I don’t even know how to make sense of this:
This is it. This is the last time I’m going to write the name Sarah Palin until she does something truly newsworthy, like declare herself a candidate for the presidency. Until then, I will no longer take part in the left’s obsessive-compulsive fascination with her, which is both unhealthy and counterproductive.
She’s the Zsa Zsa Gabor of American politics. She once did something noteworthy, but she’s now just famous for being famous.
She was a vice presidential nominee. But she lost. She was the governor of Alaska. But she quit. Now she’s just a political personality — part cheerleader, part bomb-thrower — being kept afloat in part by the hackles of her enemies and the people who admire her resilience in the face of them. The left’s outsize and unrelenting assault on her has made her a folk hero. The logic goes that if she’s making people on the left this upset, she must be doing something right.
Yet the left continues to elevate her every utterance so that they can mock and deride her. The problem is that this strategy continues to backfire. The more the left tries to paint her as one of the “Mean Girls,” the more the right sees her as “Erin Brockovich.” The never-ending attempts to tear her down only build her up. She’s like the ominous blob in the horror films: the more you shoot at it, the bigger and stronger it becomes.
Yes, she’s about as sharp as a wet balloon, but we already know that. How much more time and energy must be devoted to dissecting that? How is this constructive, or even instructive at this point? What purpose does it serve other than inflaming passions to drive viewership and Web clicks?
It isn’t “the left” who is obsessed with her. It is you idiots in the media. We just want her to go away.
I can’t believe Blow even quoted the Politico as evidence of the “left’s” obsession with Palin.
Where does the NY Times find all these clowns?
Svensker
Where does the NY Times find all these clowns?Clown Store, 34th St. & 8th Ave. just down the street from Port Authority.
Svensker
OK, what happened to the blockquote and the edit button? Mid-rework?
You Don't Say
This reminds me. Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker: “Don’t blame me. I voted for Palin.” So I’m thinking of getting some bumper stickers made that say “Don’t blame me. I voted for Gore.”
Elizabelle
I saw Blow’s column headline today and did not click on it because I don’t want to click on another NYTimes story on Palin.
She is getting far too much attention.
Deprive the beast of oxygen and see what happens.
The Grand Panjandrum
Clown Camp. They’ll even teach you how to properly throw a pie and ride a unicycle!
robertdsc-PowerBook
I don’t mind the pictures sites put up to highlight her latest uttering but I simply don’t care about what she says.
jcricket
When it’s the liberals that are the fascists and the Nazis were a left-wing movement, is it any surprise that “Politco” is the “left”?
I think the right mix of ignoring Sarah Palin and gently needling her (takes almost nothing) will get her to hang herself, metaphorically.
Judging from the last elections, assuming we haven’t plunged into a Depression by 2012 (not guaranteed), and she’s the nominee, she’ll get 40% of the vote, tops, and Democrats will come out in droves with Obama sailing to re-election.
I worry much more about Huckabee. He’s equally reactionary in his politics, but seems nicer and more genial. Wolf in sheep’s clothing and all.
WyldPirate
Shit, John, just thinkk of all the fallout if the media and the NY TImes didn’t have clowns like Sarah Palin to talk about and clowns like the 24/7 cable shows and writers like Blow to fan the flames of her idiocy.
The cables couldn’t fill all their air with mendacious meaningless horseshit. They would actually have to think of ways to truly inform the public instead of having poo-flinging contests.
High-salaries and high-paid staffs wouldn’t have employment. Ad revenues wouldn’t roll in.
Blog traffic on both sides would dry up as people wouldn’t have as much fodder to rave over. Add revenues on blogs would dry up. This leaves less money percolating through the economy.
Blog commenters have less to rave about on line and release stress over. They start drinking more. Social damage is done. Costs of taking care of the social damage goes up further increasing the damage to the economy.
The Charles Blows and the rest of the clowns in the media are doing the country a valuable service.
J.
@Svensker: LOL
Now if only bloggers would stop writing about Sarah Palin…
Brachiator
Get back to me when there are no more endless Balloon Juice threads speculating on Palin’s presidential ambitions.
And the problem is, thanks to Fox, Rupert Murdoch, a cabal of advisors, Palin ain’t going anywhere. And sadly, as seen by the Palinistas whose votes for Bristol on Dancing With the Stars were really declarations of love for Snowmobile Snookie, there is a core of the public who want to keep her around as well.
It ain’t just the media.
Xecky Gilchrist
It isn’t “the left” who is obsessed with her. It is you idiots in the media.
To the wingnuterati, all media is librul, so this is no contradiction.
Or, maybe it’s those strawman liberals that seethe with jealousy over her but are IRL even rarer than PUMAs.
cathyx
Politico is a left leaning site? Oh he must mean left of the teaparty. That’s practically the entire country.
matoko_chan
no we don’t.
Dude, if she runs, we win.
dont look a gift horse in the mouth.
if she had even a snoballs chance in hell Rove would be 110% percent behind her.
Havent you seen the conservitards full court press to supress palinism, like they supressed birtherism last year?
She is the macro-version of COD.
Let the money ride.
She is their doom, the dimwitted princess of ressentiment and white privilege and WEC socon values.
she is the blade that turned in their hand.
