When did Peter Daou become a deranged, crack-smoking PUMA?
I find it amusing that someone who would compare Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin would deign to accuse others of sexism. For my money, the two have about as much in common as Craig Romney and Tom Brady do.
Comrade Jake
Who knew that Peter was a double-agent for Larry Johnson, or vice-versa?
Edit: BTW, we’ve trashed this asshat Daou at least once here before, no? I don’t have a problem with it, but I think his derangement is well-known by the BJ commentariat.
DougJ
Maybe you’re right. I’ve read some dumb stuff he’s written before but I once upon a time I really liked his blog, so maybe I’m behind the times on this.
AhabTRuler
Yeah, I was gonna say that I thought John already covered this. Maybe L-dub can find the thread in the archives. I know I can’t be bothered, I am too busy being smug about my teevee watching habits.
Ash
HOLD ON A MINUTE, did some dumbass really compare Craig Romney to Brady?!?! I’ve seen Craig in person (I don’t like to remember it much) and PETER Brady, sure, but Tom???
HELLS NAW.
SGEW
Sounds like another blogger who stared deep into the abyss and wound up cuddling it ever closer.
What was it about that primary? Only Sinbad can save them now.
Comrade Stuck
@DougJ:
Me too. The old Daou Report was one of the first blog aggregaters, and his excerpts were great, especially the wingnut ones. I guess the “we was robbed” canard was too much for some Hilbots to recover from. Wonder what ever happened to Pluk?
jnfr
They both have lady parts. That’s all that matters.
Laura W
@AhabTRuler: I know that I know that I know that I am not going to use my stellar archive diving skills to play DougJ against John. Or visa versa.
I need waders.
Ash Can
Some commenter in another thread — I forgot who — suggested that Peter Daou was overboard on the concern trolling for female politicians so that he’d win points with the girls and get laid. That’s seriously just about as logical a reason for a man to equate Palin with Clinton as I’ve ever seen.
Jim
The description of that Little Romney as a Tom Brady look-alike was part of the Romney campaign’s attempt to sell hte Romney lads as The Osmonds of the ‘Aughts.
Daou has reached the 33rd Degree of PUMA-tude: Everything Is Really About Hillary.
eric
As someone who has put written material into the public domain, I never cease being amazed but the willingness of the members of the commentariat to shame themselves for money and-or prestige. I do not think a person can overvalue his or her reputation. This unreflective souls can never regain the credibility belonging to a thoughtful mind.
Oh well.
Eric
John Cole
He also had a really good UN blog that covered, well, the UN.
guster
@Comrade Stuck: I still think about his ‘closing the triangle’ posts, too. I was really impressed. And was waiting for his opinion about the Clinton’s campaign triangle-closing during the primary, too …
Instead, this.
Demo Woman
From TPM, can someone explain to me what the hell this even meaSen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) says the military coup in Honduras is kind of like the election of Al Franken in Minnesota. ? I have no idea what the hell he is talking about.
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
The Daou Report was fantastic — it was the first place I’d always visit on Salon, and it was a real loss when it ended. Plus, I’ll always have a soft spot for the Daou Report, as it is the means by which I stumbled upon Balloon Juice, and became part of this delightful rabble.
demkat620
Dauo lost it when he signed on with the Hillary campaign.
Obama winning just drove him crazy.
guster
@Demo Woman: That’s an easy one. Franken is like the military coup because both are illegitimate seizures of power.
Peter Daou
I appreciate the concern about my morals, my ulterior motives and my sanity. Really, I do.
As far as DougJ’s question, here’s what I posted in response to another similar critique on the HuffPo thread:
Did you read my entire post?
The only comparison I made between the two is that they both receive intense, uncommon scrutiny and that attackers on either side should remember that they are both human beings. The point being that the person on the receiving end is just that, a person.
I find it interesting that so many commenters construed the post as somehow arguing that Palin and Clinton are equals, even though I implied that Palin lacks Hillary’s character. And I must say, it’s ironic to see commenters rise to Hillary Clinton’s defense on this thread, when I’m sure many of them were silent or complicit when she was being demonized during the primaries.
I know many of my peers disagree with this post, but I stand firmly by my view, which I actually stated when McCain first announced Palin, that all we need to do is show how wrong-headed her policies are, and leave the rest alone. Do you disagree, or do you think people should also mock and ridicule her and bring her children and family into it and call her nutty and a circus act and so on?
LD50
Hey, say what you like about PD, he’s got a pretty good scam going if he can get paid for saying stuff like this:
I guess Hallmark didn’t pay enough.
Calming Influence
Oh please STFU.
Jim
Yawn.
eric
Demonized by whom? Calling someone to task for her votes in the Senate is not demonization. The reason many more progressive dems turned on her had nothing to do with her gender. She was savged by the Right for who she was not be the Left. Her seeming triangulation bothered people.
Eric
Demo Woman
@Peter Daou: Sarah Palin brought her children into it and also if you have not noticed that then you have been sleeping through the last election.
This blog actually talks about issues and policies, something that Sarah does not do.
Besides drill baby drill, name another issue that Sarah spoke about.
SGEW
I think that most people here agrees that “bring[ing] her children and family into it” is not acceptable (with the caveat of criticizing Gov. Palin’s usage of her children and family for her own political purposes (e.g., Bristol Palin and abstinence education)).
Otherwise, the question is: criticize only her policies, or is criticism of her character acceptable as well?
Name one other politician, ever, of whom criticizing their character was considered to be unacceptable.
wobbly
Some on the Left construed her “We all remember Bobby Kennedy” remark as a threat to assassinate Barack Obama.
I’d call that demonization.
Ash
@Peter Daou:
She also lacks Hilary’s intelligence and tenacity and work ethic and on and on and on and on. The ONLY similar thing about them is they have female genitalia.
Also, Palin IS a nutty circus act. This is a fact.
Peter Daou
Yes Demo Woman, as RedKitten said, I regularly linked to John’s writing, and that was before he moved closer to my side of the political spectrum, so I know the value of this site.
My view of Palin is that even as a pure political play, it’s smarter to simply stick to the issues and point out how wrong she is (not a difficult thing to do). Not to mention the point I made about preserving a modicum of respect for our opponents. On the former point, Obama tamped down the initial burst of criticism when she first joined McCain, so apparently he thought it best to stick to the issues as well.
It’s boring to read the insults hurled at me in this thread but far more interesting to hear some good arguments about how Palin should be dealt with politically.
Comrade Stuck
That was then, this is now. Hillary only recieved what she put out and that was some really tough campaign tactics. Reap/Sew and all that. What your doing is exactly the opposite of what you think your doing. You are protecting women candidates because you are offended at their rough treatment, and not offering the same for male candidates and insinuating that it’s sexist. When it is you that is actually being sexist with outrage that they are not being treated more softly as compared to men, who once were little boys you know.. Politics is a blood sport, and Sarah Serendipity can draw it with the best of them. But can she take it in kind? So far no, and you are apologizing for her.
Though Hillary has taken it and thrived. My hat is off to her.
Comrade Kevin
@wobbly:
Who? I remember people saying it was a stupid thing to say, and that it might give some deranged people ideas, but I sure don’t remember *anyone* suggesting that Hillary Clinton was threatening anyone.
Ash
Politically? SHE IS OF NO USE POLITICALLY. She, herself, makes it all about character. That’s her entire persona. Politics and public policy don’t enter into her thought process.
She’d just have the Department of Law (seriously, the fact that she thinks there’s a fucking Department of Law should disqualify her from every job except flipping burgers. She’s just STUPID) come and sue us all, so its no use.
eric
Palin has been dealt with: she lost and quit. There is nothing for a Lefty to do at this point. There is no there there.
Eric
Beeb
Well, yes, actually I do think people should also mock and ridicule her and call her nutty and a circus act and so on. I’ll leave her children out of it if she will, but Todd-the-secessionist-stalker is fair game. Since you asked. Of course, that’s just me.
Comrade Jake
@Peter Daou:
As for the “mocking and ridiculing”, I think that basically what you’re suggesting would have removed Tina Fey from the picture completely.
I’m sorry, but Tina Fey was definitely a highlight of the general election. I don’t think folks here would give that up for much of anything.
As for Hillary, there was plenty that deserved to be mocked there as well. The faux outrage, dodging bullets, the gas tax, Annie Oakley, line them up. Poseurs really do need to be mocked and ridiculed. Severely and repeatedly.
El Cid
(1) Fuck Peter Daou’s idiot whining;
(2) Does Sarah Palin now wish to apologize for insulting Barack Obama for having been a community organizer now that she just quit being Governor before her term was up because she didn’t like the “actual responsibilities” it came with?
Just wondering, because apparently a lot of people like Daou seem to not give much of a shit about how the arrogant, snotty, dismissive Palin spent most of the past electoral season insulting a huge portion of the U.S. as not ‘real Americans’ and insulting Barack Obama for “pal’ing around with terrorists”?
Cause, god-damn, don’t nobody ever, ever let Republicans have to get any real criticism, because they’re convinced that they signed some sort of magic contract which lets them call everyone else elitist shitbag cowards and terrorist surrendercrats without ever having any bad thing said about them.
Comrade Jake
@Peter Daou:
Right. Or he realized he didn’t need to mock and ridicule Palin when everyone else was doing it so effectively. Starbursts, also.
eric
No Wobbly. Lefties considered it poor taste to refer to assasinated icon in the context of referring to Obama. No serious person thought she was taking out a hit on obama.
