Tomorrow night on the History Channel: “Ripped Off: Madoff and the Scamming of America.”
*** Update ***
BTW, scanning memorandum, I see that once again there is another round of stories about Palin’s family and last week there was a round of stories about Joe Biden’s daughter. I’m not going to link to them, but I have to say I am just sick of this stuff. Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have taken enough positions over their years that you can find any number of legitimate things to attack them for that their kids and their family members don’t need to be dragged through the headlines and trashed at every opportunity. The whole baby nonsense irritated me during the election, and the latest round of stuff makes me mad, as well.
Beyond the fact that this paparazzi like stalking of family members is creepy, and the fact that the people linking to this stuff take so much obvious glee in trashing people who are just private citizens, but every single on of you has a family member or relative with their own issues, and you would be livid if your job performance were somehow critiqued by what they do. Trashing these family members who are having hard times getting their act together, running their names through the media, and using them to attack their politician parent is ugly, it is inhumane, and it makes you a small and nasty person. Bristol Palin and Levi Johnson are kids. Joe Biden’s daughter isn’t writing drug policy. Al Gore’s son is not responsible for your problems. Leave them alone, you small-minded and petty jerks.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Please, if they’re going to push the line that Madoff worked alone they may as well stick to shows about UFO hunters.
filkertom
THANK YOU. It’s ridiculous beyond belief.
Cat Lady
Is that considered history already? I guess we’ll find out from a TV show how it all turned out.
jnfr
Did you catch Joe the Plumber on Bill Maher last night? He seems amiable enough, but he doesn’t know much about current events or politics.
JD Rhoades
Well, Levi Wossname is driving some of it. He appears to be quite eager to cash in on the fifteen minutes of fame he scored by knocking up the governor’s daughter.
And this white trash is the ruling class in Alaska. The mind reels.
debit
Thank you. People bring up the argument that if a politician runs on a family values platform, then the family is fair game. But I think it’s a bullshit argument. Palin, no matter how much I despise her, can’t be blamed for her daughter’s out of wedlock pregnancy any more than my bible thumping parents could be blamed for mine.
JL
Sarah Palin’s entire campaign was about family values and morality. When you are on the trail preaching abstinence only with your pregnant 16 year old, the coverage is fair. Now not so much.
Punchy
The paparrazi effect that’s killing me is that mom with 8 kids. That shit is such a circus circle-jerk freak show abortion that I fear those kids are being cared for by cameramen and photographers. What a fucking mess.
Back to the story–sorry John, but when you profess to be the "Family Values" party and your (extended) family robs, deals, carries bastard children, etc., there’s a disconnect the size of the Grand Canyon.
If they didn’t run around claiming to be the upholders of morals and righteousness, then I would agree family is out-of-bounds. But they do, so they’re in bounds. Period. Fuck their hypocrisy, and thank you to whomever to pointing it out.
/rant done
JL
@debit: I understand your comment but Sarah chose to make her a daughter part of the issue. I might have missed the times she spoke about the difficulties of teenage pregnancies.
gbear
So can we talk about Palin’s sister-in-law who was recently arrested for breaking into and robbing the same house twice? She’s a bit too old to be ‘just a kid’, and that stunt would land in any ‘stupid criminals’ section of a newspaper.
guest omen
i caught a clip that being featured where levi was being interrogated on whether or not they were practicing safe sex. what the…? i don’t want to hear about these people’s sex lives. gawd. when did we become so intrusive that this is considered an appropriate question?
NonWonderDog
You couldn’t very well say that Levi Wossname should be kept out of politics when he was practically the guest of honor at the RNC. That freakshow was just surreal.
Now, though, yeah. There’s no reason for it to be in the news.
LcinDC
Fair enough, but at least in the case of Republican politicians, and as a gay man, I’ll be more sympathetic to their relatives’ plight once they stop going around advertising the sacredness and holiness and moral excellence of their families and explaining how I and mine, if I was allowed to have one, are an abomination and a stain on America’s moral character. The reason folks are so gleeful about the Palin family train wreck is that Palin put herself out there as a morally superior champion of family values and "real America."
Will Danz
The family stuff is off limits UNTIL the particular politician starts using his / her family politically, and hypocritically.
