Palin “reflects”:
Q. What misinformation are you talking about?
A. Some of the goofy things like who was Trig’s mom. Well, I’m Trig’s mom (raises her hand) and do you want to see my medical records to prove that? … And banning books. That was a ridiculous thing also that could have so easily been corrected just by a reporter taking an extra step and not basing a report on gossip or speculation. But just looking into the record. It was reported that I tried to ban Harry Potter when it hadn’t even been written when I was the mayor. So, gosh, we have so many examples, I mean every day, especially the first few weeks, every day something that was thrown out there.
Did any reporters actually ever make a big deal about Trig Palin? The only person I remember ever even talking about that nonsense was Andrew Sullivan, and he isn’t even a liberal, let alone a liberal blogger. In fact, I think this is as close to the issue as I have ever come, because it is just stupid and tawdry and unseemly to suggest someone is not the mother of their child. And additionally, I love the part about her medical records, since she refused the entire campaign to release them. She never released them in any way shape or form, just a two-page letter from her Doctor on election day (which, by the way, she got the idea from Obama, who never released his medical records, either). Saying people can see her medical records when she knows she was the one keeping people from seeing them is just more of her never-ending bullshit.
This, too, was funny:
Q. Why do you think your campaign lost?
A. I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a 10 trillion dollar debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration?
Sarah- you only ran up 5 trillion under this Republican administration. Does she know anything? Seriously? Anything? And is it not a smear against God, country, and the troops to admit their were blunders in the war? Does this mean you do not look at America like the rest of us? Why does Sarah Palin hate the troops?
Brian J
Either she’s an extremely smart politician who knows that by saying these things, she’s going to get into the good graces of the conservative base who will remember what she said now while, four years from now, the media won’t, or she is an incredibly ignorant person.
Brian
You know… you don’t get to bitch about the excesses of the Bush years if you did, in fact, vote for Bush. I don’t recall Sarah Palin making a big fuss about Bush’s profligate spending until she had to on the campaign stump.
These clowns deserved to lose for so many reasons…
Wayne
10 trillion. Maybe she knows what the final tally will be as of Jan 20.
Comrade Rick Massimo
I was talking about her with a colleague of mine who is a smart liberal but who also has that reflexive even-handedness and bar-lowering that makes the Sarah Palins of the world possible. He said, "Well, she’s not stupid; she’s just in way over her head," to which I responded, "Give me one thing she’s said in public in the past two months that isn’t stupid."
No response.
Napoleon
She is a complete pathalogical liar.
Comrade Ed Drone
With her $150K clothes budget (plus $50K not immediately reported), she definitely knows "profligate spending" when she sees it.
The main thing I will remember about Ms. Palin is the phrase "Wasilla’s all I saw," which someone pointed out as a palindrome. Most of the rest of her 15 minutes has been entertainingly forgettable, sort of like a cameo appearance in a disaster film.
Ed
ppcli
A nice side note from the Politico story:
" Twelve hours before Palin said all she’d ever asked for was a Diet Dr Pepper, Wallace told NBC: “The only thing I’ve seen her ask for is a diet soda.” "
.
It kind of detracts from the defense if it so obviously consists of previously agreed-upon talking points. At least Wallace didn’t name the specific brand.
ppcli
"Give me one thing she’s said in public in the past two months that isn’t stupid."
.
Well, there was the moment when she said that tax reductions have to accompany all tax reductions. A bit obvious, but at least she had the facts on her side.
Bobzim
Can we change Blonde Jokes to Palin Jokes?
I’ll try to think some up. Stand by…
Punchy
May I remind you that Bush is still Prez for 2+ months, and at the rate that the Treasury has been making "secret" payments to banks….well…..maybe she’s aware of something we should be but arent.
Comrade Tax Analyst
Yes, and according to Daniel Larison, that makes her uniquely qualified to be the current Republican Party Standard Bearer. To support their favored positions one must either be pathological or some sort of bizarre Performance Artist.
Sarcastro
How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration?
And how have there been flowers in Spring!?!?
Atanarjuat
Once again, targeting Palin with the usual partisan potshots as though they will do anything more than irritate. How (non)refreshing.
Of course, it’s just so much fun to imagine Governor Sarah Palin as a Supermutant Behemoth that you courageously obliterate with your Mini-Nuke-equipped Fatman, but unfortunately, the consequences are the same whether it’s a video game or real life: the resulting radioactivity (promoting misogyny in the cause of partisanship) is harmful to you and everyone else in the blast area.
But keep blasting away at Palin, lefties. You’ll only continue to do your part in setting back the progress of women in the political arena. But I guess it’s worthwhile as long as that "R" is next to the woman’s name, right?
Truly vile.
– A Country Gutshot and Bleeding
e.c.
she’s been fact-checked by several commenters already and harry potter was indeed published while she was mayor. i honestly don’t know any more if she is trying to lie (badly) or she has some reflex to shrug off critisism with whatever lame excuse pops into her empty head.
liberal
On the contrary. Her being the grandmother rather than the mother makes her look less bad.
Why? Because, if we believe public accounts, she flew home after her water broke, and then drove for a long while.
I don’t buy all this stuff about "how could she be VP with all those kids?" That is indeed sexist; it would be easy to provide caregivers.
But the one thing that only she had power to do was to make sure that her delivery in a high-risk pregnancy occurred in the medically safest circumstances.
That she apparently chose not to do so means she’s highly irresponsible.
sparky
maybe she’s not smart. or maybe she is. either way, she’s a pretty adept con artist. if she isn’t smart in the sense of intelligent, she is sly in the way of say a bad student who plagarizes but changes one or two words so it’s not a 100% copy.
first, trig: she picks a bad (unseemly) rumor and then offers to correct it with an assertion that she knows she didn’t honor. bush could hardly do better at obfuscation.
and as for the other point, note that she’s careful not to use the word "Bush" instead, she’s using the term Republican administration. thus everyone and no one is to blame.
finally, as for the ten trillion number: she’s correct in that the number went over ten during the Bush administration. being a sloppy speaker has so many advantages, as the effort to correct her here shows; the critics waste time correcting her while the message itself goes unchallenged.
all in all, i think smart people underestimate her because they find her sloppiness about facts a sufficient reason to write her off. but many Americans are just as sloppy about facts as she is, and to those people her easy conflations and relentlessly crude suck-up salesmanship don’t come across as the grifting (h/t Daily Show) it is.
liberal
@Brian:
Uh, you do know that our gracious host voted for Bush twice?
The Other Steve
She was mayor from 1996-2002
The first Harry Potter book was published in 1997.
It was when the first book was published that the evangelicals had their greatest freak out movement over it. Not so much with later books.
The Other Steve
@Brian J:
That’s pretty much what she is. She’s a very smart politician who knows how to pander to this crowd. That’s it. She doesn’t know how to govern, or how laws work, etc. She just knows if you say this phrase people will think you’re the kind of gal i want to have a beer with.
DBrown
Atanarjuat
Old saying, put up or shut up – please give an example from the posts here in this thread that are vile in any way? (Look up the word first or you will look as stupid as normal.) I will wait for your answer.
Bobzim
Atanarjuat, If you introduce yourself to the world as a "Pitbull With Lipstick" you better have more bite than bark, or the REAL pitbulls are going to eat you alive.
Sarah Palin is all mouth with nothing to back it up, and it’ll get you in trouble every time.
The Other Steve
The one I love is the story of how Todd and Sarah got married by eloping cause their parents couldn’t afford a big wedding. And then their first child was born 6 months later.
Uh huh. Give me a freaking break.
I’m getting married at the end of the month. We are eloping to Vegas. It’s still costing us a bit of money, but it’s cheaper than a big fancy wedding. So yeah, ok, we’re saving some money.
But I ain’t kidding anybody. The baby is due in April. If anybody asks, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. No need to sugar coat reality.
David Hunt
But she had to do that. After Alaska withdrew from the U.S., only native born Alaskans would be given citizenship. It was the only responsible thing to do. ;)
The Other Steve
I thought it was because we were anti-semitic.
sparky
i hate slow refresh
The Other Steve
Is it possible we are bashing Palin because we are racist and hate Whitey?
Comrade Darkness
This clip was on my local radio station as a filler. It reminded me that Bush really is stupid. This is a clueless middle school student answer. I don’t think Palin can top that, try as she might.
I think Palin is intellectually incurious and disdainful of competence. Bush is those two, plus being a moron. He supposedly had a decent IQ in college, maybe the blow and booze did some damage. Palin is no gem, but I’d put my money on her in a raw intelligence match with Boyking George. Not that I want either one in charge of anything that impacts my life, thank you very much.
Harry Potter book 1 was publishing in 1997, book 7 in 2007. Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002. So, yeah, factually challenged on that point too. That condescending attitude of hers is almost the worst part of it: I’m going to make an argument and I can’t even check the facts I’m wielding because I figure everyone is lazy and stupid and will just believe me.
