Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Bark louder, little dog.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

He really is that stupid.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

I really should read my own blog.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Everybody saw this coming.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sexomatic Venus Freaks

Sexomatic Venus Freaks

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I thought that the Vanity Fair profile of Palin was awful, filled with poorly sourced speculation about how much she tips and how she treats her staff; Steve M. nails it when he says it’s the kind of crap that is usually written about Democrats like John Kerry. That said, I thought it was quite strange that Palin struck back at the reporter who wrote it by calling him “limp” and “impotent” (there was some unfortunate speculation about Palin’s sex life in the article, but it was pretty tame, relative to the rest of the article).

Coming on the heels of Meghan McCain’s “dirty, sexy” book, the yuk-yuk about Michelle Bachmann’s gay-curing hubby, and Christine O’Donnell’s anti-masturbation jihad, it’s hard not to see a pattern: take a young, ostensibly attractive, Republican woman and have her or her surrogates talk about sex all the time.

I can’t remember seeing anything quite like this in politics before in this country.

Reader Interactions

115Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    and Christine O’Donnell’s anti-masturbation jihad,

    Good God. I am donating to her opponent, post haste.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    My sympathy for the grifter Palin is remarkably limited, as one might guess.

    Still, it’s interesting that she immediately struck back, in her trademark “neener neener” fashion which her cretinous fanbase loves, instead of the dignified, but ineffective “just ignore the dumbass” technique that John Kerry opted for that helped sink his campaign.

  4. 4.

    Tommy

    Generally speaking I am a big tipper. I dislike folks that are not. However, when I read in a story a politician, actor, or sports personality doesn’t tip well it is a “red flag” for me to question everything else about the story.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Hard for me to feel any sympathy for Lady Quittah. I plan on reading that article today.

    Meghan McCain was on “Wait, Wait…” this morning. She’s just as annoying as you’d think. It was pointed out that there’s very little sex in the book, but what a catchy, hip, edgy, provocative title! She’s changing the party you know. It will be very hip and edgy and sexy and provocative to be a young Republican now.
    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years. It’s the family version of Rudi Giuliani’s 9/11 Tourette’s.

  6. 6.

    JGabriel

    Corner Stone:

    Good God. I am donating to her opponent, post haste.

    Whoa, hit the pause button there. Do you mean her primary opponent or general election opponent?

    Right now, O’Donnell is primarying Mike Castle in DE. If Castle wins, the GOP probably wins the Senate seat. If O’Donnell wins, the Democrats probably get to keep the seat – Delaware, a very blue state, would never elect a teahadist in the general.

    So, feel free to donate to the Democratic nominee, the unfortunately named Chris Coons. But I’d hold back from helping Castle.

    .

  7. 7.

    Napoleon

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years. It’s the family version of Rudi Giuliani’s 9/11 Tourette’s.

    Seriously, did she say that? I have to wait until they play it tomorrow on my local NPR station to hear it.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years.

    That makes remarkably little sense.

  10. 10.

    Lincolnshire Poacher

    Interesting indeed. Talk up the sexy angle of politicians and then move to ban all craigslist adult services. Sexy is OK, but only if you are a Republican and it is in a heterosexual way.

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    @JGabriel: Umm, yeah. A little quick on the draw there *ahem*.
    I mean I want to make sure she is impotent in elected politics moving forward.

  13. 13.

    Starfish

    @Tommy: Is this because people who have a lot of interactions with service people will have occasional anomalies in their tipping habits because someone didn’t realize they were supposed to tip or because someone forgot their wallet or because someone is an attention whore?

    Wasn’t there some diner that complained when Obama was on the campaign trail that his group left no tip because whoever was supposed to leave the tip didn’t realize that it was their responsibility? Then there are the stories like Paris Hilton gives $100 to a homeless guy but only when the paparazzi happens to be there to notice.

    Is that why these things make everything else in a related story suspect?

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Time in a POW camp being tortured shows only that you are capable of enduring suffering, not that you are capable of inflicting it. In addition, the fact that people are scared of her dad doesn’t explain why she doesn’t talk about her sex life; rather, it is a possible explanation for her not having one.

  17. 17.

    Corner Stone

    Man, the part in “Pale Rider” where Eastwood first shows up and bashes those thugs with an axe handle may be the best 4 minutes in modern filmology.
    I love it when he throws the bucket of water on that General Stuckesque douchebag.
    It’s about to happen in a couple minutes on TNT if anyone cares to watch.