Elizabelle
Incidentally: if you want to click on a better written essay about Palin, try Kathleen Kennedy Townsends’ op ed from the Post, on JFK’s respect for separation of church and state. Which Palin (or ghostwriter) sniped at in Palin’s new book.
Sarah Palin is wrong about John F. Kennedy, Religion and Politics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120303209.html?nav=hcmodule
If you want to cheer yourselves up, click on the “Last” 3 pages of reader comments — as in the earliest submitted. WaPost commenters have reverted to sane, and take after a troll who declared the Kennedys irrelevant..
Several commented that Palin can’t debate a live person successfully, so she’s taken to fighting with the dead.
Elizabelle
@matoko_chan:
No comfort there. Most likely she would lose, but what if she didn’t?
StevenDS
I suspect Palin gets the most clicks and draws the most traffic – for everyone. TPM, Politico, Frumforum, NRO, Tbogg, NYT, etc. I suspect a Palin article is an order of magnitude more popular than an article about, say, START.
SiubhanDuinne
Great thread title, John.
I read that column this morning thinking exactly the same thing: “Wait a minute, you’re devoting endless ink’n’pixels to write about how you’re not writing about Hillbilly Grifter Caribou Bible Moosehuntin Youbetcha Quitter Halfgov Lying Paranoid SARAH PALIN — and somehow this is MY fault?”
Or words to that effect.
simonee
Riiiiiight: it’s the left’s fault that every time Sarah Palin changes her Facebook status, it becomes national news.
Mike M
This isn’t overly complicated – hippie punching is easy, cheap and damnit its just fun. Don’t you remember how much fun it was to shout Ponies?
What – do you think the NYT is going to actually blame the right wing for creating this farce? Dream on. Whatever happens, its the left’s fault and its always bad news for the Democrats. Remember that and you’ll understand our corporate press just fine.
gbear
The clowns are always out there. The Times searches high and low (well, mostly low) to find them.
I’ve joined the crowd that has stopped reading this stuff. There’s nothing I can do to stop it from being printed and disseminatied, and there’s not much I can do to counter it either. Let it rot.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
But it doesn’t really matter. She hits the sweet spot of American stupidity with her core supporters, who never let facts, or elitist notions of old fashioned ideas like competence get in the way of their deeply held core beliefs.
It is good, though, to see some of the WaPo comments fighting back against stupidity.
katjam
I didn’t read his opinion piece as an attack on the Left per say but rather as a condemnation of the news outlets considered liberal. I have previously written to some of the top liberal blogs as well as to Ollbermann and Maddow to ask if they would stop focusing on SP. When I go to Talkingpointsmemo.com for example I really don’t want to read about the twitter queen of Alaska or see her face at the top of the page; I want to read real political news. Our obsession with her word refutiate gave her the victory of having it named the word of the year and placed in the dictionary. WE did it. Those on the left. FOX would never have noted her hybrid word if we didn’t go ballistic.
If liberals ignored her she would lose her power and certainly her media reach. I agree with Charles Blow. Only when she does something truly newsworthy should any of the media including blogs report or respond.
cathyx
Palin is like that accident that made you late for your appointment. You know you shouldn’t drive slow and gawk as you pass it and cause the traffic to continue to be slow, but dammit, you want to see what it was that made you late for your appointment. And it was quite a smash-up, with blood everywhere.
handy
Shorter Charles Blow:
“Leave Sarah alone!!!!”
Church Lady
All Palin has to do is fart, and it’s the top item on Memeorandum. Check the blogs that weigh in on her flatulence, it it’s predominantly left leaning blogs. And yes, when I think of Charles Blow, or the NY Times, the Right Wing is the first thing that pops into my mind.
If you, and your political cohorts would just ignore her, perhaps her every utterance, and fart, or someone writing about her (like this post), wouldn’t be a topic of discussion. Just sayin’.
BGinCHI
Countdown till Blow writes another column saying he’s finished writing about her.
I’m breaking up with newspapers. It’s just not working out.
It’s not me, it’s you.
burnspbesq
Trying to make sense of anything Charles Blow writes is a fool’s errand. SATSQ.
cathyx
<blockquoteAll Palin has to do is fart, and it’s the top item on Memeorandum.
That’s because she tweets about it.
Cat Lady
@gbear:
Me too. I stopped watching cable news shortly after Obama’s election, and if I click on the Times or the WaPo it’s either by accident, or to read Krugman. It leaves them all to compete with Fox for the demo that still reads the paper every day and has a preference for one of the 6:30 national bobbleheads, so of course it’s Republican framing 24/7. They have nothing to say to me, that’s for sure, and for my kids’ generation, it’s Jon Stewart and Colbert, and for the policy nerds, Rachel. They’re all dead media walking as far as I can tell. What do I know, though, I’m from Massachusetts.
slag
I’ve stopped reading sites just because they wrote about this useless idiot far too often.
Damn. Now that I know I’m a wingnut, I guess I have to start looking for Russia from my house. Get off my lawn, Putin!
glasnost
The premise of this post is false. Yes, Blow demonstrated idiocy by linking to Politico and calling it ‘the left’, but does anyone doubt the extensive coverage of every dumb thing Sarah Palin does on liberal websites? And how many liberals watched dancing with the stars just to root against Bristol?