Notorious P.A.T.
Grrr. I hate when people say crap like that.
What I want to know is, when hasn’t she been in over her head? It took her 5 tries just to graduate from college. She sucked as a mayor of a small town and she sucks as a governor.
sparky
@The Other Steve: prolly. some days i sure do hate myself; other days just my macbook ;)
liberal
@David Hunt:
Yeah, that’s the conjecture bandied about in the blogosphere.
A couple my wife and I had dinner with came up with a much more sinister motivation: despite the pro-life attitude, they didn’t want this particular special needs infant to survive.
Balconesfault
I think at this stage as long as you speak to their ideology that ignoring reality simply endears you to the right wing. There is nothing that Palin could say, no matter how contra-factual, that would negatively affect her standing among the faithful.
When you’re an icon, you create your own reality.
liberal
@The Other Steve:
Hah.
After my wedding experience, I told my wife that if we’re blessed with a baby girl, the first word I’m going to teach her is "E-L-O-P-E".
DrDave
Actually, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 are responsible for about $8 trillion of the entire national debt which begs one to question how any Republican can claim, with a straight face, that they are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Comrade Darkness
Honest to Apollo, that is the best explanation I have heard for her behavior, bar none. Her stated reasons make no sense, medically or otherwise.
The Other Steve
Honestly, I don’t think that’s a fair judge of people. A lot of really brilliant people did poorly in college and a lot of really stupid people graduated from Harvard and Yale.
jake 4 that 1
Um… because you suck at everything, don’t know you suck at everything and surround yourselves with people afflicted with equal or higher levels of sucktastickness?
Shh! Don’t correct her. Let this be the amount of record for the "national debt."
Comrade Darkness
Hey… new term: Palin Principle — the notion that a con-artist has an unlimited potential to work their way up from one unqualified position to another.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@liberal:
Let me flesh that out for you. Supposedly, her water broke. Then, she gave a speech. Then she called her doc, who said "You’re fine, come on home". Then she flew eight hours, without informing the airline of her condition. Then she drove another hour. Then she gave birth.
Thank Jeebus that McCain picked her, because IMHO she sank him. If he’d picked Kay Hutchinson or Olympia Snow, our world might be very different right now.
As for the Saracuda: her 15 minutes are over.
Notorious P.A.T.
I don’t remember any controversy about Harry Potter. What I kept hearing about was a book about homosexuality (written by a priest, no less) that she wanted to ban.
Walker
Well, I did see this conspiracy nonsense on DKos long before Sullivan got a hold of it. So it would be fair to say liberal bloggers, if not actual reporters.
Zifnab
The trick is to do a lot of lying.
Republicans love to piss on LBJ for his Great Society Projects, but what they won’t tell you is how LBJ managed to pay for them without bankrupting the economy. They won’t mention the fiscal responsibility of the Democrats of the 1960s because it doesn’t fit into their historical narrative – namely that Reagen saved us all from some high holy hell of the previous 20 years.
But while LBJ was out making paupers into welfare queens, the Republicans have done an excellent job of turning regulated markets into bailout free-for-alls. If it’s between spending millions on helping the poor versus billions on propping up the rich, it’s pretty clear how the party lines break down.
DBrown
Looks like Palin’s supporter will not get back to me on his proof, but I will point out that it is Palin who fully meets the definition of vile.
This so called American stated that Obama pals around with terrorists (note the ‘s’.)
Last I check Ayer’s was not a terrorist; over and above his very modest association with Obama, he’d hardly be called Obama’s pal. AS for his past terrorist efforts they were
1) Ayers was NOT prosecuted and in our form of criminal justice system that means he is therefore innocent both in the eyes of our beliefs and by the law.
2) While he did admit to doing terrorist bombing these acts were committed in the early 1960’s, and since he has never since done this nor supported any further such actions, he is hardly a terrorist now even if we ignore (1).
3) Ayers is the only example anyone has every sited that fits the definition of terrorsit, so who else makes the word terrorist plural as in Palin’s claim?
Palin tired to take the worst part of our nature and turn it into violent hatred against a fellow American. Since Palin didn’t even care enough to correct her lies. and these lies could lead to violence against someone, it is she who fits the definition of vile.
ibid
Saying people can see her medical records when she knows she was the one keeping people from seeing them is just more of her never-ending bullshit.
To be fair, she didn’t actually say people could check her medical records, she said "Do you want to see my medical records to prove that?" So I think she’s saying it’s ridiculous that people want medical records to disprove conspiracy theories, not necessarily that the medical records were out there for everyone to see. It’s hard to be sure what she meant without hearing how she said it. The problem is that she is such a liar that it is easy to believe that she would brazenly claim the records were available when the weren’t, sort of like how she is so ignorant that people find it plausible that she didn’t know Africa was a continent. And regardless of whether she is actually claiming the records were available, the focus on the Trig rumor is just a way of dismissing legitimate requests about her medical history.
The book banning is at best a lie of omission though. This is the first I’d heard about Harry Potter, but even if someone had falsely accused her of that, the well-supported case of her banning books had to do with a children’s book about gay parents. So basically she is dismissing both the medical records and book banning issues by citing rumors and pretending more legitimate questions did not exist.
TheFountainHead
It occurred to me last night that this is all Romney’s doing.
Prop 8 was funded by Mormon’s at Romney’s insistence so in four years he can turn to the Christian right and say, "Not only did I champion your cause, I picked up the tab!"
Palin is in cahoots with Romney. She comes out and makes an even bigger ass of herself now, so that four years from now she can run (unsuccessfully) against Romney in the primary and then be named the VP on the ticket (again) since her making an ass of herself (and us calling her on it) will only solidify her importance to the fringe-based right. So Romney, not a darling of the neo-cons OR the Christian right, locks up their votes without having to change a single position.
It will still take monumental fuck-ups on the part of Obama to work, but not a bad plan.
demimondian
@Notorious P.A.T.: Bingo. She lied by telling the truth — she didn’t try to ban HP. She tried to ban something more important.
Punchy
And Monica Lewinsky sucked as a White House intern.
DBrown
I should add: QED for may last post
(Guess this proves I am an elitist because besides using QED, I know that truth does in fact have a liberal bias)
tavella
That was kind of my theory, until someone pointed out the Alaskan secessionist thing. Because it was *such* insane behavior. But must-be-an-Alaska citizen makes more sense — she was risking herself too.
distributorcap
the best thing is that all of Palin’s lies, idiocy, stupidity, hate and missteps will live forever in YouTube — when 2012 comes around expect to see a lot of Putin flying over Russia and someone who doesnt know ONE supreme court case or read ONE paper.
my prediction (the optimist i am) – she will become a footnote or hire Elizabeth Hasselbeck as her sidekick on a Fox News show
Comrade Darkness
I think the HP claim was a convolution of the book banning thing and the fact that HP is the number one banned book. But that doesn’t excuse her throwing out erroneous facts in support of her side. And technically, she never tried to ban books; she more than once asked the librarian during council meetings what the librarian’s response would be to Palin requesting certain books be banned. Then after several replies that such a thing would be unacceptable, Palin fired the librarian. The librarian was reinstated after a public uproar.
(I have an MLS, that’s the only reason I paid attention to these details.)
Tom Hilton
Not really. The diary posted at dKos got such an overwhelmingly negative reception that the author deleted it. Liberal bloggers in general didn’t flog the story. (Especially considering how universal it would have been in the right-wing blogosphere if it had been, say, Michelle Obama.)
I didn’t push the Trig story; I don’t think it’s really any of our business; I don’t think Palin was under any obligation to provide medical records to debunk the story. This, though, is chutzpah squared: the Trig story got a second wind from the fact that she wasn’t producing her medical records as she had promised. And the summary she finally did produce doesn’t tell us anything one way or the other. To act as if the information to disprove the Trig story were already available to the public is just…well, I think whoever said ‘pathological liar’ is dead-on.
o kanis
Palin is irrelevant, a chimera, a fringe/neocon wet dream destined to become a somewhat hilarious footnote in American politics.
Dennis - SGMM
Governor Palin did nothing more, or less, than validate the beliefs and outlook of a substantial portion of America. She is the end product of the GOP anti-intellectualism and sense of victimization that began back in the 80’s. Those aspects of Palin that many see as defects in Palin are seen as virtues by her supporters. Criticism is vindication. She, or someone very much like her will be back.
J.
Does she know anything?
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
Dusty
I think Obama eventually did release them to the New York Times for their medical review.
Comrade Darkness
Bush should have been too. If you feel safe believing that it can’t happen again, then I envy you your good nights’ sleep.
Dork
I think the most amazing part of this story is that it implies Alaskans can read.
Cyrus
Did any reporters actually ever make a big deal about Trig Palin? The only person I remember ever even talking about that nonsense was Andrew Sullivan, and he isn’t even a liberal, let alone a liberal blogger.
