One of the things I understand least about the media’s reaction to Sarah Palin is the need to see her as a symbol of something. Here’s Douthat (from a recent, much-maligned column):
If Palin were exactly what her critics believe she is — the distillation of every right-wing pathology, from anti-intellectualism to apocalyptic Christianity — then she wouldn’t be a terribly interesting figure.
I’m as anti-Sarah Palin as anyone this side of Andrew Sullivan, but it would never occur to me to see her as the distillation of anything in particular. I believe — and I think the record shows — that she is a vindictive, power-hungry idiot. So maybe she’s the distillation of vindictive power-hungry idiocy. But that’s it.
I think this is wrong too (from Judith Warner):
The idea that women with a “major education” think they’re better than everyone else, have a great sense of entitlement, feel they deserve special treatment, and are too out of touch with the lives of “normal” women to have a legitimate point of view, is a 21st-century version of the long-held belief that education makes women uppity and leads them to forget their rightful place. It’s precisely the kind of thinking that has fueled Sarah Palin’s unlikely — and continued — ability to pass herself off as the consummately “real” American woman. (And it is what has made it possible for her supporters to discredit other women’s criticism of her as elitist cat fighting.)
[….]This is why Palin — in her down-home aw-shucks posturing — is the 21st-century face of the backlash against women’s progress.
Palin certainly has the “I don’t need no book learnin’ shtick” down, but it’s hard for me to see how the shtick has been aimed particularly at women. She spent a lot of time attacking Obama as elitist, but there was also the idea that she was some kind of counterpart to Hillary Clinton (who has just as elite an eduction as Obama) and that she would appeal to voters who thought that sexism had deprived Hillary Clinton of a shot at the presidency. How does that make her the “face of backlash against women’s progress”?
In the end, all the discussion of Palin’s role in the gender wars or culture wars or whatever it is that we’re supposedly fighting is just a distraction from the simple truth that she is woefully ill-prepared for national office. It really is that simple.
DRD 1812
Can we agree that Palin is woefully ill-prepared for national office and call it a day? That has long been self-evident. She’s also basking in our rapt attention, that being what she craves. In “The Fifth Element,” what happens when you shoot stuff at the big glowing rock?
DougJ
Sure, sorry. It just makes me nuts to be told that everyone’s reaction to her is because of the fact she symbolizes something. It makes me crazy.
Keith G
I see Sarah Palin as a county commissioner-type who caught a few breaks and got promoted well beyond any real management and analytical abilities she may have.
General Winfield Stuck
Our Lady of the Long Knives laid it out about as well as anyone on the empty Palin mystique. The rest of these idiots either have Starburstitus, are so desperate for a wingnut El Jefe that any warm body will do, have other agendas (ie feminism) or are dumb as fucking Lamp posts.
Tongue of Groucho Marx
Anyone who compares Sarah Palin to Hillary Clinton on the basis of gender has no idea what the fuck they’re talking about, and is probably writing that shit because of writer’s block.
The only parallel I can draw between the two is that both of them are ruthless politicians… although unlike Hillary, Sarah can’t take it, but can only dish it out.
bleh
…the simple truth that she is woefully ill-prepared for national office.
But let us recall, that was also true of George W. Bush. So what we are fighting is not just Palin, it’s the memory of W, and it’s the myth that allowed W to beat the rap in the first place.
cleek
Sarah Palin is an aw-shucks hero and great American to people who thought that George W son-of-a-President/Ambassador/CIA-Chief, Ivy-League-MBA/fake-ranch Bush was also a down-to-earth hero.
maybe her inability to express coherent political ideas appeals to people who would sound equally as stupid on-camera as she does. maybe Palin gives them hope that “even a dummy like me can get on TV and say what needs to be said!” and since Palin isn’t really saying anything herself (other than “media bad! values good!”), she gives all those people a blank slate to project their own opinions onto. “sure she fumbled that sentence, but i know what she was saying!”
or maybe that’s the Russel’s Reserve Rye talkin.
either way – she’s a troll. and we should all STFU about her.
JK
Add journalist Carl Cannon to the Sarah Palin fan club. Here’s his spirited defense of her http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/08/sarah-barracuda-palin-and-the-piranhas-of-the-press/
Had Gov. Sarah Palin “gone rogue” in last year’s presidential campaign when she accused Barack Obama of “palling around” with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers? According to a book out next month — The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election by Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz — she was acting on directions from the very top of the McCain campaign, Marc Ambinder reports. Emails show the McCain campaign had suggested the following line: “This is not a man who sees American as you and I do — as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
h/t http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/07/10/not_so_rogue.html
Mnemosyne
I keep saying this about Republicans because it’s true: they genuinely don’t believe that any woman or minority could possibly be as smart (much less smarter) than any white guy. They didn’t understand why people thought that Sen. Clinton, with a dozen years of experience in national politics, was better qualified than Gov. Palin, who served 18 months as the governor of a state of 600,000 people. I mean, look at them — they’re both chicks! And all chicks are the same, so what’s all this talk about “qualifications”?