I’m not for heaping shame and scorn on confused kids like Britsol Palin and Levi Johnson. But when they are shoved in front of us repeatedly by Sarah Palin and her Republican cronies as shining examples of Great Family Values, — and contrasted with all the evil, fornicating liberal-Jew-types in the big cities — then that grotesque hypocrisy must be pointed out. It must be directed at Palin and her GOP partners-in-crime, but it must not be off limits to do so.
Palin prattled on endlessly about the great Wasilla Alaska values she and her family represented, and went out of her way MANY times to tell America that they were superior to those of us who weren’t in some "real" America of her narcissistic imagination. Then it turned out she and her family are a bunch of petty, shameless grifters, serial liars, and minor league fascists… and their phony Bible belt crap landed them with a pregnant teen daughter. Then they went for the brass ring of shamelessness, and tried to make the daughter’s knocked-up state into some kind of VIRTUE: "they’re gonna get married!!"
…Then it turns out they’re not.
So leave the kids out of it as much as possible, sure. But ALWAYS point out the naked hypocrisy of their ham-handed propaganda.
John Cole
Why? Because it makes you feel better about yourself? Because it is funny to laugh at someone who obviously has a substance abuse problem? Because it is news?
This wasn’t the “dumbest criminal” stuff and we would never have heard about it if her name was not Palin, and you are kidding if you say otherwise.
Will Danz
P.S. re Biden’s daughter — have no idea if she’s actually done cocaine, or if that’s bullshit. But if so, here’s the Palin analogy:
IF Joe Biden had made a political career out of bashing families who let their children become drug addicts, and bragged about the superior values of families like his own, then OF COURSE Biden’s parallel-universe hypocrisy should be pointed out.
But that’s not true in real life. So the analogy comes to a dead end.
JD Rhoades
Worse. She announced the kid’s pregnancy, then when the press reported about it, stirred up this huge firestorm about how awful it was that they were reporting about it. Then her advisers used their "anger" at the press for days to avoid answering legitimate questions.
Remember McCain mouthpiece Nicole Wallace? When she was asked by Time magazine’s Jay Carney about the campaign’s unwillingness to have Palin talk to the press, Wallace trotted the Bristol Palin coverage out for the purpose of changing the subject: "The media did something to this family that I’ve never seen before in my life! "
Translation: "You invaded the family’s privacy by reporting what we told you, so America only gets to hear what we want them to hear! Nyaah!"
Another McCain supporter whom I heard on Diane Rheem’s NPR show went absolutely ballistic when someone asked her about the story that Palin had tried to censor books in Wasilla’s public library. She huffed that "she wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer" before taking off on an angry diatribe about the "media frenzy of the last few days." And she never answered the question.
Sarah Palin used her daughter as a human shield.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fuck ’em. This sorta public embarassment is what they get for not having a perfect family like this secular humanist liberal.
wasabi gasp
Don’t put your family on a pedestal and then expect people to not notice when they fall off.
gbear
@John Cole:
Umm, no. Her story doesn’t make me feel better about my own miserable life. Unfortunately, the only thing Sarah really succeeded at was turning national politics into a very small town. It’s what she wanted. It’s what she’s stuck with.
gbear
I’ll buy a prayer for her.
harlana pepper
Erhm, that’s gonna be kinda hard to do with Levi Johnston giving interviews blabbing about his relationship with Bristol and the family.
And, btw, Palin exploited her family at every opportunity during the campaign, schlepping around her baby at 11:00 pm rallies when he should have been in his crib (and only for photo ops, passing the kid back to one of the daughters so he wouldn’t puke on her fancy suits). I don’t recall Joe Biden doing that kind of thing, other than praising his wife. If her children/grandchildren are hurt by publicity, it is her own fucking fault.
The Moar You Know
I’m a bit stunned at most of the replies to this thread. I thought John had a good point.
This has already happened to me once in a lawsuit, and it looks like it’s going to happen again. The opposition always thinks they have a good reason and are justified in bringing this stuff up. I used to think so as well. But let me tell you, when you are on the receiving end of it, it changes your mind pretty quickly.
John Cole
@gbear: I’m sorry gbear, that was unnecessarily aggressive and caustic of me.