To be fair, I think it was getting attention from a lot more people than just Sullivan in the first couple weeks after she was announced, for the reasons others have given in this thread, but the attention from most people ended as soon as Bristol’s pregnancy was made public. Why Sullivan held onto it right up until the election, I still have no idea.
She apparently knows more about the issue than her current fans.
Tsulagi
Guess that’s a sure sign she now doesn’t have the services of her five-figure a month makeup artist.
Wait a minute, what happened to all that McCain/Palin campaign talk about they’re being his and hers mavericks?
Got to give her credit, though, she got it right. McCain represented the Freedom Fries half of the party and Palin the My Jesus for Thee half. Status quo. And yep, way “too much of what had gone on in these last eight years.”
Dusty
To be fair to Sullivan, he generally pushed for Biden’s records right alongside Palin’s. He’s stayed on Palin’s because she still hasn’t released any, despite making this kind of "I’m an open book" comment a couple times now with regard to her medical records.
peach flavored shampoo
A little OT, but does anyone know how much money was blown by that group that pretty much bought up every commercial break 2 days before the election and played the Jerry Wright Spooky Negro commercial on an endless loop? I keep thinking that the group had to know the election was in the bag for Obama at that point. How much incredible goodwill would they had generated for the GOP if they had instead announced their intention to donate that money to cancer research?
What a friggin complete waste of money, and they had to know it. Bastards.
o kanis
Bush was not a right wing christer/populist, but a country club Republican who sold himself as a compassionate conservative. The country bought this, twice. They aren’t going to buy Palin, especially with her baggage. She’s forgettable.
Jeff
Can we be done with Palin until 3 years from now when the FEC has her indicted for illegal use of campaign funds during her run for the 2012 election?
Comrade Kevin
@ppcli:
All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn’t give it to me.
Just a Pepsi.
Batocchio
Good lord. Palin’s the last one to be complaining. Most of the press didn’t push the Trig story, and she chose to withhold her medical records. Like Comrade Darkness upthread, I followed the book-banning story pretty closely. One can quibble about how exactly to describe it, but she certainly tested the waters about banning books, it’s just that it proved unfeasible. She’s citing a bogus banned books list that made the rounds on the internet tubes to claim otherwise. As with virtually ever other issue, a closer look only makes her look worse. Most glaringly, if she didn’t want to be mocked for being so clueless and out of her depth, maybe she should have actually tried to learn a few things about the world, government and history before accepting the VP spot. Hitchens still has his moments, and his skewering of Palin’s whole anti-empiricism, anti-competence shtick was pretty good. The divide between Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin was pretty wide there.
bago
YOu know, I’ve seen some world class morons in my time. Like the guy applying for a web dev job who didn’t know what an anchor tag was, or the person who couldn’t connect to a UNC network share after 2 weeks on the job at a Software company that when fired said "you know whappens when you assume, You make an ass out of both of us". Palin is even stupider than them.
Comrade Jake
@Dusty:
I don’t know, I read Sully pretty much every day, and love the guy, but I think he was pretty far off the deep end with Palin’s medical records. He made something of a show of trying to be even-handed with Biden’s, but his obsession with the pregnancy was pretty unbecoming of the guy.
The Palin pick really, really bothered Sully. I think it gave him nightmares. I think the more fair thing to say is that he was just as obsessed with the lack of a press conference (but perhaps because he thought she’d be questioned about the pregnancy, again).
Atanarjuat
DBrown said:
For the love of God, just because I didn’t IMMEDIATELY respond to you doesn’t mean I’m ignoring you or somehow dodging the question.
Please get over yourself.
The vile treatment of Governor Sarah Palin is obvious to anyone who is not a fringe leftist. It’s amazing how she’s criticized for how expensive her campaign wardrobe was, how "dumb" she is, and how infuriating her folksy, down-to-earth manner is.
Do you see Senator John McCain, who was at the top of the ticket, treated similarly? Has anyone shown any interest in how expensive his suits are, how they’ve been paid for, and so on?
No.
All the partisan fury is directed at Palin in the usual women-are-stupid sexist double standard that liberals claim to abhor, but eagerly embrace the very minute that a woman shows political ambition for higher office AND has an "R" next to her name. How dare she!
Moreover, it was Sarah Palin, not John McCain, whose image was used in an anti-conservative poster that literally demonized her as a fanged, blood-sucking monster. Naturally, John McCain gets a pass. Sure, you claim to hate him, but your real disgust is reserved for the little woman who has the audacity to not remained chained to the kitchen stove like any good female Republican should.
At the very least, that symbolism is how you lefties are coming off in post after post, comment after comment on how "stupid" and "dangerous" the "Wasilla hillbilly" is.
– A Country Treacherously Torpedoed
Dusty
McCain’s $500 shoes were an issue, as I recall. But he pays for them. Or his wife does. At any rate, it’s not the RNC. The cost of Palin’s clothes wouldn’t have mattered as much if she had ponied up for them or if they didn’t take a couple of weeks’ worth of ad dollars away from a downticket race that could have used them.
forked tongue
I’m a douche. I still think there was something weird going on with Trig, and if so I would find it consequential because she was the one who made political hay off her special-needs kid.
But since I don’t want people getting mad at the left blogosphere, I hereby denounce myself and call on myself to delete this post.
Comrade Jake
Atanasshat’s a spoof, right? Nobody can be that dense.
Punchy
God Bless the 2nd Amendment
Joshau Norton
As long as she can use her check signing hand she’ll remain popular-ish. Those R affiliated Alaskans just love their Bread and Circuses. But if the free money ever stops coming in, they’ll hang her in effigy and float her out to sea on an iceberg.
Dennis - SGMM
@Atanarjuat:
Damn it, baby, you’re good. I couldn’t hang with that shtick to save me.
"A Country Treacherously Torpedoed." Gold.
How about "A Country Bounteously Buggered" or, "A Country Calumniously Cornholed?"
Comrade Darkness
Oh, yes he was. He motived the base with his "I was a hopeless drunk till i was born again in jesus" schtick many times. They lapped it up. And he used dog whistle code in his speeches, just selective speeches. Here, a promo video showing how the right saw him.
les
Sorry, dude, it’s not amazing at all. Those criticisms don’t arise from her gender, but from her behavior. To point out that a woman behaving stupidly is behaving stupidly, is not misogynism.
Tony J
Thanks to her "Wasilla Monologues" performance-art of the last few months, Palin is already encoded on the Electoral Memory Stick of the moderate Republicans and Independents that the GOP would need to lure back into their camp for 2012 as the No 1 reason they voted Democratic in 2008.
Put it this way. The really great thing about Palin is that she went out of her way to contort herself into a stereotype that will only ever appeal to the wingnut fringe of American society. Her future survival in the GOP is useful as a barometer of how influential the neo-con/theo-con wing of the party is at any given time, but there’s no realistic way that even the most slavish MSM can rehabilitate her reputation as an ‘electoral asset’ after she’s the one the conventional wisdom they love so much is fingering as the major element which crippled their beloved McCain Campaign.
Shorter – Palin is likely going to be busy the next few years with the National Enquirer, but in the meantime she’s going to continue aiding the transformation of the GOP into the Dixie and Cowboys Only Party.
And that is a good thing.
Comrade Jake
I can’t believe how many people have observed Palin acting like a complete moron, and have jumped to the conclusion that she is a complete moron. These must be the same folks who are convinced the sky is blue.
DBrown
Atanarjuat
You can fake outrage but all I asked was for you to examin the handfull of posts (12) that appeared in this thread that you claim were vile about Palin and give one example. This would take most people a few minutes but only now you do (an hour later) get back to me and post stuff that comes from where? Not from here for what I can see (for my pasrt, I saw only one post that I would consider vile out of nearly 67 here); so what is your point? We are responsible for every attack on Palin in other blogs?
Hardly.
No mater. Still you have not looked at the short list (12) to prove your statement that we were being vile towards Palin. (I, however proved palin is vile in the sense you believe.)
Still, your current post both proves and tells me that you fully know you lied in your first post.
Zifnab
Remember when Al Gore was attacked for being "too smart" and "elitist" and "a giant braggart"? Remember how news analysts went on for weeks discussing the overly passionate kiss he gave his wife at the convention?
Why does the media hate Republicans so much that they’ll trivialize every little detail of a candidate’s life? The way they treated Sarah Palin was completely unusual and entirely unexpected. I was ready for real serious and intensely issues-based journalism for the year leading up to the election. Instead I was totally blindsided by a media that appeared to be made up of fifth graders. Where did this media come from? I just don’t understand.
~ A Nation Lost In The Wilderness Of San Fransisco Values
The Other Steve
So have we come to a decision yet?
Are we opposed to Palin because we are racist, sexist or anti-semitic?