Eric
Jim
That was then, this is now. Hillary only recieved what she put out and that was some really tough campaign tactics. […]
Though Hillary has taken it and thrived. My hat is off to her.
Exactly. She didn’t pull a single punch in the campaign, and she lost; and she seems to have moved on.
And pointing out the contradictions in her campaign rhetoric (“I’ve been fighting for thirty-five years!!!”) and her actual political career (head down, hands folded, don’t upset Mr Broder) was not “demonizing her”. Wasn’t then, isn’t know.
And pointing out that Mr Daou and the other members of the Endlessly Bitter Army are really boring isn’t an insult. If he doesn’t like it, he should stop whining.
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
Frankly, however, those are really the only things that Clinton and Palin have in common — the fact that they are both human beings and the fact that they both receive intense, uncommon scrutiny. Using that metric, you could have written a post comparing Hillary Clinton to Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan. I was disgusted with many of Clinton’s tactics during the primary, and I lost a lot of respect for her, as did many other people here. But to compare her in ANY fashion with the likes of Palin, even if it’s acknowledged that the connection is tenuous at best, is doing Clinton a disservice.
Third Eye Open
@wobbly:
Whisky Tango Foxtrot, little buddy?
No one I can remember accused HRC of threatening to assassinate anyone. What she was accused of was making a really shitty allusion to what could, possibly, maybe, perhaps happen. What she was savaged for was using Bobby’s death as an excuse for a sticking her finger’s in her ears and singing to herself.
Any other comments you would like to make?
John Cole
This revision of the primary is not going any farther.
The very first thing I did as a Democrat was defend Hillary Clinton, who I thought was getting the short end of the stick on the immigrant driver license issue in the debate. I was planning on voting for Hillary well in to January. But then I started hearing the other guy, and I liked him. Hell, I remember even defending Hillary when she was being mocked for crying in New Hampshire- I thought it was a human, touching moment.
And then her campaign just went to utter shit. It wasn’t Obama supporters who before the campaign even began, gave lobbyists a big sloppy wet kiss. It wasn’t us Obama supporters having Bill run around red-faced making Jesse Jackson comparisons. It wasn’t us that had Robert Johnson out there talking about drug use. It wasn’t us that couldn’t do delegate math and blew threw tens of millions of dollars. It wasn’t Obama supporters who ran around lying about snipers and Tuzla. It wasn’t Obama supporters who ran around claiming Obama was sexist and gave Hillary the finger. It wasn’t Obama supporters who made the RFK remarks. It wasn’t Obama supporters who dragged the campaign out long after it was clear it was over, lying to supporters that she had a chance and taking money from kids who sold their bike. It wasn’t Obama supporters who made remarks about elitist Obama. It wasn’t Obama supporters running around through Appalachia talking about hard working white Americans. It wasn’t Obama supporters who repeatedly lied about Michigan and Florida. It wasn’t Obama supporters releasing the 3 am commericals and parroting McCain’s rhetoric. We didn’t come up with the three month long “Yeah but the superdelegates will give it to us!” strategy. It wasn’t Obama supporters who decided to go with the gimmicky gas tax. It wasn’t Obama supporters who put together the worst campaign of infighters and self-promoters in history.
Hillary was demonized, sure. But no more than she had ever been, and most of the time for shit she had said and done and deserved.
And you know how bad her campaign was? I just recited that whole damned list from memory. And I’m missing a lot.
Demonized. Heh. She was a horrible, awful candidate, and her campaign team was worse.
Thank GOD she has turned out to be a good Secretary of State.
Llelldorin
The problem is that Sarah Palin’s basic role in the 2008 campaign was as the lead hatchet man. She launched any number of outrageously personal attacks against President Obama.
Part of taking on that role is becoming the target of return fire. You simply can’t take point on attacks like “palling around with terrorists” and “like being a community organizer, but with real responsibilities”, and not expect to draw scathing attacks in turn. To expect otherwise is nonsensical.
The primary campaign was enormously heated, on both sides. Both leading candidates were the target of witheringly personal attacks, which were gleefully shared by right-wingers (Clinton supporters were certainly happy to jump on the “teleprompter” nonsense, for example.) To suppose that Clinton should be uniquely immune to personal attacks is again nonsensical.
Calming Influence
Palin paraded her pregnant unwed teenage daughter in front of the world while standing on the “family values” platform. The said same teenage daughter then went on a media tour to promote abstinence as the way to prevent teen pregnancy.
Palin used the proximity of Russia as evidence she had an understanding of foreign policy.
Clinton claimed to have ducked enemy fire while landing in Kosovo.
Clinton said Obama Muslim rumor not true “As Far As I Know”.
Clinton got nailed, here and at many other “left” blogs, for putting shit out there that she shouldn’t have ought to put out there.
Palin too, also.
(Yeah, that’s right, I’m mocking the way Palin seems unable to speak coherently. She shouldn’t put that shit out there.)
Third Eye Open
Shorter Daou: I had a deadline, now I have to make the rounds providing caveats and nuance to a piece of shit I will have forgotten by my next bowel movement.
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
@Comrade Kevin & Wobbly:
I remember that well. This was the exact quote, when she was discussing why she was still in the race:
Nobody construed that as a threat, but a lot of people construed it as her basically saying, “Well, it COULD happen again, right? So I’ll stay in the game, just in case. “, and it was considered to be in incredibly poor taste, considering that her opponent was an African-American gentleman who had already received an incredible number of death threats, and considering that his supporters were living in fear every day of someone doing him harm.
eric
P.S. Let’s not forget Mark “Antichrist” Penn.
Eric
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
John #40:
Damn, John. I think we all need a cigarette after that one. Nice rant.
Comrade Jake
I’d honestly forgotten about the kid selling his bike.
Laura W
@John Cole: That’s why I came.
That’s why I stay.
Jim
JC@40 also underlines why I think it’s self-indulgent to pretend “anyone” could have beaten John McCain. I think HRC would’ve agreed to every self-agrandizing (and self-serving) stunt McCain proposed, from the townhalls to the campaign suspension to god knows what. And Bubba’s raging id and conflicting impulses (If she wins, am I vindicated, or eclipsed?) would’ve been the antithesis of no-drama Obama.
Also, Clinton-Bayh wouldn’t have brought us the magic that is Sarah Palin (whom I’m watching on my TeeVee right now).
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
But I wanted so much to believe it was true. Why? Because it was deserved.
Comrade Jake
Olbermann is now playing footage of Palin in hip waders talking to the press, once again spewing nonsense right and right. I have to say that I didn’t think it was possible for her to top last week’s announcement in terms of wingnuttery, but this is over the top.
At one point I was perturbed that reporters don’t ever seem to confront her with facts, but I think just putting a microphone in front of her is pretty goddamn effective.
Demo Woman
@Peter Daou: I think that Palin should be ignored. She does not add anything to the conversation but my comment had to do with the fact that she parades her children around. David Letterman’s comments were over the line but her reaction only caused the matter to be in the news for a few more days. She wants to be in the lime light.
Secretary of State Clinton is actually the opposite. Secretary Clinton is happy to do her job behind closed doors and I feel sure that she will achieve many results that way.
There are many on this site, including me, that might not have supported Clinton but that was because of differences in policies. I doubt that anyone questioned her intelligence.
There is absolutely no comparison between Hillary and Sarah. IMO it is a waste of a journalist’s time to write an article comparing the two.
Ripley
Clinton, lately, has brokered a dialogue between the main players in the Honduras situation. Obama, lately, has expanded the prospects for useful (read: non-military) engagement with the middle-east, while shepherding health care reform domestically.
Palin, lately, quit her day job and went fishing, but not before giving her attorney carte blanche to sue people for the content of their souls, or somesuch, out there in the unreal parts of America, ya know.
I guess being demonized is one of the risks of behaving demonically.
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
It just takes so much to get him fired up these days. Understandable, I guess. What with raising his new family and the worry of Tunch revenge.
Elvis Elvisberg
Or Bill Clinton or Michael Moore.
Great comment, John. As someone in the exact same boat, right up to preferring her over Obama til at least January, I really appreciate that.
Demo Woman
@John Cole: lol, That rant is why we all love you. You were able to write that while I was trying to phrase, well Peter you make an interesting point but you are still an ass.
Comrade Jake
I think we chased the Daou-meister away. Pity.
SGEW
Lay Down Law, All Father!
srsly, plz don’t argue about the god damned Democratic primary
The children, won’t you all think of the children?!
Cat Lady
yes, yeS, yES, YES John Cole about the Hillary nonsense. I went from supporting her to defending her to despising her in about 4 months, but there were many who went the same way with Obama. Let’s not pick at that scab.
I wonder if the kid who sold his bike knows the money probably went to Mark Penn.
Oh, and regarding Tom Brady, my local rag reported that Tom and Gisele put an offer on a house right here in my town. Real estate values +4 .
Calming Influence
@RedKitten (formerly Krista – the Canadian one):
I don’t know about John, but that was good for me…
Lola
@Peter Daou:
Peter, some women find it condescending when you write things like think about Palin as a mother, as a little girl. Would you even think of writing a piece about Mark Sanford saying think of Mark when he was five years old and playing tee-ball?