Same thing with Obama. There are plenty of people out there who absolutely refuse to believe he’s anything other than an affirmative action hire who got by on his charm and good looks* because, well, just look at him. Anyone can see that he’s not qualified.
Qualified = white and male. Which is why poor Frank Ricci is going to humiliate himself in front of the cameras to try and prove that he’s way smarter than some woman from Puerto Rico, no matter how much fancy education she’s had. I mean, she’s a chick! Hello!
** Funny, that sounds like another president we had lately … hmm, who could it be?
shelley matheis
Does this particular word-wright go on to list what, if anything is so interesting?
Palin ditched the governorship for money, pure and simple. (Not to get too prissy, but didn’t she take an oath when she was sworn in?)
She’s facing huge legal bills, with possibly more to come. And if she wants to take a stab at further office she’s got to start generating income. Speaking fees and getting out her book, even ghost-written, will take time.
Prattlehorn
Please stop focusing on her “lack of preparation.” You’re flipping cause and effect.
Sarah Palin’s politics and beliefs are batshit crazy, and included among those are her inability to see how ignorant she is.
If we stop at “she’s only unprepared,” instead of “her politics and beliefs are batshit crazy,” then all she needs is some “preparation” and “study” and she’ll be fine.
The problem is not that she’s green, it’s that she’s a nut.
b-psycho
The “symbol” talk comes from the fact that the party used her as one, and little else. It’s projection.
DougJ
I think of ill-prepared as more all-encompassing than unprepared.
Anne Laurie
Uh, NO. Pretending that Palin would be where she is today if she weren’t female is like pretending that Obama would be such a lightning rod for the GOP’s pale old males if his father had been from Finland instead of Kenya. Yes, she’s almost certainly a “vindictive, power-hungry idiot”, but asserting that she’d draw the same level of media attention and, yeah, DFH animosity if she were male is like the wingnuts asserting they don’t hate Obama because he’s Black, just because he’s a Commie-Muslim-DFH-Liberal-Fascist. Or that Clarence Thomas had better credentials than Sonia Sotomayor (or, for that matter, Harriet Miers — not that I think Harriet Miers was qualified to be a serious nominee for the Supreme Court). Palin has been smart enough to play her double-X credentials for her target audience in a way that Hillary Clinton, who could probably spot Palin 50 IQ points, wasn’t willing or capable of doing. And attempting to parse her standing without reference to her gender is like attempting to parse Obama’s successes without reference to his race.
Mike in NC
Fixed
Kewalo
I think that Judith Warner hit it right on the money. Just go and find some interviews with the women that “love” Palin so much. They contend she’s a “real” women and a better mother because she kept her baby. It seemed to me at the time, listening to those idiotic women that they liked her because she was like them, without much education. Palin is a real woman, not uppity like Hillary Clinton.
Most of the women I’ve known in my life have run into this attitude but I have to admit to feeling shocked that it was so still so widespead.
I think one of the reasons that so many of us women were so disgusted by her nomination had nothing to do with her looks, or even her politics, but because we had so often bumped into the attitude that Warner brings up.
You asked, “How does that make her the “face of backlash against women’s progress”?”
It doesn’t make her the face of the backlash, but certainly from my point of view, it shows that we still haven’t gotten past the idea that educated women aren’t necessarily good or real women.
GeneJockey
I think Palin’s role in the ‘Gender Wars’ was to change the dynamics.
Hillary Clinton was the first woman ever to have a chance at a nomination, and how did she get there? She worked at it all her adult life. She worked hard in school, worked hard in her profession, TRIED TO work hard as First lady, and has worked hard as a Senator.
She took the time-honored approach of women to rising in a man’s field – work harder and be better than the guys you’re up against to even have a chance. If it were not for Barack Obama, she would be President right now, and nobody seriously questions that she deserved her appointment to Secretary of State.
Now compare that to Sarah Palin, who is an idiot loaded up with ambition, and who’s had a couple really major breaks that she didn’t earn. Why was she picked as VP nominee? Had she demonstrated the intelligence, drive, experience, etc. to have EARNED the job?
HELL NO!
She was picked because she’s cute, spunky, and didn’t abort a special needs baby.
What she demonstrated was not that a woman can work her way up to the highest rung of the ladder, but that if she’s cute, and spunky, a woman can be GIVEN that position.