Can you please tell us, Atanarjuat?
libarbarian
@Comrade Jake
You lose nothing by according some minimal "respect" to opponents may not deserve it, but you can lose a hell of a lot by refusing to grant it to the opponents who do.
Comrade Darkness
Damage to the image of women in high level politics comes from the republicans holding Palin up as "the best and the brightest". It’s clear, she’s not that, fortunately for the general perception of women in politics. But if you take their insistence at face value, that all other women in politics are less skilled/knowledgeable/well-tempered than her, then any rational person should argue that women should be kept out of politics.
Nothing makes a minority group cringe more than seeing someone promoted undeservedly to a high-profile position. When that person inevitably crashes and burns, the work of recovering perception must begin anew.
I, for one, am such a misogynist that I’m thankful McCain didn’t convince Rice to join the ticket.
Punchy
So are a vast, vast majority of McCain voters in TN, AL, SC and TX.
Tony J
That she was Secretary of State at all was a joke. Can anyone really begin to imagine how brutal the demolition would have been if Joe Biden had got to debate her on foreign policy?
"You were National Security Advisor during the first Bush term, can you talk us through where you got anything right? Or shall we move on?"
(Parenthetical Love)
Funny, I didn’t think political vampires had reflections. I guess thats why its in quotes.
Zifnab
Worth mentioning, I think. Between Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin, the precedent for female executive candidates has been set dismally low.
People mocked Obama for being the "affirmative action" candidate, but I think we’ve really discovered what that meant watching Palin run.
Zifnab
That’s only two sentences. Biden would have said it in six, with a small on-the-side about his life in Scranton or trips on Amtrack.
~ Our Country Penetrated By Islamo-Fascism
DonnaInMichigan
Wolf Blitzer is going to have Sarah Palin on his show…
(God will this never end??)
Anyhow he is asking people to send in questions of what you would like Sarah Palin to answer…
So I thought, we could do that here..
If you could ask Sarah Palin one question, what would it be?
My question would be, exactly what role does the "First Dude" play in your administration?
demimondian
@Comrade Jake: I’m not smart enough, then. I don’t think she’s a complete moron; in fact, I don’t think that she’s a moron at all.
I wish I did, you understand — that would make her behavior forgivable. Unfortunately, I think she *does* know better.
NonyNony
@Atanarjuat:
Absolutely right. No one took an interest in the fact that he had 7 houses and 13 cars. Or the $500 pair of shoes that he owned. Just like no one took an interest in John Edwards $300 haircut.
Of course, McCain didn’t stick the RNC with the bill for those things either – he paid for them himself with money out of his wife’s pocket. So really the only bit of interest there was that they were evidence that his attacks on Obama for being an "out of touch elitist" were at best hypocritical. The idea that the RNC shelled out donor money to clothe the Palin family makes the whole shopping spree story hilariously ridiculous. It would be a completely different story had the Palin’s spent their own money on a shopping spree (in fact, it would have mostly been a non-story – except people would have wondered where that salt-of-the-earth family had found $150K to throw around on clothing).
Atanarjuat
DBrown said:
Actually, what this proves is that no matter what my response, the liberal rejoinder is, "you lied." So my answer didn’t fit your preconceived notions (in other words, I’m not a liberal), so the only conclusion is that the other side lies.
How convenient.
It must be comforting being so cocooned in your own self-serving reality. I guess that’s how liberals can pretend to adhere to a we-are-all-in-this-together egalitarian philosophy while being as inarguably sexist in this anti-Palin hatred that most of you revel in.
After all, in this very thread you’ve got someone saying that Governor Sarah Palin "is intellectually incurious and disdainful of competence. Bush is those two, plus being a moron." But notice that Senator John McCain — who was at the top of the Republican ticket — doesn’t get this kind of condescending abuse, nor was he subjected to the "demonization" imagery that I referred to earlier (and which you failed to address — typical).
– A Country Careening Over a Cliff
Zifnab
What color are you going to paint the Presidential Snowmobile?
~ A Democracy At The Mercy Of Evil Liberals
low-tech cyclist
it is just stupid and tawdry and unseemly to suggest someone is not the mother of their child.
The problem is that, if Trig is her child, she played Russian roulette with his life repeatedly in the 24 hours before he was born.
And, let’s face it, repeatedly and unnecessarily risking the life of your child goes way beyond "stupid and tawdry and unseemly." This stupid, tawdry, unseemly suggestion gives her the benefit of the doubt.
I have no idea whether Sarah Palin is or isn’t Trig’s mother. But let’s get straight just which alternative says worse things about Sarah Palin.
Dennis - SGMM
Ms. Rice was also National Security Advisor when the intelligence community revealed "Bin Laden determined to strike U.S." Her tireless work prevented a great tragedy.
~A Nation Deaf to the Steam Calliope
Dusty
If McCain gets less "condescending abuse," wouldn’t that maybe mean that people don’t regard him as being as much of a "moron" as they do Sarah Palin? Suggesting that all women are more moronic than all men is sexist. Suggesting that a specific woman is moronic while failing to suggest that a specific man is a moron may be sexist, or it may be an accurate observation.
And it’s not as though Palin was the only demonized candidate in this election. McCain, Obama, Hillary, they all took their hits. That one McCain ad that suggested Obama was the Antichrist, that was bad. Biden’s the only one who got out fairly clean, just because no one paid all that much attention to him.
DBrown
Atanarjuat
You are not sane (my mistake for trying to believe otherwise) but like John, you might someday find a cure. Good luck.
Tony J
Well, yeah, normally. But in my mind, someone had a short conversation with him about the word "terse" just before he went on, and he restrained himself through heroic means.
Punchy
When you hear that polls list you as "unfavorable", do you wonder why Polish people hate you so much?
Martin
Uh, Norm Coleman was challenged on exactly how expensive his suits are and how they’ve been paid for. And McCain did have his Ferragamos mocked quite mercilessly. And the wardrobe outrage didn’t erupt from the left, it erupted from the right – from the RNC donors that were wondering why so much was going to clothes.
Palins down-to-earth manner is being mocked precisely as Bush’s is. How an Alaskan native got a Minnesota accent only in the last year is a bit of a mystery to some of us, just as how Bush’s drawl became considerably more pronounced the closer to his WH run he came. Folksy is fine. Nobody mocks Ann Richards. But putting on a ‘folksy’ act is going to get you mocked, just as Hillary got mocked when she turned on her Arkansas accent for about 3 days.
Jeff
Is the Earth less than or greater than 10,000 years in age? 100,000? 1,000,000?
For some reason I don’t think they’ll have to get past the first number.
Atanarjuat
Zifnab said:
I would leave out the "evil" part, but otherwise you’re spot-on, Zifnab. The outcome of the November 4, 2008 election is the beginning of a slow-motion disaster that we’ll all be forced to live through.
– A Country Kicked in the Groin
Matthew
I’d be more sympathetic towards the Bush legacy dragging her down if she didn’t try to fashion herself as the low-rent, folksier, less involved, dumbed down version of Dubya. It takes a lot of work to make people think you’re unqualified to be VP and she sure put in the hours.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com
o kanis
Comrade,
When Bush lost a race in Texas in the 1970s, he famously said that he’d never be outjesued again. Dog whistling the christers is one thing, being a paid up member is another.
No Republican candidate will do less for the christers than Bush. But Palin is forever tarnished with the past eight weeks, not least because the media has had enough of her. That cannot be said of other potential candidates.
Maybe I overstate. But Bush is not Palin. She’s a thing standing alone. At any rate, I am stepping on my opinion by discussing her here. Sayonara.
Comrade Stuck
@Atanarjuat:
Blah blah blah blah BLAH blah bahl bahl blah——— blah
Zifnab
How can you witness the blighting of a nation – from its proud beginnings as a Reagen-esque utopia of honest work, Christian values, and strong foreign policy to the inevitable fatal collapse into Stalinist era economic depression with a militant suppression of free speech and religion and political indoctrination on an international scale – and call that anything less than evil? Let’s face it. Liberals want to destroy America. Why else would they champion such dismal and destructive policies?
~ A Sovereignty Beholden To George Soros And His Murderous Band Of Socialist Welfare Whores
Jeff
Ignorance is not a valid reason to dismiss Palin in the view of Evangelical voters. One of my wife’s friends actually sent her this link to show why it was feasible science is wrong and the Earth is truly ~6000 years old.
Cyrus
@Atanarjuat:
McCain gets a pass because the most obvious problem with his appearance is his lumpy cheek and his stiff, jerky walk and arm movements. Between the walk and his age, he looks like a zombie. But the problem is, the cheek is the result of melanoma and the walk is the result of war injuries. There is no way at all to make fun of McCain’s appearance without making fun of injured veterans and cancer survivors. Therefore, lookalikes and political cartoons limited themselves to using baldness and irascability to show who they were talking about, there was a long, angry thread here arguing about it (Google for "cryptkeeper" at balloon-juice.com), and most liberals were smart enough not to mock McCain’s appearance in public.