I just get really mad when I see people’s family dragged through things. And what makes me angrier is the joy some people seem to get out of this stuff.
Sullivan drove me nuts during the campaign with the “I’m just asking serious questions” Trig trutherism. I chalked it up to his growing up with the British tabloids, which operate a touch differently from how I think the press should function.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Weighing in, I gotta go with Danz and Rhoades at 16 and 17.
If Ms. Palin didn’t want her personal life to be treated with disrespect, then she should have treated it with respect herself. She wants to use it when she sees fit, and then hide behind some "decency" shield when it is embarassing.
And the answer to this rhetorical question …
is no. It’s because what goes around, comes around, and that’s the way it is.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Something similar has happened to me in a legal case, and it was done by my own family. Hey, you can’t pick your parents, amirite?
So, you know, the world can be a rough place. Sarah Palin represents herself and her family as being better than the world, and she isn’t. Let the world take her down a peg. Fine with me.
harlana pepper
Also, Sarah is not letting this go – keeping family issues at the forefront. In this instance, blame her ass, not the media, not this time. She keeps handing this shit over to them on a silver platter.
bjacques
Let’s just say some skill is needed to take a shot at a Family Values politician’s hypocrisy without hitting the object of said hypocrisy, like in a hostage situation. If your aim is true, everyone has a laugh and goes home for a beer. Otherwise…
At least it’s not as fraught with missteps as, say, having a go at RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Rob
No, Biden’s daughter doesn’t in any way, shape or form deserve to be trashed. But the kid gloves treatment she’s likely to receive is instructive in pointing out Biden’s hypocrisy and the untenability of the drug war laws he’s vociferously endorsed and passed.
I think it’s totally fair game to ask Biden if his daughter should be subject to the same harsh, cruel and short sighted drug laws and punishments he’s pushed and inflicted on the rest of the American people.
gbear
@John Cole:
I do agree with you. I wish Palin would have left her kids at home during the campaign and I wish they weren’t an issue now. My sister-in-law comment was done as a joke but sometimes jokes bomb. The stuff that’s being said to ‘get’ Biden’s daughter right now is just evil.
harlana pepper
@The Moar You Know:
Not to diminish your personal experience, but in my case, I don’t need family members to have issues to fuck up my life – I’ve got plenty myself. :)
SGEW
While Sen. Biden has never to my knowledge brought his own family into the debate, nor impugned others’ families for their children’s substance abuse situations, he does indeed have a legislative record that has been highly criticized for its escalation of the drug war.
So although there may be no outright, direct familial hypocrisy (such as Gov. Palin’s use of her children’s putative virtue as campaign a prop), there is still a whiff of overall policy doubletalk (i.e., should Biden’s family be subject to property forfeiture under the drug laws that Biden himself promoted and cowrote?). This is the sort of hypocrisy that gets under people’s skin, even if it is at one remove from the actual politician.
But, so saying, overall, I concur with Mr. Cole’s call for an eschewal of politicizing the more paparazzi-like gossip-mongering about political families that our media (both "mainstream" and online) cannot seem to keep their hands out of: from Malia Obama’s lunch choices (or Michelle Obama’s arms) to Sarah Palin’s daughter’s ex-fiancee’s mother’s legal troubles. These gossipy stories have only a tangential bearing on policy debates, if that, and there is a line where ethical considerations should outweigh any possible "moral" or rhetorical advantage they may give one side or another.
Also, btw: I miss Billy Carter.
[edit: I see Rob beat me to it, re Biden’s drug legislation.]
Church Lady
Thank you, John.
For those of you that keep going with the "But she said, yadda, yadda, yadda…" meme, please, please link to the quote from Sarah Palin where she says abstinance is the ONLY sex education kids should EVER receive and that her children WOULD NEVER have sex before marriage. I don’t remember it, but would gladly look at the proof of this assertion.