It’s like the SNL sketch with Tina Fey and Amy Pohler, where “Sarah” says, “My nomination shows that any woman can become President.”
‘Hillary’ says (with rising indignation), “Yes, any woman can. Anyone. JUST ANYONE!!”
JK
Doug,
I don’t know if you read the Time article on Palin. I was very disappointed with its cotton candy, superficial quality
David Corn provides a good summary of it here
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2009/07/time-goes-gaga-for-palin.html
I hope that my comment #8 referencing an email message sent to Palin about tying Obama to Ayers puts to bed this nonsense that Steve Schmidt is now a good guy because of his recent spat with Bill Kristol. Schmidt is still a scumbag.
Peggy Noonan is still an asshole too, in spite of her column trashing Palin. Several months earlier Palin and fellow conservative Palin critic Kathleen Parker wrote disgusting columns questioning Obama’s patriotism. See Two Top Columnists Question Obama’s DNA and “Full-blooded” Americanism http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/two-top-columnists-questi_b_102308.html?page=3&show_comment_id=13139850#comment_13139850
Good column by Joe Conason
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/07/10/palin/
Palin is a human billboard for Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and the Paranoid Style in American Politics (both of which also happen to be titles of worthwhile books by historian Richard Hofstadter).
BombIranForChrist
I love you guys. That is why I come here everyday.
But good god, could we please drop the Palin story? She did one thing this week. She quit. And she has dominated the blogs all week. Good god, don’t we have other things to talk about, like John’s pets or health care?
/rant
Just Some Fuckhead
I think we just need to quit her.
JK
@Anne Laurie:
I’m thinking more in the neighborhood of 80 IQ points, but I’m in general agreement with your other comments.
maya
@BombIranForChrist:
So she had you at, “Goodbye”, then?
Martin
She was picked because every other GOP candidate (and candidate trait – pro-life, etc.) when tossed in the polling pool led to an Obama win. Nobody was polling Palin and nobody was polling woman, Alaska, etc.
McCain was holding junk in 5 card draw and rather than drawing one or two cards by picking up a mainstream candidate that had better pro-life or religious credentials, he tossed in 4 cards and hoped for the best. Palin broke pretty much every polling trend. He was going to lose and she was his only hope to win.
General Winfield Stuck
@BombIranForChrist:
Well, we could analyze whether, or not, our CiC is oogling the chicks on the govment dime. If so, not bad taste, if I must say so myself.
But Aunt Milly Whitehead of the Kansas Church of the Pentecostal Jesus Beavers is a braid”n her rope.
tomtom
Sarah Palin can emotionally connect with her audience. This is a rare and powerful political gift, rarer than policy knowledge and more powerful than inheritance or connections.
Sarah Palin is an idiot savant. Her genius extends no further. She lacks discipline and is analytically inept, so she cannot capitalize on her gift. Her remarkable ability to connect is wasted because she makes a fool of herself over and over, and worse, doesn’t know it.
Everything else is window dressing. Democrats did everything they could to take her down, which is their job. We should expect no less. Anyone who bids for power is worthless unless they prove themselves able to withstand all Sarah Palin received, and more. Recalling the last election, Hillary Clinton did all she could to take down Barack Obama, and he proved he could defend himself. Only then did he prove himself. The voters responded and elected him.
Why all the boohooing? A governor proves that a single talent, however strong, is not enough to make it to the top. Would we want it otherwise?
JK
Interesting take on the McCain Palin relationship
h/t http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/why-mccain-matters/
PeakVT
Palin doesn’t bug me so much as the rapturous response she received from rank and file Republicans. She reflects a seriously f***ed up worldview that is both widely held and bad for the country.
jenniebee
@Anne Laurie:
Rush Limbaugh does all right as the fat, bald, drugged-up version of Sarah Palin (if you had to choose just one of those two that you could reach back in time and give them their big sportscasting career break, keeping them out of politics forever, which one would you give it to? I don’t know either.)
cleek
put Olbermann in the list, just to be fair.
Persia
@GeneJockey:
JK
@jenniebee:
That’s a real Sophie’s Choice question you pose. I regard both Palin and Limbaugh as malignant carcinogens in our body politic. I’d split the difference – give one of them the sports gig and have the other one not be born.
e.c.
i think ill-suited might be the better choice. any use of the term “prepared” gives her too much credit.
JK
I wish circus clown Matt Continetti, author of the forthcoming Persecution of Sarah Palin, and self hating journalist Carl Cannon would have enough integrity to acknowledge the truth of your comments.