  18. 18.

    JGabriel

    Starfish:

    Is that why these things make everything else in a related story suspect?

    Partly. Those kind of stories, which echo common smear jobs, certainly don’t help.

    The other problem is that Gross claimed that many people wouldn’t comment on the record, for fear of being targeted by Palin. Now, by itself, that doesn’t sound unreasonable – Palin, aka Sarah Barracuda, has a self-cultivated reputation for vindictiveness.

    But it raises a flag, and many people (including me) don’t know enough about Gross’s prior work to assess his reliability. Couple that with the questionable anecdotes, and, yeah, that makes the story suspect.

    .

  20. 20.

    JGabriel

    Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Hard for me to feel any sympathy for Lady Quittah.

    It’s less a matter of sympathy for Bible Spice, and more a matter of ensuring that we don’t fall prey to the same levels of confirmation bias prevalent on the right.

    .

  21. 21.

    demo woman

    Rove’s playbooks says always strike back no matter how inane the accusation is. Everyone knows that sex is a dirty subject so by painting your foe in dirty sexy terms it not only demeans them, it paints a disgusting picture for your base. They would never click to the Vanity Fair article for fear of going to hell or someplace worse.
    FYI..I’m using the term everyone liberally.

    Edit: as one of our great posters said it is no longer Sarah Palin, it’s Snowflake Snooki.
    By the way, whoever came up with the term, I just want to let you know Snooki is insulted.

  23. 23.

    wasabi gasp

    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years.

    All the fellas come down with instant heebie jeebies when asked to rub out a cross in her sandy vagina.

  24. 24.

    karl

    For the record: I delivered a pizza to Meghan McCain at the McCain supercondo in Phoenix a few years ago; she tipped well and looks better in person. There was absolutely no talk about sexual matters.

    Glad I could clear that up for you.

  25. 25.

    maus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years.

    How funny, I dislike her family because they’re all cowards who are what they are only because of their respective daddies.

  26. 26.

    Ailuridae

    @JGabriel:

    Its also just about decency, right? What the press did to Al Gore and John Kerry wasn’t just wrong because it was “our” side but because it was just wrong, right?

    The only possible “good” the VF article can serve is that some of the sources or people with inside knowledge could actually come on record stating things clearly about Palin (if they are true).

    But, for anyone who cares about truth or the press to be celebrating this while not realizing it is not better sourced than a ScaifeWater piece disappoints me.

  27. 27.

    licensed to kill time

    __

    it’s hard not to see a pattern: take a young, ostensibly attractive, Republican woman and have her or her surrogates talk about sex all the time.

    I love the qualifier ‘ostensibly’ because it is so true.

    And now the Funkytown refrain is looping through my brain:

    ♫ well they talk about it talk about it talk about it talk about it ♪

  29. 29.

    Violet

    Don’t forget Nikki Haley, Republican candidate for Governor of North Carolina, and supposed serial-adulterer. More sex and teh GOP hawt wimmens.

    I thought it was quite strange that Palin struck back at the reporter who wrote it by calling him “limp” and “impotent”

    It’s not strange at all if you look at her track record. She’s a bully and she struck back at a man in the way she thought would hurt him the most.

    Sarah is a Mean Girl. It’s obvious in how she carries herself, her body language, her voice inflection, not to mention her writings (or should I say “her” writings) and actions (getting Trooper Wooten fired because he was mean to her sister). It’s hardly a surprise that people wouldn’t speak on the record. It’s a small community. People don’t want their lives destroyed by that vindictive harpy and her minions.

    If you’ve been following Palin closely at all, nothing in that article was much of a surprise. Nothing at all.

  30. 30.

    General Stuck

    @Corner Stone:

    I love it when he throws the bucket of water on that General Stuckesque douchebag.

    Up and firebagging even on a thread trying to attack the wingnuts, who are our real enemy, you just can’t help but run your puke funnel. Maybe you should join fellow ratfucker Lobslaw doing the same thing in the Al Giordano thread.

  31. 31.

    bootsy

    I believe what the Vanity Fair piece says about Palin’s personal unpleasantness, because it matches her political recklessness and selfishness. Anyone who helps gin up Islamophobia, supports broad-brush racism, and thinks sexually-assaulted women should pay for their own rape-kit is exactly the type of person who tips horribly and behaves vindictively towards her own staff.

