I suspect good progressives are too hip ever to have watched Judging Amy, but the new infotainment-friendly Sarah Palin strikes me as the runaway offspring that Tyne Daly was too embarrassed to tell Amy Brenneman and her siblings about…
Andrew Sullivan complains “She wants to be a celebrity, not a politician. And if she could get to be a politician using the prerogatives of a celebrity – and a propaganda channel like Fox News – she would be happy. That’s what’s at stake here – beneath this farce.” Which is a pretty good summary, assuming that the nouns in the second sentence got swapped in the heat of live-blogging: Palin wants to be a celebrity, and was willing to act out what she understood to be a politician’s role to get the prerogatives of celebrity. When Bill Kristol’s Cruise Ship of Fools Neocons breezed into Juneau, Palin had aged out of the beauty-queen pageantry competitions that seem to have been her formative social training, her unwillingness or inability to handle the tedium of actual governance had her underlings trembling on the edge of revolt, and her attempts to reclaim Modern Supermom status on her own or by proxy weren’t going so well. It was… providential!… that Someone should send unto her a Messenger, trailing clouds of astroturfing calculation, proclaiming that Sarah Palin could be chosen to stand among the Elect. For lo, all her life she had been journaling, recording both the firewood-stacking and the prayers that were the Aleph and Omega of her Real American(tm) small-town red-state life — and at last her determined piety was rewarded! Prosperity Gospel, unbelievers!
For in her latest incarnation, Sarah Palin represents an American stereotype at least as old as the Chatauqua circuit and as new as the American Idol wannabes who get showcased in the early episodes of each new season for their combination of fervent conviction and utter lack of talent. She wishes — she feels entitled — to be Famous, in the way a thirteen-year-old writing fanfiction understands “famous”: Everyone should know her name, and want to be just like her, and love her not for her talents or her achievements but just because she’s Sarah. After all, God wants her to be happy, and how can she be happy if she’s not famous?
I’m not an Oprah watcher, but I think Ms. Winfrey did a pretty good job of undercutting Palin’s “serious” pretentions here. The Sarah cut-n-pasting a word salad of political talking points and half-remembered celebrity tropes, seasoned with pageant-queen nods and tics, was not a politician or a writer or even an entertaining racouneur — she was a silly, self-involved, aging Tina Fey impersonator. Pathetic, and scary.
WereBear
So, what you’re saying is that our worship of Beauty Pageants has turned on us? That the contestants might take their poise, stage savvy, and 101 uses for petroleum jelly, and use it for EVIL?
DCFowl
Very of topic bit very important
The United State government is trying to shut down Youtube, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. If you are accused of down loading illegal material 3 time your houses access to the internet will be cut off.
gnomedad
The lack of talent, if that is the case, is not as disturbing as the belief in its irrelevance.
“Tina Fey impersonator” lolz! Also.
The Bearded Blogger
The development of Sarah Palin’s career is now at what is known as a strange attractor, a critical point in a dynamical system where small variations can cause wildly different outcomes. At this point, these and many other outcomes are just about equally possible:
a) Fox News Anchor
b) President
c) Porn
d) Country Music
e) Deserved, utter and complete obscurity
Trumandem
Ms. Laurie,
At the end of your piece you call Sarah, “pathetic and scary.” That’s not my take. For me she’s just creepy. Her syrupiness is pegged off scale sometime that makes it unberable for me to watch under normal circumstances. But listening to her speak is the real kicker. Its almost as though she’s spitting out disjointed thoughts without coherence and it up to you as the listener to discern her meaning. It takes real effort for me to listen to her more than 45 seconds. But in the moments I have triumphed more than 3 to 4 minutes I am somewhat dumbfounded that whatever she started out talking about has absolutely nothing to do with whatever her original thought was in the first place. The Oprah interview was a great case in point. Each question was answered the same way where at the end you find yourself going, “what?”
Saying she’s creepy is almost an understatement. But she does make my skin crawl. I guess I just don’t get the aesthetics that some see swirling around her. I just don’t….
The Bearded Blogger
@Trumandem:
As a teacher who, on occasion, gives oral examinations, and who has poor students, I can relate.
someguy
Couldn’t we find somebody else for today’s Two Minutes Hate? I’m getting *really* tired of this one. How ’bout the idiots at the American Cancer Society who are pushing mammograms in spite of the government finding that they aren’t necessary until 50?
WereBear
She is their Champion. She has what it takes (they aren’t sure what is is) to be their Avatar in the game of life. They don’t care that whatever she says makes no sense, because she says she is on their side, and thus becomes Dutiful Mother, Scornful Government Leader, and Oppressed Standard Bearer. The fact that she is none of these things matters not.
She has become the embodiment of their hopes and fears. The more the rest of the world recoils in puzzlement, the more she is beloved by those in her thrall. Because the less she actually does, the more she works for them, as their stand in on the world stage.
