Everybody’s talking about McCain’s back-handed swipe at Palin in Vanity Fair today:
We have, I’m happy to say, a lot of choices out there: Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Huntsman, Romney, Charlie Crist—there’s a lot of governors out there who are young and dynamic.” McCain went on, “There’s a lot of good people out there, and I’ve left out somebody’s name and I’m going to hear about it.”
I’m sure Sully will have fun with this part of the Vanity Fair piece (EDIT: I see he already has):
More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”
I almost find the back-and-forth between Steve Schmidt and Bill Kristol even more interesting. The vitriol and back-biting between the Schmidt/Wallace faction of the campaign and the Kristol/Scheunemann faction is quite intense.
It seems worth asking: what kind of idiot would let Bill Kristol or his associates have any power over a campaign? Other than Dan Quayle, of course.
burnspbesq
He used a sterilized hypo to shoot the sex machine drug?
ninerdave
I don’t care, more of this please.
MikeJ
X FTW.
grimc
Didn’t we just get rid of somebody like this?
Sigh.
asiangrrlMN
Um, didn’t McCain say that about Palin while he was on Leno a while back? I seem to remember the very same quote.
As for Palin, the less said, the better.
Jonny Scrum-half
To be fair, wouldn’t most national-level politicians be fairly diagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder?
DougJ
Which, that she was narcissistic or left her out of the list of good 2012 candidates?
JK
Congrats to Todd Purdum for his well-written, informative Palin article.
McCain has no honor or decency. He didn’t know Palin from a hole in the wall, but inflicted her on an unsuspecting public and risked having her a heartbeat away from the presidency.
grimc
Also, thanks for the Palin post, DougJ. Now I’m treated to a “SarahPAC” banner.
gbear
@asiangrrlMN:
I think you’re right. I remember hearing that quote before too. It may be the best laugh line that McCain has right now.
edit: DougJ, it’s the line about ‘leaving someone out’.
JK
@asiangrrlMN: @DougJ:
Purdum cites the Leno appearance for the McCain quote.
It’s old news, but maybe it’s good to be reminded that McCain knows in his heart of hearts that Palin is dumber than dirt.
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: Yeah, that.
@JK: Thanks for clearing that up. I can’t bear to read the article.
AnotherBruce
Yes true, and what does it say that she’s the leading Republican presidential candidate for 2012 at this point?
Eric U.
Sullivan is as obsessed about her baby as any birther is obsessed about Obama’s birth certificate. I guess if you live in Alaska, the CT about the baby will never die.
demimondian
No, Palin is *not* dumber than dirt. A back-woods grifter with a probable personality disorder? Yes. But dumb? Not a bit of it.
gex
What do you mean Sully’s *going* to have fun? He’s dropped Iran in favor of Palin the way the cable channels dropped Iran for MJ.
Tom
Oh I was puzzled about the Dan Quail reference. The link (and Steve Schmidt) reminded me that William “The Bloody” Kristol ran Dan “Potatoe Potahtoe” Quail’s campaign way back when.
Comrade Stuck
I liked the Palin reference of one her handlers in the Mccain camp calling her “The Little Shop of Horrors” . Makes me shudder to think she had a shot at reaching the Oval Office if events had conspired a little differently. Kristol would have had all his dreams come true. A neocon warmonger with great tits and narcissism to rival Ghengis Khan.
JK
@AnotherBruce:
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Palin splits the Republican Party in half between the “Drill Baby Drill” knuckledraggers who’d haul Palin by sled thru the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and the semi-rational Republicans who know Palin is a moron.
Seitz
They’re desperate. Get used to it.
Lame. Everyone knows that Trig is a real child of hell.
matoko_chan
The reason for all this vicious infighting is that Palin has exposed the Great Lie at the heart of the GOP.
The GOP has been run by stealth elites for years, pretending to be Joe Everyman.
Sad for Team McCain, when they tried to groom Palin for the position, they discovered (to their horror) that she was absolutely devoid of elite substrate…not a nanoparticle.
The truth is, all men are not created equal, and a viable political party needs elites to survive.
Sarah Palin rubbed their noses in it.
And now….I don’t think it will be so easy to foist a stealth elite on the base again.
They have developed a taste for the “realdeal.”
beabea
Reading that Politico piece DougJ linked about the Schmidt/Kristol neener-neener match makes me wonder how in God’s name did these people ever advance professionally beyond running a lemonade stand??
