always been a ball o’nuts, to be fair) is working himself into a Rumpelstiltzian frenzy over the Obama-Ayers-Khalidi-Odinga-Alinsky connections. They could use him to drill for some of that sweet, sweet offshore oil.
And this morning, Jonah Goldberg, who has at least always been calm, declares it "intellectually indefensible" to prefer competence over ideology. The fuh? What the hell good is ideology if the people implementing it are incompetent (cough – Michael Brown – cough) boobies?
Tsulagi
Don’t forget the gross incompetence! Main reason I survived where I work during 02 and 03 with my inartful opinions of Bush and Iraq was the almost universal trait of incompetence among the truly wingnutty and Bush ideologues. The more nutty, the greater the incompetence. With that endearing companion trait of when they obviously and expensively fucked up, they would blame everyone and everything else for their impotent performance.
So yeah, I’m taking a little extra special pleasure in seeing the Rovian wet dreams of a 1,000-year durable Republican Reich in flames with all their finger-pointing going on. Damn near getting wood.
I also like the irony of the Palin pick for McCain. She embodies almost everything McCain 2000 said was wrong in his party, and hurting not only the R-party but also the country. But not for Country First 2008 McCain, The Maverick edition. That’s working out so well isn’t it Mav?
Palin/Jindal ’12! You betcha.
Stooleo
I’ve been interested in the Whig party and more specifically what caused it to falll apart. The short answer to this is divisions on slavery.
Reagan used the religious right to consolidate power and this resulted in winning elections. I’ve aways felt that there has been an uneasy truce between the religious literalists and more moderate republicans. The current battle does seem to be split into these two camps. Is this the beginning of the end? I don’t know, but its hard for me to see the Republican party going forward with these religious nut jobs and their inability to see reality.
Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin
O/T, it just occurred to me that it would be cool if SNL gave Amy Poehler a line like "OMG, my water broke, I have to catch a plane!"
Potted Plant
Take it from my experience- nothing hardens your resolve like being called a traitor after watching the Mayberry Machiavellis destroy your party.
That’s exactly correct. The Republican Party pushed me away 6 years ago when, in the run-up to the Iraq War, I listened to talking-head after talking-head argue that anyone who didn’t support the war was an unpatriotic apologist for Saddam Hussein who wanted the terrorists to win. I thought that invading Iraq was stupid, but the Bush supporters presented it so that if I wasn’t with them, I was against them.
Somewhere in early 2003 I just said, "fuck you" to the Republican Party that was telling me I was a traitor. Although I think Obama seems like a decent guy, I can’t vote Democratic because I disagree with so much of their platform. But I’m actively wishing that the Republican Party goes the way of the Whigs.
MNPundit
Splitting the right into a Christian Nationalist Party and a Sane Republican Party would be great for the rest of us, I just worry that the Christian Nationalists would turn to terrorism as some of their more ….zealous…. elements have in the past.
AkaDad
God’s Party
Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin
Heh-heh, speaking of Mayberry …
dmacmets
How about the Real America Party?
The best thing that could happen would be that McCain wouldn’t let Palin be Palin, was the reason they lost the election.Then the fundies could take over the party and bear their souls to the rest of America.The marginalization of the GOP has already begun with their stance on immigration,deregulation and maintain the status quo in Iraq. How do you grow your base when you exclude more and more demorgaphic subsets? The way the economy is going the rich white business man won’t be as big a factor either.
Rick Taylor
Speaking of not taking responsibility, the McCain campaign is now denying their spokesman pushed the story of a campaign worker being assaulted by an Obama supporting mugger, saying a B was carved into her face for Obama. Looks like they’re simply lying.
Spartacvs
Someone already took it, Hezbollah.