    Pardon my reflexive belief that anyone who defends the sacred right of white people to say “N***” and get paid for it on the public airwaves is also just a piece of shit in general.

  33. 33.

    Ailuridae

    @Corner Stone:

    Well, folks here are, indeed, often quoting the wisdom of Harold Ford. He does show up in positive pieces by front pagers more often than Paul Krugman or Brad DeLong or Dean Baker or the Galbraith that isn’t the war profiteer.

    Oh wait, none of that is true.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    @Ailuridae: Well, Harold Ford by himself is dubious at best when it comes to advice. But when he’s joined by Michael Powell?
    Gold. Pure gold.

  36. 36.

    Linda Featheringill

    The Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin:

    To me, it looked like the main point of the piece was the emotional instability of the subject.

    This, of course, might be difficult to prove and really hard to disprove.

    But what if the writer is correct?

  38. 38.

    Cain

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years. It’s the family version of Rudi Giuliani’s 9/11 Tourette’s.

    Sure man, it makes sense. Reading about your daughter’s sex life is just like re-living the torture that you went through in Vietnam. In fact it’s worse!

    cain

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    @Ailuridae:

    It’s also just about decency, right?

    It’d be nice to think so. Given the subject of the piece, Sarah Palin, popularizer of phrases like death panels and friend of terrorists, it’s really hard to make “decency” a priority.

    There are better reasons to question the accuracy and good faith of Gross’s article than a “decency” that Palin herself would never deign to observe or reciprocate.

    .

  40. 40.

    Admiral_Komack

    After all the untrue and despicable things the Republicans/teabaggers have said about President Obama, I have no problem with the Vanity Fair article; in fact, I enjoyed it.
    I would like to see more stories exposing the Quittah from Wasilla.
    Also.
    Too.

  41. 41.

    Violet

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    She says the reason she doesn’t talk about her own sex life on the campaign trail is that guys are intimidated because her dad was tortured for five and a half years.

    She has to have a reason why she doesn’t talk about her own sex life? Isn’t the default not talking about your own sex life? Or has that changed?

  43. 43.

    Batocchio

    The VF piece had some decent tidbits, but mostly it was pretty weak, the tipping thing especially. I buy its overall depiction – Sarah Palin is a grifter, and much nastier than her public persona, which is already nasty. Her fans have a cult-like devotion, and aren’t interested in pesky things like facts. But I don’t see the piece convincing many people who already on to her schtick, and the more trivial sniping doesn’t help.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Violet: I put that badly: She says she didn’t have much of a sex life during the campaign because as the candidate’s daughter, she knew she had to be careful. Then she went for the reach to hammer the square peg of the old man’s forty+plus year old war record into the round hole of talking about her book. Apparently the only sex she talks about is other people hooking up.
    The whole silly pretense of her book and its title and her whole silly persona as the MTV Republican (or whatever the hell she’s trying to do) just grate on me.

  45. 45.

    Ailuridae

    @JGabriel:

    No, the claim I am making has nothing to do with Palin. I am really, really sore about ScaifeWater. My ojections to that center around poor sourcing, poor ethics and a confirmation bias on the part of the reader. I am not sure how the VF piece is any different.

    Mudflats, by contrast, actually writes excellent sourced pieces on Palin and they kill her.

  47. 47.

    martha

    @toujoursdan: OK, I’m not gay but I’ve got enough gay friends and relatives to know a fairly wide spectrum of gay men (both closeted and very much not) without applying stereotypes too broadly. I watched that video and good grief that man is so in the closet. Wow, amateur psychiatrists can have a field day with this one!

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tommy #4: As a rule, I tip a minimum of 20% — and I eat out a *lot*. But if a restaurant server really pisses me off, I’ll tip insultingly small and let them know why. The other day I had a bill of $28.00 something, and rounded up to $30.00, and wrote detailed note on the check: never refilled water, never asked if I wanted coffee, simply slammed the bill down and scurried away before I could even say “Wait, I want . . . ”

    But in Palin’s case, if there’s any truth to the VF profile, she doesn’t tip at all if nobody’s looking, but she tips ostentatiously and hugely if there’s an audience.

    Fork her. Fork her sideways with a big rusty pitchfuck. I’m sick to death of her.

  50. 50.

    demo woman

    The Koch brother used the term elitists to paint liberals and journalists. That term only reaches so many. To capture the others who still dream of becoming elitists they have to paint journalists, MSM (stenographers) and liberals as perverts. Whoever is funding Sarah is sharp.