That is her talent. To appear as whatever the viewer wants to see. So she can never be True Sarah, whatever that might have been. Thus she easily shapeshifts from role to role while inhabiting none of them. She then corresponds perfectly to her fan’s view of her. She can be no more settled into a role than her fans can concieve of what these roles actually do.
In both cases, it would destroy the illusion.
John Starbuck
While this post does seem to capture her, I think the reason she is still on the front pages is due to the media’s treating everything, including the Presidency, like a Pro Wrestling contest. All show, no substance, which kind of describes most of the Village media’s coverage of everything.
JGabriel
Sully:
How is this any different from saying, “Palin wants to be Reagan”?
I’m sure that’s what Palin tells herself, that she’s the heir to Reagan (which is sadly true) but she’s more like W with boobs.
.
harlana pepper
I don’t know why this isn’t obvious to all. The endless speculation by the media about her political ambitions is ludicrous. I guess it will die down after the book furor does. And then she’ll get her own talk show. She just wants to be in the spotlight, she doesn’t care all that much about the context.
harlana pepper
Okay, Annie Laurie, I got through about 2 minutes of that before I just couldn’t take it anymore. My hat is off to you.
harlana pepper
@someguy: erhm, I was diagnosed with DCIS at 45, so . . .
anyway, perhaps you are just being snarky
JohnR
“..she’s more like W with boobs.”
except she’s even more lazy, vicious, pig-ignorant, delusional, self-absorbed and intolerant of disagreement than even Bush. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.
matoko_chan
No Dr. Cole….Kristol et all were never deluded about her “talents and virtues”. They knew from the start that she was unfit for the high office. Where they screwed up is they misjudged her malleability– she refused the role of Galatea to their Pygmalions.
The only way she could have made it into the oval office was riding on the coattails of Sick Grandpa before the electorate got a good look at her. Then they could have retro-terraformed her into a reasonable candidate.
Now cinderella will never get to the ball on time, and her path to the oval office lies through a thorny forest of media hostility and electoral suspicion.
And best of all, Sully and the rest of the Medjai stand at the gates of Hamunaptra with drawn swords, making sure Anck su-Naman can never return from the dead.
Macha Maguire
What’s striking about the Moosehunter (TM) is that she is a collector of titles in the way some men collect trophy heads. Her resognation speech on leaving office in Alaska was clear on that: she could do more good without being hampered by the ‘title’. She had never truly held the office, nor had any idea of what it might be about, save as a weapon with which to bludgeon those who displeased her.
It would be safe to say, that she saw the potential vice presidency as another title on the way and would treat the Presidency in exactly the same way.
Macha Maguire
@matoko_chan
you said,
R-Jud
She’s now a celebritwat like Paris Hilton and Octomom and those Goslin/Gosselin/whatever people. I don’t think she’s going to be a threat to the Republic in 2012, just the Republicans.
But dammit, with her being in the spotlight right now, Crazy Wingnut Uncle is guaranteed to bring her up over turkey next week. And Uncle from Alaska, who loathes Palin, will go nuts.
Exit me, stage left, to wash dishes.
Macha Maguire
hmmm
fail
try again
you said:
and Sully would seem to be alone
any better?
smiley
All this fretting about upping the recommended age for mammograms ignores the importance of breast self examination. I believe more cancers are found that way than by mammograms, I know three women who have had breast cancer and they all discovered it themselves. BTW, there is one method that’s been shown empirically to be more effective than the traditional method.
The Bearded Blogger
@R-Jud: Remember when Rush told wingnuts to vote for Clinton in the 2008 primaries? It’s time to return the favor: register as a republican, vote Palin (and any crazy teabagger candidate downticket you have the chance), vote dem in the generals.
Robin G.
…so Sarah Palin thinks she’s a Mary Sue?
Wow. I need more coffee before I can wrap my head around that one.
The Bearded Blogger
@DCFowl: Accused? or found guilty?
Also, link please
matoko_chan
Macha …..
I also see a concentrated effort of the part of the glibertarian posse to rehabilitate her….Douthat, Salam, Continetti, Lowry, etc.
I don’t understand the strategy…at this point she is a just a glossy candy shell full of electoral poison for the GOP.
She repells the demographics they need going into the 21st century…..college-educated, minorities, youth.
I can’t visual a gamespace where this is a payoff move for them.
Sure, she gives old white guys wood.
But that is a shrinking demographic.
The Bearded Blogger
@matoko_chan:
Win!
R-Jud
@The Bearded Blogger:
Heh, good idea. I’ve done this before, for a local election.
Alex S.