The very premise of your post is sexist. I say that as a woman who majored in Women’s Studies at Berkeley.
Palin does not deserve a grace period from attacks because she is a woman or new to the scene. That is total condescension. Women are stronger than that.
Palin herself has said that women should not whine about their treatment. Politics is a brutal game. Palin showed she could not take it. Don’t be so damn condescending toward women.
Humor and mockery is an effective way of criticizing one’s enemies. Nobody said that we couldn’t mock Jindal after his awful speech because he is a Dad and has young children, etc.
I think your article sucked, Peter. It was not at all thought provoking and was based on a totally superficial and false premise.
John Cole
Woah, woah, woah. Let’s stop the smears. She didn’t quit- she is just pursuing a higher calling. Now I don’t know what that higher calling is, but Stanley Fish claims she said it loud and clear.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck: Quality, not quantity, Dr. Stuck.
People who fire up quickly and often burn out fast.
We all have a vested interested in John’s health and longevity.
Hi Lily!!
Irony Abounds
@Peter Daou: I will accept your point, but only to a small degree. Yes it is wrong-headed to do nothing other than insult Palin as an idiot and the like. However, limiting your criticism merely to her stances on the issues is equally wrong-headed. Palin’s stances on the issues were and are, for the most part, simply regurgitations of Republican talking points. Your view would simply reduce the debate to Democrat good, Republican bad. Palin’s experience, her character, her intellect are all legitimate issues that need to be explored, dissected and analyzed. Anyone, particularly a media savvy person such as Palin can recite talking points. If there is no substance behind the person reciting those talking points, it is something that should be discussed and exposed.
It is not sexist, nor out of bounds to point out that someone who was a mere Mayor of a little town in Alaska just a few years ago, and who had only been Governor for less than 2 years of a small (population wise) state where hard decisions were not really necessary given the oil revenues. It is not sexist, or insulting to point out loudly and often that Palin was guilty of huge whoppers. Honesty and character matter. For crissakes, she was running for VP of the country. It is not sexist or out of bounds to state loud and clear that she lacks the intellectual firepower to run this country.
Just stick to her positions on the issues? Are you nuts? If the only thing that matters is the issues, why bother electing people, just elect parties.
John Cole
The best thing I can say about the Clinton campaign is a paraphrase of a joke said about Lloyd Bentsen, which is something to the effect of he spent his whole life trying to get people to remember him, the rest of his life trying to get people to forget he was on the Dukakis ticket. I’m so trying to get over that execrable campaign is that it took me fifteen minutes to remember Howard Wolfson’s name. Does anyone else remember his Kaufmanesque phone calls to the morning shows, or Terry McAuliffe and his performance art appearances.
Well, apparently the voters of Virginia remembered.
John Cole
And whatever did happen to that UN blog that you ran, Peter?
I remembered liking it quite alot.
Demo Woman
Gee, I want to become a repub. They have all the fun with all this hiking and fishing and stuff. Also sometimes they get to fly to Argentina looking for their soul.
By the way if I start using also in everyday speech, just shoot me.
khead
Sure. If Palin had only been given the chance to spend some time in an occupation where she might get the necessary experience to develop those layers – before she chose to enter the withering glare of the national political spolight…
Jackie
@Lola: Sing it sister.
Comrade Jake
I think the best part of Daou’s post is right in the first paragraph:
Ah yes, THAT’s what cost her the nomination. How could any of us forget?
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m sorta sympathetic to Daou’s point in the sense that we seem to hold women candidates to a different standard in regards to their qualifications or abilities. The default position is that men are entitled to lead by virtue of being men but women must prove that they have the experience or ability or talent or gravitas or years of whatever.
I thought a lot of the attacks on Caroline Kennedy were way over the line. Those attacks would have never been leveled at a male candidate with similar qualifications.
Having said that, many of the sorts of attacks that people like Daou or the Pumas decry as anti-women or sexist are the same sort that are routinely used against male candidates by Republicans and others. Edwards hair, Romney’s good looks, Dennis Kucinich’s elfin appearance, Tsongas speaking, gay jokes about Democratic men, etc. Since it’s not likely these sorts of attacks are going to stop, I’d say we just need to cut out the bullshit charges of sexism or whatever and understand that real sexism isn’t making jokes about HRC’s pantsuits but rather the underlying assumptions in society about who is qualified to lead and why.
Comrade Jake
People really do bring their weak sauce in here at their own peril.
Peter Daou
Wow, John Cole, I thought I was the one who couldn’t get over the primaries!
Like I said in the second graf of my HuffPo piece, “I don’t want to rehash whether or not any of [the Hillary-bashing] was warranted.” But since you’re so passionate about what happened, I’ll respond (and then sign off for the night).
You make my point for me by saying the following:
1. “I remember even defending Hillary when she was being mocked for crying in New Hampshire- I thought it was a human, touching moment.”
You seem to admit that Hillary was already being treated like crap BEFORE most of the stuff you listed.
2. “Hillary was demonized, sure. But no more than she had ever been, and most of the time for shit she had said and done and deserved.”
‘No more than she had been’ – in other words, more than most politicians will ever face in their entire career.
Look, no matter how many names I’m called, I’m comfortable calling on my fellow Dems/progressives to remember that Palin is a human being, a mother with kids and to learn from the heinous treatment of Hillary over the years that sometimes it’s just better to stick to the issues.
And you know, maybe some of the energy and intensity that goes into attacking Palin would be put to better use going after tyrants and criminals and child traffickers and child molesters and human rights abusers…. I’d love to see the same fury directed there rather than at this confused, ill-prepared, soon to be ex-Governor. (Those of you who want to rant and curse about those sorts of things are welcome to visit UNDispatch.com, a site I edit.)
Demo Woman
It is a waste of time and talent for a journalist to write an article comparing Secretary Clinton and almost former Governor Palin. Would someone write an article comparing former Govenor Blago to former Secretary Powell. I don’t think so.
It’s a stupid comparison.
KCinDC
John, you forgot the worst bit of Clinton’s campaign, the part I have the hardest time forgiving her for (though Obama’s winning the election did help on that score): her attempts to delegitimize his win in the final days by playing up the Michigan and Florida problem and comparing the primary vote to votes in Zimbabwe and the Jim Crow South. That was disgusting, and it created the PUMA movement that’s still troubling us now, though luckily Clinton supporters in general were sane enough that the movement wasn’t as big as people feared.
As for prolonging the campaign, I was irritated at the time, but in retrospect I’m grateful to her for sacrificing her own reputation to ensure that Democrats had to campaign through almost every state. That preparation helped us immensely in November. It’s going to be hard to get people as organized and energized next time we have a normal primary campaign in which things are decided much earlier (or no primary campaign at all, as we’ll presumably have in 2012).
Rosali2
John, excellent summary of all that went wrong in the primary. Did you remember all that off the top of your head?
I’d add that it was not the Obama camp that failed to do basic delegate research to find out which states were winner-take-all.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
And attacking from a different direction. Our good luck, not so much the fishes.
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: That’s (another reason) why I stayed.
arguingwithsignposts
@Peter Daou:
You know, I would have voted for either BO or HC if they’d won the primary campaign, as would (I’d suppose) 95 percent of the people here tonight. So, yeah. As if BO weren’t being demonized during the primaries either.
And they pay you for this stuff?
Well, actually, yes – if you enter the race for the person-next-in-line, you do ask for this much scrutiny. And you damn well deserve it if you’re a nutcase like Sarah Palin. If she were to fade back into her family life in Wasilla and give up the spotlight, I’d say you have a point. But given her statements to the contrary, I’m not inclined to give her that benefit of the doubt.
She’s a wackjob wingnut talking-point-spouting robot, and deserves all the mocking she gets.
Cat G
@John Cole: Now that was RIGHTEOUS !!!
Comrade Jake
@Peter Daou:
This from the same dude who penned this gem. At some point, brother, you can’t continue to wax philosophic about people like Clinton and Palin and Limbaugh and then bitch that more people aren’t going after… child molesters.
Asshat.
El Cid
Um, had Mark Sanford or some other serious head-wound male GOP politician been the shit-head idiot trotted out to be VP figure-head calling most of America un-real and accusing Obama of “pal’ing around with terrorists” and not being able to mention a newspaper he read and mocking Obama for being a ‘community organizer’ because it didn’t have ‘actual responsibilities’ and generally not having a clue about a god-damned thing that the President or the VP might actually have to deal with, and instead just inanely lying about his record of opposing bridges he lobbied for and fucking up the small town he governed with the most god-awfully idiotic sports complex deal ever (aka, not buying the fucking land before you announced where it would go), and all his followers talked about him like he was some saint because he had kids in his family…
…then, yeah, I would have mocked him as a stupid, worthless, arrogant, narcissistic corrupt fool too.
To hell with Sarah Palin and all her idiot followers, except for my eternal gratitude to Bill Kristol for having fallen so in love with her on the National Review summer cruise that he made it his life’s goal to get John McCain to pick her, and that other blogger guy, because her shitty idiot brainless candidacy of cultural posing and winking bullshit sunk John McCain better than 100 S&L scandals could do.
Comrade Stuck
@Peter Daou:
Yes, this is a great suggestion. Sarah can have her way in politics and get herself elected without a cross word being said. The rest of us will saddle up for a posse and chase Snidely Whiplash.
cbear
Mr. Daou,
Thanks so much for your thought provoking comments. Normally I’d have to go to a bowling alley (or Larry Johson’s site) to enjoy such a lively discussion.