I’m telling you there are five-year-olds running their own roadside citrus beverage retail operation, who possess far more maturity than these people.
Mike S
Now that is a beat down. I was unaware of Kristol’s involvement with Quayle. That makes his power in the GOP even more absurd. Quayle is still a laughing stock 16+ years later.
Please God let Kristol be involved in every campaign from here on out,.
matoko_chan
Pfft
Sully just doesn’t like that she spoofed him when she hid her pregnancy for 7 months. The most interesting thing to me is that 45 minute drive from anchorage to wasilla….anchorage is IN alaska, so wantin’ Trig to be born in Alaska isn’t the reason….I think…if you put her cogitatin’ about maybe having an abortion + secrecy + drive to Wasilla for inferior medical facilities……
Sounds to me like she was just “puttin’ it in Jesus’ hands”.
Like…if Trig didn’t make it….. it was god’s will.
Like….Jesus take the wheel.
JD Rhoades
I just read that Politico article on the Schmidt/Kristol feud.
I may not stop laughing for a few days.
JK
It’s incredibly entertaining. It wish it could last for another 8 years.
gbear
@matoko_chan: I followed that YouTube link. Now I hate you.
mcd410x
i think i’m having delayed shock that this person was so close to the white house. sweet baby jebus, what did we almost do?
Robertdsc-iphone
Shit. I got starbursts everywhere. Dammit.
Fulcanelli
The GOP power brokers always saw Palin as redneck-bait. A MILF with nice gams who stirred the loins of the gun nuts and NASCAR dads and fat, dumb underachieving white women who would die to be able to mouth off in public like she did without getting a backhand from their husbands. She was a fund raising defibrillator for the GOP, nothing more, and she performed admirably. Until she opened her mouth and fucked it up.
Man, did we dodge a bullet last November.
xaaronx
This post title made my day.
AnotherBruce
@mcd410x:
@Fulcanelli:
.
Sorry, I can’t be part of this, there is a limit to the dumbassery that I will take responsibility for before I just turn tail and leave the fucking country.
Dave C
@Tom:
I don’t think it’s fair to refer to Bill Kristol as “William the Bloody.” For all we know, his poetry skills are top notch!
matoko_chan
hehe……sowwy
I’m right though…just wait until the bible-enhanced version of her book comes out.
Dan
I can’t let pass the tremendous “X” reference. Outstanding!
Waingro
maya
Maybe that was her way of telling her friends that Todd ain’t the daddy.
JPK
And Josh Marshall thinks there’s still more to come…
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/says_it_all.php?ref=fpblg
Calouste
@beabea:
It’s called being born on third base and stealing second.
Interesting tidbits from the respective gentlemen’s wikipedia entries:
Kristol managed Alan Keys’ unsuccessfull 1988 Senate campaign (so the Quayle campaign was a case of failing upwards).
Schmidt managed 4 unsuccessfull campaigns before getting involved more successfully in Dubya’s and Ahnold’s reelection campaigns.
Schmidt dropped out of Delaware U. three credits short of a degree in political science because he had “a learning disability that makes higher math difficult for him”. Considering we are talking about a poli-sci degree here, higher might not mean what what Steve thinks it means. Or maybe Steve had just problems understanding the concept of “higher”. And “lower”.
And the final quote:
parksideq
From the article:
Not only does that perfectly capture her MO, but “Does any of this really matter?” just might be the new slogan for the GOP once “Party of No” finally wears thin.
EDIT:
@AnotherBruce: To think that we narrowly avoided having a (Vice-) President Palin a.k.a. the wingnut event horizon by a mere 10 million votes last fall…
gbear
Just want to post this GREAT Denise Lasalle song and dedicate it to all the sweet ladies in Sanford’s stable.
You’re Husband’s Been Cheating On Us.
I’ve loved this song since it first came out, and we need a good song post after what matoko_chan did.
Brick Oven Bill
John McCain went through things most of us will never have to imagine. For this he deserves our respect and admiration.
But we also need to recognize that his experience taught him to bend to pressure. He did sign documents, an act which I cannot hold against him and was within policy.
But he has never stopped bending. And for this he can be criticized.
Go away John McCain. Take your daughter with you.
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: This is a fucking great song. I refused to click on matoko_chan’s link. I knew no good could come from it.