I think that her next step should be making a record – The Bearded Blogger @4 was faster than me though. Country music is an excellent choice. Although I could also imagine her doing cover versions of classics such as “I say a little prayer”, “Son of a preacher man” or “Bridge over troubled water”
R-Jud
@Alex S.: “Hey, Big Spender”. Possibly re-written as “Hey, You Betcha!”
Tom Degan
If you will be kind enough to allow me, I would like to propose a toast:
Here’s to Sarah Palin; may she never – EVER – go away.
I am going to go out on a limb here: No woman since Eleanor Roosevelt has done more to further the cause of progressive politics in the United States of America than our Sarah.
Don’cha just love her? I sure do!
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
matoko_chan
also, too…the whole thing about putting her life in gods hands…
lol
Jesus take the wheel.
Jesus is a pretty frackin’ bad driver…..he drove us into the ditch on Iraq, Af-Pak, and the economy…do you really think the American electorate is going to give him another try?
And I relly, relly wanted Oprah to ax her about creationism and teh Rapture.
Fail.
robertdsc
Pure gold.
matoko_chan
Dude, a cover of Jesus take the wheel.
except….i dont think she can sing.
Wasn’t her talent playing the oboe or something?
Violet
I don’t think she’ll become a talk show host. That would me she’d have to do work. She doesn’t like to work. She prefers to be the celebrated guest on the talk show host, where all she has do it talk.
She isn’t aging well. It’s only been a year and already she looks 3-5 years older to me. Her starbursts window is closing.
matoko_chan
yeah, she’s getting that crepey neck.
with any luck its early onset menopause and she’ll be post-menopausal by 2012.
Violet
@Violet:
Gawd, where is that edit button.
“She prefers to be the celebrated guest on the talk show host”
is supposed to be:
“She prefers to be the celebrated gusts on the talk show instead of the talk show host.”
But my earlier version was unintended comedy.
The Bearded Blogger
@Violet: If she doesn’t hurry, Vivid Video will withdraw the million dollar offer…
Violet
In other news, I just heard that Darth Cheney is supposedly endorsing Kay Bailey Hutchison for Governor in the race against Governor Good Hair Perry.
Ick.
Fulcanelli
Palin perfectly embodies the Republican model of the ideal political leader. She, like the delusional simpletons that adore her aren’t even remotely concerned with the work and tedious details of governing other than working to abolish it. And why would they?
If you fervently believe like Republicans do that government is the enemy and that less or even no government is the ultimate goal, why would you need to understand and master what you have no intention of ever doing?
Palin wants to be the ultimate pageant winner, the meta prom queen. It’s the attention, power to berate and abuse those who disagree with you and the ability to tell people what to do. It’s the ego, stupid.
The only upside to Palin ever being elected POTUS is watching her freak out at having her hair go gray at a blazing rate like every other President’s has.
Xenos
I made it to 1:01 on that video… hearing her stammer on the subjects of her journals, first patronizing her younger self for recording her thoughts and her memories in the ‘little diaries’ (he he), and then patronizing Oprah by going on about how, unlike Oprah, her journal entries were all butch and about hunting trips and macho activities, not faggy poetry or self-analysis or whatever faggy big-city people write about in their faggy journals… her disgust for everyone else, the revolting personality and toxic self-regard just makes me ill.
Maybe I am reading too much into this. I avoid this women for months, and then I think, ‘maybe she is not so bad, maybe I ought to cut her some slack, let’s just listen to a couple minutes of her speaking’ and it always turns out to be worse than I remembered and worse than I imagined.
Karen S.
@ Trumandem #5
I salute you, Trumandem. That’s longer than I’ve ever managed. For me, it’s the combination of the bizarre syntax and overall incoherence layered on top of the nasally, chirpy voice. The memory of her rallying her 2008 campaign audiences with cries of “Obama pallin’ around with terrorists” also short circuits my ability to stomach her for any length of time.
GranFalloon
Before the next stop on the book tour, someone should probably tell her that the logical line of work typically resultant from a “journalism degree” is not “journaling.” I.e., “What’s your degree in?” “Engineering.” “What do you do?” “You know, I engineer various things.”
I have a sneaking suspicion she actually means “scrapbooking,” and frankly I would terrified to look upon what consitutes home-n-hearth scrapbooking in her mind.
SpotWeld
@The Bearded Blogger: You could reasonably add to that list, that she could become the spokeperson for some charitable cause. There are plenty that are either apolitical or even right-wing that would be glad to have her reading thier copy.
Sadly, it also means she could probably do pretty darn well as a spokesperson for any number of lobbies as well.
SpotWeld
On further reflection, she should probably trying to take over Michale Steeles job.
Redshift
I will once a@Violet: I agree, she won’t end up in any job where she actually has to work. I predict she will run for the GOP nomination in 2012 just long enough that she can claim she was pushed out by the Republican establishment and/or because of the librul media working to destroy her, so that she can extend her victimization tour by several more years.