What I do remember, however, is that the reason Bristol Palin’s pregnancy became public knowledge when it did was because of the rumors, first started on Kos and then flogged with a vengence by the erstwhile Beagle Blogger, that Trig Palin’s real birth mother was Bristol, not Sarah Palin. The Palins revealed Bristol’s pregnancy in an effort to refute that rather unsavory rumor. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop Sully – he continued to beat on that drum during the entire campaign, demanding repeatedly to see Palin’s medical records for proof, since he couldn’t perform an inspection of the VP candidate’s uterus himself. As I recollect, he soon fancied himself quite the expert on both pregnancy, labor and the timing of birth announcements, as he continued to spin his fantasy with almost daily postings on his blog. He didn’t stop, even after the election was over, until Bristol gave birth to a full term baby and the timeline just would not support his conspiracy theory.
After Sullivan’s descent into utter insanity on this matter, anyone who takes anything he says seriously on any given subject, should consider having their head examined. With this, he gave up his right to be considered rational.
Will Danz
@The Moar You Know
When you’re on the receiving end of it, sure, you have reason to feel victimized….
As long as you haven’t made a career of condemning people who have done exactly what you got caught doing. THAT is the point.
It’s about the hypocrisy, period. Republicans have been able to get away with massive crimes in this country because their staggering hypocrisy is always given a pass. They hold up their families as examples in their PR, insisting that their values are superior to yours, and your family’s. And they do it for political reasons.
So when they’re proved hypocritical beyond all decency, they must not be allowed to reap the political benefits of that PR.
Sure, do your best not to hurt relative innocents, but also — don’t allow them to use that as a shield. The current Republican party’s policies, which are mostly a form of respectable organized crime, hurt many more people in devastating ways than the relatively small chance of hurting an innocent by point out the hypocrisy of their "family values" scam." Those hurt by the GOP reign of terror include innocent children. So I don’t feel much sympathy for their sudden and convenient need for privacy when their shameless PR is proved hypocritical.
Robin G.
Last I checked, Bristol and Levi were scheduling interviews while Joe Biden’s daughter was not.
I agree, though, that the Palin in-law burglary thing is dumb.
JoyceH
Here’s what I don’t get. When a person voluntarily gives an interview on a nationally broadcast television show, how is commenting on that interview ‘paparazzi-like stalking’?
It would be one thing if articles were being written about what Levi said when the intrusive news media was camped outside his house, listening through the door, but that’s not what’s happening at all. Similarly, the Bristol statements that people comment on weren’t picked up via an illegal phone tap – they were in a People magazine story.
From what I can see, these people are actively seeking the limelight, not being unwillingly chased by the cameras.
Just Some Fuckhead
What Will Danz said. John, I swear you don’t have the sense to come in out of the fucking rain. You are just reflexively wrong about everything.
WereBear
It all depends if it is germane, or not.
If I claimed I had a cure for baldness, yet went around with my head gleaming like a cueball, I think it’s pertinent to ask if I’m telling the truth.
Likewise, politicians who claim they have a answer to problems in their policy should be judged on how that policy impacts people; even their own people.
If Sarah Palin claimed her family values were a reason to vote for her, how those family values are expressed is a pertinent reason to examine how they worked out for her family. She held policy positions on sex education and family planning that her own family made a mockery of; it’s on point.
Public people, making public pronouncements, are leaving themselves open to judgments about if they actually mean it, or not. Rush Limbaugh was all for throwing drug addicts into prison and throwing away the key; until it was him.
How can that not be pertinent?
harlana pepper
I think Bristol Palin’s pregnancy became an issue once she started to show. Considering her mother is a right-wing Christian who believes abstinence only before marriage is the only appropriate form of "sex education" in her opinion, and Bristol was not married to the father. This is naturally going to be covered by the media for obvious reasons. I guess you can blame Kos and Sullivan if that makes you feel better, but hey, once the bun starts bakin’ there’s only so much a body-shaper can do.
Hyperion
@Cat Lady:
is the history channel considered history?
evidently in amercia it is.
well at least it’s not about hitler.
harlana pepper
@JoyceH: Yes, indeed, my point exactly
Cat Lady
@JoyceH:
Agreed. And let’s not forget that Greta von Susteren has given a megaphone to every bit of media criticism of Palin and her family, creating an industry of media generated faux outrage, while whining about media coverage of Palin and her family. It’s a closed loop with Palin in the middle, and that’s how she likes it.
JL
@Robin G.: If Bristol Palin wanted to remain behind the scenes, she could have said no to interviews. Levi doesn’t seem willing to let go of his few minutes of fame.