Blow has a good point – even negative attention is counterproductive. We – liberal press, MSM, everyone, are caught in a collective action program. The people who stop posting about her at all lose the most hits, but as this catches on it gets steadily easier.
She’s popular because she’s popular, at least to some extent.
Give the guy a break, it comes off as pompous, but he’s trying to do the right.
Balloon Juice is overly nihilistic in its attitude towards nontribe members.
JPL
TPM and Huffington write several columns about Snowbelly Snooki. I seldom visit their sites anymore.
Like a clock twice a day, Snowflake Snooki was right the media is lame. Headlines across the nation mention that Obama lost the vote rather than mentioning the Republican filibuster of middle class tax cuts.
BGinCHI
@glasnost: I thought we were a pack of jackals?
But this?
That’s just mean. Unless you’re referring to The Big Lebowski, in which case, thanks.
matoko_chan
@Elizabelle: mathematically she cannot win. Rove knows this, Douthat knows this, they ALL know this.
It is just like COD.
the conservative elite tried their damn best to wean the base away from her before the election.
FAIL.
the way i see it they are in the suppress palinism phase right now.
they were pretty much successful in suppressing birtherism last year.
media attention to Palin makes it harder for them to supress it, just like with COD. the more she is revealed as a retard, the more the loyal the base becomes.
next they have a choice. they can give Palin the VP slot on Romneys ticket, or let her go “rogue”. (third Party)
they are going to have to offer the VP slot before the primaries start tho. because she really could win.
but she is runnin’.
she isnt afraid of the work….she just wont do it. she wants to go the WH and give the big middle finger to everyone that thinks she doesnt belong there. now that includes Rove and the Bush dynasty.
she wont stop.
Brachiator
@katjam:
Liberals didn’t create Palin, and they certainly cannot diminish her influence.
Shit, if this were the case, she would have dropped from sight after she quit as governor.
And is it even possible that Palin could do something that was newsworthy?
ETA: Crap, Palin is not worth even thinking about, and yet once again, is becoming a topic for discussion here. Damn media!
JPL
@matoko_chan: Snowbelly Snooki won’t win many primaries, imo. Many of her backers are starting to question her intelligence.
suzanne
@matoko_chan:
I see you took her English class, though.
matoko_chan
@glasnost:
no he is not.
he is trying to suppress palinism. that is what all the conservative elites are doing right now.
media attention flames up the base. it is backfire effect.
the conservative elite tried telling the base COD couldnt win in Delaware– look how that turned out.
Hal
And what does Sarah get for all of this attention? Her negative ratings keep going up, the vast majority of people thinks she’s unqualified to be President, and the only people who like her are her core supporters.
Keep writing about her. It’s not doing anything for her.
matoko_chan
@suzanne: ressentiment
french word used by Julian Sanchez to describe the current state of the conservative movement– “an inferiority complex masquerading as political philosophy.”
After your beclowning over Tennyson, I have to ax if you actually went to school at all?
Jbird
…………………..
Jack
Apparently the NYTimes is clown central. The lede graf in todays’ piece by David Herzsenhorn on the latest shenanigans on extending the Bush-era tax cuts:
Totally wrong: everyone would have a tax cut extended, but the rich wouldn’t have a second cut extended on their income over $200k. Does a NYT reporter really not understand how this basic element of the tax code works?
JPL
Blow is right. We’ve spent 45 minutes discussing the half term governor rather than mentioning those who are trying to destroy our economy.
Jbird
empty comment, moderation is overzealous.
John Bird
I can’t post anything anymore here without it getting moderated into oblivion. Is there a comprehensive list of keywords somewhere?
freelancer
COD, the other white cudlip.
Matoko_chan, fearlessly standing athwart coherence, yelling “STP!”
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Blow’s attitude reminds me of the classic Usenet troll — “you people are so not worth my time” — followed by a continuation of the trolling activity.
jinxtigr
Yes. This is a desperation move to stifle teaparty types among the Republicans. Bit late for that!
If she ran for President, she’d split the Republican vote, which is their problem with her. And if she won…
…she’d be an incredible lame duck, with both Democrats AND Republicans obstructing anything she might want to do. Think Obama has a tough time with that? Try getting the Presidency against the wishes of the Republican machine and see how you do.
And so we get Republican editorials, which as usual project onto Democrats the desires of the Republicans- in this case, incessantly stirring attention by talking about Palin.
They want her to get the attention and support and then take a dive for the team.
Ha!
And they’re not questioning her intelligence- she won’t be needing any of that. They’re correctly questioning her cooperativeness.
Davis X. Machina
@Jack: Should read “A large minority of the Senate refused to let it come to a vote.”
F*ck the Times.
AAA Bonds
You ever meet a Times writer? Times drones are like Post drones: overeducated, insecure nerds living in a bubble of streetside parking, brown-skinned servants, and rent-controlled apartments.
None of which are theirs, of course, but which they envy and desire above all things. They have a hard time grasping a world outside of this, or a world where their various metropolitan social betters aren’t the arbiters of cool. (Other than tourists, only Times writers celebrity-spot in New York, and their “celebrities” are ugly rich folks.)