Question: Do you put your pearls on the nightstand when you retire for the evening, or do you continue to clutch them thoughout the long night?
Hammy
John, excellent summary.
I would add Hillary’s biggest mistake- the failure to do basic delegate research to find out which states were winner-take-all. It was this huge blunder that created the delegate deficit that then caused Hillary to try to claw back FL and MI.
John Cole
@Comrade Jake: Exactly- that is the revision from Peter I was talking about.
@Just Some Fuckhead: I remember stating that I felt the Caroline hatred was deeply personal. Anyone remember who were the folks behind the scenes pushing a lot of that? I do. Bitter Clinton supporters wanting a pound of flesh for not supporting Hillary in the primary. Funny that.
@Peter Daou: You don’t get to say “I don’t want to rehash the primaries” then claim that Hillary only lost because she was demonized. Hillary lost because she was a terrible candidate and ran a horrid campaign.
And yes, she was demonized. So was Obama. And if I remember the Clinton talking point back when she was inevitable, it was “They’ve demonized me forever, I’m teflon now! I’m tested! No more Kerry”
I’m not imagining that.
arguingwithsignposts
@Peter Daou:
Please.
As if people can’t multi-task. As if people like John don’t post about the abuses of the “criminals” at Goldman Sachs. As if people don’t watch what’s going on in Iran, or follow the b.s. that’s happening in Honduras. We have brains, man. we can use them.
But more important to the discussion at hand, Palin was selected to be second-in-line to the most powerful position in the world. She said “yes.” If she gave a damned about the attention, she would have declined.
And that applies to male or female.
What this really reminds me of is the standard pundit column that I’ll call the “oh the humanity” column, wherein the columnist shows his/her humanity by looking at how some big scandal is really impacting a “real” person. Oh, the humanity, they say.
Your concern is noted.
Peter Daou
One last reply. To Comrade Jake: I know you feel special throwing around ‘asshat’ but I’m serious about questioning the eagerness to attack Palin while displaying not one tenth the urge to go after human rights abusers.
Seriously, are you really claiming that my blogging about Limbaugh and Coulter and Palin and Clinton (which I don’t get paid for, by the way) somehow undercuts all the posts I’ve written on human rights, the money I donate to organizations like IRC, Amnesty, etc. and the years I’ve spent working to elect Dems and progressives? Please.
Here are some links for you to read:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/wheres-the-social-web-rev_b_218418.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/on-gang-raping-and-killin_b_174695.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/can-the-internet-prevent_b_150352.html
http://undispatch.com/archives/peter_daou
SGEW
I was talking to a friend the other day about how we kind of missed the fun times we had during the election, and how exciting and great it was and blah blah blah.
I now realize that I had completely blocked the primary out of my memory, and it’s all flooding back now (like that time I was campaigning in Pennsyltucky for Obama and that Clinton supporter was saying . . . aaazghrargleblargle! Back down the memory hole with you!).
So, yeah. Wow am I glad the election is over.
Secretary of State Clinton had a political career before her nomination? Never heard of it. She’s related to ex-President Clinton or something, right?
kommrade reproductive vigor
All those people look alike.
Seriously, the minute so-called Clinton supporters held up Governor Failin as a fitting surrogate, I knew they were full of the same brand of dookie that prompted the GOP to pick Keyes as Obama’s opposition.
However, I’m happy to say my knowledge of Daouche is limited to his antics as a pearl cramming dickhead, constantly on the prowl for something to scratch his outrage itch.
It would really suck to know him as anything but another nonsense spewing WATB because I’d have to waste time wondering if he’d slipped and hit his head or something.
Cat G
@Peter Daou: It would be profoundly stupid to wall off salient aspects of a candidate’s fitness for office. Intelligence, temperment, honesty, rationality and like just knowing something about the world, are a hell of lot more pertinent to being president than their position on today’s hot button issue. Of course there were obnoxious sexist elements in play, and Palin milked that for all it was worth – including the winks. I think we’ve all noticed she’s a human being, but your professed desire to protect Palin or Hillary from the rough and tumble reminds me of the attitudes that kept women from doing all kinds of rough stuff…from running marathons to flying airplanes etc. Both women want(ed) to be president, well they – just like any man – have to prove they’ve got the right stuff. Hillary is still in their striving and Palin quits. Nuff said.
arguingwithsignposts
@Peter Daou:
Strawman much, Peter?
Comrade Jake
@Peter Daou:
You are such a fucking joke. It’s like you’re trying to get DougJ to add the beloved clown shoes tag to this post.
Sirkowski
Peter Daou doesn’t seem to remember the time when Democrats couldn’t win an election and why.
kay
I don’t like the piece because it’s so personal.
On the one hand, the writer is telling us to look at Palin on the issues. On the other hand he tells us to draw on some well of sympathy based solely on shared, and very female-specific themes, like motherhood.
I think the flip side of vicious personal attacks is this sort of maudlin, Hallmark card sentimentality, based on a very personal metric.
They’re two sides of the same coin, and we’re not going to get anywhere responding to personal attacks with bromides about shared humanity.
Maybe the best way to reach the writers goal is to drop both the personal attacks and the silly sentimentality, and treat Palin like a professional, which is what she is, or seeks to be.
Sympathy can be really deadly to dignity. I’d watch indulging in it, ostensibly on Palin’s or Clinton’s behalf, if I were the writer.
jenniebee
@Peter Daou: speaking as one of the few commentors here who was perpetually defending candidate Clinton, I’m going to echo DougJ’s perplexity at how you could come up with that “let’s think about what vulnerable people these women politicians are and take it easier on them” dross.
As a woman and a feminist, I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed since the election:
1. The usual suspects picked up with Michele Obama exactly where they left off with Hillary Clinton when she left office. For some reason, a certain kind of person, when they don’t like the outcome of an election, take out their frustrations by denigrating the character, taste and person of the electee’s spouse. It’s cheap, it’s tacky, and Michele Obama has diffused the criticism, but at the price of taking the least active role as First Lady as any other First Lady in living memory, with the possible exception of Barbara Bush.
2. It’s impossible to play the “Palin is getting more criticism because she’s a woman” game, because the only male candidate with a comparably weak resume, intellect and media discipline is Dan Quayle (who was a national laughingstock) and that’s really not being fair to Dan Quayle, who (after all) managed to finish two Congressional terms and one full Senate term before running for Veep, and then he stuck out his tenure as Veep. As a matter of fact, it’s doubly unfair to Dan Quayle because he actually listened to his handlers occasionally and even his comment about Murphy Brown was decipherable and made a point. A lousy point, but he made it and nobody had to parse the statement to figure out what the heck he was talking about.
So who knows how, say, a Steve Palin would be treated by the media, were he to run for office. Unless, of course, he did it in Naughty Monkey pumps, at which point I think we can all guess how he’d be treated.
3. If anything, the Palin whirlwind has been the best thing that could ever happen to Hillary Clinton. It has shown everybody what a class act she’s been and what a tough customer she is. Hillary hasn’t dissolved into whiny platitudes about how awful Scaife and Murdoch always are to her, even though they have been. And Hillary didn’t throw around accusations about “palling around with terrorists,” or insinuate that her opponents just hate children and are criticizing her policies just as cover because we really secretly don’t like her because she refused to abort Chelsea. Sarah Palin did.
I’m not derisive toward Sarah Palin because I’m an anti-feminist. I’m derisive toward Sarah Palin because as a feminist, I resent the way she attempts to use her gender as a screen for her own shortcomings and inadequacies. There is real misogyny in this world, and real sexism; Palin does the feminist cause no service when she responds to the application of any general standard of information, preparedness, ethics or behavior by claiming that anyone attempting to hold her to those standards is only doing so because of her gender.
Comrade Jake
I’m not sure it’s comforting to know Daou doesn’t get paid for this sort of drivel. It means he writes this sort of drivel as a hobby. And I’m in moderation again for bozo boots. Christ I hate that.
arguingwithsignposts
@jenniebee:
Very well put. And I also agree with the poster upthread who mentioned similar feminist feelings. Hillary Clinton has proven beyond a doubt that she has the class to handle the national stage. I wish her well as SecState.
Palin, not so much.
Comrade Stuck
@Peter Daou:
This is the kind of cognitive dissonance I expect from the wingnuts. This is so outside the box of political discourse to be utterly laughable on it’s face. People should not criticize Palin because there are criminal about we haven’t caught. I thought Huffpo writers were top shelf. I guess not.
ONE.THING. HAS. NOTHING. TO.DO.WITH.THE.OTHER
Fulcanelli
Welcome to John Cole’s “House of Pain”. Whew…
Hell, I really believe that if Hillary hadn’t taken the low road during the primary campaign she’d be sitting where Biden is right now.
Damn, I love this place. FTW.
John Cole
Yeah, I think the limbaugh piece and the Palin/Hillary piece were dumb, but I give credit for him showing up and putting up with you jerks. I know what it is like to say something stupid and have to contend with you all.
kay
@Comrade Jake:
We’re taking political attacks personally, and our response to that is to mount a deeply personal defense.
If I’m Palin or Clinton this is where I start bashing my head on the table. Just going terribly wrong, this whole “debate”.