JL
@harlana pepper: Thanks for the link.
Can we expect an abstinence tour? Will she bring the baby along as a prop?
John Cole
Whatever. You all keep fighting for your right to giggle and titter and joke about people’s kids, because it is ok since their parent mentioned them first.
And it isn’t just that you all seem to think this is acceptable, but that so many of you honestly seem to enjoy it. “But, but, it is ok because the 18 year old kid went on Tyra and said something stupid! I have every right to talk about it ! /thumpchest”
Assholes.
Paul
I agree with this too a degree, but the "baby nonsense" was not about the family or the baby. It was about Palin and her neuroses. She used the baby as a political prop. All the questions about the circumstances of Trig’s birth could be easily answered, but like you say in your "Bad Governance" post today, what motivates her is not the good of her family, but petty revenge and pissing off the side with a different colored foam finger. She did not answer basic questions about Trig’s birth because she had to stand by her crazy "fly-from-Texas-to-Alaska-while-in-labor-with-down-syndrome-child" story, plus it had the added benefit of making Trig-truthers look like dicks. Palin is scary.
Robin G.
To expand upon my earlier post (and I completely agree with JoyceH) — I think the fact that Bristol and Levi are in the public eye is disgraceful, but the media didn’t put them there. Sarah Palin did. She whored out her children for attention. She pushed the stories out into the world. It was, and is, completely classless.
I agree that whether her daughter had sex isn’t all that relevant to Sarah Palin’s suitability for public office, even though a big part of her campaign(s) include "family values." A police officer shouldn’t be judged on whether or not his brother robbed a store. A quick point to the "Hey, how’s that abstinence education working out for you?" hypocrisy is warranted, but then it should be over.
But now Levi and Bristol are giving interviews in magazines and on television. John, what would you have the media do? Turn down the interviews for the kids’ own good? Not report on what’s said? I agree it shouldn’t be around-the-clock commentary, given that there’s an awful lot of other things in the world to be concerned about, but like JoyceH said, they weren’t exactly camped out on the Palins’ doorstep, were they? "The kids" (who are legal adults) are parading in the spotlight. You can’t blame people for looking, and for commenting on what it means, even if "God, how classless" is all they have to say.
The rules are different for Joe Biden’s daughter, as well as Levi’s mother and Palin’s sister-in-law. That’s dumbass celebrity bullshit. Those people didn’t put themselves out there, and (as far as spotlight seeking) aren’t guilty of anything but being related to famous people. Their problems are irrelevant (even if Sarah Palin is tough on crime, even if Joe Biden is anti-drug) and they ought to be left alone.
(edited for a bit of clarity.)
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole: We’re all someone’s kids, you myopic dumbass.
Cerberus
Well it’s problematic really. Progressives stood silent on families for a good long while because who cares, which allowed the construction of this frame wherein conservative families were god-born perfect due to "good family values" which were naked organs for mainstreaming racism, sexism, and homophobia. Now that there has been digging, it turns out that just as expected, conservative families are just as messed up as everyone if not more so, which has been especially teeth-grating for families such as gay or immigrant or poor families or all of the above who’ve had their families and home lives scoured with a fine tooth comb as they beg for basic civil rights from a hostile organ of power while the people sneering at them have gone off for their third coke orgy.
But the family thing is also a delicate line. It was perfectly valid to point out the Bristol thing in the context of the massive upswing in pregnancies and STD risk caused by abstinence education, but it’s morphed into a bit of a train-wreck kicking them while they’re down thing that’s sort of shadowed the more troubling Christian Fascist thing she keeps trying to push through every chance she can.
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yes, jackass. I’m not calling you a jackass because you are someone’s kid, I am calling you a jackass because I think you are being one. Compare that to your interest in Bristol Palin. It has nothing to do with her kid, and everything to do with her mother. Otherwise you would be ranting about the hundreds of thousands of other kids born out of wedlock every year.
Leave her kids alone. Even if she brings ’em on stage when she campaigns.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@John Cole:
John, really. The schtick where you latch onto a position and then light up the flamethrower?
First of all, that’s my department, and I’m a lot better at it than you are. And second, the secret to making it work is that you have to be on the right side of the argument.