  56. 56.

    toujoursdan

    @martha: I also know that straight men flit and that stereotypes are just that.

    Well I don’t know whether he’s in the closet or not. I am a bit resentful that this is the assumption that’s being made based on behaviour.

  57. 57.

    ThresherK

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Meghan McCain was on “Wait, Wait…” this morning.

    Ahh, the NPR show* which can’t help but make blurbs out of Every. Single. Republican. Talking. Point.

    I knew not to bother when this week’s promo was about Obama still being popular with his daughters, WWDTM guesses. No “soft bigotry of 30% approval” needed; it’s 95% Beltway Inbred, 95% of the time.

    Charlie Pierce needs to be on a better quiz show. Can’t he finagle his way into rotation on “Says You”?

    *I’ll have to be more specific.

  58. 58.

    Mark S.

    As I said the other night, Sarah needs to move for the good of herself and the people of Wasilla who have to put up with her stupid shit. It’s time to take her traveling snake oil show to the big city.

  61. 61.

    sparky

    @demo woman: yes. also, [too] who[m]ever writes for her should be hauling home a large part of the profits, as that individual (team?) is the sharpest outside of the Colbert scrum. errrr…..

  63. 63.

    Doctor Science

    @Violet:

    Sarah is a Mean Girl. It’s obvious in how she carries herself, her body language, her voice inflection, not to mention her writings (or should I say “her” writings) and actions

    I agree absolutely. I think that’s why women dislike Palin more than men do (PDF of CBS poll): we recognize her. I don’t know if the VF writer doesn’t bring up the Mean Queen because he’s a guy and doesn’t recognize it, or because it’s too cliche … wow, does that seem unlikely.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @toujoursdan:

    Well I don’t know whether he’s in the closet or not. I am a bit resentful that this is the assumption that’s being made based on behaviour.

    I think the assumption is also based on the fact that he’s pushing his completely bogus “reparative therapy” that can cure gayness. Let’s face it, 99 percent of the “reparative therapy” movement is made up of closeted gay men who just can’t handle the truth about themselves.

  65. 65.

    Frank

    @Admiral_Komack:

    After all the untrue and despicable things the Republicans/teabaggers have said about President Obama, I have no problem with the Vanity Fair article; in fact, I enjoyed it.

    I would have to agree. Why do people believe that Obama is a Muslim or that he wasn’t born in this country or that he is a socialist? FoxNews are spreading these untrue rumors. What’s good for the goose… We didn’t start this game.

  66. 66.

    Violet

    @Doctor Science:
    Yeah, I’ve seen polls like that before. They’re pretty consistent. And then if you go look at pro-Palin sites, the Palinbots are largely female. You do have to wonder what the psychological makeup of those women is. Were they Mean Girl Lieutenants in high school and are just reverting to their comfort zone? I suspect that’s what Rebecca Mansour (Palin’s Facebook/Twitter ghostwriter) is doing. But all the others? No way. I’m guessing those that weren’t MGL’s were wannabes and losers in high school and are hoping for some reflected glory. If Rebecca Mansour can get called up to the big leagues, maybe it’ll happen to them!

    But yeah, the large majority of women can see Sarah Palin’s type coming a mile off. We want nothing to do with that. A Mean Girl as President? Disaster. I can see it now: “Rebecca, Putin dissed me by not returning my call. Can you get me the nuclear codes? I’m going to make his life a living hell.” Shudder.

  69. 69.

    Admiral_Komack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    You’re a better person than I am: when I eat out I tip 20%, but if the service is bad, no tip.
    Also, I like to put the tip in the server’s hand (I don’t want my tip to “disappear” when I leave it on the table).

  70. 70.

    Andy K

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    As in, guys are intimidated by him because he’s so tough.

    That might make sense if dude could raise his fists above his shoulders…Maybe. I mean, sure, he’s proved that he can take a beating, but how is he at dishing one out? Is he so fast that he could chase a guy down and kick and bite bite him? I figure you could go up to him, say, “Hey man, smell my finger,” and walk briskly out of harm’s way.

  71. 71.

    Violet

    @Mnemosyne:
    Exactly. If he just exhibited some swishiness, that would be no big deal. The fact that it’s coupled with his Reparative Therapy for Gayness cure-all sessions is what really puts him into question.