That Sarah Palin could have become a cash property, a “folk hero” all by herself, as walking, stupid sex appeal to the same 20% militia crowd that bought millions of books about the dastardly lesbian deeds of Hillary Clinton through the 1990s – that’s not a thought these people can think.
That would involve admitting that they paid their way to the City of Gold, but they’ve dead-ended in The Swamp of Crappy Sales. They picked the wrong horse while Palin hitched her wagon to Facebook and reality TV, and she has risen from disgrace to become exactly what they all fantasize about being.
BombIranForChrist
There is a perhaps apocryphal quote by Bill Gates that says something like: Never hire B people, because they will hire C people. I think this is a lot of the media’s basic problem. The people on top are just not that bright, and so the people they choose are not that bright.
kay
@glasnost:
I don’t think so.
I’d like this question addressed, by Charles Blow and others in “serious” media:
Why is Sarah Palin given a complete pass from any inquiry by “serious” media? If she’s not going to answer questions, why do they give her a one-way forum?
Because she’s succeeded in that. She’s never called on anything, because she simply refuses to engage with anyone but friendly media, yet they print her opinions. How did this one-way harangue and barrage of misinformation she’s permitted to deliver come about?
How is this okay, and can any candidate or political power now do the same thing?
I think it is okay, see: Joe Miller and Sharon Angle, and I think “serious” media allowed Palin to set that precedent, because they folded under pressure from her fans, and gave her a complete pass.
He should stop looking at liberal blogs and look to his own profession. Can they explain why they allowed that to happen? Because I think I know why it happened. I think every time she was called on any of her bullshit, there was enormous push-back from screeching fans, and it was easier for major media to let her get away with it.
I’d like to know why they did that.
Suck It Up!
Who knew Palin had so much love from NY Times readers?
I will never understand this idea that talking about her has increased her support even though her numbers are getting worse.
I think everyone should stop talking about her. Her tweets get more attention than Obama’s statements.
suzanne
@matoko_chan: Not one thing you’ve ever written on this blog has been a properly constructed English sentence. (BTW, if you want to insert a foreign word into an English context, put it in italics—otherwise, if it’s a cognate, you look like a dumbfuck.) And you’re the one who fucked up the name of Tennyson’s poem. But it was to hilarious effect, so I didn’t mind. I enjoyed the notion of a lady presiding over her realm of shallots and other aromatic vegetables.
As for schooling, I assure you I went. If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to repay the hundred grand in student loans I owe.
AAA Bonds
@suzanne:
If you don’t understand the concept of ressentiment, you’re going to have a hard time grasping the Republicans nowadays. Odds are, you do, and you just haven’t seen the word before.
matoko_chan
@freelancer: what is so hard for you to understand? the conservative elites tried everything they could to get the base off Christine O’Donnell (COD).
they base insisted on her, she lost badly.
all the media coverage of her flaws just increased her base appeal.
Palin is just the same thing on a national scale.
Rove et al are trying to suppress palinism isn the base, just like they semi-supressed birtherism in the base last year.
they want to win….they know it is mathematically impossible for Palin to win….just like it was mathematically impossible for COD to win in Delaware.
freelancer
@matoko_chan:
Shorter you:
Palin will lose because:
For all your hacker talk, I have doubts whether you could pass a Turing test.
matoko_chan
@kay: they exploited the crap out of Palin as long as it was to their advantage.
now they will try to wean the base off her tits, because she cannot win.
they did the same thing to her in 2008. they used her to fire up the base in Sick Grandpas doomed run, used her as an attack dog.
Steve Schmidt wrote the “palling around with terrorists” remark, but Palin said it. after the election she was persona non grata at the WH, not McCain.
She wants revenge.
Blow is just going with the party line du semaine.
kneecap Palin because she cant win.
now, they cant actually SAY that.
they tried with COD in delaware.
suzanne
@matoko_chan:
Um, YOU. Try wiping the drool off your chin next time.
matoko_chan
@freelancer: just because YOU dont unnerstand me, doesnt mean im not correct.
it just means you lack substrate.
LOOK! A SQUIRREL!
i <3 bloodhounds
Redshift
@Jack:
Considering that virtually no one in politics or the media has described this in terms other than tax cuts for people making under/over $250K, not income under/over $250K, I think it’s safe to say the answer is no.
This is part and parcel of the Republican framing of taxes. The reason why they get the support of people who are never going to be rich is that they’ve convinced them of the completely false premise that if they manage to make $251K, their taxes would go way up.
Likeable InMyOwnWay
Surely this whole thread is a spoof.
We want Palin to go away? No, most of us want her to run for president and get her ass kicked. And she might.
Why does the media obsess over her? Because they are attention whores, and she attracts attention. I mean, this question is seriously being raised by “serious” bloggers?
The whole premise of the top post is flawed. Blow is not saying that “only the left” is paying too much attention to Palin. He is just pointing out that a lot of people on the left could find other things to ruminate about. Which is true, but the suggestion is futile, it’s not going to happen.
If “we” want to ignore things like Palin, and the inanities of the Broders of the world, and all those other things that annoy us … “we” could start by actually ignoring these things, right here on this blog.