I just don’t see this helping women any, and I am one, but I appreciate the effort. Please, no more help like this. It’s hard enough.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
The Piranha are hungry tonight.
Comrade Kevin
@Comrade Stuck:
Whatever gave you that idea?
Comrade Jake
@John Cole:
I can’t hear you over the sound of the MJ memorial being replayed on MSNBC.
Comrade Stuck
@Comrade Kevin:
Whatever gave you that idea?
ronin122
@Comrade Jake: What about “I read these morons so you don’t have to?” Not calling Daou a moron but that seems to be more of the holy grail of tags here given its relative rarity nowadays, and it does generally get used for bloggers that especially get under JC’s or DJ’s skin.
Comrade Jake
@ronin122:
Personally I’d like to see the asshat tag get introduced.
cbear
@John Cole:
What, you mean he left? He just up and quit?
Sheesh, what a tool.
Bubblegum Tate
@RedKitten (formerly Krista – the Canadian one):
My sentiments exactly.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear: cbear!
ronin122
@Comrade Jake: How would that be any different from the “assholes” tag?
Kevin K.
Since Peter (or the HuffPo moderators) didn’t let my comment through earlier on his post, I’d like to ask him why he didn’t seem too concerned about “outright viciousness and mockery” when he was Hillary Clinton’s Internet Director and routinely linking to Obama-bashing hate blogs like No Quarter, which relentlessly targeted both Barack and Michelle, on Hillary’s official campaign sites?
Peter, care to enlighten me as to why you (and many of Hillary’s online supporters) were silent or complicit when Barack and Michelle were being demonized during the primaries?
Cat G
@jenniebee: What she said!! As long as Palin is putting herself out there looking for political power, and saying nonsensical things, working the media, demonstrating appalling judgment and astonishing ignorance, lying about her record or anybody else’s, etc. well I and a lot of other people are going to mock her, spread the word about the lastest foolish/stupid thing she has said or done because she is patently dangerous and she wants to rule my world. It would be stupid not to work against her. In all seriousness, she and the crowd she runs with don’t really give a damn about human rights abuses and in fact demonstrably engage in/support human rights abuses (arrest & detain people, torture, limit access to birth control and abortion, are actively hostile to voting rights, etc,) Opposing her is doing something positive for human rights. When she decides to work in some endeavor that is not political, I will wish her and her family the very best and buy drinks all around.
LD50
@cbear:
A tool, like all of us.
Comrade Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
He up and leaves and one day just shows up on the doorstep. Kinda like an old tomcat I used to have. Don’t be a stranger dude.
a1
Wow, just…wow. I’m a big fan of Peter Daou, but this is so, so terminally weak. Please stop before you reach for other rhetorical chestnuts like “think of the children!” or “perhaps you prefer if Saddam was still in power?”
(In fact, what are you doing posting about Sarah Palin, when there are so many unsolved crimes that need attention? Go, Peter Daou – go for the good of the city!)
cbear
JSF, Comrade Stuck, JC,
Whass up homeys?
I’ve been here all along…just kinda vegetating after the election, the blog wars, and such.
Hi Krista.
BTW, what’s the deal with the 5 minute edit thingy? Does that mean a comment is in moderation or what?
kay
Just for the record, I thought Clinton hanging in to the end was smart, and I was glad she did.
The truth is, Obama could have made some stupid real or media-invented career-ending gaffe or his campaign could have crashed and burned on one or another real or invented scandal and I wanted the Democrat to win. And HRC woulda been right there.
In any event. At the end of the day.
So I thought that was smart.
That’s what she meant by the RFK reference, or that’s how I took it. An unfortunate comparison, but the broader point was true.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear: I figured they put you in solitary or restricted your computer access or something.
Elvis Elvisberg
Y’know, I disagree with about everything he said in this thread, but Daou sure acquitted himself very well in this thread. He showed up early and stayed late to defend himself against an admittedly somewhat intemperate gang of commenters (and maybe even bloggers). I sometimes forget that there’s a space on political blogs for polite disagreement. So thanks for that, Peter.
That’s just for Peter, though. Sarah Palin falsely accused the president of “pallin around with terrorists,” and seems to believe that me, my family, and just about all my friends aren’t real Americans. She can die choking on a bucket of cocks.
Comrade Stuck
@cbear:
Nah. it means we can now stay a step ahead of the Grammar Nazi’s/
Wilson Heath
First time I noticed him I asked myself who the clueless asshat was. Then I saw his bio splash. Makes sense.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Nope. Once I convinced ’em that I was just a hitchhiker and didn’t know there were hookers in the trunk—and I’d never even met myiq1/2 before that day— they sprung me.
mcd410x
Wait a minute. I thought the worst slight was Obama not offering her the VP slot.
Seriously, I feel like what made me (and I’m guessing many others, too) lose a bit of respect for Hillary was: she acted like a Republican.
That and everything John Cole said.
jnfr
For all the nasty things Hillary did in her primary campaign, Palin isn’t fit to kiss her ass.
moe99
Wow. The joint is hopping tonight. I’m also someone who first came here via Peter Daou’s recommendation and am saddened to see his comments comparing Hillary’s treatment to that inflicted on Palin. I never supported Hillary’s candidacy from the get go because of substantive reasons, i.e. she refused to admit that her vote on the Iraq war was a mistake. As a woman myself and a practicing attorney for 30+ years, it was a little hard to tag me with the sexism canard, but a number of folks tried by accusing me of being harder on her than the other candidates. I thought I was trying to judge them equally on the issues, but no, because I was opposed to Hillary, there was something wrong with me. That turned me off, big time, so I hate to see the same argument crop up in the context of Ms. Palin.
Unlike Hillary, Sarah is an idiot. And it is fair game to point that out when she claims there is a WH Law Dept or the hash she made of it today comparing herself to Lisa Murkowski and Janet Napolitano who left their jobs (but she neglected to mention that it was because they had accepted OTHER jobs with Obama). Again, I say, Sarah is an idiot. And she is fair game for that because we can only see too well over the past 8 years, what happens when we elect idiots to high public office. And if we are not diligent about this, we could, in the future elect more idiots to high office.
So, Peter, you hit a nerve. I’m sorry, because I really liked your old blog.
CT
I think kids should be off limits, period, unless they are out there campaigning for the parent (not just waving from the platform after the speech). I find the “but Palin put her kids out there!” rationale put out there to be a lame justification to take shots at a young teen/adult based purely on the politics of their parent.
That said, I totally agree with the slagging Palin herself has received-she is utterly incompetent and not suited in any way for the job that she actively sought. I don’t feel sorry for the criticism she received, she deserved it. Go watch her face plant with Couric and try and square that ineptitude with the sneering, demeaning speech at the convention running down Obama’s experience, as if she had any standing. She was not just a routine GOP placeholder running for VP, she was someone who was dangerously unintelligent, incurious, and inexperienced who seemed completely unaware of how over her head she was, and has decided to blame everyone except herself for her embarassing performance. And everything she has done since the election, with the intense pressure of the campaign gone, has only reinforced the bad impression she gave during the election.
This sort of “poor little girl” handwringing is, as other pointed out, totally demeaning to women politicians by suggesting they aren’t able to refute or brush off criticism themselves, so we better just go easy on them. And it just plays into the big bad MSM chased Sarah away victim mentality Palin is trying to go with. She had every opportunity to defuse criticism of her as a lightweight jerk by at some point acting otherwise, which proved too hard a task, apparently.
Will
@John Cole:
Now he covers Hillary Clinton.
KCinDC
Well, assuming that had happened before the convention, then Clinton could have stepped in if she’d suspended her campaign just as well as if she’d continued to fight — better, in fact, since she wouldn’t have annoyed the Obama supporters as much by trashing him for so long, so they’d have been more accepting of her. I suspect we might have gone with Edwards, though, which would probably have turned out badly.
inkadu
@CT: Re: Kids of politicians. I agree sorta. If a kid is up their waving on stage with their parents, they’re going to be objects of attention. Obama’s family was also used in the campaign, as a character issue. They have an image of a very involved, supportive, limit-setting, non-snobbish kind of family, and that makes me like them all the more. But does that mean that conservatives can call Malia a slut? I don’t think so.
And most of the attacks against family members really are vicious and petty bullshit, that wouldn’t be valid against even public politicians. Most of the stuff against Edwards and H. Clinton were that kind of thing, and I’d rather just call foul on the whole family of mean-girl character smears.
taylormattd
@Peter Daou:
Peter, your post is unbelievably pathetic on multiple levels.
(1) It is insanely insulting to put Hillary and Palin in the same category. Just fucking nuts. I mean really, how ridiculous to even imply that Palin endured ANYTHING like the things Hillary endured over the years. Hillary was relentlessly investigated, slandered, and hounded by EVERYONE in the mainstream (so-called liberal) and conservative media for like 20 years. She had a rogue, amoral, independent counsel spend 50 million dollars investigating her, her husband, her friends, and her associates for a decade. The prosecutor even wrote a baseless draft indictment against her. The loons in the media compared her daughter to a dog.
You are UNHINGED if you think Palin has endured anything remotely similar to what Hillary has endured.