    In fact, the reparative therapy alone makes him questionable, never mind how he looks or acts. I consider any men who feel the need to cure other men of their gayness as gay and closeted. Why else would anyone bother? Straight men just don’t care that much.

  72. 72.

    ThresherK

    @Andy K: Tough (personal or policy or political) is one of the right’s Birthrighteous attributes.

    No matter how many hawks chicken out, closet cases tap dance in bathroom stalls, or never submit a balanced budget, Birthrighteousness means they’re still the party of Tough. And Values. And Fiscal Responsibility.

  73. 73.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @ThresherK: This, of course, is why John Kerry with his chest full of medals and history of playing dangerous/contact sports was a wuss and looked French.

  74. 74.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mark S.:

    It’s time to take her traveling snake oil show to the big city.

    As if. ‘Mean Girls’ like Palin only succeed when they can be the biggest barracuda in a small, enclosed pond. After her early ‘triumph’ (second runner-up, statewide beauty pageant), Sarah did very badly handling the wider social environs at the various universities she switched between. She eventually parlyed her ‘triumph’ as mayor of a small town (‘Alaska’s meth capital’) into a Jeebus-slobbering, bridge-(to nowhere)-burning WIN for the governship of an underpopulated, federal-welfare-dependent state — a job she quit as soon as it looked to require some actual work. She managed an amazing side-shuffle wink’n’smirk “Sparkles!” sales pitch that got the attention of a handful of notoriously ‘Wrong About Everything’ neocon operatives, who did all the heavy lifting required to catapult her stint as VP candidate, and did quite a lot to turn McCain from the presumptive winner into a national “old guy yelling at clouds” joke, while demonstrating at every opportunity just how unprepared she was to run anything more significant than the HOA bake sale at a mid-income gated community.

    That whole “miserable failure as a national candidate” run does seem to have given Palin a better idea of her real strength, however — as Queen of the Gated Community that is the spiritual heartland of the Real American(tm) bigot/racist/hypocrite/xenophobe/anti-intellectual cadre. She knows, now, just how quickly she’d be eaten alive in a real big city full of Katy Courics and Todd Purdums. If she moves away from Wasilla (and I’m not sure she’ll have the guts to do that), it’ll be to some high-end ‘community’ like West Palm Beach, where she can join her soulmates like Limbaugh, Trump, and the guy who’s not gonna be the Democratic candidate for the Florida governorship.

  76. 76.

    Napoleon

    @Violet:

    I suspect that’s what Rebecca Mansour . . .

    What!!! That is an Arab last name!!!! Is Sarah palling around with Arabs?

  77. 77.

    Mark S.

    @morzer:

    I wasn’t too surprised that Karzai and his cronies are crooked as snakes, but this struck at something I’ve been wondering:

    The lie that we are fighting “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan needs to be exposed. The US and NATO are fighting four or five groups of Pashtun insurgents, some of them until fairly recently US allies.

    The media call everybody shooting at us “the Taliban”, but how many of them actually are? Americans are pretty sick of this stupid war as it is, but saying we’re fighting al-Qaeda or the Taliban keeps at least most of us on board.

  79. 79.

    Mark S.

    @Anne Laurie:

    and did quite a lot to turn McCain from the presumptive winner into a national “old guy yelling at clouds” joke

    What? McCain was the underdog the entire race, thanks to President 27%.

    Sarah didn’t help, though.

  80. 80.

    Violet

    @maya:
    Yeah, it probably works out well for those that run the gay reparative therapy sessions. But it’s incredibly immoral on so many levels.

    @Napoleon:

    What That is an Arab last name! Is Sarah palling around with Arabs?

    Yep. Sure is. Sarah Palin also pals around with Scientologists. Greta van Sustren and her husband are big time Scientologists and the Palins hang out with them all the time. If you watch closely you’ll even see some of the Scientology framing and tactics being employed by the Palins.

  81. 81.

    General Stuck

    @Mark S.: Politically, it is a real loser for Obama either way, so he picked a compromise to Karzai and his generals and gave them one last chance to get on top of the Taliban, which is futile of course, at least at this stage. Approve or not of maintaining a lost cause war, versus immediate pullout, I think Obama is honoring some sense of American prestige by going hard for a while before pulling out. But after having committed us to that course, he is stuck with it pretty much, unless he chooses to not run 2012, which I personally think is a real possibility.