Do you really think that in America, some creepy self-righteous bytch like Palin is going to be given a pass when her family turns out to be the poster kids for Trailer Trash, The Movie?
Really? Seriously? For reals? Some things are off limits, like sex lives and family members’ medical history. But drug use, and …. Bristol? We’re not even close to the propriety yellow tape here.
harlana pepper
@John Cole:
I don’t think anybody is thumping their chests here. I do not understand that reaction. You have been bitching about the media ever since I’ve been on this site. Do you think they are going to ignore all this shit? Do they ignore any bit of minutuae about anybody that they think will sell. Palin is a hypocrite and she’s NOT trying to keep her family out of the limelight. With her influence, she could very well do just that, with ease. It is not my fault that she can’t shut her yap. Stating facts about this woman and her exploitation of her family is not chest-thumping. She could lay low for a while FOR the sake of her family, but she can’t help herself.
I don’t know the children personally so I’m not going to sit here and fake-weep and gnash my teeth about their problems, which are legion, because, they have a fucked-up, selfish mom. I am sorry for their misfortune in that regard, but I’m not licking my chops over it. Jeez.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole: First of all moran, I ain’t ranting about her kids. Secondly, all the other out of wedlock pregnancies would be fair game if they occurred under the same circumstances. This is exhibit A in the Family Values debate. If you can’t see that you shouldn’t be running a fucking politics blog. Good luck on your Noble Prize.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Not because she brought them onstage. Because she uses them as props in a phony relgio-cultural crusade that props her up as a symbol of some twisted ideas about moral superiority.
Punchy
@John Cole: Parents "mentioned" them first? Holy fucking christ are you disingenuous and inaccurate.
They were on stages. Props for a snake-oil salesman. Gave interviews. Shook candidates’ hands, went on camera, and willingly–WILLINGLY–played the part of Cute Responsble Family Values Republican.
Only they weren’t. Never were. Just lying, hypocrical SOBs. And by the way, they’re not kids. They’re adults. 18+, bitches.
John Cole
Some of you are no better than the people you hate the most.
Will Danz
John Cole, not sure if you’re responding to my comments or not. But it’s absurd to characterize much of what’s been written here as the desire for a"right to giggle and titter about other people’s kids."
How about arguing without the silly straw man?
wasabi gasp
Tunch is gonna sneak up on you with a towel.
kay
Bravo, John Cole.
I watched a portion of Palin’s daughter’s former boyfriend’s interview and it was just painful. He was trying to tell the truth, answering every question asked, and I knew he was going to get slaughtered. I had to turn it off. I realize he agreed to the interview. That doesn’t mean we have to jump all over it.
I feel as if he’s getting really lousy advice. I had to stop watching because I wanted him to STOP TALKING.
It was wrong for conservatives to use him in the campaign. It’s wrong for liberals to use him now.
I won’t even bother with Todd’s sister. I just could not be less interested in that.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@John Cole:
It’s the hypocrisy, not the people, that are hated, as you very well know John.
Sarah Palin is the model of hypocrisy. Which is the reason why she will be treated accordingly.
Church Lady
Per a published report in the 09-06-08 Los Angles Times:
"I’m pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other venues" she said in a debate in Juneau.
This was during the 2006 Governor’s race.
Please point out the hypocrisy in her position as regards her daughter. You can’t, because it isn’t there.
John is right – look in the mirror, because you are no better than the assholes you hate.
AhabTDefenestrator
FWIW, I think that the only appropriate context in which these subjects should be brought up is to ask the politicians in question about their hypocrisy, but we all know that ain’t gonna happen.
Beyond that, it is all People magazine (or worse) fodder.
Still, John: Lighten up, Francis. Sometimes you are so L 7 that Pat Boone slaps a nun a says "that guy would never put his dick in a box."
kay
@Punchy:
"Willing" is unfair. Palin’s daughter’s boyfriend said he felt "out of place" at the convention. He’s inarticulate, but no more than any other person. He knew he didn’t belong there, after a little time to consider, and he said so.