And yes, of course Atanarjuat is a spoof.
Tim
Mark my words:
Bristol Palin will "miscarry" the fetus she is allegedly carrying right now. She and the hot hockey player will never actually get around to marrying. And it will ultimately be revealed that yes, Sarah is grandmother, not mother, to Trig, who is in reality Bristol’s child.
Anyone who thinks otherwise has not done even five minutes of googling regarding this matter.
How is it possible to say that a potential vice president of the united states who would conceive and carry out such an elaborate charade, and continue to foist it as true to the American people by carting Trig around like a right to life prop, is not by definition a liar, fraud and a psycho and thus not qualified for national office?
Andrew Sullivan is a borderline mental case, a liar, a pig, and world class narcisist, but regarding the alleged fruit of Sarah’s womb, he’s on the money.
Atanarjuat
Dusty said:
Dusty, Governor Sarah Palin was literally demonized. In case you don’t see the linked text in the prior sentence, here’s the URL you can copy and paste into your browser:
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/6982/p1050410newer05postur2.jpg
Please, do tell me how singling out the only female candidate in the presidential race for this kind of vilification ISN’T sexist?
By the way, Dusty, and to whoever else brought this up, McCain’s wealth and excesses were only discussed within the context of the campaign, whereas now, AFTER the campaign is over and the election decided, the anti-Palin, "did you see how much that hillbilly spent on herself?!?" ankle-biting gossip just won’t stop.
Yes, it IS a double standard. A vile, sexist double standard.
– A Country Shaking with Grief
Martin
Because it isn’t when it’s being equally done to the male candidate.
So do we countercharge that the link above is racist because Obama is the only black candidate. Or if it was Biden that it’d be anti-Catholic?
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, just sat and here listened to some potatohead who was a foreign policy advisor on the McCain campaign stating that Sarah Palin was a solid, positive choice for John McCain (on MSNBC talking to the MisinfoBabe, whoever the hell she is).
I am reminded of the phrase "articulate incompetant."
I am also reminded that these people are skilled at repeating, in an articulate and convincing fashion, the most grotesque lies you can imagine with an absolutely straight face.
Something to keep in mind in about two years.
Deborah
Well, I’m Trig’s mom (raises her hand) and do you want to see my medical records to prove that?
If I thought she was a lot smarter than I actually do, I’d say she came up with this line to drive Andrew Sullivan mad and cause him to gnaw a chunk out of his coffee mug.
On Potter: Some idiot did take the list of books most often banned, claim that Palin wanted to ban them, and it went viral for all of a day or so before being fact-checked into oblivion. The Potter point is interesting in that (besides being–wait for it–wrong!) she isn’t trying to say she wasn’t banning books, just arguing that she didn’t try to ban Potter and hope it comes across as saying she’s not a bookbanner. It’s like when (creepiness alert) Woody Allen claimed he wouldn’t molest a child in an attic because he is afraid of attics.
But keep blasting away at Palin, lefties. You’ll only continue to do your part in setting back the progress of women in the political arena.
What, we give arrogant know-nothings a pass because they happen to be female? One standard of "can you name any newspaper or magazine you followed before being tapped" for men, and a far lower one for women?
This woman could have become president. We could have gone to war because her gut told her Waziristan was up to somethin’, and she doesn’t hesitate. So long as she’s a leader of the Rs, she will be rightfully mocked for all displays of ignorance. She doesn’t even understand what "fungible" means in terms of international markets when talking about energy, which she’s supposed to know more about than anyone!
I would of course love to watch her and Brian Schweitzer debate energy policy, but not if it meant this dingbat was back to within a single election of becoming president.
NonyNony
@Atanarjuat:
Ankle-biting gossip being driven by leaks from former McCain campaign staffers out to trash Palin for whatever reason.
It may be sexism. No one would be terribly surprised by Republicans diving into sexism to attack someone they don’t like. But I think it’s more ass-covering by the campaign staff so that everyone knows that it isn’t their fault that the campaign sucked – it was all Palin’s fault. (Normally the blame would be heaped onto McCain, but for some reason that just isn’t happening. I’m not sure why – it was his campaign and he ran it awfully – but for some reason he isn’t taking the blame as much as she is. Possibly because there’s no way he’s in competition for the GOP nomination in ’12.)
Face
I must admit that I think otherwise, and I have not googled this for 5 minutes, but it’s b/c I really dont give a flying fuck whose child it is.
Fuckin Christ some of you are so fixated on the stoopid and irrelevant.
Atanarjuat
Cyrus said:
That’s a nice excuse. No sale.
Governor Sarah Palin doesn’t have demonic qualities, nor is she a bloodsucker or even fanged. Those attributes were wholly applied to her irrespective of her appearance, unlike what you attempted to rationalize with Senator John McCain.
It’s all about the sexism, lefty. You guys decided on this line of attack (i.e., she’s dumb, moronic, lacking intellect, stupid, stupid, stupid, etc.), and then you had to make hay out of her wardrobe. On the latter, nobody holds a man to this superficial standard.
No one.
Of course, that’s why you’re not responding to any of the points I’ve raised in this thread. You sure fooled me!
– A Country Nearing Flatline Status
John S.
Wow, break out the raincoats people!
Atanarjuat is really ‘taking a piss’ today.
gregp
Actually Avarosis ran after the Trig story pretty hard, which made me give up on Americablog for a while. Just dumb.
gregp
Sorry, Aravosis. My bad.
Dennis - SGMM
"Is Todd deaf or just hard of hearing?"
~A country that will think that it’s a chicken that got caught in a tractor’s nuts.
jake 4 that 1
We need to start collecting these.
RSA
So the 1.3 million hits I get when Googling Obama + Anti-Christ don’t count as demonizing? I guess I should study up on the underworld hierarchy…
Dusty
McCain’s shoes didn’t get as much traction as, say, McCain’s houses did. As a symbol of McCain’s wealth insulating him from the realities of everyday life, the houses were more effective. And, again, he paid for them.
Palin didn’t pay for her campaign wardrobe and there seem to still be open questions here, as to how much was paid for them, whether the expenses were authorized, whether campaign funds went to non-costume items like boxers for Todd and whether she still has any clothes in her possession. Given that this broke at the end of the election cycle and that Republicans are still feuding about it, it’s become part of the post-mortem in a way that McCain’s shoes haven’t.
The election isn’t even a week dead yet; it’s a little soon to be complaining that we haven’t all moved on. Edwards got hit for his haircut for months afterward.
Atanarjuat
NonyNony said:
The Occam’s Razor answer is staring at you in the face, but perhaps your political partisanship is preventing you from recognizing the whole if-it-quacks-like-a-duck-then-it-is-a-duck truth of the matter.
It’s called a double standard. And it’s sexist, too.
– Country First.
Deborah
Atanarjuat, no one really believes you missed "Obama is the Antichrist" in its many incarnations over the past year. Demonizing of Hillary, Palin, and Obama over Biden, McCain, and Thompson this year just illustrates which candidates rile people into a fury and which are not exciting enough to demonize. (Though Mitt Romney arguably works against this, being boring yet literally demonized for his faith.)
Dusty
180,000 hits for "earth tones gore." 701,000 hits for "edwards haircut."
dmsilev
@NonyNony:
It never would have become public if they had paid for the clothes out of personal funds. Remember, the only reason we found out about it is because some news organization (Politico, I think) went through the financial disclosure forms filed by the RNC with the FEC, and started asking why there were tens of thousands of dollars going to Saks and Neiman Marcus.
-dms
Sam Dobermann
The story about Trig being Palin’s kid’s child came out of Alaska blogs where it was much discussed BEFORE she was named VP nominee.
It was based on observation of Palin and knowledge that Bristol had been out of school for months with "mononucleosis" or some such.
It was reinforced by the weird tale of Palin’s actions before the birth and the lack of records at the hospital. The secrecy and lack of documentation gave and gives it legs.
Bristol was to have been married right after the convention, before the election and etc.
The birth, to whoever, entitles the Palins to an extra $3200 from their socialist state.
Dennis - SGMM
It couldn’t be that McCain presided over a campaign that was just as chaotic as his own interior landscape and that the choice of Palin was simply the most visible manifestation of that chaos.
~A Country in Thrall to Chili-Cheese Fries
Rob R
Actually, the Occam’s Razor answer as to why people are saying that they believe that Palin is an idiot would be that it’s because they believe that Palin is an idiot. Perhaps your political partisanship is preventing you from looking up and understanding the definition of Occam’s Razor.
Atanarjuat
Deborah, you and all the other members of the anti-Palin brigade are comparing an Internet meme to a physical propaganda campaign that could be seen by any passerby on the street?
Seriously?
I’m not ignoring this point all of you keep bringing up; I’m just astounded that anyone would pretend that the two thing are even comparable.