    All presnits worry about their legacy, and with dems it is acute about not being the ones to lose a war, or giving that appearance to history. I don’t think this is a noble reason, and we might as well start pulling out now. But it would still take 6 months to a year to do that. Afghanistan, like Iraq, will then choose it’s own system of government and pick it’s own leaders and fight it’s own battles, like proud sovereign countries usually do when occupying militaries leave. But we still have a stake in seeing Afghan doesn’t return to an OBL terrorist training camp, so we will not leave completely.

    And if the worst happens in Iraq and regional war takes hold and threatens the oil supply, we will be back in that shit as well. Thanks to GWB, all of it.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mark S.:

    What? McCain was the underdog the entire race, thanks to President 27%.

    My recollection is that McCain and his allies in the media* kept it neck-and-neck until the double whammy of Palin and collection of trainwrecks that was his reaction to the economic meltdown.

    *I still chuckle when I think of the howler monkeys directing their rage at the NBC booth in Minneapolis– Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Tweety who once said McCain “kinda deserves to be president”, that collection of walking Daddy Issues created the whole Maverick myth to begin with

  87. 87.

    Mark S.

    @General Stuck:

    Oh, I agree it’s a shit hand. But if you have to make a deal, it sounds a lot better to make a deal with “Pushtan tribal leaders” than “the Taliban.”

    And you’re right, we’re not out of the woods in Iraq. It’s not like we left it the Sweden of the Middle East.

  88. 88.

    General Stuck

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes, really. Though just my personal impression, that is likely wrong. Whether the wingers take the House or not, they will gain enough seats and power in congress to create a first class freak show and Obama might just as well say fuck it for his family”s sake. I wouldn’t blame him a bit, and it would give Hills her chance, gawd hep us all if that happens. I kid, somewhat. Palin V Clinton – POTUS contest from HELL.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Violet: a high-ranking Scientologist PUMA who’s married to a Foxbot and became one of the biggest boosters/advisors (still, I believe?) to Sarah Palin? That is one weird-ass mother fucker, as my Gramma used to say.

  90. 90.

    Andy K

    @General Stuck:

    Afghanistan, like Iraq, will then choose it’s own system of government and pick it’s own leaders and fight it’s own battles, like proud sovereign countries usually do when occupying militaries leave.

    Except for the fact that the Pashtun nationalist movement has crossed the mountains into Pakistan, and not too far from Islamabad at that. It was one thing when it was the Pashtun Taliban in Afghanistan fighting the similarly armed fellow Afghans of the Northern Alliance, but how far is too far for nuclear-armed Pakistan?

  92. 92.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @Anne Laurie:
    great description of Palin’s trajectory! Now why was it that the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme was running through my mind all the way through it?

    Hmm.

  93. 93.

    General Stuck

    @Andy K: It is a volatile region for sure, so who knows how things will shake out regarding Pak and Afghan. I am certain we have contingency plans to protect the nukes if worse comes to worse. And the Pashtun Nationalist movement has long simmered on both sides of the border, and along with increasing islamic fundamentalism in central Asia and the middle east. I think there are reckonings on this still to play out and we will not be able to stay completely isolated, especially where oil supplies are located. The Northern Alliance, I think will hold their own, at least on Kabul and parts of Afghan. If they have good leadership and receive material support from us. It will take time for them to stop relying on us to do their fighting and reforming into a capable fighting force without our political meddling. It is going to be a delicate maneuver extricating ourself from this largely non state, but tribal mess, and still keeping that region from exploding.

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Well, I didn’t call it. Just a navel gazing possibility that would not surprise me.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @General Stuck:

    It is going to be a delicate maneuver extricating ourself from this largely non state, but tribal mess, and still keeping that region from exploding.

    That is the big sticking point here. The logistics of pulling troops out is complicated, but the political/diplomatic side of this one is huge mess. Inevitably, there will be internecine warfare in Afghanistan once we leave (hell, it’s happening now), but trying to get out with deals put in place between rival factions and not pulling out of certain areas until the local rulers are ready to stand on their own… That’s going to be hard.

  95. 95.

    morzer

    @Mark S.:

    What gets to me is the idea that there is anything to win in Afghanistan, any more than we won anything in Iraq. I have visions of OBL sitting watching Petraeus explain his “victories” to Congress and laughing uproariously.

  96. 96.

    Andy K

    @General Stuck:

    I am certain we have contingency plans to protect the nukes if worse comes to worse.