Imagine his position. His girlfriend, the daughter of the governor, is pregnant. The governor then becomes the candidate for VP. Look, WE were shocked by Palin’s sudden appearance. Imagine HIM. He’s surrounded by adults who are idiots, or creepy campaign hacks, and it all happens really, really fast. I don’t know that I would make solid decisions.
SGEW
To delineate?
A) Pointing out hypocrisy in a politician’s personal life. E.g., Mark "Family Values" Foley, Newt "Infidelity is Impeachable" Gingrich, or, arguably, Al "Conserve Energy Through Reduced Consumption" Gore.
B) Pointing out hypocrisy in a politician’s family’s personal life. E.g., Bristol "Abstinence Education and Marriage" Palin, Mary "Marriage Protection Amendment" Cheney, or Ashley "Property Forfeiture for Drug Offenses" Biden. N.B.: Has that family member volunteered to be a public figure? What is the age of consent? How much should their parent’s political stance matter? How much do they have their own public identity?
C) Pointing out personal troubles of a politician’s family’s personal life, when those troubles do not have any direct policy relevance. E.g. Al Gore’s son, Sarah Palin’s daughter’s ex-fiancee’s mother, etc.
Yes?
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The kids get scared when you guys fight.
Laura W
@AhabTDefenestrator:
Someone told me she is no longer willing to take the fall for you.
gwangung
@SGEW: Yeah, those are good delineations.
#1 is fair game. All the time. #2 depends. #3, nope.
In the outing of Alaskan Mudflats, I think someone was saying the details of a divorce was offlimits, all the time. But I think that it falls into #1 above; you couldn’t understand the abuse of power without knowing at least some of the details of the divorce.
AhabTDefenestrator
@Laura W: There you are hiding on the staircase, listening in.
Nancy Darling
Kudos, John. But don’t be so hard on us. As a species we are barely out of the trees, let alone the caves, notwithstanding Jesus Christ, Mozart, and Gautama Buddha to name but three. All of us have an evil twin lurking in our lizard brains that forces us to decelerate when passing a car wreck even if we don’t consciously apply the brakes, and let’s face it the Palin family is a car wreck. Do you know how hard it has been for me not to click on one story about the woman who gave birth to octuplets? To me, someone who is obviously mentally ill should be off limits as should be the children of Sarah Palin because they are young and green and caught up in something they did not choose. Palin, herself, is fair game and maybe it’s not possible to go after her hypocrisy without involving her children, but if we do they should get the kid glove treatment—Sarah, not so much.
AhabTDefenestrator
@Laura W: Take it up with Pat.
Will Danz
@SGEW:
Very well done. Those distinctions are important.
We can have a discussion about what to DO in cases 1 — 3, but acting like they’re all the same gets us nowhere.
BombIranForChrist
I definitely disagree.
I do think that Palin’s sister-in-law is out of bounds, but I do not think that Palin’s illegitimate granddaughter is out of bounds. Sarah Palin, as a matter of governing philosophy, wants to impose her moral world view on America, and that moral worldview involves notions of "family values". Once a politician wields their family as a political and ideological weapon, they can’t then whine when their family, the basis of their politics and ideology, is found wanting.
If you are a fan of multiplayer shooters, this reminds me a bit of snipers who complain about spawn camping but who snipe from spawn positions. It’s an example of someone who can dish it but can’t take it. It’s an example of a coward.
Again, I think Palin’s sister-in-law is out of bounds, because Palin has no control over her sister, and the whole story to me smacks of "haw haw look at those rednecks in Alaska", but I think you are wrong to consider Palin’s sister-in-law and her illegitimate granddaughter as one and the same.
Ecks
SGEW nails the gradiant here… 1 and 3 are black and white, #2 is a shade of grey, and has to be handled with some some tact.
Make it personal a second. What if one of your parents (or kids) went in to public life, and said some crazy shit of which you were living disconfirmation. Would you want YOUR picture flashed in the paper for this? Or are you more mad at your parent for saying the stupid shit that dragged you in and made you public property? And if you have time calling up regularly to ask for interviews, and you say yes at any point, have you now put yourself fully onto the public stage where you are now a legit target for commentary (much of which will come from small minded vicious jerks, as with any other type of commentary). And when your mother / child has asked you to come up on stage and stand with them, are you choosing to put yourself in the limelight vs. snub your nearest kin? And if you stand up there, and they preach your non-existent virtues, then what?