I’m willing to be convinced, though. The photo I’ve posted repeatedly is one I snapped myself a few weeks ago, right on the streets of Manhattan.
Please show me a photo, taken ANYWHERE in the USA, of an anti-Obama poster where his face has been transformed into the "Antichrist." I’m not talking about some lame Cafepress product page — I want to see actual proof of billboards or posters, either single or multiple, put up in plain sight where anyone walking by could seem them, similarly to how the "Truly Frightening Prospect" poster campaign has been coordinated.
Thanks.
– Country First.
The Other Steve
Wait? Does this mean that people singling out the only african-american candidate in the presidential race for criticism are racist?
Siryn
She gets away with it because the media is cowed and doesn’t challenge her beyond maybe one follow up question, if they’re lucky, and not one particularly good one at that. Just follow the Bush playbook: lie, and keep repeating the lie in the face of any challenge. Do not acknowledge the challenge substantively at all, just repeat the lie.
Atanarjuat
Rob R quoted, then said:
You’re confused as to the nature of my response. I was directly referring to the reason why McCain mostly escapes the deserved blame for a failed campaign, whereas Palin seems to have all the long knives out for her.
It’s called a double standard. A VERY sexist double standard.
RIF – Reading Is Fundamental (and can be fun, too!)
– Country First.
Joshau Norton
I left Americablog when they went into their full frother Hate Hillary mode. They kept having links to Drudge, WingnutDaily, FreeRepublic, Fox – any place that said something bad about Clinton.
I didn’t support her, but I didn’t think she was the devil incarnate, either. They did. You couldn’t tell Americablog from Little Green Footballs for a while there. I felt creepy being there and never went back.
Dusty
One reason may be that McCain’s days as a political power player are over. He’ll run out the clock as a member of the minority party in the Senate.
Palin’s political future has yet to be written. If you are or are supporting a potential 2012 rival, if you found her appalling and want to prevent her becoming the head of the party, if you had a falling-out with her and want to limit her influence in the future, you have a chance right now to limit that future potential. It’s not about sexism; it’s about her being a threat to other people’s power in the party.
jaime
No, but you don’t understand:
"Sarah will bring us home God willing. SHe will help us see the better parts of ourselves and what our nation can be."
– NoQuarter nutjob.
robertdsc
@Atanarjuat:
http://www.darthscreencapture.com/sf/boantichrist.jpg
Country First, indeed.
OniHanzo
Huh?
Keep hugging that victimology close, Atanarjuat. Looks undeniably good on you.
liberal
@tavella:
Yes, that’s true.
Incertus
@jaime: That’s some powerful shit they’re smoking over there.
Zifnab
Atanarjuat, you never answered my question. How are liberals not evil? Surely a political organization who – intentionally or otherwise – will bring down the Greatest Country Evar fits into your definition of "evil". Why can’t you come clean on this and state your honest beliefs?
Pardon? Come again? Baking powder? McCain "escapes the deserved blame"? He PICKED SARAH PALIN! How does he escape that horrible decision? Whatever may be said of Darling Sarah – good or bad – her effect on the ticket’s poll numbers are undeniable. She was a lead weight. VPs aren’t nominated by the public. They’re selected by their running mates. How does McCain escape blame for the biggest blunder of his campaign? Was Sarah just too slick for him? Or did she walk into McCain Campaign HQ, put Johnny in a headlock, and make the old man pick her?
~ America: We hate you too
kwAwk
Take a couple of seconds a re-read what she said in the second quote. It may not have been a very eloquent way of saying it, but it is flat out the truth. America was asking how we ended up at $10 trillion in debt under a ‘fiscal conservative’ and was certainly wondering how we ended up with such a blundered war policy under Republicans.
Be careful of this. If Palin is willing to throw the GOP of the past 8 years under a bus, she could be a powerful force in the return of the GOP.
Dusty
In theory. But she still has to articulate a different vision, which she’s not doing. None of the GOP leadership is. It’s still tax cuts, small government, deregulation, Islamofascism, culture wars. Just saying you’re breaking with Bush when not actually breaking with any of Bush’s policies doesn’t get you very far.
ETA: It seems to me the argument being made in general is that Bush was incompetent and that conservatives need to do a better job of delivering their message, not that anyone’s really arguing for a change in philosophy or policy.
Zuzu's Petals
@Bobzim: @Tom Hilton:
Actually, it’d been floating around the Alaska blogosphere for some time before she was even the VP candidate.
Joe Vegas
@Dusty: His doctor also released a 276-page summary of his records. Which is a pretty damn long summary, especially compared to the two-page note Palin’s doctor wrote.
Blue Raven
Fixed. (and using that ancient means of indicating a deletion has got to be adding to the gray on my head)
I’ve shifted from laughing with you to laughing at you, Atty. Poor thing, your shtick’s broken and you can’t get it up.
Cain
It’s nice that you don’t think liberals are evil.
– A country shoved down a flight of stairs
cain
jaime
Some really powerful shit. Of course, CIA officers know how to dupe stupid people. You should see what happens over there when you ask them where the Whitey Tape is.
Atanarjuat
robertdsc and OniHanzo, the both of you look like you could be RIF candidates, too.
Just WHERE are all these anti-Obama/Antichrist billboards or posters located in the USA? You guys desperately keep falling back to Photoshopped nonsense that only made the rounds on the Internet, or, in the case of OniHanzo, the lame, doctored photos that were shot by the very far-left liberal photographer, Jill Greenberg.
Greenberg, by the way, was not only roundly condemned by conservatives, but by many liberals, too (to their credit, I must say). I’ve yet to see any condemnation from any large group of liberals with regard to the "Truly Frightening Prospect" poster campaign.
And still, how is any of that comparable to the literal demonization campaign against Governor Sarah Palin? Stay focused.
– Country First.
Face
Is there a problem with this?
robertdsc
Yes, we know the Internet has no effect whatsoever on shaping opinion or spreading of ideas.
Zifnab
Wait, so they’ve got to put it up on a billboard for people to see it? Does the internet not count?
And Atanarjuat, you still haven’t answered my question. Why aren’t liberals evil? Come on. You’ve got to have a clear and logical reason for drawing this line in the sand. You clearly oppose "liberal", but you refuse to call them what they are. Just clarify with us. Please.
~ I like pie
Dusty
Not demonization exactly, but: One, two, three, four, five, six.
boonagain
Now why did John name a whole thread after Atanajurat? Why encourage him?
Country First
horatius
I bet Atanarjuat is John Cole himself. Just trying to keep the pagecount up after the election.
NonyNony
@Atanarjuat:
I suppose it could be sexist Republican operatives out to make Palin the cause of the loss. I find it doubtful that it’s sexism for the sake of sexism, though – the phrase "that dog won’t hunt" comes to mind as it’s kind of ridiculous. I tend to think it’s more likely the money faction of the GOP doesn’t like the Christianist faction of the GOP and has little use for the neo-con faction of the GOP either. Since Palin is the darling of the Christianist faction, and since the chief drum-beater of the neo-con faction Bill Kristol is the one who was pushing for Palin in the first place, I think attacks on Palin are a way for the money-cons to make some hay in the faction war and try to take the other factions down a notch or two. And scuttle her chances of being the standard bearer of the party in the future. That’s what Occam’s Razor would lead me to believe, at any rate.
(It also doesn’t hurt that Palin opened herself up to attacks by the money-cons by doing the one thing that is an unforgivable sin to them – wasting their money. Had McCain won the election, all would be forgiven. But spending $150K out of coffers meant to win an election and then losing? That’s a sin of failure that the money-guys just can’t let go unpunished.)
Atanarjuat
Zifnab, the "Truly Frightening Prospect" poster campaign is not something that’s only visible to someone with access to the World Wide Web. That’s the very point I’ve been making.
The literal demonization of Governor Sarah Palin could be seen by ANYONE on the street — no PC or laptop required. And it was ONLY her that was subjected to this degrading treatment; none of the other male candidates endured such tangible, graphic vilification.
Are you with me so far? Because nothing of what I’m saying is new or mysterious. Please let me know how I could be any more clear. I’ll be glad to help.
I’m not part of that fringe faction of conservatives who go around spouting nonsense like that. Yes, I think that liberals have misguided ideals, that their beliefs are naive and that putting their values into practice (as Obama is getting ready to) could very well lead to severe weakening of our nation. That’s why it’s good that liberals have an opposition to keep them in check and to firmly restrain them from their worst excesses. This election has made the job harder, of course, but it doesn’t mean that the Republicans in the House or the Senate will just roll over and play dead just because the Democrat’s star is ascending.
Everything is cyclical, Zifnab. I just hope America can survive this particularly vicious cycle we’re all about to endure.