    Do I ever hope you’re correct.

    “The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently—like the effect of a fog or moonshine—gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance.” -Carl von Clausewitz

    “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” Robert Burns

  97. 97.

    eemom

    IMNSHO, the tipping practices of a person who can afford to tip well do say a lot about them — similar to how such persons treat service people in general.

    Anybody who has spent time in the business/professional world knows that the first test of whether someone is really a good person, or in reality a phony asshole, is how they treat secretaries and other staff people.

  98. 98.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    __

    a high-ranking Scientologist PUMA who’s married to a Foxbot and became one of the biggest boosters/advisors (still, I believe?) to Sarah Palin?

    The Scientologists would love to bag Palin as a spokesmodel, now that Tom Cruise is a national joke. And Palin will gladly take “career assistance” — i.e. image-protection, publicity, and ‘promotional fee’ money — from the Scientologists, or the Koch brothers, or George Soros, or Ickes’ reptiloid Trilateralists if they offered it. Of course the whole one-hand-greases-the-other arrangement has to be kept on the downlow, because if the Talibangelicals get a whiff (get caught ignoring) of Palin conspiring with anti-Jeebus devilworshippers, she’ll be forced to make a big public show of never imagining that her good friend Greta might be using poor Sarah’s good name towards her own diabolic ends!

    That’s one of many reasons why I don’t think Palin will actually run for president, at least in 2012. The other candidates (even Magic-Underwear Mitt) would certainly dig up the details behind whatever the Scientologists are funneling to Palin, and the resulting battle between the Robber Baron and the Talibangelical wings of the modern Republican party would be very damaging for everyone involved. Roger Ailes doesn’t want to go public in a battle with the professional Christianists, and Palin isn’t gonna give up her FOX goodies just for the chance to do the hard work of campaigning. It’s ratings gold for both parties if she keeps flirting & winking & suggesting that she might campaign, if only conditions were just Reich right, but if there’s one thing a professional beauty-pageant contestant like Palin learns early, it’s the delicate are of public cockteasing flirtation.

  99. 99.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    It’s hard not to see a pattern: take a young, ostensibly attractive, Republican woman and have her or her surrogates talk about sex all the time. I can’t remember seeing anything quite like this in politics before in this country.

    You may not have seen it in politics, but it’s right out of the Ten Commandments of Con Men:

    Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other person shows a strong interest.

    You want to reel the suckers in, keep ’em titillated… like when Sarah winky-winks on the tee vee machine and ostensibly grown men feel star bursts trickle down their legs…

  101. 101.

    Studly Pantload

    The thing that strikes me watching the Marcus Bachmann vid clip is how *nice* he seems, as in, what’s a man with such a seemingly sunny disposition doing married to — well, her.

    If he does happen to be living a repressed lifestyle, I get the feeling that if he accepted who he is and came out, all the fag hags* would eat him up with a spoon.

    *Don’t mean to get anyone’s shackles up with that phrase; it was introduced to me by one such woman. (Hope this post doesn’t wind up in moderation purgatory, also.)

  102. 102.

    eemom

    if there’s one thing a professional beauty-pageant contestant like Palin learns early, it’s the delicate are of public cockteasing flirtation.

    this is why I also think it’s not at all surprising that Palin resorted to calling the reporter impotent and limp. It is exactly what I would expect from her, cuz it’s just the flip side of playing to dicks to get what she wants — targeting the balls when she doesn’t.

  103. 103.

    Silver Owl

    The republicans keep parading dumb women, that have not even bothered to get informed about anything, say the most foolish of things on a regular basis and then when questioned they refuse to answer.

    It is absolutely insulting to the whole adult population that finding and supporting a smart informed candidate qualified to hold office is not something today’s republicans are interested in. It’s all empty marketing bs.

    Vanity Fair had did a gossipy piece on Palin and should have presented the lack of thought behind Palin’s rhetoric and how this type of presentation has taken over the republican party.

  104. 104.

    ruemara

    @ThresherK:

    Mmmm, Pierce isn’t exactly happy about Obama. Oddly, many a liberal pundit repeats the exact same republican talking point. It’s kinda disconcerting.

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    I’ve read the piece, and I don’t think it’s a mean piece at all. I think it completely fits with Caribou Barbie. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing in that piece that is a surprise to any woman that has been following Palin since her introduction.

    As a Black woman, I’ve known White women types like Palin pretty much all my professional life.