Heh. Let’s just say I don’t think anyone around here is going to hold his or her breath.
matoko_chan
@suzanne: why dont you try to attack me on substance, instead of ad hom?
do you also lack substrate?
suzanne
@freelancer: You forgot “Make The Pie Higher!”. ;)
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Surely this whole thread is a spoof, yes?
We want Palin to go away? No, most of us want her to run for president and get her ass kicked. And she might.
Why does the media obsess over her? Because they are attention whores, and she attracts attention. I mean, this question is seriously being raised by “serious” bloggers?
The whole premise of the top post is flawed. Blow is not saying that “only the left” is paying too much attention to Palin. He is just pointing out that a lot of people on the left could find other things to ruminate about. Which is true, but the suggestion is futile, it’s not going to happen.
If “we” want to ignore things like Palin, and the inanities of the Broders of the world, and all those other things that annoy us … “we” could start by actually ignoring these things, right here on this blog.
Heh. Let’s just say I don’t think anyone around here is going to hold his or her breath.
kay
@glasnost:
How many times were Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain interviewed during the course of the Presidential campaign in ’08?
Why was Sarah Palin given special treatment? Americans knew nothing about her. Why was she permitted to completely dodge interviews after one went poorly for her? She didn’t just dodge, either. She sneered. She crowed about how stupid they were. She dared them to call her on anything, like some kind of ridiculous 5th grade playground bully, and they all ran away.
How did that happen? What if she hadn’t have happened to run into Katie Couric, who decided to do, ya know, her job?
Pongo
There’s some irony that a guy no one’s ever heard of is getting increased web hits based on using the name of a celebrity he claims to never want to write about again. It’s a perfect illustration of the problem. Media operates on ad revenue generator model with no concern about the quality of what is generating ad revenue. We ‘click’ on links about her or watch her moronic reality show to see a train wreck in action, but modern American media quantifies popularity with the number of clicks and viewer ratings. They don’t care why you are watching, just that you are, and all those ironic clicks just get her more ad dollars and perpetuate the problem.
I keep trying to tell my folks and their friends who watch Glenn Beck and Bill O to be ‘outraged’ or entertained that they are contributing to the continued presence of these buffoons on the air, but they apparently don’t understand (or care) how ad revenue works.
freelancer
@matoko_chan:
i has enzymes but noz substratez. also shift key broke for nao.
metabolize the allah within cellulair levvels. deffo not like COD. look.
at that. SHIFT key fixxored!
all WECs all ennvee de planez IM operatin’ on.
the sleeper has awaken. fadda.
Anya
@matoko_chan: Are you sure Ohio and Pennsylvania would not vote for Palin? After the weirdos and crazies that were elected into office, I am not so sure about this.
WyldPirate
@freelancer:
damn, you freelancer. That made me laugh so hard I spewed half-macerated almonds on my laptop’s screen.
suzanne
@matoko_chan:
Because it’s more fun. And if you had anything to say of genuine value, you would take the time and make the effort to be understood. Since you don’t, I assume you’re just fucking around. So I’ll return the favor.
bkny
isn’t he a semi-regular on killer joe’s morning show? does he not pay attention to what the discussion is surrounding him? palin’s always a subject of chatter in the morning.
Resident Firebagger
Palin-Tebow ’12?
Just thinking out loud about how much crazier it could get…
Paris
I blame Wonkette.
matoko_chan
@suzanne: i think you don’t because you can’t.
matoko_chan
@Anya: they might.
Nate Silver did a pretty sound analysis on Palins chances of getting the nom.
that is why Blow to Rove are trying to wean the base off her without actually having to tell the base she cant win the general.
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan:
The *other* cudlip.
predictable.
WyldPirate
@Resident Firebagger:
damn. that’s a horror beyond imagination. VP Tebow? Fuck that. I think I would consider offing myself if I couldn’t emigrate.
suzanne
@Pongo:
Word. The one time I attempted to know my enemy by reading one of Ann Coulter’s “books”, I read it at the library to avoid contributing to her royalties. They’re like bratty, negative-attention-seeking five-year-olds. We really do have to ignore them if we genuinely want them to go away.
Chyron HR
@matoko_chan:
Because people don’t necessarily disagree with the “substance” of your posts. They just think you sound like a gibbering idiot.
You’re the one who desperately tries to pretend that “Makoto-chan sounds like a gibbering idiot” is cudlip code for “I disapprove of Wikileaks’ activity”.
fucen tarmal
clearly we can blame sarah palin media sensation at large on….
al gore.
because surely the right wing would never behave in such a cravenly obsessed manner over a losing candidate. if al gore hadn’t constantly thrown it up in people’s faces that he lost, by moving on to championing an actual cause he believed hadn’t gotten the attention it deserved….
sarah palin would not have to defend her non-record as no longer governor, and would not have to work hard to preserve the legacy of that wonderful 6 week period of time when she was at least moderately(can i even say moderate when discussing sarah palin, or is that like saying retarded) relevant.she has to champion her cause, her 6 weeks as near the top of the losing ticket, just like all gore has to bleat on and on about the environment or something.
even if the left was obsessed with sarah palin, which of course would only be because she is the living breathing example of what the gop is, and will be, it would simply be returning serve.
of course i don’t think it was the left wing paying her millions of dollars for whatever crap she does. if she is empty and vapid, don’t blame me. i just point and laugh, but only because its free.