– Country First.
xyzzy
I don’t see any reason to pick on Sullivan for this. Palin was the one who said her life was an open book, and yet refused to squash the rumors by freely releasing her records. As Sully put it (many times), if her claims of openness were so true, why not just release the records and put the story to rest, once and for all? I don’t think that he particularly cared about this "tawdry" rumor, but rather than he was just hammering the point home that she wasn’t what she claimed (open) — not only in general, but in this very specific and easily refutable instance, when it would have done nothing but help her case. (If the tawdry rumor was just that, of course.)
robertdsc
Yes, that whole thing about people at Palin/McCain rallies screaming "TERRORIST" or "KILL HIM!" is not demonization at all.
Duck your head in the sand all you want, Atar. Maybe you’ll see the scoreboard much better: BHO 365, JSM 173.
Comrade Stuck
BLAH
DougJ
Did you guys notice that in the joke trailer for the Disney movie, her son is named Algebra?
robertdsc
He also said that he was applying the exact same tactics against Palin that she used against her opponent when she was running for mayor of Wasilla. IIRC, she demanded that her opponent provide proof of his marriage (in the form of a marriage certificate) to the electorate because otherwise it appeared that the opponent was not married.
Her beehive and glasses have caused starbursts that fog my memory, but Sully did use that example as justification for his staying on top of the case.
Delia
@Jeff:
sheesh. I spend too much time on the intertoobs as it is. If I read through every idiot who can disprove every bit of science since Copernicus using irrefutable logic only he can understand, they’ll have to carbon date my remains.
Atanarjuat
robertdsc said:
Yeah, a few random nutjobs at a political rally is ABSOLUTELY equal to a coordinated national campaign to widely distribute and display posters on the street of a known female politician — who is made to appear demonic with fangs and spattered blood.
Remember, RobertDSC: RIF — it’s good for you!
– Country First.
binzinerator
@Comrade Jake:
I gotta say I thought the same thing about Sully when he went after Hillary. I thought the guy was obsesses and over the top, and unbecoming. I stopped reading his blog I was so put off. No way she could be that bad, as pathological as he claimed.
And then she went and started behaving in exactly the kinds of ways Sully said she would.
In short, Sully was right about Hillary. What seemed at the time to be out-of-bounds was actually calling it as really was.
This is why I won’t call the things he says about Palin — or the demands for medical records — as unbecoming or obsessing. Like with Hillary, I think he’s on to something there. I don’t think the thing with medical records are about who trig’s mother is. I don’t care if she is or isn’t — other than it would be yet another example of pathological deception — and I don’t even think it would’ve ended her candidacy if trig wasn’t hers. But I think there’s something even more damning. Her penchant for deception is the key.
People here and elsewhere have described her as a pathological liar. The pathological liars I’ve met have had other personality things going on as well.
I’m not trying to give a tele-diagnosis, I’m not qualified even if I wanted to. But just using my common sense and past experience, someone who is a demonstrable and repeated liar on the scale she has shown herself to be, is someone who is a very seriously fucked up human being, and those people seem to end up with an arrest record, or deeply hurting and betraying those who love them or get close to them.
It doesn’t take a Freud to know people whose defining trait is deception with little regard for any personal consequences are people who have a real, serious and likely a medically diagnosed personality disorder.
robertdsc
Funny how you gloss over Sarah Palin’s own words when describing national campaigns.
Hell, the entire McCain/Palin campaign was an effort to demonize Obama.
But, hey. We all know how that turned out.
-A Country That Says "Yes We Did."
Svensker
Me, too. The Rethugs are already gearing up. Not to mention the wingers who have their guns at the ready — those guys really worry me.
About sexism and Sarah Palin. Phooey. What sank Sarah wasn’t sexism, it was her own dumbth. She may be smart, I can’t really say, but she is certainly ignorant, and for some ridiculous reason, proud of her ignorance. Bush in a skirt, indeed. And, speaking as a woman, I recognized all her little "winky" moments for exactly what they are — feminine tricks one uses to get the advantage in a situation that’s a little out of one’s hands. My girlfriends and I discussed it, and we all agreed that’s what Sarah was doing and we all admitted we’d done the same things ourselves — just that we all had usually only used those "wiles" in our teens and 20s and certainly not as grown up women in serious situations. Very unprofessional — and icky — behavior on La Palin’s part.
Good riddance to her.
Altho I can’t help hoping she and Newt will run in 2012 — what a dream ticket!
binzinerator
Gawd, that’s funny atajerk! Lessee…for demonization to literally happen (as opposed to metaphorically) she must have had horns sprouting out of her head. And fangs. And a barbed tail. Golly, right there on the street for anyone to see!
Seriously, I thought she had a witchcraft charm put on her to ward off supernatural afflictions. Obviously it doesn’t work against demons, which are no doubt very different, being Chaotic Evil and likely even from a different Elemental Plane. Maybe that Wasilla Witchdoctor of hers has a +5 Protection vs. Demons scroll stashed somewhere.
Zifnab
The posters were put up in one city. The cries of "terrorist" were heard at multiple rallies. I’ve yet to see any indication that the Zombie Palin posters were funded or otherwise coordinated by the Obama campaign.
But this is still all that much more ridiculous an argument to make. Hillary Clinton was regularly and repeatedly mocked by the right wing establishment for years. The attacks against Hillary Clinton are legion and well documented. They date back to her husband’s run for governor in the eighties and extend straight through to the beginning of 2008 when she was projected to defeat Barack Obama in the primary.
Somehow she managed to survive and thrive despite being a massive target for the Republican Party for decades. Yet Sarah Palin folded like a cheap suite over a few childish attacks.
If Sarah can’t stand up to teenagers with a color printer in San Fransisco, how is she supposed to handle the President of Iran – a man equiped with some of the most advanced Photoshop technology the world has ever seen?
If she can’t handle the attacks against her, Sarah just isn’t fit to be Vice President. Crying and wringing your hands and stomping your feet doesn’t change that. Your VP candidate was weak. People saw that and they abandoned her.
~ Jesus First, Country Second
Atanarjuat
robertdsc said:
I’m not glossing over anything Governor Sarah Palin has said. While you’re busy desperately trying to stuff words in my mouth, I see that you’ve yet to come up with a similar poster campaign that was spread nation-wide against the other candidates who were not female.
You know, the whole literal demonization angle that I’ve only described several times. You couldn’t have missed it.
But keep trying to deflect and dodge; it’s not working, but it’s amusing (and pathetic) all the same.
– Country First.
Delia
Well, let’s use Occam’s Razor. She started out by giving two interviews to the press to journalists who were known to softball it to rightwing politicians. (Charlie Gibson had asked that Bush Doctrine question at one of the early debates.) She just bullshitted her way through both interviews, making clear that she knew nothing — NOTHING — of substance. Then when she got to the debate she refused to answer any question she didn’t want to so she could speak coherently on the subjects for which she did prepare. Furthermore, she did her famous "hello, sailor" winks, sending all those starbursts through the teevee screen into Rich Lowry’s pants. My bottom line is "Act like a bimbo, get treated like a bimbo." And winking at the boys like that falls into the bimbo category.
I did not support Hillary. I didn’t like the way she conducted her campaign. But she’s an intelligent, knowledgeable and educated woman. I would have come round to supporting her had she been the nominee. And, um, I do believe she buys her own clothes.
gwangung
That’s not demonization; that’s collapsing to the ground in uncontrollable laughter.
MikeL
Martin Eisenstadt has come out of the closet as the leaky advisor.
Normally, I would go out of my way to encourage Operation Leper, but in this case, I don’t think they need any help from me.
MikeL
Atanarjuat: No one is putting words in Sarah’s mouth. The words that came out on their own already did plenty of damage.
Zifnab
Blam! Massive email campaign calling Obama a Muslim. Does that count? How about a line of t-shirts? Still nothing? Oh, wait. Found your posters.
We done here or are you still going to keep whining and bitching?
~ If Google Were A Woman, I’d Boink Her. Twice.
Atanarjuat
Zifnab said:
Gee, Zifnab, I didn’t realize that New York, Portland, Reno, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Berkeley were all ONE huge, contiguous mega-city.
Man, you do learn something new every day.
By the way, those locations were the posters went up are listed on frighteningprospect.com. A quick look through Google and even flickr reveals even more places spotted across the USA, but I digress.
Nice try, though.
– Country First.
Delia
Strange. That’s not what the Secret Service said.
From the article:
That’s why the RNC is distancing from the beauteous Sarah.