(2) What the hell is wrong with you that you feel the need to rush to defend this awful, awful warmongering, crazy, right-wing nut, Sarah Palin? She is literally no different than Rush Limbaugh, at least policy wise. She is also clearly not very smart, and is wholly unprepared and unable to speak publicly, let alone govern. She is insanely ignorant about domestic issues, economics, and world affairs. She also appears to be corrupt, vindictive, and a compulsive liar. The vast bulk of criticism against Palin is valid, and more importantly, her criticism in the media is WAY less than what it should be. (Exponentially less than anything Hillary faced).
dww44
To El Cid @ #34, just Wow. That is the angriest post from you I have ever seen and I really appreciate it, endorse it, and agree with it. She came pretty close to inciting race riots last fall and no one in the MSM called her on it.
I have enjoyed the whole SP thing since last Friday and, honestly, she deserves every bit of the criticism and ridicule. Her speech was a nonsensical word salad and those interviews today with her in that salmon fishing garb is just one more picture to add to the turkey one and the honking geese from last Friday. Really, is she picking those backdrops and getups? It really is funny. Seriously funny.
Calming Influence
@Comrade Jake:
How ’bout this: Palin holds a news conference to say she’s quiting as governor, and then holds a news conference a few days later to explaining the first news conference.
Peter Dauo posts some crap about Palin, and then a few days later posts more crap explaining the first post.
Is that anything?
Wile E. Quixote
@Ash Can
That was me, Daou’s latest HuffPo entry sounded like something that a Sensitive New Age Guy, or SNAG, would have written. Especially this part
Which was positively barftastic. Yeah, you care a lot Peter.
Wile E. Quixote
@LD50
No, it’s because working for Hallmark requires talent.
taylormattd
Oh, and by the way, the new tag should definitely be “deranged, crack-smoking PUMA”.
I spit out a tiny bit of beer when I read that one.
Comrade Stuck
OT
The finally pinned down the Rovester with a deposition about the US Attorney firings. Apparently under oath, which could lead to some interesting proceedings later on.
Calming Influence
@Comrade Stuck:
Fuck Snidely, I hear Boris and Natasha are living the high life in Buenos Aires.
Terrorist fist-bump, dog!
Josh E.
@Peter Daou:
Seriously, are you really claiming if someone mocks Sarah Palin’s antics it somehow prevents them from also writing about or working for human rights? Why do you assume that others are unable to do what you are so proud of yourself for doing?
Your piece was useless not only for the maudlin business about little girl and mother, but because you don’t draw a sharp distinction between acceptable and unacceptable “personal attacks.” In this very thread you called Palin “confused” and “ill-prepared” which are attacks on Palin’s person that have nothing to do with the issues. So presumably you do think there are personal attacks that are within the realm of political discourse you consider acceptable. Your piece might have been interesting had you attempted to explore where the line is, but you didn’t so it isn’t. It’s just another variant of the risible right-wing line that Palin has been attacked more viciously than any politician ever (except for Hillary of course). It also, as others have pointed out, contains a strong strain of paternalistic chivalry.
Will
@Peter Daou:
You might as well have told us all to go cure cancer. That’s how you end a political debate? You’re f*cking retarded.
FlipYrWhig
Yeah, you care a lot Peter.
We care a lot about the gamblers and the pushers and the geeks
We care a lot about the crack and smack and whack that hits the street
We care a lot about the welfare of all the boys and girls
We care a lot about you people cause we’re out to save the world
YEAH!
And it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it
–Faith No More, “We Care a Lot” (1987)
Krissed Off
Who the fuck is Peter Daou?
The “leave Britney Hilary Sarah alone” boy?
theturtlemoves
/begin 90s-Era Sinead O’Connor/
How can you talk about Sarah Palin with all this bloody sufferin’ in the world?
/end 90s-Era Sinead O’Connor/
Calming Influence
@FlipYrWhig:
Not to diminish the appropriateness of this reference, but If I told you what I thought they were singing at the time, I’d owe you a new keyboard.
jim
“…it behooves us to avoid outright viciousness and mockery on a level that few of us could handle.”
*
Oh does it now? I beg to differ.
*
You’re talking about someone with ongoing ties to hardcore extremists like the Birchers & the Constitutionalist Party, people who make the secessionist AIP look like Mister Rogers – & who’s never once been straight-up with Americans about her long-term friendship with those not-so-nice political buddies from Day One … who’s fine with putting Roe v. Wade down the boghole, no matter how many women die as a result of that step back into barbarity – & justifies this bloody-minded act of madness by pointing to a Bible that has no explicit proscriptions against abortion to be found anywhere between its covers … who has now quit nearly every single job she’s ever held the moment it got tough, & in the wake of her latest untimely resignation has the gall to smirk & proclaim “I’m not a quitter – I’m a fighter” as she gets ready to pimp her book to the masses of dupes who’ll shell out their hard-earned money for whatever rhetorical pablum she had ghostwritten for her, dirt-cheap – & will then tour flyover-country making $50K (or more) per speech to regurgitate toxic GOP agitprop on behalf of a moribund political party that by now (not-so-)secretly wishes she’d just go away … who always has time to stab another loyal ally between the shoulder-blades as soon as it suits her ends to do so … & who has zero respect for others’ freedom of speech, as evidenced by her stated desire to sue anything that moves if it isn’t suitably respectful of Her Royal Highness’ family or her Royal Person.
*
Comparing Palin to Clinton is a semantic obscenity. For all her faults – & they are numerous – Hillary Clinton does not deserve the stinking taint of being associated with that addle-brained sociopathic grifter, & I almost pity McCain for having had her for a running-mate … I suspect the GOP will come to use her name as a term of profanity, & the sooner the merrier.
*
Try this instead, Mr. Daou: it behooves us to USE as much outright viciousness & mockery as is needed to get this person away from politics for good – before she can con her way into a position where she hurts many more innocent victims much worse than she’s already hurt her children, her associates, & Alaskans.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
What she said.
Steeplejack
@jenniebee:
What she said.
auntieeminaz
@jim: I completely agree with everything you said. We laugh Palin off at our peril.
Kerry Reid
I’m sure Mr. Daou took Sarah Palin to task for giggling on-air while two Alaska shock jocks called Lyda Green, an Alaskan GOP opponent, a “cancer” and “a bitch” (the former particularly special, since Ms. Green is a cancer survivor) and implied that Ms. Green also has a great big ass. Peter, if you’re still reading, please point me in the direction of your post where you scolded Sarah Palin for not telling those misogynist assholes “Hold on, Lyda Green is a woman, a mother, a wife, and she used to be a vulnerable widdle girl so shame on you!”
As the noble White Knight Defender of the Cause of True Womanhood (as long as the Woman in Question isn’t Michelle Obama, as Kevin K. of Rumproast pointed out above), I’m sure that Peter rushed to make right this outrageous and heinous attack against a female politician while another woman sat by and giggled her approval.
Because otherwise I’d have to read his HuffPo piece as just the tortured, ridiculous, and self-justifying musings of a bitter dead-end remnant of Hillary Clinton Epic Fail 2008.
Tattoosydney
@cbear:
Win.
Crusty Dem
@John Cole:
I’m a bit late, but this thread is/was awesome, I was going through the archives earlier looking for anything Daou-related (since Laura was apparently slacking), and got to reading and re-reading and randomly following links and started looking for current commenters who were around back in 2005-6. I wasn’t having much luck, until I came up with:
I’m pretty sure that if I’d offered bets that the author of this comment would be posting on this site within 3 years, I could’ve made a respectable profit…
Wile E. Quixote
With apologies to ZZ Top
Wile E. Quixote
@jim.
Can I have your children? I mean I know I’m a man, but I’m sure that something could be accomplished with surgery and hormones and transplanted monkey organs.
asiangrrlMN
Y’all took my best lines, especially Lola, Jenniebee, and moe99. Peter Daou’s article was steeped in the very sexism he claimed to decry. He wants to protect poor Sarah from the big, bad meanies because she was a delicate little girl once (funny enough, she seems to feel the same way).
First, my bonafides. I have never trashed Palin’s kids or discussed them. I don’t care about them, and they are of no interest to me. I hate the way she uses them as shields, but I have no comment on the children themselves.
Secondly, as a woman of color, I was torn between Clinton and Obama during the primaries. I liked both of them for different reasons. However, once Clinton started demonizing Obama as the other, I quickly stepped into Obama’s camp. She and her people were the ones to emphasize Obama’s race, subtly and overtly. There was more racial slurring going on by her team than there was sexist statements by his team. Believe me, I am sensitive to BOTH kinds of discriminations, so I was watching carefully. By the end of the primary, I was disgusted by Clinton’s campaign, and angry as well.
Despite all that, I would have voted for Clinton had she become the Democratic nominee.
In other words, while Obama is my candidate, I would have supported Clinton as well.
I find it pretty egregious as a woman to have you dragging Palin’s gender into the equation. She was ruthless in her demonization of Obama, and she’s been ruthless in tearing down her perceived enemies in Alaska. She’s the one who decided who were real Americans and who weren’t. If you’ve read any of the lefty blogs from Alaska, you can see that she is no wilting flower. Her whole temperament is wrong for politics. Rather, it’s wrong for governing. She fits in just fine in a certain brand of politics.
You cite all these qualities that she supposedly has and say she’s just like us. One, um, no. I disagree with some of the qualities you list and the idea that she is just like me. Beyond that, were she to be president, I would want her to be a hell of a lot better than me. She is a vicious, backstabbing, self-centered person who sees the world as her stage and everyone else as bit players in her drama. Trying to pretend that she isn’t petty and ignorant and flaky and vile would be doing her a disservice as well as being complete bullshit.