Perry Como
That party already exists, it’s the Constitution Party. And guess what the Constitution Party is called in Alaska? The AIP. Gov. Palin is already halfway there!
myrtle parker
How about "Christian Patriots" party? I’ll bet Palin and Bachmann would like the sound of that more than "Christian Nationalist" party…
YellowJournalism
I hope you’re joking, because I’m getting pretty tired of seeing people excuse the behavior/stances of politicians based on what someone else told them to do or wrote for them. I don’t know how many times this week I’ve heard that we should excuse Sarah Palin on issues of her role as political attack dog (or even the fact that she has a $150,000 warddrobe) because the McCain camp asked her to take on that position. She’s a grown woman who made the decision to take on these roles/positions. In this case, she could have said, "I’m not saying that. Find me something to say that doesn’t make me look like a total idiot."
Of course, that would require her understanding anything at all about scientific research. Which, as a mother of a child with Down’s and a HUGE ACTIVIST for special needs causes, she should have a little bit of background information on the subject. You know, the basic info about them experimenting on animals so they don’t experiment with human beings thing.
e.c.
yes, all the faithful might want to take a little time-out before they print up those buttons for ’12. even though she seems to think she was vindicated and wishes it was all behind her, "troopergate" has only just begun. the legislative report didn’t even touch on todd’s (possibly illegal) involvement in the whole mess and all the issues regarding the passing around of confidential info. add on the revelations regarding the per diem for staying in her own home, charging the state for the kid’s travel, giving state jobs and loans to campaign contributors and old friends and the contractor "buddies" who built her house and she will be lucky to get through the rest of her term without an indictment or two. not exactly the best way to re-launch yourself onto the national scene.
Cassidy
I prefer assholes, nutjobs, jackass, crazies, whackjobs, etc….all under 3 syllables.
Comrade Jake
Check out the polling of Republicans of who they like in 2012 assuming McCain loses this round. The results are surprising:
Romney 35%
Huckabee 26%
Palin 20%
I mean, Mittens? Go figure. But Palin’s not as big a star as some would have us believe.
gbear
I hope that they all follow Palin back to Alaskastan and join the AIP.
I’m concerned about what this core will do once they realize that the rest of this godless country thinks that they are whackos. A lot of these people can justify in their heart of hearts that it’s OK to attack because Jesus is their general and God is their commander. I’m very concerned that the constantly picketed Planned Parenthood clinic in my neighborhood will be in much worse danger once the christianists no longer have any political enablers, and I’m worried about how far they’ll go to avenge their marginalization. I bet the guns will come out.
gbear
@gbear:
Here’s a link to some Palin supporters to go with my previous post.
MAX HATS
As the republican party goes off into the wilderness, we democrats need to make sure we effectively police our own party, and not just look for new crazy right wing things to get outraged about. It’s one thing to recognize the country is in a sorry state, it’s another entirely to figure out what mechanisms made that happen. Personally, I think the echo chamber and lack of circumspection on the right was a big problem, and I hope that those of us on the left can get some positive use out of the long and brutal tradition of democratic infighting.
aarrgghh
"still unrealized"
well, golly gee willikers, that’s the catch, idn’it?
MattF
@YellowJournalism
You’re misinterpreting– I’m not excusing Palin, not by a long shot. I just doubt that she knows Drosophila from a hole in the ground.
El Cid
Darn. And I was hoping the first rule of Christian Nationalist Club would be that no one would talk about it, so that I could hear less about it.
AkaDad
Hezbollah can’t be God’s Party. They’re disqualified for worshiping a false God.
Onihanzo
It really is a game of pin the blame on the donkey.
I love it.
kommrade jakevich
I for one am deee-lighted to see RealAmerican Al-Quaida (R) get exactly what they demanded.
They insisted there was no way in Heck McPOW could win unless he kissed their asses, and he gave them a Evangelical book banning pig-ignorant power-mad rock star. Now she is doing everything she can to make sure the next time some cross-carrying hypocrite tries to include Christian Conservative Values in a presidential campaign platform, that person will be beaten bloody and thrown to the dogs.
As for the people who are crawling from the burning wreckage of the GOP. I hope we’re not expected to feel sorry for those assholes. It was all fun and games until the freaks started bringing their rattle snakes to the campaign rallies and insisting you try the strychnine, wasn’t it?