Redshift
Grr, edit button indeed. Ignore the extraneous bit at the beginning.
Butch
She’d need a week’s coaching just to recite the alphabet and yet, to some people (such as the rest of my family), she’s pure gold. I don’t get it.
Roland X
Wow. You make me feel bad for 13 year olds who write insert fic. At least they don’t hurt anybody, and you can stop reading their harmless Mary Sue fantasies any time you want without fearing for the Republic. (Not to mention that most of them grow up.)
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
Chad N Freude
@Redshift: I think this is very likely. The Sarah Palin Self-Pity Tour.
I don’t know why people gagged on the video. I thought it was hilarious — it looked to me like a dialog between Oprah and Tina Fey.
The Bearded Blogger
@SpotWeld: Big Oil. Pictures of Sarah in a not-so-pristine setting, with a helmet on, and a picture of an oil pump in the back. Totally.
...now I try to be amused
@Macha Maguire: Yep, Palin is W with boobs — she wants to hold the title that goes with the office, but she doesn’t want to do the job that goes with the office.
smiley
Via Digby, this quote from Palin:
Northern Observer
It’s funny this whole Palin thing.
I can see exactly what Kristol was thinking and why he was so turned on, so to speak. I am currently reading Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the unmaking of the American consensus and I am convinced that Little Willy Kristol though he had another golden conservative Avatar on his hands, a female Goldwater that he could play WF Buckley to on the pages of the Standard. But you know what they say history repeats itself the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce and Palin/Kristol/GOP is vaudville slapstick compared to Goldwater/Buckley/GOP. She just hasn’t mastered the materail the way the Arizon superstar had. Despite what she says conservatism is not in her blood, the way it was in the blood of the conservative political generation that came of age in the 60s. She’s knows the lingo from reading it and imitating it, but she hasn’t lived it or belived it organically. She hasn’t run a company that busted union heads or had a father that crusaded against communism and brought her up to do the same, nope she is really rather ordinary and mordern in that sense with more in common with Oprah then any great conservative leader. She doesn’t have the legs. What is different from the 60s and what explains her enduring popularity and presence is that the public has changed, in particular the wingnut public has grown much larger than it was in the 60s and much more directed rather than the sui generis liberal haters of the past. There is a giant mass of right wing sheep out there that eat their fox daily and believe what they are told to believe; it is this dumbed down electorate that keeps Palin afloat. What a legacy for conservatism. What a legacy.
mistersnrub
Palin is the perfect model for the Neo-con President. Reagan set the template, and Bush followed. Basically, they want an infallible Executive Branch with limitless powers. But, they don’t want those powers under the control of someone, who, you know, wants to govern effectively. No, they want to place a simpleton “in charge” as the titular President who connects with all the yokels but who lacks any and all critical thinking ability and will do as they are told by AEI Heritage, Bill Kristol etc.
Demo Woman
@smiley: WTF?? I did not read the entire quote but it sounds like Sarah wants to eat a few folks. Does she want her real Americans rare or well done?
The Bearded Blogger
@smiley: That’s dumb enough to be deep… like an anti-zen that is zen.
If god didn’t intend for us to burn fossil fuels, how come he made our engines run on them?
If god din’t intend for us to invade foreign nations, how come he put fossil fuels beneath them?
DEO
Palin is a tap dancing vaudeville act who is doing the shimmy to the tune of KA-CHING!
Sarah Palin/Fabio 2012!
Savage Henry
This was made of pure win.
rachel
@Robin G.: Yes, and like most Mary Sues, everybody who cares about the canon* detests her.
*The U.S. Constitution and laws, in this case.
Svensker
@Violet:
Getting better, but not quite there yet….
Redshift
@smiley: The worst part about that quote is not the “make them out of meat” part, which is just lifted from a redneck bumper sticker (Palin rule #1: never do your own work when you can lift someone else’s), but the fantasy about throwing it in the faces of people who have different beliefs.
I’d dearly love to see her asked “so if you had Jews over for dinner, would you ask them the same thing about pork?”
OriGuy
@someguy: My sister won’t turn 50 for another six months. Two months ago, a mammogram found a lump the size of a pea that wouldn’t have been found by self-examination. They removed it and found it to be malign. She just had her second round of chemo and shaved her head because the hair falling out itched so much. They’ve found no cancer in the surrounding tissue. Should she have waited to have a mammogram?
twiffer
@The Bearded Blogger: dude, that’s a spambot.
CalD
Well, duh!
Johnny Pez
@harlana pepper:
That’s it! Sarah Palin is Madonna!
Have you ever seen the two of them together?
norbizness
Whom are you obliging?
Kitty C
For all you Palin/Bush haters, I have discovered the reason for your hate: Your Jeaolus.
Excuse me now, I have to mail in my $100 to SaraPac and get my signed copy of her new book.