And if this all makes you uncomfortable, then you have to consider that in flogging you for their own purposes, mom / son / dad / daughter o’ yours may be using you as leverage to get into a place to pass laws that would fuck up other people’s personal lives (i.e., educate them so poorly they are at added risk of disease, prevent them from marrying the person they love, etc).
You are now in an un-fucking-tenable situation.
Laura W
@AhabTDefenestrator: What a waste of perfectly good Greek yogurt.
Eeerp
Hyperion
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: Herb, PLEASE, not
tell everyone that you are better at being an asshole than anyone else could ever be and then proceed to prove the truth of that statement.
Hyperion
@John Cole:
but are they pure human filth?
AhabTDefenestrator
As I have told many people on this planet: I try to reserve hate for Nazis and
Brussels Sproutssock puppets.SGEW
Several wise people have famously advised that not one among us is any inherently better than those we hate: on an essential level, we are all equal. There have been some pretty good quotes about it.
Good stuff to remember, in my opinion.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Hyperion:
Why not? It’s my job, and I am good at it.
And well paid.
But you missed the obvious point, which is, to make it work, you have to be on the right side of the argument.
That’s the part that you interns just don’t get. I must lead you by example. Show you the way. It just doesn’t matter how genteel you are, when you are wrong, you are just wrong.
Genteel and asshole are transitory. Wrong is forever.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Hyperion:
If you will send me your credit card number and expiration date, I will see to it that the Baby Jesus has your back.
Sure I’m awful, but in a nurturing way.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W: I’m not fighting with him. I’m just pointing out his stoopidity. If I was fighting with him, I’d ask him to point back to anything, anything he ever wrote in his salad and koolaid days calling conservatives to task for a lot more egregious personal shit than pointing out the family values crowd is bereft of their so-called family values.
I gotta die on the fucking cross for Ward Churchill – my idealogy has to take a body blow because some asswipe I never heard of said something stupid – but Sarah and Todd Palin can’t personally be on the hook for their own failures as parents, can’t be judged by their own standards for everyone else, because that would necessarily involve mentioning the very kids they failed.
Hell, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I’m not keen on talking about the personal lives of politicians myself, even if they’re bastards like the Palins. I don’t care what the Obama kids ate for lunch at school or what their fucking dog looks like. But to ignore the very real political dimension involved here out of some fapfapfap concern for those we arbitrarily declare as innocents – that draws the bullshit flag.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Fighting with John?
What makes you think my part isn’t written by John?
Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.
Heh.
scarshapedstar
Hell, if I were to have a sister-in-law, I’d betcha she wouldn’t be a burglar.
Although that would be awfully mavericky if she were.
wasabi gasp
I can see $400 from your window.
Chris Johnson
There you go- that’s the answer.
Leave the kids and inlaws basically anonymous and interviewless and ask Palin, "What have YOU learned from this?"
What difference does it make if some random people are irresponsible, trashy, or on drugs? But as a public servant (ha!) it matters a great deal what Palin thinks about such things, and if she intends to play Hammering Fist Of Vengeful God on any losers she’s not related to, it becomes relevant.
If she’s gonna go all progressive and crunchy granola, no hypocrisy and no story…
Wile E. Quixote
@AhabTDefenestrator
Brussels Sprouts! Fuck me! I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos.
low-tech cyclist
The whole baby nonsense irritated me during the election
I’ve never understood why. Because, and I can’t reiterate this strongly enough, the notion that the child wasn’t Sarah Palin’s was the most charitable interpretation of the story. That the child was hers means she risked his life multiple times in the day before his birth, and for what? So he could be born not just in Alaska, but in some out-of-the-way clinic in her backyard.
I have no idea why the ‘the child really belonged to her daughter’ theory was interpreted as an attack on her. It was the most exculpatory possibility.
harlana pepper
being a realist doesn’t make you a hater
harlana pepper
And here people are shooting and killing each other – let’s get on with the business of doing what we need to do to try and repair all this damage instead of hissing about assholery (you’re being baited), sometimes deserved, sometimes irrelevant, but sometimes necessary, times being what they are.