Your article was weak. Period. And, as many have pointed out, your self-righteousness in saying we should go after tyrants and child molesters as hard as we go after her is a fucking straw man. Some of us can do more than one thing at a time.
By the way, she chose a guy who allegedly believed that raping your wife is perfectly ok to be her Attorney General. This same guy thinks gays are an abomination to humankind. If Sarah Palin really cared about women or the disadvantaged at all, she wouldn’t have gotten near this guy with a ten-foot pole. She should not have a place in politics, but unfortunately, she probably will.
Batocchio
Man, I missed that transition – I remember some very sharp Daou pieces on the media. Well, he did at least try to explain himself further here. I thought the linked piece was a bit sexist, actually. She’s a mother and once was a little girl? So what? She’s also a public figure who’s actively sought the limelight. I’m assuming Daou’s post was well-intentioned, and his main point is these people are human. Okay, I agree, but only to a point, because absolutely Palin deserved and deserves to be mocked, even if I agree that some subjects should be off-limits.
Palin trafficked in some vile McCarthyist bullshit during the campaign, and has repeatedly shown herself to be way out of her depth. I didn’t like the sexist attacks on Palin (nor Hillary Clinton), but I don’t have a problem with pointing out Palin’s ignorance and vileness in addition to how horrible her policies are. She still knows very little about economics or foreign policy, and at best throws out tired, long-debunked right-wing talking points. It’s not as if one can’t critique her on substance and also judge her character and discuss the persona she’s been shilling – a faux folksy, “traditional” woman deferential to male authority, unwilling to abandon blatant lies even when widely called out on them, an anti-intellectual mocking good research, good government and basic civics knowledge, and a demagogue playing to some of the nastiest bigotry and ignorance out there. Much of this same discussion about her “policies” came up in a recent Mahablog thread, actually – Palin was evasive and sometimes lied about her positions, or contradicted herself. Still, she’s had her views dissected repeatedly, to the extent she’s explained them. But she never really ran on policies – just slogans like “Drill, Baby, Drill.” Like her running mate McCain in many respects, Palin knew and cared little for policy, ran mostly on a (partially false) persona, and was unsuited for a position of power. Palin’s persona has often been criticized because that’s really all she’s been selling. She’s clearly been in over her head, and that would be fine if she hadn’t chosen to run for VP, chosen the spotlight ever since, and chosen to be such a despicable smear merchant. (Hey, as long as we’re invoking her motherhood, was all that Ayers-un-American crap really a good example for her to set for her children? That can cut both ways.) The more sensible way to proceed is not to attack her for being a mother, woman, etc. but not to treat her being a parent as some teflon shield. Her public statements and weak performances are absolutely fair game. Most of the time, that’s precisely what she’s been challenged on.
Civility is fine, but a secondary concern. I’m much more concerned about Palin, McCain, Bush and other incompetent and untrustworthy pols with dangerous policies seeking the highest offices in the land and rarely being challenged on those grounds (certainly not in the MSM). Of course Palin’s been attacked unfairly at times. She also hasn’t been attacked fairly nearly enough, or else the conservative base just doesn’t give a damn whatsoever about competence (we sorta know the answer there). I agree there are lines not to cross, even if Palin complaining about personal attacks is utter hypocrisy. However – civility is fine, but not when it interferes with calling bullshit. Palin’s welcome to her family life, but mostly she’s been called on her repeated choices to shill bullshit in the public square. As long as she chooses to do that, long may she be called on it.
asiangrrlMN
@Batocchio: Hi five on the almost-simultaneous, very similar postings. Woot!
Steeplejack
@Crusty Dem:
That link was hi-lar-ious!
Batocchio
@asiangrrlMN:
Right back atcha! Jeez, one minute apart. I also appreciate your personal take on the racist and sexist dynamics.
(Plus, speaking as a Carleton grad – go Franken! I read he used Wellstone’s Bible to swear in, and had Mondale, there, too. Pretty cool, and Wellstone would be proud.)
Oregon Guy
I am reminded of our long lost friends at onlineintegrity.org
But, via the wayback machine… Tacitus!
mak
To answer your question, Doug, Daou became a deranged, crack-smoking PUMA the very moment he realized that he’d backed the wrong horse in the primary – sometime between South Carolina and Hillary’s mathematical elimination a couple months later. His descent from cool analyst to raging PUManiac is on full display through his posts at HuffPo. What’s alarming is that he’s still not quite over it, as evidenced by the fact that, when confronted with SarahP’s latest exploits, his first reaction is not to laugh, but to lick his own self-inflicted wounds over picking Hillary. When he joined Hillary’s coronation campaign, he likely envisioned himself Editor-in-Chief of Clinton II webworld. Instead, he’s reduced to defending Caribou Barbie. That’s gotta sting a bit.
Chuck Butcher
The stupidest part of that column was Peter missing that either of those two would have gladly cut him off at the waist were he an opponent. Neiher of them is exactly what could be termed a shrinking violet.
Common Sense
Well Roger Simon is gallantly defending Sarah’s honor as well. Perhaps he and Daou can rouse up ol’ Zell Miller and get to dueling with those pigs in the media tarnishing his lady’s reputation.
Seriously, Politico is supposed to replace dead tree journalism? Methinks it isn’t the medium that’s the problem.
AkaDad
I’d like to thank Peter Daou for introducing me to Balloon Juice, which allows me to keep an eye on all the Liberal Fascists™.
Shame on you Doug J.
It’s highly irresponsible for you to accuse Peter of smoking crack when in all likelihood he’s been smoking meth.
Common Sense
Man I gotta quote some of the dreck in that Politico piece, just to highlight the beauty of it. First the setup. Simon agrees that Sarah has sinned and deserves purgatory. Below are the sins she committed:
Simon seems to miss that Palin managed to surprise not just the media, but her campaign staff. He also pulls this gem out:
I think it’s fair to say that Palin’s nomination was not what the media predicted. I don’t remember Simon calling McCain out of control” or “bizarre” for picking her though.
On to the inevitable Bob Dole comparison:
Right. Because we knew why Bob Dole reigned you imbecile. Thus we didn’t have to speculate as to motive. Is this really that hard to grasp?
On to sin #2, my personal favorite:
You see, the poo-bahs are conspiring (with the mandarins and elites, since you asked) to lock Sarah out of the GOP inevitable wheel of succession. Why? Because they have trouble with
Next we hear how her nonsense is really just Teddy Roosevelt style honest truth:
“Plain spoken” does not equal “incoherent.” A professional writer should understand this.
On to Sin the Third
Which he proves by… criticizing a GOP operative that said Palin should expand her message to include many more people, rather than the few hardline conservatives.
inkadu
@asiangrrlMN: Asian grrl, how long have you been out of college? I’m guessing not more than 5 years. Your prose has that really grating language of identity and victimization that is a specialty at progressive liberal arts colleges everywhere.
For the record, your opinions aren’t any more valid because you are a woman of color, because you’ve been demonized as the other, or because your ethnic identity has been marginalized in the past. And you can’t say I’m wrong, because I am the transgendered child bride of Shaka Zulu.
And that is the beauty of the internet.
Ted the Slacker
Got to be honest, when you described Daou as a “deranged, crack-smoking PUMA”, I was expecting to find he had written something a whole lot dumber than what I found.
But here’s his error – thinking that the politics of personal destruction has some kind of sexist undertone.
Both sides are capable of doing it, candidates of all stripes are almost bound to get it. The idea that Sarah Palin deserves some kind of special sympathy because she’s female is pretty daft. Even demeaning.
Whether she brought many of the attacks upon herself is sort of beside the point; so is any sense that she was utterly overmatched politically.
What’s quite wrong is suggesting that Palin (or Hillary or anyone else) occupies some special pedestal or is deserving of some unique sympathy.
If Daou’s argument were that women facer greater political challenges as a result of some inherent cultural mysogeny, I’d entertain that line of thinking. But not an argument premised on a line that Palin and Hillary faced more vicious personal attacks because they were women. No way, not even close.
DougJ
Of course we should mock and ridicule her and call her nutty and a circus act and so on. We would do that to a male politician who resembled her. To not mock her would be sexist.
(I do believe we should leave her kids out.)
There is something profoundly sexist about the notion that we should treat her with kid gloves.
harlana pepper
So he’s saying Hillary is “lost” like Sarah/nothing wrong with Sarah except her policies, hooboy – lame
harlana pepper
Let the kids alone? Well, nasty personal attacks, no. But to pretend that she did not use her kids and shamelessly exploit them on the campaign trail and on the stage is to overlook yet another major character flaw. Also, Bristol still going around preaching “abstinence?” I believe that begs for mockery, also isn’t she legally an adult by now?
grumpy realist
Eh, if you bring out your kiddies on stage at every single whistle-stop and drag them into every speech, then yeah, as far as I’m concerned, they’re fair game. The only way politicians will learn not to use their children as human shields is if the tactic doesn’t work. (I’d prefer to keep kids as far away as possible from politics aside from maybe one or two nominal appearances and have everyone on all sides ignore them, but that’s just me.)
harlana pepper
As a chick, nobody ever cut me any slack because I was a chick. Please. It would have been awesome if I had been able to use that as an excuse for my fuck-ups and the resulting bad consequences. Both sexes have their own crosses to bear, imo.
harlana pepper
@grumpy realist: Yeah, and how bout dragging an frickin baby, a baby, for cripes sake, onto the stage at 11:00 fricking pm? Lessee, if a Dem had done that, the media would have been all over her like cannibals. I want people to stop glorifying the “super woman” – if anything, it puts way to much pressure on moms to be everything to everybody when they should be focusing on their kids. Dragging a kid around the country at the frenetic pace of a campaign is a sign of bad parenting, I’m sorry. Maybe Tah-dd coulda stayed home with the kids, but she hadda drag his ass everywhere as well.