@AnotherBruce: I agree with you. It’s like people who say we all have to take some blame in the Iraq war debacle. I say, “Hell no! I never believed there were WMDs, and I maintained that from the start. I am guilty of many things, but being a party to this trumped-up war is not one of them.”
Bill E Pilgrim
Seeing McCain, Schmidt and Kristol fight over what’s left of the 20% remaining dupes in the base of the party is like watching mongrel junkyard dogs fighting over a scrap of diseased discarded meat that fell out of a dumpster and has been driven and walked over for three days.
asiangrrlMN
@Bill E Pilgrim: Thank you for that tasty image as I get ready to go to bed. Yum.
Bill E Pilgrim
@asiangrrlMN: Ah, it’s morning for me, so it’s a breakfast image ;)
I must be hungry. Though I think maybe I’ll go for a pain au chocolat and cafe creme instead of the diseased meat, this morning. Just that kinda guy- whimsical.
Time for the cafe……
beabea
@Calouste
Oh jeebus, Alan Keyes too? That I did not know.
Failing upward indeed. “Quayle’s brain” seems to be just one endless daisy-chain of upward fail, and people still pay attention to what he says, and pay him big bucks.
Pisses me off!! Good thing I am +1 right now.
Johnny Pez
@Comrade Stuck:
I’m going to need a cite to back up your claim that Ghengis Khan had great tits.
Chuck
The last Dan Quayle reference I’ve seen has been when I actually ever finish a game of Civ IV (rare, since I usually quit when the tedious parts set in). “You have displayed the leadership abilities of Dan Quayle!” — that’s the rock bottom rank.
cathaireverywhere
love the X reference in the title. One of my favs!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Johnny Pez: You never heard of the Plunder Bra?
beabea
@Bill E Pilgrim
Took the liberty of fixing that for you, since you have to be a little careful with the dog analogies around here.
El Bandito Blancito
C’mon, the invasion of Iraq happened like 6 years ago… let’s move on shall we?
Oh, you meant political campaign…. yeah, that would be stupid, too.
Shaolin
….and the obscure X reference brings a lurker out of the shadows. Good job.
sugarbiscuit
Have you guys seen this yet?
The best part is the comments section…I can’t help but be suspicious that a number of them are Palin plants because no actual, free-thinking human being can seriously be that obliviously supportive of this woman. It’s borderline satire.
Here’s a sampling:
ginauna wrote:
This is so awesome…Governor palin is such a versatile modern day woman that embraces running along with such a hectic schedule! Its refreshing to see an interview or article about Sarah thats’ not riddled with bias coverage!
I think I’ll take up running! Thanks Sarah Palin!
6/30/2009 2:42 PM CDT
Worldwide wrote:
Wow! What an amazing woman. The Vanity Fair article is a hit piece and it’s allegations are laughably absurd. The more panicked liberals try and take her down, the more protective of her I feel. I LOVE how she challenges Obama and knows she could beat him. Of course, she could because Obama’s smoking habit would decrease his lung capacity. Every young woman in America should read this article, and see what a super fit woman, mother and governor looks like. I’ve heard Sarah referred to as the “goddess of energy” and I’d have to agree with that on many levels.
6/30/2009 6:28 PM CDT
wnyrunner wrote:
Didn’t know much about Sarah Palin when she was VP choice, and don’t like McCain. However, over the past 6 months have been reading more and more about her and like her very much. Its clear that she has no friends in the media, and they slam her every chance they get, just like the losers here who insinuate that there is something wrong her. Probably Obama’s flying monkeys who are always trying to impose the Chicago way on everyone. She just seems so normal, except she has tons of fight in her. I hope she “runs” against Obama in 2012. She’s got my vote!
6/30/2009 6:37 PM CDT
wnyrunner wrote:
Gov. Palin leads a balanced, rich full life. No she is not machine politics she is just a mom who got involved in the political process, saw corruption and waste and decided to clean house. It is amazing that this one woman with no political apparatus has managed to cause the Obama/Axelrod/Soros cabal, liberals, and assorted RINOs to go into a frenzy of desperate political conniptions in an attempt to try to discredit her. And the extraordinary thing is she continues to stand and deliver. Sorry Obamunists, this lady will be our next President; she will usher in a new Reagan, make that Palin, Era!
7/1/2009 12:24 AM CDT
b-psycho
Naw, she can stay. She has no chance in hell with the party, but she’s nice on camera — w/ the TV on mute, that is.
Little Dreamer
@Comrade Stuck:
Sarah Palin is Xena? Wow, I never knew.