Awesome imagery there. Goes well with the fReichtard’s habit of trying to spin strawmen into gold.
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
@Comrade Jake: And yet I’m having a fun time with a poster elsewhere whose convinced that Obama-Palin would be closer than Obama-McCain. I really should stop arguing and go full tarbaby with him.
nwithers
I was talking to a good friend about the coming thrashing this Nov 4th, and how the republicans are going to react to this. I told her that the problem I see for a sane republican party in the near future are two-fold. First, in 2006 and soon in 2008, we have been picking off moderate members of their own caucus, pushing them further and further to the right. This is due to both an intelligent choosing of targets from the Democratic party, and attacks from groups like "club for growth" to punish members of their own party for breaking ranks*. Second, the religious/social conservatives, who have done a very good job of gathering power to themselves in the party, are notorious in causing a great deal of damage to any organization that attempts to marginalize them (see school boards across the country).
With both of these effects in play, I do not see how the intellectual or corporate wings of the republican party can re-gain control. The social conservatives have a plurality of control, and would be perfectly willing to burn the party to the ground and remain pure rather than compromise and win. Remaining pure to their social ideals seems to trump all, look at the self inflicted damage this faction has caused to the republican party on teaching evolution in school, abortion, and gay rights. In some ways, for the rest of the republican party, it would be easier and faster to re-formulate under a different name than undergo the trench warfare that will be required to regain control.
My friend asked me if with the coming loss the fundamentalists would form a third party, my response was "yes, it will be called the Republican party"
*I do think punishing members of your own caucus through strong and well-funded primary challenges is a valid technique and can help with the health and effectiveness of a political party, but mis-application can lead to inflexibility and what we are seeing currently in the republican party. To use a nutritional analogy, too little salt can be just as bad for your health as too much, the same applies for primary challenges.
Tim (The Other One)
Quote of the day !
dj spellchecka
two thoughts: the palin handlers who are now getting fingers pointed at them are on loan from the bush administration…this really is the party breaking down into ye olde circular firing squad…
as for john comment: "Take it from my experience- nothing hardens your resolve like being called a traitor after watching the Mayberry Machiavellis destroy your party. "
i suspect this was a factor in colin powell’s obama endorsement…telling the foreign policy neo-cons that the honeymoon is finally over…..
Fulcanelli
Most excellent, Comrade! The Order of Lenin for you for that observation.
p.a.
Well I’m too late to this thread but come on people!
Someone here must know US history! Easiest answer in the world: Know-Nothings!
From Wikipedia
DonBoy
And to point a different finger:
Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin’s campaign
+
Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign
And why the F is CBS hiring former White House aides for executive jobs? On-air, identified as partisans, I can see (but hate). But what’s this about?
jcricket
I think the "future" of the Republican party depends on whether Democrats can be successful at actually spreading the wealth around (in the sense Obama and most centrist Dems mean). Progressive-ize the tax code a little, implement sensible regulations, do something like universal healthcare and boom – you’ve peeled 10-15 percentage points of support out of the Republican party (because they’ve been opposing all this sensible shit along the way).
The "base" (25-35% of America) is just not enough, but they’re harder to fracture. The end-timers, religious nuts, anti-taxers/government haters, racists, homophobes and xenophobes (think Tancredo) – they’re not reproducing fast enough or in a wide enough geographic area to do anything other than consolidate their support in existing strongholds. Hell, even the mormon church had to "get rid of" its racism to expand (this was back in the 70s).
Seriously. If Republicans insist on opposing sensible national healthcare reform, it will have the same impact their opposition to Social Security and then Medicare did – long, long years in the wilderness.
jcricket
BTW – Here’s a good example of why Republicans are so fucked by their allegiance with the American Taliban.
liberal
AP has an investigative report about Palin having fixed her much-trumpeted pipeline contract bidding.