IndieTarheel
@PeakVT: This is it exactly. It’s not just that Palin’s a bonafide idiot/savant, it’s that half of America was ready to follow her and Johnny Mac right off the cliff – we’re talking about her because THEY still are, some of them without remorse, embarrassment, delirious laughter, nausea, or either explosive OR implosive diarrhea.
Steve T.
It’s the “Aw, shucks, I’m just a down-home, down-to-earth REAL American, just like you” thing that I can’t swallow.
I wash my own dishes, do my own laundry, and vacuum my own floors. Do you think Sarah Palin does the same, even at home in Wasilla, not in the Governor’s Mansion? Or even delegates things to a blood relative? (“Todd? Did you take out the garbage?”)
Nope. Me neither.
KG
@28: Rush Limbaugh, obviously. Limbaugh has done more harm to the conservative movement than just about anyone. He made politicians like Sarah Palin possible. You stop Limbaugh, you stop Palin… you likely also stop Mark Styen, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity. Rush turned the intellectualism at the heart of the old conservative movement (and yes, there was a decent amount of intellectualism there, might not have been your brand, but it was there) and turned it into entertainment for the masses, lowest common denominator crap. Rush Limbaugh is John Connor.
PGE
The fact that something is a non sequitur doesn’t matter with the base. If it’s got emotional resonance with the tribe, that’s all that matters. Which is why the proper reaction to almost anything said by anyone who hasn’t already left the GOP is “WTF?”. It’s gotten to the point where WTF ought to be a standard abbreviation in logic textbooks like QED.
Steve T.
@cleek:
Uh, Cleek, Olberman started out as a sportscaster, mainly covering baseball I think, and moved into political stuff from there. Find another example.
JK
@KG: You make a good point. Unfortunately, it’s my understanding that William F. Buckley was actually a fan of Rush Limbaugh and that National Review published a cover story on Rush while Buckley was still associated with the magazine.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I typed “Sarah Palin” into the Peter Sellers Name Generator and “Chastity Gardiner” came back.
Svensker
@jenniebee:
Yes, but Rush isn’t stupid and woefully ignorant. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is. But he’s no ignoramus unlike Sarah. If I had to be stuck in a room with either one of them (and wasn’t given the option of suicide), I’d pick Rush, hands down.
cleek
but for whatever reason, he decided to leave it.
and, one really shouldn’t be so picky about who gets to play in hypothetical land, especially when it’s obvious what the answer is. sheesh.
Davis X. Machina
Palin’s sort-of-rise to quasi-prominence is/was the latest step in the candidate-as-product movement that goes back at least to Joe McGinnis and Nixon.
Consuming-as-a-form-of-self-expression, of communicating-by-consuming, is, of course, all about the person communicating or expressing, and not about the thing consumed. (McDonalds got onto this twenty-some years ago with their ‘Food, folks and fun’ ad campaign, from which you’d never know they sold hamburgers.)
You don’t support a Palin because of what she can, or might do. You support her to tell other people something about you. It’s cheap — compared to buying a truck, or a hybrid — and it has the veneer of performing a public duty.
In this, she is sort of a dark twin to Obama’s (actually competent, actually talented) star, and all of a piece with other bits of political styling, such as the I-see-right-through-the-shuck-I’m that smart non-voters.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@DougJ:
Palin is first and foremost a celebrity, and a politician, or governor, somewhere way down the list.
Celebrities like her exist mainly to permit others to project their own stuff onto them. Some pundit or tv personality saying that Palin is “a symbol” for something is just about that pundit cutting out her picture and using it on his story board to represent …. whatever. Whatever needs representing. The story boards don’t work unless you have the faces.
The faces become icons. Once the face is linked with something, you can have it show up wherever, and represent that something. Or pimp that something.
In Palin’s case, at first, it was the maverickiness. Next it will be something else. The phony populism, maybe. Whatever is needed.
Loneoak
I think you read that Warner piece wrong. The point of calling her the face of the backlash against women’s progress is not to say that her shtick targeted women in general, although it certainly did target a certain demographic of women. I think Warner is absolutely right that a good portion of Palin’s enthusiastic support is because she perfectly fits a symbolic niche of a powerful woman that doesn’t challenge the substance of the patriarchy one iota. That targets women and men alike who cannot countenance a feminist vision of equality, and in many ways provides them comfort and cover by affirming that women can indeed ‘accomplish anything’ but do so while maintaining a fairly traditional gender role (or at least a gender role available to the upper classes). Palin is a woman who can be ‘strong’ while still leaving her uterine status to the whims of Jebus, she can be loud and outspoken without having to do manly things like debate intelligently in public, she can kill a moose and still be hot. She’s an ideal symbolic combination of old school patriarchy and new school ‘I can do anything a man can do better’.