Zuzu's Petals
I love Kristol sniffing that he just finds it impossible to believe that anyone told Purdum they’d looked up the term “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” with regard to Palin.
I guess he’s never heard of the Internet. I remember the term being tossed around pretty frequently in describing Palin’s behavior both before and after the election. And that includes posts and comments at some of the more widely read Alaskan blogs. For instance:
Google search, Mudflats
Yeah, Alaskans are just to darned dumb to look up those sorts of definitions.
Janus Daniels
Huckabee now feels neglected.
Chuck Norris might beat on everyone.
Little Dreamer
@parksideq:
Sarah Palin asking “Does any of this really matter” seems to indicate even SHE knew she wasn’t good enough and not equipped to handle the demands of her position.
pseudonymous in nc
The line about Alaska being a foreign country mostly populated with Americans was fun.
And next time Bullshit Bill goes on a cruise, he’s better off suggesting a dead halibut as the future of the GOP.
ChrisB
@JD Rhoades: Wow, and I thought Democrats were the masters of the circular firing squad.
ksmiami
I think massive amounts of consistent ELECTORAL pain delivered to the Republicans over the next 40 years is the punishment they deserve for their utter contempt and disregard for our country and the infliction of Palinmania. I never ever want to see another Republican president for the rest of my life (and I am young)
JGabriel
Running World Commenter via sugarbiscuit:
If Palin has no friends in the media, then how did this person get a good impression of Palin from reading about her? It’s like they don’t even have enough cognitive to recognize the dissonance.
Another RW Commenter:
The Alaska lege meets for 90 days / year, and AK’s entire state population is less than 1/12 of NYC’s. That must be some hectic schedule.
.
Ash Can
I could swear I read somewhere that Steve Schmidt was the motivating force in McCain’s campaign behind getting Sarah Palin on board as the VP candidate. Now he’s all garlic-and-holy-water toward her. OK. So if what I read was wrong and someone else was responsible for bringing her on board, then who was it? And if he was responsible, then did he really just not bother with vetting her? At all? And now he’s all butthurt about her?
And God forbid the presidential candidate himself should be in control of his own damned campaign.
This is why I find the whole Palin-as-VP-candidate episode so amazing — it’s just a hundred different kinds of fucked up, no matter which angle you look at it from.
Xenos
@matoko_chan:
Exactly. Sully won’t go beyond suggesting this, and I wonder if the press will ever go there, but if you add up all the steps she took once labor started it seems clear she wanted Trig to die– that this was an attempt to cause a ‘natural’ infanticide.
She certainly took an unreasonable risk with her own life and health, too, but I suspect she did not rationally consider the risks to herself.
inkadu
Sarah Palin, Runner’s World:
cmorenc
I’d partly agree with this. All of us have met at one time or another people who are very intellectually sharp and clever in some respects, yet are astonishingly lacking in basic common sense and savvy in others. So long as Sarah Palin stays within the confines of her own parochial, eccentric Alaskan turf, she functions quite nimbly in that social and political context, despite some glaring contradictions and flaws (e.g. fervently advocating abstinence education while…um, you get my drift). Put her on a national stage though, and her social and intellectual deficits outside that context are glaringly exposed. She’s perplexed and frustrated that the sort of winging it off-the-cuff about her understanding and opinions of things that seems perfectly acceptable (or at least isn’t subjected to any potentially devastating challenges) back in Alaska, does get devastatingly exposed when she attempts to move out into the big leagues of national politics.
No, she’s not dumb, but “rural grifter” and “close-minded” and “parochial” do describe her very aptly.
ted
One observation about Sarah Palin that sticks deep inside like a dagger: Palin fits the description of an NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) to a tee. This fact, which should frighten the bejesus out of everyone, is also the one that Kristol fears most, as its the first one he trots out and dismisses not at all convincingly:
“Is there any real chance that “several” Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without “several” people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”
Anyone with enough experience in life has encountered dangerous people like NPD narcissists and ASPD sociopaths — Palin’s documented behavior closely fits both diagnoses, which often run in tandem.
For a partisan Democratic example, just look at Jonathan Edwards, another pol who fits NPD traits to a tee (http://www.slate.com/id/2213740):
“John Edwards outed himself as one when forced to confess an adulterous affair. (Given his comical vanity, the deceitful way he used his marriage for his advancement, and his self-elevation as an embodiment of the common man while living in a house the size of an arena, it sounds like a pretty good diagnosis.)”