PaminBB
Elmo said "And this morning, Jonah Goldberg, who has at least always been calm, declares it "intellectually indefensible" to prefer competence over ideology. The fuh? What the hell good is ideology if the people implementing it are incompetent (cough – Michael Brown – cough) boobies?"
Elmo, Jonah is the last one to come to the defense of competence. He is completely unfamiliar with it.
SteveinSC
I love to read John Cole. He’s beginning to remind me a whole lot of Matt Taibbi.
Maybe if the religious fanatics are fucked into oblivion John will go back to the rejuvenated Repubs, and even then I will go read him for a good laugh. But for now he’s great to have over here. Used to piss me off in the past, though.
Maybe it’s all that backed up testosterone that provides the energy, after all he is single.
Chuck Butcher
I won’t say I ever liked Scott McClelland, but I did feel sorry for him at times. You could see he wanted to say more and didn’t want to keep repeating stupid shit to reporters. I do fault him for looking at the ends justifying the means for as long as he did.
I don’t think Palin has a future, I said why here. I put up what I think the Republicans’ problems are as educated guessing. I don’t claim insider knowledge, but so far I have a pretty good track record at working this kind of stuff out.
jenniebee
There are a few points that haven’t even been hauled out which, imho, would become more and more apparent should Palin make more policy speeches or, god forbid, get put in charge of something other than Alaska.
First, the job of Alaska’s governor is one of the easiest in the country. A governor’s job is pretty much to take three dollars and distribute them to five worthy causes, but multiply that by between fifty and a hundred million. The Alaska governor’s job is to take ten dollars and spread that to five causes of dubious value. The state is rolling in oil dollars, there are no really hard decisions to make, just checks to cut. So when you listen to her roll out the promises that she’ll cut taxes and spend lots on ponies but not the silly science ponies and more money for wars and special needs kids and everything will be all right because they’ll cut the 3% or so of the budget that’s being spent on planetariums, keep in mind that real budget balancing isn’t something she’s had to do since some contractor friends took time off from building that multi-million dollar earmarked sports complex to get together and built her a house, gosh darn it.
Second, there’s the matter of a history of abuse of power that shows up in every public position she’s had. It’s hard to use the word "corrupt" for her, because corruption implies that there was something pure and unsullied about her at some point in the past. Nothing in her history, going back to her tenure on the high school basketball team, evinces any awareness that power in any form exists to be used for any other purpose than the enrichment and advancement of the powerful. She is a Redneck Medici, the Borgia of the Backwoods.
OriGuy
I see the Palin wing of the party as the Provisional American Republican Army, or ProvoGOPs. (It’s probably just a coincidence that Provo, UT is more Mormon than SLC.)
The NYT article that Sully discusses bears this out. It’s probably only a matter of time until "spiritual warfare" turns physical, more than just abortion clinic bombings. Sarah can’t admit that those are acts of terrorism; she probably wants to say that they are acts of God.
fdeblauwe
Ironic cartoon at the Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 blog: "ItsAllPalinsFault.com."
nicethugbert
McClellan smeared Obama by comparing him to Bush. He’s still a hack.
McClellan showed poor judgment by working for Bush. Others were wise enough not to do so.
We have no use for McClellan once he shows us where the "bodies" are.
tas
The fact that these chuckleheads think Palin is the future of the party… Have they even listened to her?
Liz
@myrtle parker: I completely read your suggestion as "Christian Parrots". Not too far off, really, if they continue to follow Palin and her well (er…)-memorized talking points.
Mike G
This is the GOP playbook: Run as divisively as possible, wreck everything with their ideology and them claim that to run in the opposite direction will spell disaster for the country.
Don’t forget they operate as secretive, divisive, vindictive partisan bullies, then when they start losing they call for ‘civility’ and ‘bipartisanship’. And the Dems fall for it every time like Charlie Brown expecting Lucy to hold the football.
Fuck it – it’s time for slash and burn, and let these assholes take what they’ve been dishing out since 1994. Raze the Repigs to the ground and salt the earth.
Johnny Pez
The Christian Renewal American Party — CRAP.
Mentis Fugit
"The Base"