JK
A $30,000 an hour attorney? Palin report overstates inquiries’ costs
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/310/story/71675.html
Ash Can
@jenniebee:
Actually, Limbaugh did get that break. He got a shot at Monday Night Football, and promptly stepped in it with both feet by going all racist on Donovan McNabb. He was never given a second chance.
And as for Sarah Palin being symbolic of anything, yes, she is: She’s the pretty airhead who gets the big promotion on looks alone — from the men running the company, of course — over the vastly more qualified but not-as-gorgeous and not-as-young women who have been in line for the promotion forever but won’t ever get it, because they just can’t overcome the power of the starburst.
Tattoosydney
@General Winfield Stuck:
Yep. He was either discreetly checking out a nice butt (which gets him good taste marks from every man (gay or straight) and a lot of women), or he was being solicitous of the women around him and watching his feet (bonus marks from everyone nice), or both (everyone wins!). I fail to see the problem.
maya
@jenniebee:
I would have given it to Ronald Reagan then all the rest of them would never have happened.
General Winfield Stuck
@Tattoosydney:
The MUP is a multitasking machine.
M. Bouffant
a good portion of Palin’s enthusiastic support is because she perfectly fits a symbolic niche of a powerful woman that doesn’t challenge the substance of the patriarchy one iota.
Funny you should mention that, as I was about to share this:
There’s your rejection of the patriarchy.
Redshirt
Palin is yet another attempt at “creating reality” by the Wingers. They’ve been doing this since at least Nixon, and were quite good at it — they’ve seemed to have lost their touch though, lately.
Why not? Create your own reality! It’s fun. The Cult of Reagan is a good example. A bad example is Sarah Palin, who we are told is mavericky and independent, bringin’ that energy independence to the great people of Alaska… ahem… but it’s so obvious a farce, and coupled with the sincerity of the Obama campaign, I feel like we all finally see our Wingnut Emperor’s nakedness. And it ain’t pretty.
Some though, still try and live in that other world, of Cod Piece Bush strutting and leering… FSM is it great to be free of that nonsense!
M. Bouffant
That should all be in blockquotes from “this,” except the last sentence.
John O
General over-analysis, too, referring to the tag.
When it comes to people, life isn’t all that complicated. Seriously, who among us hasn’t known someone like Sarah Palin?
Thanks, Doug. I’m with you.
AhabTRuler
suggests very surreal possibilities, while
is the epithet you are looking for.
matoko_chan
Well….no….the meme Palin represents is extremely seductive, and also extremely old.
The GOP has scammed their low information base for years with the untruth that all men are created equal. That a commoner could rise to the high office and surpass the natural aristoi of a meritocracy. The GOP always fronted an awshucks selfmade unpretentious faux commoner, like Reagan or Bush.
You see, Dougj, the advent of Sarah Palin on the electoral landscape summoned an ancient unkillable demon from the dawn of history– Kylon of Croton and the myth that all men are created equal. You might remember Kylon as the pissed-off plutocrat that raised a mob of local farmers to protest his failed attempt to get into Pythagoras’ school for rulers by chopping up the teachers with scythes and burning down the school.
Kylon vs Pythagoras is now conservative joe sixpacks (Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin) vs liberal meritocrats (Larry Summers, Barack Obama).
Thus all the Palinista sneering at “elites”.
It’s like demonic possession.
One reason the strategy failed the GOP this time, is that Palin doesn’t have a nanoparticle of elite in her.
An obvious epic fail.
sapper
I can see where this facination comes from. My mom is a stay at home mom (despite all the last kid leaving home over 12 years ago) that takes in a steady diet of Foxnews. For her, Palin is easy to identify with. She speaks the same platitudes heard on talk radio. It’s like her flaws and stupidity make her easier to connect with. She’s educated but not TOO educated, like that Michelle Obama with her law degree and perfect non-pregnant kids. (Who does she think she is?.. no one voted for HER!).
devopsych
Don’t worry about Palin running for Prez, she’s allergic to work.
matoko_chan
And Douthat is not giving up on her…..he is still spinning the crapology that she was ruined by unfair “elitist” media coverage. He and Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg want her to be quiet and read some books so they can trot her out in 2014 or so, all refurbished and shiny, and use her like a tasp on the base somemore.
And yes, the fanatical base is the verybad part.
devopsych
Palin will pose with the guitar but she will never learn to play it. She doesn’t even like music that much.
Keith G
@Mike in NC: Mike, I see you haven’t come across any of our county commissioners here in Texas.
John O
devopsych, the Sarah Palin’s I have known have an entirely different paradigm about “work.”