DougJ said it best, also.
harlana pepper
Holee crap, I see where the author was present on this thread. I always miss all the fun. Poop. I know, I know, I’m a morning person, which is why I miss all the fun.
El Cid
@dww44: Thanks, I guess, it’s just that having to see Palin’s idiot, revanchist culture face all over the news practically every minute for the last few days has really pissed me off, especially when people seem to forget what an absolute slimeball she was during the election.
harlana pepper
this is a good place/time to announce that i am getting engaged. heh, believe it or not, i finally met the right guy (who apparently doesn’t care that i’m crazee). the only other person i have told so far is my mom, so you guys are in good company
used to be disgusted
Shorter version of the thread:
Hey, Peter. Do you miss the primary as much as we do? Yeah, those were some good times.
God*damn*, life is boring as the governing party. Beating up on the GOP these days is a lot like slaughtering chickens. And who the heck are the Uighurs?
John Cole
You know what irritates me about the “we should leave the children out of it” stuff- the implication that those of us who are the harshest critics of Palin are attacking her children. It is unmitigated bullshit, and I will not be hit with that smear. I have never talked about her kids. I never followed the trig trutherism and publicly stated I don’t want to hear about it. I never talked abut any of that crap, because it is no one’s business. Hell, other than Trig and Bristol, I don’t even know their damned names.
I also think the criticisms of her with photo ops with Trig are off base and stupid. Trig is her infant- of course she has pictures of him- she loves him and he is everywhere with him. She’s his mom, for goodness sakes. Try to find a picture of my mother without an infant or toddler from 1970-1982. Good luck with that.
And I have never attacked her because she is a woman. I have only ever criticized her for things she has said, and things she has done. I’ve mocked her ideas (the few she has put out there that make sense), her garbled speech, her winking, and her viciousness. But I’ve never attacked her kids and won’t. I don’t even know her husbands name and I DON’T CARE.
Sarah Palin is unfit for national office. That is all that matters.
harlana pepper
And, oh yeah, Hill & Bill both thoroughly pissed me off during the campaign with their incessant whining. The one thing Condi Rice said that made sense, was that, as a black person, you have to be “twice as good” to succeed. I think Obama pulled that off, without ever crying racism, for which he would have been eviscerated. Women do not get a free pass by crying sexism when it really does not apply.
That said, I do believe Hill was definitely a victim of sexism throughout her career and adult life, once she became a public figure, and she dealt with it with steely determination that I admired and I defended her for years. But I didn’t see that in the campaign. The new Hillary (campaigning) using tired old republican tactics insulted my intelligence big time and made me feel betrayed as a Democrat. Yeah, I like her much better as Sec of State. The dignity she showed in the past, which she chucked during her campaign, is finally back.
As for Sarah Palin, I refuse to even address her as she is a walking, talking (if you can call it that) JOKE.
harlana pepper
John, you should know Taaah-dd’s name as he was involved in a secessionist group, which Sarah Palin once addressed, I believe it was taped but I don’t see how that makes a difference, thereby validating their “cause” — this was all but completely ignored by the media
harlana pepper
Oops, just realizing that she criticized SP’s schlepping her infant onstage at 11pm, among other criticisms, hp admits to being a dual-personality hypocrite with very, very short term memory :p
harlana pepper
Fixed
Jon H
@Comrade Stuck: ” I thought Huffpo writers were top shelf.”
You mean with the nudie mags?
(More seriously, there’s a lot of crap on HuffPo. Their health writing, especially, is full of Deepak Chopra crap, anti-vaccination crap, and all manner of new age bullshit. )
Jon H
Shorter P. Daou:
What if Sarah was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make her way home.
(sob, choke)
moe99
Harlana Pepper–
You’re right about Hillary. She was a lightning rod for right wing conservatives and her candidacy would have energized that base like no other Democrat. It was another reason that I opposed her nomination.
And I, too, am glad to see that Hillary has seemed to shed a great deal of her baggage with the appointment as Secretary of State.
Persia
@RedKitten (formerly Krista – the Canadian one): Me too!
Geek, Esq.
It’s not necessary to slime Peter this way. Was that piece lame? Sure it was. But, Peter’s never been an ultrapartisan attack dog, and he certainly wasn’t a poo flinger the way Agent Flowbee was.
asiangrrlMN
@inkadu: Well, I apologize if I grate on you. Actually, I don’t. I don’t give a shit. I am not saying my experience is MORE valid, just that I have a different experience because as a person who is both a woman and of color, I was ostensibly supposed to be torn apart while voting. Everyone gave a shit what women thought of Hillary (were they voting for her just because she was a woman?) and what black people thought of Obama (would they vote for him only because he was a black man?). Because I am a woman and because I am of color, I WILL see things that other people who aren’t in the same situation may not see. You don’t like it? Tough shit. It’s still out there whether you are able to see it or not.
The author’s piece was weak because he was being sexist and because he refused to see that Obama was attacked as much if not more for being black and/or a supposed Muslim. I am not the one who is looking through a narrowed lens. I will bring up racism and sexism and homophobia and classism (though I am not as good on that one because that is one area in which I am privileged) and other inequalities as I see them and as they relate to me. I could have taken out all the personal bits, and my comments would have been pretty much the same, only couched in more general terms. If that would make you feel better, then you can go ahead and translate what I wrote that way. If all you got from my piece was that I feel victimized because I’m a woman of color, then you were reading what I wrote with your own prejudices.
@Batocchio: I went to St. Olaf! What a coincidence. Rock on!
corporal waldo
Ha ha great thread. Sarah the patsy Judas goat is dead as Michael Jackson, without the great resume.
As for the presidency, the right man got the job, Enjoy it while you can because it doesn’t happen very much in America.
Kevin K.
No, he wasn’t. Few were. But I’d still like to know why the finger-wagging Daou thought it was okay to repeatedly link to Agent Flowbee’s blog at HillaryHub. To me (and plenty of others) that represented tacit approval of No Quarter’s overall content, which, as has been pointed out here frequently, was/is racist, hateful, vicious and just plain batshit crazy.
Kevin K.
And I haven’t even brought up the “blow job queen” yet…
Persia
@Just Some Fuckhead:
But many of those attacks are still gendered– men are supposed to be like this, women like that, and God forbid anyone challenge the default.
I think there’s a ridiculous level of sexism in politics. But to act like Sarah ‘slutty flight attendant/wink at the camera’ Palin is some kind of unique victim? Um, no.
Persia
@harlana pepper: Not just a baby, a special needs baby.
Congrats on the engagement!
itsbenj
This is nothing new for Peter Daou. He is the ‘left’s’ biggest concern troll, and a useless one at that. He is just a flat-out 100% all-the-time-liar.
Irony Abounds
@John Cole: Word
Batocchio
@asiangrrlMN:
St. Olaf?!? Oh well, I can break bread with a few heretics. ;-)
(Nawh, I have some Olie friends, and they’re both good schools. See ya in the threads.)
Crusty Dem
@Kevin K.:
This. That fuckwad is still spouting horribly racist crap and organizing the last 37 PUMAs in their never-ending battle against the evil brown man. No one should ever have linked to this numbskull (going back to Josh at TPM giving him a platform in ~2003-4, IIRC).
Kevin K.
To be fair, Josh wasn’t the only lib snuggling up to Flowbee back then. Plenty of other A-listers were as well. It wasn’t until the primaries that his true, ahem, colors really started to show.
Nellcote
@harlana pepper:
shouldn’t that be slaughtering turkeys?
PaulB
Coming in late, I know. You may be serious, Peter, but what you’re committing here is a classic logical fallacy. Even worse, you know damn well what you’re doing, which means that you’re doing it deliberately, probably because you cannot defend your post on the merits. This is just pathetic.
inkadu
@asiangrrlMN: Nah. I agreed with all your points, it’s just the subordinate clauses that reeks of a kind of race consciousness that is just meaningless noise. I don’t think you saw anything that other people – white, black, male or female — did not see. I appreciate you explaining that when you say, “as a woman of color,” you are just describing where you’re coming from. I don’t like it, because I could get a room full of women of color and I would get different opinions on everything. So to me, it’s needless interjection, pointing out race in a manner that is really distracting when we are actually trying to talk about race.
And, OMG, seriously. That whole daily black woman interview on all the networks was just awful. Just fucking awful. “So, you have a black man and a white woman. You must be very torn by this, since you minority types just vote for whomever looks most like you.”
Bas-O-Matic
Jenniebee
So who knows how, say, a Steve Palin would be treated by the media, were he to run for office. Unless, of course, he did it in Naughty Monkey pumps, at which point I think we can all guess how he’d be treated.
I dunno. It would probably be pretty similar to how Joe the Plumber was treated although with a different level of intensity since Mr. Palin would have been running for, you know, the vice-presidency of the United States of America.