Palin is very probably NPD, and maybe ASPD too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASPD). Based on this alone, her political career should be dead, no matter what people thinks of her actual politics.
Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice
For extra points, Scheunemann parries with a Hoekstroika:
Sarcastro
“There’s a lot of good people out there, and I’ve left out somebody’s name and I’m going to hear about it.”
A white girl?
gs
All this love for X makes me really happy. That band is so good, and when I saw them a while ago and they put on an incredible show.
I’d say that Palin is really good at the sort of politics that hopefully just don’t matter too much, or at least won’t matter much longer. Her special brand of identity politics in her convention speech raised 10 million dollars for Obama in 48 hours. Every time I read something about that “knockout” speech I think, “you don’t even know that you’re already dead.” It’s like watching a cover band slop through songs they don’t even know are good, or why, except in this case the setlist was drawn from the Lee Atwater catalog.
see also: every clumsily worded McCain camp press release from summer ’08 referencing arugula.
Persia
@Xenos: I confess it was the first thing that crossed my mind when I found out about the flight, etc. As the mother of a kid who spent her first month in intensive care, her behavior angers me more than I can write.
Peter J
If you’re rooting for injuries then the Politico story is divine.
Olly McPherson
Let me add to the consensus: great title!
Mike in NC
Bill Kristol for Chairman of the RNC! Sanford/Coleman 2012!
sparky
@demimondian: well-put. though she seems much more inept at people management than say Cheney, so i think we’re probably safe from her. she is likely to hire an imbecile as campaign manager, but it will not matter to her since she is only in it for the $. i can only guess at what she’s thinking: millions of suckers, and they’re MINE, all MINE. all i have to do is pretend to run every four years. sweeet!
ps: i say it’s great that she runs–every dollar diverted to her purse is a dollar that doesn’t go to electing someone who could win.
Jay in Oregon
@inkadu:
I think I saw Rich Lowry buying a pack of sweatsocks the other day. I foresee another round of starbursts.
Jim-Bob
Republican Party = “Man onna bus, screamin’ ’bout Presley!”
They’re Desperate, alright.
Cris
Re: “dumber than dirt.” I agree that this is incorrect; but it strikes me that Palin has the same intellectual problems as George W. Bush: a lack of curiosity, no taste for introspection, and a commitment to drawing conclusions first, finding reasons afterward.
gwangung
Isn’t that a good match for the base?
truculentandunreliable
@matoko_chan: Ooh, I’ve never considered that theory, but I think you may be correct.
@ted: I was about to say the same thing. It was pretty clear to me that she was a sociopath as soon as I saw her speak. My stepmother was a classic sociopath, and Palin’s conniving and her tendency to contradict herself (ie, LIE) publicly without remorse remind me of my stepmother on a grander scale. The Obama campaign can thank her for turning my tepid response to Obama into a full-on balls-to-the-wall effort to get his ass elected.
truculentandunreliable
@Cris: I do think she’s dumb. If someone isn’t introspective or the least bit intellectually curious, I consider them dumb, no matter how much natural intelligence they may posses. She may be politically canny (I think this is more due to her ability to manipulate people and her cut-throat nature, anyway), but she’s not smart.
binzinerator
@pseudonymous in nc:
That line was from John McPhee’s book on Alaska, titled “Coming into the Country”. It’s a great book, I first read it when a friend, who had moved to Alaska years ago, sent me the book and told me to read it if I ever wanted to understand anything about Alaska.
And I totally recommend McPhee’s “geology” books — Basin and Range, In Suspect Country, and my fave Assembling California. (Rising from the Plains is another one but I have not yet read it.) Really wonderful stuff, and as you noticed he has an eye for details and an idiosyncratic and memorable way of expressing them.
Gr8shoes
Why does anyone care about this narcissistic bitch anymore? she lost shouldn’t her 15 minutes of fame be over by now?
matoko_chan
Gr8shoes…..
cuz shez running.
She said she could beat Obama in a flat race on endurance today.
Let’s hope he studiously ignores her.
I think Palinism is the end of the GOP.
The GOP has been dealin’ political crack to the left side of the bell curve for years. But that Sarah Palin crack is hardcore.
Just goes to show why dealers should never sample the merchandise.
Zuzu's Petals
@binzinerator:
Another excellent, if older, McPhee book:
Looking for a Ship