Brachiator
@matoko_chan:
I’ve noted before that there are a number of women who both like and identify with Palin. I didn’t record her Oprah appearance, but I now I am curious to know how the audience reacted to her.
It’s all fine to snark about Palin’s appeal to guys with sparkles in their eyes, but this underestimates her and misses what some of her more fervent supporters see in her.
debbie
I think Oprah did a decent enough job with Palin. It’s about as realistic to have expected a hardcore journalistic interview as it would be to expect Andrew Sullivan to bring about world peace.
I was surprised to hear Palin say she’d expected the Republicans to lose the election because of the economy and being seen as status quo. It would have been much easier for her to blame it on liberal lies or the unfair press — she even took some of the blame upon herself. It also would have scored her extra points with her base. I’d bet they didn’t appreciate hearing about her considering abortion.
Palin had what is probably the largest worldwide audience she’s had to date, and she chose not to get shrill about it. She could have taken the opportunity to get all star-bursty and wingnutty, but she likely realized this was an opportunity to be seen as serious.
I don’t like her, but she did a better job than I’d expected her to. Maybe at long last, she’s gotten a decent adviser.
Liberty60
I finally realized that Palin is representing the new version of the old George Wallace 1968 constituency; the rural white working class, seething with resentment and fear of the dark-skinned Other, the “pointy-headed intellectual city elite who would presume to take away “their America”.
Oh, and if you are a Eisenhower vintage conservative, and want to tear your hair out with rage and frustration to the point of weeping in despair at what has happened to what was once a fine political movement?
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WonM34-OpuY
matoko_chan
The only women that like and identify with Palin are RTLbots, women over 65, WEC women, polyg women, mormon women, K-Lo catholic women and teh non-college educated.
If Oprah’s demographic is older white housewives, shez a lock.
Dusty
That’s become the standard talking point. McCain was ahead in the polls until the economy collapsed. Of course, his brief lead just happened to coincide with the standard convention bounce that everybody gets and it started to fade about when you’d expect a convention bounce to fade. Pretending the lead was something real allows people to argue that Palin gave the ticket a boost, but it just wasn’t enough in the face of the economy and anti-incumbency.
matoko_chan
Yeah, that too…..white women, brachiator.
But not young white women.
Palin is a glossy candy shell filled with electoral poison for the demographics the GOP needs to be relevent in the 21st century–
youth, college-educated, and minoritities.
Read ’em and weep.
Palin is the candidate of the WECs (white evangelical christians).
WECs are 20% of the electorate and prolly 90% of the GOP.
Lori
I loved Judging Amy! I guess I’m an unhip progressive.
I didn’t see Palin on Oprah, but my Mom did, and she was telling me that Palin did really well. Now Mom is fairly progressive and she was apalled when McCain chose her to run with him. Now all of a sudden, “Sarah’s not so bad”? Holy moly, can this woman actually rehabilatate herself? It’s just scary.
Colin Laney
It doesn’t matter that Palin doesn’t have a realistic shot at the nomination; running for president is a lucrative gig in and of itself. Pat Buchanan ran for president. Jesse Jackson ran for President. George Wallace ran for president for years and years. Running for president will get Palin a generous expense account, TV time, book sales, and the opportunity to be adored. She can even pay herself a salary out of campaign funds.
And it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t have big money backers. The teabagger mailing list will provide.
maya
I was always confused as to whether I should be Judging Amy, Crossing Jordan, or,Watching Ellie.
Now I’m supposed to be Suffering Sarah?
licensed to kill time
@maya:
You should be Breaking Bad Mad Men until they Rescue Me The Prisoner from the Insane Clown Posse Palin Lovers as pissed out by Incontinetti Idiocracy Pundits.
I was going somewhere with that…ran outa steam.
pcbedamned
Since I am not a progressive, I guess it is safe to say that I love Judging Amy. Watch it on reruns at midnight every night, and I am waiting for it to finally be released on DVD. But then again, my favorite show in the world is Boston Legal, so I guess that explains it all – I even named my newest pup Denny Crane :)
Mayken
@harlana pepper: Yeah, my mother was 46 the first time so… the gubmint can go FU on this one for all I care. It’s apparently a difference of 600 lives. 600! That sounds worth it to me!
Elie
You guys love this, be honest. It allows us all to sharpen our little teeth on a person so sad that she sets herself up for the abuse because she needs the attention so badly. Anything for celebrity.
We are her serial abusers and she is the willing victim and enabler to the psychodrama. We comfort ourselves that she deserves it because of her greediness for “fame” and celebrity. She is just trying to fill that hole inside.