“Work” to them is competing in a beauty pageant, or more commonly, using nothing but native charm and sex-appeal to get what they want. That’s a lot of work to them, and the ones who really hit it big like Sarah are thereby validated in their own “work ethic.”
cleek
Douthat is an idiot. not even a shill, just an idiot.
Allan
Occam’s Razor.
Sarah got a book deal worth lots and lots of $$$.
The Governor of Alaska is not allowed to earn income from outside work while in office.
Governor or $$$?
Asked and answered.
HRA
“The idea that women with a “major education” think they’re better than everyone else, have a great sense of entitlement, feel they deserve special treatment, and are too out of touch with the lives of “normal” women to have a legitimate point of view, is a 21st-century version of the long-held belief that education makes women uppity and leads them to forget their rightful place. It’s precisely the kind of thinking that has fueled Sarah Palin’s unlikely — and continued — ability to pass herself off as the consummately “real” American woman. (And it is what has made it possible for her supporters to discredit other women’s criticism of her as elitist cat fighting.)
[….]
This is why Palin — in her down-home aw-shucks posturing — is the 21st-century face of the backlash against women’s progress.”
I really thought I had seen the entire flotilla of excuses for Sarah Palin. This base idiotic slamming of women is the worse of the entire lot.
No, I never knew anyone like Sarah Palin. I grew up as a child of immigrant parents who never attained a full education in their native country. Yet, I could never ever consider them as inane or uneducated as Sarah Palin. From the time I grew up in my native country of Canada and came here to the U.S. with my parents as a preteen there is no one I knew who came close to Sarah Palin’s inability to speak well. It really is disturbing to realize she was never truly educated at all.
Lastly, I really thought Sarah Palin was basically acting during her campaign appearances and she was really not normally that way. Yes, I still believed she was hiding her true self during her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. July the 3rd proved she was not acting at all.
SarahLoving
Sarah Palin tweeted the following a little while ago:
More precious time, public & private resources wasted today w yet another frivolous false ethics charge, I’ll send presser. So sorry, Alaska
Is it me, or does her last comma imply that the state of Alaska is tweeting for her?
CT
Actually, Obama was helping another women down the steps (not that I’d begrudge him a peek, however)
devopsych
Ya know, I’m not that concerned about the fancy words these so called psychiatrists are using to attack me…this so called socialistpath…well, I’m here to tell ya, I’m walking a path for Alaska that has hardly anymore Putin Heads leering out at me anymore…you betcha. Also.
Fulcanelli
We could probably power the US well into the next century if we could just find a way to siphon off the energy that republicans put into maintaining their incessant victimhood from just one slow news week. Jeebus, what a pack of effin’ crybabies.
DFS
@Allan: Nobody ever got far as a pundit by relying on Occam’s Razor. Hard to fill out a word count that way.
devopsych
One thing that Cole seems to have carried over from his wingnut days is a fear of an open comment planet. It reminds me a bit of LGF. “Registration is now open. Now it’s closed. Ha, ha, ha, LOOSERS111!” Kinda cute. Not Tunch, Lilly cute, but…
Not really cute at all. Lame, actually.
Chi-city
I am all for competence. Competence from women, men, leaders, followers, etc. etc. I was all prepared to allow Sarah Palin show that she was competent. I know many people who went to state schools for more than 4 years, who are very bright and competent people. Sarah was given the national stage to make her case and she failed. Bottom line. With all of the available women to put on the Repub ticket they chose the salmon fisherwoman from Alaska. It still warms my heart.
Brachiator
@GeneJockey:
Uh, well, I question whether Senator Clinton deserved her appointment to Secretary of State, even though I note that Clinton is obviously far, far, far superior to Palin.
Clinton represents the romance novel fantasy that just because she was the wife of a talented, charismatic leader, she must somehow herself be as talented and charismatic as that leader himself. But no matter how you slice it, First Lady is not a constitutional office, does not make you co-president, and does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that you deserve any future appointment. Clinton’s work as senator was very good, but she is a plodding and uncreative Secretary of State when the state of the world demands something better.
Anne Laurie — Or that Clarence Thomas had better credentials than Sonia Sotomayor (or, for that matter, Harriet Miers …)
I agree that Thomas doesn’t measure up to Sotomayor. But Thomas was clearly superior to Harriet Miers, who was an earlier incarnation of Sarah Palin.
Loneoak — I think Warner is absolutely right that a good portion of Palin’s enthusiastic support is because she perfectly fits a symbolic niche of a powerful woman that doesn’t challenge the substance of the patriarchy one iota.
Huh? Palin’s biggest supporters preferred her to macho man War Hero(tm) John McCain, and voted for McCain only because Palin was on the ticket. They enthusiastically voted for Palin knowing that there was a possibility that she might have to fulfill McCain’s role should he be unable to complete his term.