    I keep on thinking that men like Andrew Sullivan just don’t get it: Palin tanked not because of MEN, but she was a wash for McCain because WOMEN had her number. No untold women, White women, KNOW Sarah Palin. They know her because they still nurse the knife wounds in their backs from their encounter with their own Sarah Palin.

    NO matter how much she wraps herself in the victim shroud, her likeable ratings don’t rise.

    WHY is that?

    it’s because women have her number, and everything she does just reinforces what they already believe about her.

    her gender gap isn’t with MEN…

    it’s with WOMEN…

    and, until you show me that THAT gap is narrowing…

    I’m not worried about her, even if she gets the nomination in 2012.

  108. 108.

    Meg

    I thought it was quite strange that Palin struck back at the reporter who wrote it by calling him “limp” and “impotent”

    how could you be surprised at anything after her “cojones” remark about Jan Brewer and President Obama?

  109. 109.

    Meg

    @rikyrah: I agreed. Most stories there fit perfectly well with her personality if you have paid attention to other reports about her(eg. not paying a hairdresser at all during her book tour). And some of it was not even new if you have visited some Alaska blogs.

    I think maybe the author has done a favor to the people who are terrified by this woman. At least now she might have some reserve when she wants to bully other people. I have personally suffer from back stabbing person like Palin and the hardest part is to have people believe you since the act is either so petty or so outrageous that normal people simply couldn’t comprehend it.

  110. 110.

    Mark S.

    The part I can’t believe doesn’t get more play is that St. Sarah hardly ever goes to church. I guess her Bible thumping fans don’t believe those stories (and they sure as hell don’t read Vanity Fair).

    Also, that Prayer Warrior shit she believes in is downright strange. Maybe if she ever gives an interview to a non-Fox employee the interviewer could ask her about that.

  112. 112.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mark S.:

    Also, that Prayer Warrior shit she believes in is downright strange.

    I’m curious, but afraid to ask, how many Americans believe in that stuff.
    As to what her followers believe, it’s like when Limbaugh, he of the twelve million dollar apartment, oceanfront estate and $2,000+ bottles of wine (to say nothing of sending the maid out to score dope and third world sex tourism) tells his followers that Democrats are “elitist”. I thought one of the most interesting parts of the article, that I just read, comes at the end:

    But she is also planting the idea with audiences that they might not be good enough, by telling them she thinks they’re plenty good, no matter what anybody else may say. (“They talk down to us… They think that if we were just smart enough … ”) To some, the message sounds like an affirmation. But is it really? Or does it seed self-doubt and rancor among her partisans, and encourage them to see everyone else as malign?

    I’m never quite sure, with Palin, as with Bush, where the line is between what she believes and what she tells the howlers. When it comes to intelligence and elitism, I’m sure Palin’s insecurity and resentment is very real.

  113. 113.

    Southern Beale

    … take a young, ostensibly attractive, Republican woman and have her or her surrogates talk about sex all the time.

    Well sure. It’s how they can show they are “cool” and “hip” and “relevant” because until now Republican women have been wearing the Phyllis Schlafly/Anita Bryant label: uptight moralists uncomfortable with sexuality and sexual issues. The party of “just say no” and all that.

    Your modern Republican Party is rebranding itself after the Cool Kids. They did, after all, lose the culture war. What did you expect?

  114. 114.

    Larkspur

    This is not new. It is just available on the television machine and the internets and the YouTubes, and it is all subject to real-time analysis and/or distortion.

    But that nasty, no holds barred campaigning?

    From the Wikipedia: Grover Cleveland

    …To counter Cleveland’s image of purity, his opponents reported that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo. The derisive phrase “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” rose as an unofficial campaign slogan for those who opposed him. When confronted with the emerging scandal, Cleveland’s instructions to his campaign staff were: “Tell the truth.” Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who claimed he fathered her child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Halpin was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland’s friend and law partner, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was also named. Cleveland did not know which man was the father, and is believed to have assumed responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them….

    The derisive cartoonage was awesome.

    (But the pertinent point: “Cleveland’s instructions to his campaign staff were: ‘Tell the truth.'” Whoa.)

  115. 115.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    also, too, this cracked me up

    Once, while shopping at Target, a man saw Palin and hollered, “Oh my God! It’s Tina Fey! I love Tina Fey!” When other shoppers started laughing, the governor parked her cart, walked out of the store, and drove away

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