Maude
@bkny:
Yup. And Blow can now say he wrote about too much attention to Palin and they can discuss that until commercial break.
suzanne
@Resident Firebagger: What about Palin-Limbaugh?
WyldPirate
@freelancer:
I’m beginning to think that matoko_chan is one of DougJ’s aliases and he’s just clowning us.
Whatever it is, it’s certainly good for laughs.
Corner Stone
@Svensker:
Retask the drones.
matoko_chan
@arguingwithsignposts: and yet you fall for it ever time.
:)
arguingwithsignposts
@Maude:
And Morning Ho himself wrote about Palin recently too. very likely a topic on Monday morning’s gabfest. also, too.
matoko_chan
@WyldPirate: no.
DougJ is a bioluddite.
@Chyron HR: no it is code for LOOK! A SQUIRREL!
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan:
it’s like whack-an-idiot for me.
but I should really consign you to the pie filter. COD? really?
freelancer
@WyldPirate:
No, she’s a real person, and if she was a song, she’d be Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen.
Davis X. Machina
That would be like attacking the rhyme scheme of the phone book.
matoko_chan
well….that is enough trail of carnage for this fair Saturday morning.
i shall now go and infiltrate Emberstorm in preparation for painting my face with Cole’s traitorous horde blood on the battlefield of Gilneas.
Yutsano
@Resident Firebagger:
Thank the FSM he’s still too young for another nine years. Which hopefully by then he’ll get laid and drunk and figure out what sin actually is. And hopefully even be tolerable.
burnspbesq
@suzanne:
Aww, that’s just gratuitously mean. I love it.
Does make you wonder whether matoko took the verbal SAT or the TOEFL to get into college.
matoko_chan
@arguingwithsignposts: /sigh
the teatards were actually using Christine O donnell’s initials at Patterico, until they realized how appropriate that was.
i give up, be stupid.
l8r
R-Jud
@freelancer: Maybe I Zimbra?
But wait, no, that’s degrading Talking Heads.
burnspbesq
What this blog really needs in the rebuild is a real-time matoko to English translator.
I’m a native-level speaker of gibberish and gobbledygook (you have to be in order to pass the bar exam), but matoko is just too far out there.
WyldPirate
@freelancer:
haha. thanks for the Family Guy plug. I didn’t see that episode.
Worse though, I remember listening to the song when I was a little kid on my little hi-tech transistor radio with the faux leather case and the single earphone. I thought it was cool as hell then.
@matoko_chan:
heck, I don’t mind. keep posting the way you do. I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out WTF you’re saying.
sukabi
wow, someone needed to fill up column inches… and he used a waste of space to waste his space… Blow should have just gone on a bender and called in sick, that way HE wouldn’t be elevating Palin with unwarranted publicity.
Margarita
Hackles float?
MattMinus
Am I the only one stunned the horribleness of “sharp as a wet balloon”?
What the hell does that mean? I guess we could be charitable and say he’s trying to be funny, but it just seems like metaphors colliding in his head and get barfed out onto the page.
I mean, what does being wet have to do with the sharpness of a ballon? They can get less sharp?
Nit-picky, I know. It just really bothered me. So, I googled the phrase. It’s such a dumb construction that it only appears one other time on the entire internet.
Think about that.
licensed to kill time
freelancer is slaying on this thread, killing me softly with laughter.
gogol's wife
@Davis X. Machina:
Good one.
scav
mmmm, just thought of a variant of the Turing test, sort of a word-salad test. Sort of a way to distinguish between motoko and palin. Along the lines of: IFF salad makings drawn from Anime/Hacker it’s MC, IFF salad making drawn from, I don’t know, back issues of Readers Digest and Patriotism for Dummies it’s SP. Because reduced to essential structure, they’re both word salad and they both confuse an ever-so-self-celebrated “trail of carnage” for actual popularity and influence.
Bella Q
@burnspbesq: Perhaps it’s a new dialect of gibberish and gobbledygook that’s impenetrable to olds like us? That, or she really would have trouble with a Turing test.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cathyx:
And who invented Twitter? Liberals, that’s who!
Bella Q
I have to agree with Blow that Palin is hollow, dim and mean.
licensed to kill time
And yeah, Palin has pretty much mastered the one-way communication flow. Whenever I see her striding about the stage in her high-heeled fuck-me boots I think what a great little dictator she’d be. She lacks only a riding crop to make the picture complete.
Moosolini!
freelancer
@licensed to kill time:
Thank you, thank you. She makes a great foil, and that’s all I really need to get started. After that, it’s off to the races.
Resident Firebagger
@suzanne: Palin-Limbaugh? Nah. Can’t see Rush playing second fiddle to a chick.
Resident Firebagger
@Yutsano: I wondered about that. I know you have to be 35 to be prez, but it is true for veep? Obviously that would make sense, but as we all know, shite generally doesn’t make sense anymore.
Plus the Republicans could always change that rule next year.
jaleh
Why do you write about her? Just let it go, PLEASE!
TaosJohn
Utter, ludicrous bullshit. You talk about her all the goddamned time!