Palin’s supporters saw her as superior to any male Republican candidate. This in itself was a challenge to the patriarchy.
People like Warner fundamentally misread the sea change that occurred in that millions of voters of both parties could easily imagine a woman becoming president, and enthusiastically embraced that possibility.
And no one viewed Palin’s husband as the power behind the throne or imagined that he would be co-Vice President had she won.
I don’t think much of Palin’s intellect and don’t agree with any of her values. But to assert that she would have been nothing more than a rubber stamp for the patriarchy is as insulting as suggesting that Obama is nothing but a rubber stamp for the White Man.
devopsych
Palin doesn’t want the job. She doesn’t want to be Governor of Alaska. She doesn’t want to be President, fer Christ sake. She wants to make Hannity, O’Billo, maybe even Limbaugh money. This is America, who can blame her. A job with responsibility? Fuck that.
Tommy
But… but… the “distilled” figure of speech was used here in Balloon Juice, on Sep. 12, 2008:
Jon H
OT: Dahlia Lithwick has a great post at Slate, detailing how the Ricci guy in the Ricci v. New Haven antidiscrimination case has a bit of a litigious history.
He got into the fire department in the first place by suing, claiming he (of 700-some applicants) didn’t get one of 40 jobs because he was dyslexic, and had noted that on his application. ie, he claimed discrimination.
He won, and got a job. But soon changed to another fire department in another town. Soon he was suing them, too. He lost.
Then he moved back to the New Haven fire department, and wound up suing.
JK
@Jon H: This is good info, I wasn’t aware of it. The Dems have to tread carefully though during his testimony, because the Repubs are going to paint this guy as a martyr.
@Brachiator: I always found it ironic that McCain’s military service wasn’t enough to establish his bona fides with the wingnuts. Yet, Sarah Palin wins their undying support, the second after McCain selects her.
@devopsych: I think Palin wants to be a kingmaker. I think she wants Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, etc to come to Wasilla, get on their knees, and beg for her endorsement.
inkadu
@Loneoak: What you said. When it comes to the frontiers of gender (or race politics), the important thing is to be a minority who is not threatening to the majority. Palin is not so much a “backlash against progress” as a representative of progress, albeit the limited progress of a conservative movement besotted with traditional gender roles. She is everything they want from a woman without anything that would make them uncomfortable. Just do a thought experiment and change things around: What if Palin had graduated from Harvard? What if she had never married? What if she had had a successful career as a lawyer? Any of those kinds of changes would be considered threatening.
@Brachiator: Yeah, I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. History is full of minorities who have risen to prominence by adopting the majority’s views; if they’re black, they are often called “Uncle Tom.” There are a few Republicans who are pro-Margaret Thatcher, for instance, was no friend to women. It is perfectly fair to say that Palin would not have upset the patriarchy one iota. Another thought experiment: Imagine a male pro-choice Republican. The base is upset. Imagine a female pro-choice Republican. The base is not just upset, it’s apoplectic.
Palin and Obama are not equivalent cases by any means. Obama has, like Palin, worked hard to downplay threatening aspects of his minority status, but he has also worked uphill to change the status quo. To say somebody is a tool for the man is not to say that every minority is a tool.
That you said that makes me both angry and sad.
Dennis-SGMM
@SarahLoving:
Don’t cry for me o Alaska
The truth is I never liked you
Then through my campaign
I saw the bright lights
I broke my promise
Now keep your distance…
JK
@Dennis-SGMM:
LOL
Justin
Palin is definitely the continuation of Bush, because like him the base feels like she’s “one of them” due to her religious and antiabortion “credentials,” unlike daddy Bush or McCain or Bob Dole, etc. That, and the fact that she will lie and act all moderate, plus her popularity in Alaska before the 2008 election, was why long before McCain ever picked her, I heard a story on NPR saying some in the GOP saw her as the future savior of their party.
As for the whole thing regarding those PUMA’s that have stars in their eyes for Sarah Palin, I think you’re simply confusing two different phenomena here, John (in the main post). Remember your basics: the Republicans will try any tactic, no matter how shameless or divorced from reality, to get power. Conservatives saw the outrage in the Clinton camp over perceived sexism and figured they could manufacture some sexism outrage that they could play off of and peel off a few Democrats (“lipstick on a pig” comes to mind). Just like right now they think they can use Palin to gain some working class credentials because she’s as stupid as they believe working class Americans to be. She’s basically their tool in a public relations campaign to sell policies to low and middle income Americans that benefit the super wealthy.
Lesley
I agree. If McCain or his team had never picked this nitwit, no one outside of Wasilla would even know she existed. She got lucky, THAT IS ALL. In every other respect, she’s a non-entity who has nothing of value to contribute.