We all know, of course, deep down, we are kicking the neighborhood “dummy”. She should be nothing to us, nothing to this country. The media and blogs are fanning her to greater outrageousness — it sells copy and gets hits. She flails onward through her lies and crazy talk. But still, she staggers back into the ring, bloody and punch drunk and of course, we are going to whip her ass some more…
Brachiator
Don’t confuse Palin’s appeal with women with the general GOP lack of appeal to changing demographics and, well, almost anybody. This is why I was curious as to the audience reaction to Palin. Oprah’s audience is not the same as the GOP’s target audience.
I noted that when Palin came to Southern California after winning the VP slot, a lot of women came out to see her, and this group was young, diverse and not overwhelmingly evangelical. What I found amazing was how blind the GOP was to Palin’s wider appeal, and how stupidly they turned their back on people who were willing to listen to their message. If Palin really went rogue, and broke free of her neo-con handlers, she might make things interesting in the future.
Also, the Democrats are living in a dream world if they think that they have future votes locked up, if they fail to deliver substantively on their promises or solve the nation’s problems. The Republicans are clueless clowns, but they are being helped mightily by the Democrats’ inability to get their act together.
Brachiator
@Brachiator:
Wow. block quote and I went rogue in my previous post.
Elie
Brachiator:
I hear and agree with your point about the Democrats to some extent at least.
That said, my concern is that the bar for “solving the nation’s problems” can be set pretty high by not only the right, but the left…
None of the problems before us can be solved cleanly, in short time frames by fiat from above. All of the problems involve the development of consensus among factions with extreme stands on what is “right” to do and therefore solving the problems by each of the factions’ point of view might be pretty difficult to do.
Our economy is going to suck for a while and we are going to be shrinking our place in the world’s leading economies. That we all know but there is no easy way to understand or mitigate that jobs are just not going to be there and not going to pay what they did. We still also have the corrupt people from the old infrastructure everywhere, still influencing the system and the nature of decisions coming down. No way to just get rid of all of them…like closing off a bleeding wound, we have to apply pressure and stem the loss of our economic and political blood incrementally — tightenning the tourniquet and hopefully setting up a way to put in new structures and people.
I know that you know that having read your posts. Just saying though that “delivering” is both long and drawn out and uncertain of necessity during this huge transformation. I guess that I would like to see our more thoughtful people help to promote that awareness, at least on our own side. That or we reject all these efforts for healthcare, economic reform in their infancy because they are not “good enough”, and without acknowledging that the process for getting “good enough” is incremental and has to be maneuvered around many barriers and old paradigms. As a country we accomodated a great deal of corruption and exploitation and set the system that produces outputs that reflect that. We now have to clean it up and put in place something else that reflects other values. Please reflect that knowledge in your thinking, rather than, if we don’t have it right by 2010, we give up and kick these guys out.
pcbedamned
@Kitty C:
Honey, don’t waste your time. Although I too like Palin, blog etiquette states don’t piss off the natives. Take it to Hot Air where being a bitch is a requirement…
master c
Kitty C give me the info, I want to donate too.
“your” barkin up the wrong tree
debbie
@Lori:
I’d bet that was because your mom’s expectations were so low. I know mine were. Like I said, her not being shrill was a welcome relief; however, she always blamed someone else for the problems she experienced. For instance, it was Katie Couric’s fault the interview went poorly; she didn’t accept responsibility for anything.
Oprah’s audience was all kinds of women — younger, older, and all kinds of ethnicities and races. They neither over- or under-applauded. It seemed to me as if they may have been coached beforehand.
Just because Palin acquitted herself well on Oprah does not mean she’ll make a good candidate. She lacks both substance and integrity.
Demo Woman
@Kitty C: Nah! Some of us actually think Sarah is a lying bitch who whines. Congrats on putting your money where your mouth is though. Sarah
doesdid the same thing by taxing the oil companies and spreading the wealth among the citizens of Alaska. (for a second I forgot she quit that job)ANNE, Judging Amy was great. There were several memorable episodes but I loved when Tyne Daly pulled out the banana to show how to put on a condom.
Paul in KY
Her father & mother must have been some kind of whackjobs for her to end up like this.
licensed to kill time
I watch Sarah Palin in the same way that one rubbernecks a car crash – in horrified fascination. I always have the hope that she’s gonna flame out right on the teevee, though her resignation speech came pretty damn close. To those who think we are “afraid” of her, I can only say HA! Dream on…
gex
What’s sad is that I think the party members who continue to support her do so only because they cannot admit how unfit she is for any serious office after having proposed her for the second highest office of the land. They do that and they have actually admitted that they didn’t care what they did to the country. If they admit no error, then clearly, no error was made.
The base? Well, they need something to get them riled up between catfish noodling sessions.