Yutsano
@Resident Firebagger: There’s a court case back a long time ago that established that the VP has to meet the same eligibility requirements as the President because otherwise the VP could be challenged as the legitimate office holder or some such nonsense. And good luck changing the Constitution on that point, although when they were still in love with Ahnold they wanted to drop the native-born requirement.
licensed to kill time
@freelancer:
Your comment at #62 had me gasping for air. “look. at that. SHIFT key fixxored!”
scav
@jaleh: MC or SP? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous rhetoric, or to take arms against a sea of bullshit, And by opposing end them?
Well, actually, we’ve no real hope of ending them per se, to switch cultural allusions or to jump the meme or snark or blahblah, that’s Augean stables level activity and I don’t have the hit points to manage it personally.
WyldPirate
@licensed to kill time:
No. She needs more. Crotchless black, fishnet outfit with chains and black motorcycle vest. Black leather hat, too. Keep the fuck-me heels and riding crop.
She would get all of the Rethug male vote for sure…’cept the ones that couldn’t make it to the polls because the were literally too worn out from wanking over the campaign appearances.
Chuck Butcher
@matoko_chan:
Ya know, when I can manage to decipher what it is you’re trying to say it sometimes makes actual sense. I have no idea why you desire to make it difficult. If communication is the goal then clear concise writing is called for; if you’re shooting for some prose poetry confection to create emotions amongst your readers, you ought not start with frustration with the author.
licensed to kill time
@WyldPirate:
Hmm. Well, I was thinking more along the lines of fascist than dominatrix but I guess the two kinda go hand in hand. Or hand on….well, there’s a straight line for ya.
Chuck Butcher
@WyldPirate:
I have very recently been very ill with the flue – this is very stressful stuff right now, thanks a lot….
WyldPirate
@licensed to kill time:
The “dominatrix” theme so fits both her and the TeaTard movement don’t you think? It’s her whole schtick…the crueler and the crazier she is, the more her acolytes love it.
And the more the voyeurs in the media love watching it and talking about it…
mclaren
@suzanne:
Suzanne, arguing with this guy is like trying to explain calculus to a fire hydrant.
licensed to kill time
@WyldPirate:
I guess as long as she’s plying the whip on ‘the liberals’ they love it. Wonder how long it would be before absolute power corrupted her absolutely and she started lashing about indiscriminately? My guess, not long.
I pray to gawd/FSM/Beelzebub we never find out.
suzanne
@mclaren:
LMAO.
Yanno, when you remember that brevity is the soul of wit, you’re actually pretty damn funny.
driftglass
@WyldPirate:
Been there :-)
http://bit.ly/bnVRMA
scarshapedstar
Democrats say bad things about Sarah Palin: if she makes them upset, she’s doing something right.
Saying that Barack Obama was born in a foreign country as “Barry Soetoro” and has been living in the US under an assumed name, aided and abetted by a government conspiracy: if Birthers make Democrats upset, they must be doing something right.
Anyone notice that the political equation “x is upset and thus y results” is an odd function?
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/2415/graph17.gif
Take x to be the distance someone is from the mythical center.
Take y to be the political gain from pissing them off.*
I guess Karl Rove really does have The Math.
*According to the Beltway CW.
WyldPirate
@driftglass:
yep, that’s kinda what I had in mind. ;)
it’s licensed to kill time’s fault. The “fuck me heels” and “riding crop” part of ltkt’s post plus seeing her in my mind’s eye strutting across the stage took me the rest of the way.
@licensed to kill time:
Yes. Hopefully FSM will be watching over us.
RAmen
@Chuck Butcher:
Hope I didn’t make it worse and hope you shake that flu soon.
freelancer
@driftglass:
Gah! Jesus, dg, that’s more visually disturbing than the video for Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker”.
Midnight Marauder
@Church Lady:
Why shouldn’t we keep making her a topic of discussion? She’s the presumptive frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Generally, that comes with an exponential level of attention and criticism.
Elizabelle
Finally read Blow’s piece.
Most interesting to me: Palin’s relative absence (per Blow) on conservative blogs and Fox News (600 mentions vs. 800 for CNN and 1,000 for MSNBC).
I don’t think BBC covers Palin much at all. She’s a joke overseas, and the U.S. is a joke for making someone like her possible.
Blow’s premise does not stand as Mr. Cole noted — it’s the M$$$M and especially cable 24/7 force-feeding us Palin, not the left wing.
But it is tiring and predictable to see leftwing blogs and cable shows cover her so intensely in response to cable and twitter “reporting”. Boring too.
If Blow gets them to tone it down and starve the beast, maybe his column was a good use of NYT space.
I think corporate owned media is using Palin for the money AND as a diversion.
If they did their jobs and reported accurately on what is really happening to our country, how good would that be for the corporate owners?
celticdragonchick
@suzanne:
:D
Matoko Chan is an empty calorie diversion. Best to ignore and get nourishing snark from somebody else.
freelancer
@celticdragonchick:
But why can’t we have our fun?
Chuck Butcher
I’m pretty sure that “mainstream” GOP leadership would like candidate Sarah to go away, far away. Anything other than candidate. I don’t think she will. I think they figure she’s a complete loser in a General. I would ordinarily agree with that but things aren’t exactly ordinary now and I don’t have much confidence in ’12, either.