She’s not worth a first, never mind second, glance.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
OT: From a poster at Kos, from a Time article about Goldman:
It’s from a comment in a diary at KOS about the talk regarding Goldman, the stolen code and frontrunning. One interesting thing I learned is that GS was charging some investors a premium to basically frontrun trades for their benefit (over that other investors in the firm). It’s a good read about a nightmare.
Justin
Palin is definitely the continuation of Bush, because like him the base feels like she’s “one of them” due to her religious and antiabortion “credentials,” unlike daddy Bush or McCain or Bob Dole, etc. That, and the fact that she will lie and act all moderate, plus her popularity in Alaska before the 2008 election, was why long before McCain ever picked her, I heard a story on NPR saying some in the GOP saw her as the future savior of their party. She is a tool, but perhaps a willing one.
As for the whole thing regarding those PUMA’s that have stars in their eyes for Sarah Palin, I think you’re simply confusing two different phenomena here, John (in the main post). Remember your basics: the Republicans will try any tactic, no matter how shameless or divorced from reality, to get power. Conservatives saw the outrage in the Clinton camp over perceived sexism and figured they could manufacture some sexism outrage that they could play off of and peel off a few Democrats (“lipstick on a pig” comes to mind). We should not be surprised that it worked on at least a few people; any good public relations campaign always does.
Keep an eye on the “class” rhetoric surrounding Palin. It’s always framed in terms of “culture,” with economics mostly sidelined. It’s the same old story, as JK and Loneoak stated above: sell policies that benefit super-rich old white men to the population using wedge issues like patriotism, religion/abortion, and class resentment–or at least divide their enemies enough that they may be conquered and the policies rammed through.
grumpy realist
The reason Palin sends a lot of women (myself included) ballistic is her willingness to milk (in all senses) men’s reaction to her sex appeal to the hilt while never understanding that governing is more than just one extended beauty pageant. The people who support her because “she’s just like me!” are voting for the dream that they themselves could magically be picked from the crowd of the Great Unwashed and Made Famous while never having put in the hard work. Nor has Sarah ever seemed to understand that at some point, you can’t get by on looks and sex appeal alone–you have to be competent at what you claim you are doing. For Sarah, being the (part-time) governor of a thinly populated state that was mailing out cheques from energy extraction taxes (at $140//bbl levels) was of course a piece of cake. Now when energy prices have cratered and Alaska’s economy is drifting onto the rocks–well, it’s not fun any more and people are being *mean* to her, so Sarah up and quits.
The only consolation I have is that as Sarah ages, using just her sex appeal will be less and less effective. Running around in short skirts and causing starbursts in Republican eyes may work for 2012. I doubt it will work as well for 2016. At some point, Sarah Winkin’ and Blinkin’ will be tagged as “mutton dressed as lamb” and be pitied, not considered “hot.”
(Not that there haven’t been tons of women in history who haven’t used their sex appeal to get places, but the ones who *remained* in positions of power definitely had brain-power as well. (E.g. Elizabeth I, Theodora, Empress Wu, Catherine the Great…) )
Leelee for Obama
I will admit I haven’t read all the posts, but, as a woman I must tell you that Palin’s aw-shucks populism makes me a bit ill. I have very little formal education, but I’m proud of the fact that I am not dumb as a pail of rocks. A woman who capitalizes in stupid sets all women back, and that is a crime in my eyes. She’s not really stupid, though I’m not sure she’s intelligent. This is a schtick, and she deserves to be squashed for it.
matoko_chan
“want her to be quiet and read some books so they can trot her out in 2014 or so, all refurbished and shiny, and use her like a tasp on the base somemore.”
But she doesn’t want that….
that would be too much work.
SarahLoving
@Dennis-SGMM: LOL!
Chasm
The GOP constructs it’s leaders around character points and symbolic imagery. When these leaders fail to fit into these pre-written narratives – and in Palins case it’s because she’s got her own con to run – the followers look around for other narratives to apply to the situation, to see if anything will stick. This is always the first step – never analyze a problem objectively, first look for a way to spin it into a pre-existing storyline. The default storyline for the last 50 years has been “blame the liberals” of course, so that’s the well they go to first. Douthat and Warner both think we judge leaders the way they have been taught to, so they will always look to ways liberals might hate her (if liberals were to think like conservatives), or ways in which her ‘symbolic’ image might resonate either negatively or positively to a segment of the electorate. They are incapable of, either though temperament or training, taking her character at face value. They cannot see her words and actions directly, but only through the lens of partisan politics and the approved plot points.
Will
I don’t think anything about Sarah Palin has ever been directed at women.