Brachiator
@Elie:
First of all, Obama set the bar high. And events set the bar high. Iraq and Afghanistan were big messes and the economy was tanking. The Republicans, who began the Bush Era with the bold declaration that they were smarter, better, more ethical and more religious than their opponents were reduced to the weak plea, “vote for us because we’re not Democrats.” But the country lost faith with them and the simplistic BS they were peddling and kicked them to the curb. Not surprisingly, they haven’t learned anything from this.
The Democrats spent the better part of the decade waffling between “the bad Republicans wont’ let us play with them” and “we have to go along with the GOP because we are afraid to look bad or unpatriotic in front of the voters.”
No one is expecting problems to be solved cleanly or quickly. But over time, the average Joe and Jill are expecting to have a little more money in their pocket and the prospect of a better job down the road, some substantive improvement in their lives. And by the way, for example, the promise of better health care in 2013 is an idiotic compromise that will come back to haunt the Democrats even if health care reform passes without much further dilution.
But in different ways, both parties have become accustomed to offering lies and excuses to stay in office after they have won an election. Inside the Beltway, among the pundits, the handlers, the lobbyists, the White House press corps, and the professional campaign consultants, the soft nonsense they speak among themselves counts as hard truths.
Everywhere else, it’s a feeble excuse. The Democrats can cry “we gave you something” all they want. If the voters say, “I expected something more. I expected something better,” there is no amount of explaining about incrementalism or the mysterious ways of the insider that will be able to save them, nor will sheer demographics let them cover their asses
Elie
Brachiator:
You may be right. But that will pretty much assure that no one else will ever try to change something complex for the better. Only easy, quick, obvious fixes will be attempted since there will be no benefit to anyone trying something where the outcome either has some mixed blessings or takes a while to play out. Since most of our really bad problems don’t fall into the category of easy fixes, I guess future elected leaders will just wiffle and look the other way until the problems get passed onto the next guy.
Tell me, what pay off would there be for trying to do something if only complete, undisputed success by all sides is acknowledged?
Do you not see the irony of expecting a fix in even four years of problems that took decades to set up. And if people as bright as you can’t make the argument for how change works fairly, and readily capitulates to those who just demand — what hope will there be to make the argument more broadly of what it takes to make important change? How will we recruit people to take on the difficult and perhaps long running issues? How do we deal with a bevy of intractable problems from the environment, where only the word “sacrifice” clearly conveys what is needed to turn things around? If we can’t wait one year, much less four to start healthcare in the right direction, how can we do those things that will require even greater sacrifice over longer term?
Talk shapes thinking and thinking shapes talk. Please consider the impact of what you are saying. If what you say is true, we will be unable to do much of anything about anything, except for the easiest and most short term little things.
tillkan
I am a lefty who loved Judging Amy. I feel bad for those great actors who are on crummier shows now.
Anne Laurie
@GranFalloon:
Actually, when Palin chirped, “I have a journalism degree — I’ve journaled all my life!”, I got the distinct impression that she considers “writing news” to be “Dear Diary, today I went on Oprah, wore my new teal suit, portrait collar very flattering, everybody clapped sooo much! ! ! Must remind hair gal to use less volumizer next time, O very well-spoken for a liberal, but Willow needs to use more blush if they’re going to keep panning the cameras on the kids, which I think was kind of disrespectful but y’know, Media! ! !” Because if it’s not All About Sarah, she’s just not interested.
But it does help explain why Camille Paglia is so infatuated with her — Palin’s book tour is shaping up to be the kind of triumphal march Paglia always wanted & failed to attain via her “scholarship”.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Uh, no. Half measures only satisfy those who are already comfortable and those who have given up. Bold measures have been tried successfully in the past. Bold measures are needed again.
The problem today is that too many politicians play at change while doing nothing. They fool themselves into believing that they will do better in their next term, and that’s whey they need to be in permanent campaign mode, why they need a few million more in contributions.
Ironically, Dubya made bold changes and dared the Democrats to defy him. His bold changes led to economic disaster and a pointless, wasteful war.
The only question, the only question that matters to me is whether the Democrats have the guts to even attempt bold solutions. What I have seen to date is close to the stasis described in Yeat’s Second Coming:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
When the Democrats led the way on Medicare, the battle was long and hard fought. And yes, compromises were made. But the end result was pretty damn good. No one settled for “let’s get any piece of crap that we can, and fix it later.”
Funny. There was no shortage of people willing to join on the Obama Administration. There still are people willing to sign on. The problem may be some of the old Clinton holdovers and Democratic Party regulars who are so quick to advise caution and slow going.
I’m not really interested in trying to explain how change works. This is not the same thing at all as trying to get something done.