Joe Miller
Zifnab is a perfect example of the right wing fanaticism this country has just, by a sound margin, rejected. It is the Zifnabs of the world that have been killing America for the last eight years. It is the Zifnabs who cheered when horrible tortures were used on anyone even suspected of terrorist sympathies. It was the Zifnab types who laughed with delight at the rendition of prisoners to nations such as Uzbekistan that inflict hideous, medieval torture on prisoners. It was the Zifnabs who wildly cheered the economic policies that have brought this country to the brink of ruin. (BTW, Zifnab, you idiot, 70% of the national debt accumulated since 1789 was piled up under 3 conservative Republican presidents.) It was the Zifnab types that supported the presidential signing statements, the illegal presidential executive orders, and the grotesque expansion of unconstitutional executive power we have seen under Bush. It is the Zifnabs who have blindly supported the Iraq War, which has killed or wounded 40,000 Americans, killed 200,000+ Iraqis, and crippled our standing in the world, all because of a threat that didn’t exist. It’s people like YOU, Zifnab, that have been killing MY country (I refuse to call you a fellow American). It’s people like YOU Zifnab that have been wiping their asses on our nation’s laws and traditions. And you have the G-d damned NERVE to call people like ME evil??
demimondian
@Atanutcase: Geez, you seem to have the problem with the truth. Sarah Palin *is* demonic.
— Bored by dull troll
ed
Life is much better when The Trigmeister is Bristol’s baby. QED, that baby ain’t Sarah’s. Anyway, she’s such a congenital liar, that the burden of proof’s on her.
jake 4 that 1
God damn it, I demand a return of histrionic "Country" sign offs.
Joe Miller
Zifnab, I am not sure where you are really coming down in this. My remarks may be better attributed to others. I may have missed you snark, and if so I apologize. But it did seem up thread as if you were calling liberals evil.
Shaggy
@Atanarjuat: So, do you not think the last eight years was a particularly "vicious cycle?"
I am actually curious as to why a future not one of us actually knows can be ABSOLUTELY worse than the last eight years which we all experienced.
You say Obama was not "demonized" in public? Do you not recall the tapes of Palin rallies from September and October? You know, the ones that were played on CNN, Fox News, and the other major news outlets? You did not need the internet to witness the demonization of Obama.
The difference between the demonization of Palin (if that in fact is what has been done to her) and the demonization of Obama, is that on the right, the demonization was not done JUST by bloggers, but by the candidates themselves.
The Secret Service was forced to deal with a greatly increased number of death threats against our President-elect in September and October as a direct result of what Palin and McCain were talking about in their rallies. Nothing on the intertubes resulted in increased death threats of Palin. What could be more demonizing than lying about the opposition candidate to the extent that you are endangering their life and the lives of their families? Seriously, you think Palin was demonized more?
I don’t care about her clothing, but the RNC (and the big RNC donor) does. I don’t care if that child is hers. I don’t care how many houses McCain has. I don’t even care anymore about all the lies they told on the campaign trail and how they treated Obama.
I do still care about how many Republicans called my disabled-vet a husband a traitor TO HIS FACE because he was voting for Obama. Beyond the pale.
I also care that our country is in a hole. Republicans need to think pre-Reagan here, burn their spoiled junk to the ground and reform with ideas beyond idiotic culture wars and neocon foreign policy in order to provide a decent opposition party. Blustering, the very selective use of facts, and outright lying is not going to get the job done.
Veterans First
Punchy
Does Palin face re-election as Gov b4 2012? U’d think it wouldn’t be hard 2 run a conservative Repub against her n win…
MikeL
My post earlier about the leaky leaker? Turns out to be a hoax.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=M._Thomas_Eisenstadt
Comrade Darkness
@Joe Miller,
New here? Spoof can be hard to spot. Best to assume spoof until proven otherwise. Helps avoid providing reverse entertainment.
I mean, if your knickers are in need of twisting, go for it. Some days are like that.
charlotte
It cracks me up, kinda, that this stupid woman thinks most of us out here living in the reality-based community give a rat’s ass about any of this shit. Harry Potter? Trig’s, ah-hem, provenance? Her views (original recipe!) on the war and the last 8 years? WTF was McCain thinking when he put this dimwit into the spotlight? Her air of "I have something vital to say and here it is" is just pathetic. She’s got NO freaking clue what a joke she is.
Zifnab
/me hangs head in shame and does the slow walk of shame to the back of the blog.
/queue "Incredible Hulk" TV show music.
Martin
You’re right. The 1000 people that walk by that sign daily (budding local artist, no doubt) are far more important than the million or so that get the Obama-is-the-anti-christ daily email blast from Rush. I mean, it’s not like Time Magazine reported on it…
Please. Nobody here saw the Palin poster until you linked to it. Virtually every major publication covered the anti-christ meme at some point.
And the Palin poster showed she was a vampire. That’s not exactly a damaging image these days, donchaknow.
AnneLaurie
Complaining that Palin has no use for elitist concepts like "facts" or "truth" or even "plausibility" is like complaining that your dog won’t stop snacking from the cat’s litter box. It’s a genetically encoded behavior to which the whole species is vulnerable, and only some Republicans individuals can be trained to give it up… especially when the target audience believes that lying is a feature, not a bug.
Atanarjuat
Martin said:
The "nobody" you’re speaking for is only yourself, Martin, and perhaps some of the other fringe leftists here on BJ who can only see the "unjust" criticisms against the Great Redistributionist but are predictably blind to the massive smears aimed at the opposing side.
This massive anti-Palin poster campaign was reported on earlier, but also predictably, it wasn’t picked up here on BJ or other leftist blogs as the story itself wasn’t useful for the further bashing of McCain, Palin, or any other conservatives.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Demonizing_Palin.html?showall
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/haters.php
And yet again (also very predictably), you and all the other liberals who’ve tried to play the moral equivalency gambit, trying to compare the actual demonization of Governor Sarah Palin to stupidities yelled at political rallies or Photoshop artwork on the Web have absolutely failed to address the main point: the treatment of Palin was and continues to be sexist and a complete double standard.
Really, lefties, try to stay on target. It would great help your credibility.
– Country First.
AnneLaurie
Effing ‘strike’ tab worked FINE in preview. Oh, for an edit button again!
Comrade Darkness
@AnneLaurie, the strike button in the tool bar thing works only in preview. You have to put real angle strike angle things
around stuff.Sorry can’t show you the angles, the comment form takes out even the & l t ; things. The bastard.
John S.
This dead fish is starting to smell like Darrell.
demimondian
@John S.: Nah. Attanougat is too literate for Darrell.
— Nausea first
boonagain
Do ya think Atenrawhatever’s over-reaction to that Palin poster (which no one except him noticed) is a result of being dragged to an afternoon showing of "The Lost Boys" by his babysitter ?
Dusty
How is showing Palin as a demon in a poster sexist? I mean, I could see if they showed her as, say, a Barbie doll. That would be sexist. Or all the "cold state, hot gov" stuff, that’s sexist. But is demonic imagery anti-female code? Did I miss something? It’s insulting, to be sure, but it seems more about her being evil or something. I’m not seeing a gender bias thing here.
TenguPhule
-My Country belongs to the people again.
Wolfdaughter
Atanarjuat:
I have no idea of your gender. As you can see from my handle, I’m female. I was a libber before the term was invented. I have always supported equal treatment for women, men, all ethnicities, sexual persuasions, etc. And this has very much been what liberals have pushed for, for many years, with varying degrees of success.
I don’t hate Sarah Palin; I don’t know her, and I’m not a hating person anyway. I truly can say that I’ve never actually hated anyone that I’ve known. Disliked, certainly. Hated, no.
But I hate what she said she stood for. Divisiveness, yes, hatred. Either stupidity or lack of interest in learning. Calling me as a liberal and an urban dweller not a "real" American. Her behavior at some of her rallies was despicable.
It would be sexist to spare her from justified criticism. As for her wardrobe expenditures, I would question those if they had been made by a man. And others have pointed out that McCain was criticized for his shoes, and you must have a very short memory if you don’t recall the hoorah over Edwards’ haircut.
Showing her as a demon on posters in various cities was definitely over the top, but you are trying to make it far more than it was. And dismissing death threats against the Obamas and the necessity of beefed up Secret Service protection–what that says about you isn’t pretty.
Deserved criticism is NOT sexism, and you are attempting to cheapen the word. Bottom line: THIS liberal libber is tired of your baseless accusations against us liberals of sexism. You wouldn’t know it if it were a snake and rose up to bite your ass.
Delia
@AnneLaurie:
I finally started using the strike code in that XHTML section above the buttons. I copy and paste it and add a slash in the closing code. That works.
RememberNovember
Matt "let me ask you this softbal question" Lauer had her on and asked the same stupid regurgitate Trig question- what about Troopergate? Her fomenting of the fringe response that Barack isn’t like the rest of "us"? Her lies lies and more lies- guess he didn’t want to risk the dinner invite in Wasilla. He did ask her about Neiman- Marcus Gate- and she stumbled around the question. Nah, the tough questions would only hurt your ratings ML, and with a second marriage on the rocks he needs to keep his day job. What an ass. He has always been a Ken Doll.
Tim Fuller
Say what you will. I am more curious about this Trig mystery as a result of HER bringing it to the fore. Still no reliable medical records and an OB/GYN still MIA? Or did I miss something along the way?
Enjoy.