By the way, I think that Obama recognizes this to some degree, and he has been clear in noting the difficulty of the task. I even expect him to stumble. FDR didn’t come up with every Depression Era program overnight, and Bill Clinton — who was a lot more successful than even some liberals give him credit for — abandoned a lot of his early program goals (can you say BTU tax). But FDR and Bill Clinton, LBJ and Harry Truman, found ways to pivot around their opponents, and didn’t get caught up in capitulation and hesitation or the prefabricated belief that half measures and weak feints are just substitutes for effective policy.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
Palin believes that just because she wrote in one of those stupid little lock-and-key diaries (that everyone’s grandmother gave them for birthdaysmeans that her becoming famous and influential was “providential.” Seriously??!? Apparently she really does think she’s the Second Coming. You betcha, also.
Next thing you know Palin going to say that she speaks for God and that God speaks to her, therefore her word is God’s word and that speaking out against her is speaking out against God. Conservatives don’t scare me but theocrats posing as garden variety conservatives do.
What a ridiculously absurd, self-centered delusional person. Maybe it’s because I’m an atheist but whenever I come across someone saying that God chose them to do something special, that God speaks to them, etc., I can’t help but think they belong in a mental hospital.
zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
@elie
Brachiator
@zoe kentucky in pittsburgh:
Yikes! Now I will definitely have to watch excerpts of her Oprah appearance. And probably her upcoming 20/20 appearance.
The weird thing is that I’m not sure that she is fake or insincere, although she certainly is shallow. Even more strange is the fact that her appeal is real and strong among a small, devoted set of acolytes. And that “God’s will” thing just seals the deal for them big time. Also, too.
Elie
Zoe:
We are “serial abusers” in the most euphemistic sense. We hurt her, over and over. This is something she seems to want as an exchange for celebrity.
We know that our comments and observations about her hurt at some level. In her place, you might feel hurt being on the receiving end of the comments and articles. But she keeps coming back for more. That to me is very sad and mimics the interaction of abusers and their victims — right along with the enabling by the “victim”..
Please do not construe from my comments that I am a Palin supporter. I am not — ABSOLUTELY not.
That said, you always wonder about the impact of kicking the stupid kid – the crazy kid — is it on them — or is it on US? She cant really help herself — Not sure that describes us — or does it?
Elie
Brachiator:
“Ironically, Dubya made bold changes and dared the Democrats to defy him”
No disagreement there. The nature of his “boldness” though involved relatively straightforward decisions. Go to War!!! Cut Taxes!!!
He didnt do too much else.
Everything else we face and everything being proposed is way more complex now: How do we give health care to all and do it without breaking our budget forever? How do we implement this in a way that gives everyone access without a lot of crazy loopholes? We have to have universal winners. In tax cuts, only the poor are losers, and to them, who cares? War was waged and documented by purposely restricting access to photos of caskets and losses. Our soldiers had to buy their body armor… When servicemen came home, they received shit care…but no one complained.
The left documented these abuses relatively quietly. Yeah, our blogs had heart wrenching posts and comments, but no one seemed to threaten the ol status quo. We called Dubya a few names, but everything was pretty low key
Now we have an administration trying to weigh the best solution for Iraq and Afghanistan, horribly complex and fucked up from the beginning…trying to get healthcare for all — yes imperfectly…and it seems that from their perspective, why even try? Efforts have beeen met with nothing but raw accusations of “Not good enough”… we are going to kick you out in 2012 because your efforts in our fucked up system, did not result in perfection of the nature we believe is necessary. In essence, we would rather risk having back the right winged assholes that made this mess, than supporting your imperfect results”
Am I wrong? If not, what indeed are you saying?
Elie
Brachiator:
“I’m not really interested in trying to explain how change works. This is not the same thing at all as trying to get something done.”
Ha,ha,ha,!!! Please explain what you mean? If how change works has no relation to getting stuff done, only you can explain the lack of relation.
I am all ears…
Brachiator
@Elie:
RE: “Ironically, Dubya made bold changes and dared the Democrats to defy him”
Just not true. We are so used to a lot of the crap that Bush pulled, that we ignore how transformative it was. We also ignore how craven the Democrats have been, which makes their current timidity so infuriating.
Dubya and his crew set about dismantling much that had been accomplished since the end of WW II. Dubya let the drug industry write tax law. With compassionate conservatism, he sent tax dollars to churches. He crippled, stalled or rendered inert environmental legislation. With signing statements and other gimmicks, he shifted more power to the Executive branch than the Constitution allows (so much for strict construction). Through overt acts and acts of omission, Dubya gutted financial market enforcement.
And we didn’t just go to war. Dubya tossed aside decades of law and custom relating to treaties and our relationship with other countries.
There is a new thread noting how the Republicans are finally starting to allow a vote on some of Obama’s judicial appointments. The background to this is again how the Democrats capitulated and let the Republicans have their way when Bush was in office.
And of course, even when Bush was opposed, he simply re-nominated the same candidate, appointed the person to another job, or used a recess appointment to get his people in.
And he didn’t spend a second explaining to the American people how change was “hard.”