I don’t know about swooning at her every utterance, but keeping an eye on her isn’t dumb.
rikyrah
I don’t think BBC covers Palin much at all. She’s a joke overseas, and the U.S. is a joke for making someone like her possible.
you all did read that piece from Moscow about Palin from this week.
HILARIOUS.
utterly hilarious.
here’s the beginning of it:
Spankin’ Sarah Palin: A clown short of a circus
I have already called Sarah Palin a pith-headed bimbo from the back of beyond, in this column. I shall now go one step further. By attacking the democratically elected President of the United States of America at a sensitive time in her country’s history, she shows the tact of a boorish drunkard bawling obscenities at a funeral.
If Sarah Palin is not some kind of a massive political joke in the USA, wheeled out to liven up the political scene from time to time with nonsensical and pastiche (one hopes) displays of sheer and utter ignorance, then it is worrying. It is even more so if anyone other than a manic depressive suffering from a chronic lack of lithium takes this…female…seriously.
Hockey Mum Sarah ex-Governess of Alaska is famous for her shrill shrieking style, displaying a pitifully shallow persona which one hopes is stage-managed to give the rest of the world a good chuckle at the Americans’ ability and unique quality to make fun of themselves, a real-life female version of Homer Simpson-cum-Belching Barney at Mo’s, giving us ever-more hilarious soundbites as she sets herself up as the dumbest woman on Earth.
Yutsano
@rikyrah:
Oh wait. I get it now. This is just lingering resentment from the Miracle on Ice.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
Here’s the link.
http://www.moscowtopnews.com/?area=postView&id=2154
kth
I don’t care much about Sarah Palin, only insofar as she is emblematic of a paranoid, unreconstructed strain of populism. But I don’t want her to go away, unless the 40 million-odd people for whom she speaks go away with her. Until then, it’s important for her to exist as a symbol, an icon, representing the vicious ignorance of those legions.
Elizabelle
@BombIranForChrist:
That’s actually a Jeff Bezos (of Amazon) quote.
Which makes me think twice before clicking on Amazon to feed my books addiction.
My C student question to Mr. Bezos: how well has having the investment bank/hedge fund whiz kids run our economy and major corporations worked out for us all?
(Didn’t someone blog on whether predatory market behavior was enabled by financial whizzes with Asberger’s?)
Ah yes.
Michael Lewis wrote about hedge fund manager Michael Burry in “The Big Short.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-201004?printable=true
matoko_chan
@mclaren: umm..im not a guy. actually suzanne and the tacky old biddy cohort were proposing you an i get married last week.
you can trash talk me all you want, but they still wont liek you.
:)
@celticdragonchick: celticdragonchick, dont you have Hirsi Ali fundraiser to go to or sumpin?
@suzanne: SRSLY? you are pregnant and you took out 100k in loans to be a convenience store law clerk? you’re a bigger dimbo than Palin.
Dick Hertz
We need to propose that Charles Blow be replaced by Curtis Blow.
4jkb4ia
John, as usual with Blow the graph was more damning than the so-called “commentary”. Both MSNBC and CNN had peaks of Palin coverage where the name “Sarah Palin” would get 60 to 80 mentions each day. On Fox the name “Sarah Palin” would get at most 40 mentions. So Blow is very aware that the supposedly neutral media are fueling this obsession too. Still, every bit of shaming helps. They might listen if it was him and not Sargent the DFH blogger. (My husband, who was on to Palin as a failure within about two days of her nomination, simply said, “Good!”)
4jkb4ia
@Dick Hertz:
Kurtis Blow :)
glasnost
@kay,
I have no beef with anything you posted in response to me, but what, if anything, does it have to do with my point, which is basically Charles Blow’s point, which is that paying less attention to Sarah Palin would be the most effective way to weaken her empire?
While we’re off topic, though – the reason Sarah Palin was ‘allowed’ to duck interviews is the same reason Tiger Woods was – everyone is allowed to duck interviews. When was the last time a media organization forced anyone to grant an interview? They don’t have frickin’ laser beams.
ignoreland
@You Don’t Say: I had bumper stickers made that read
IM
@all:
What is a cudlip?
(americans are wacky)
chaseyourtail
Thank you. It’s Politico and the cable news morons who are obsessed with that nitwit, not the left. Jeezus effing Christ! Nothing would make me happier than to find out she got lost in the Alaskan wilderness, never to be found. “The left’s obsession”…what blithering idiocy.
matoko_chan
@glasnost: wallah, you are stupid.
Blow is just in lockstep with Rove and the rest of the conservative elites.
Palin cant win. They have to pull the base off her before she does a cristine o’donnell on them.
they are trying to suppress Palinism without actually telling the base she cant win.
because that doesnt work.
they tried that in Delaware.
@IM: respect mah trail of carnage.
jcricket
@Elizabelle: This is way older than Jeff Bezos (I know, I worked at amazon). The quote is “A’s hire A’s, B’s hire C’s”. Supposedly coined by Steve Jobs. My favorite rejoinder, supposedly by Guy Kawasaki is:
On the other hand, Jack Welch of GE fame said you can’t have a company full of “A” players (they don’t exist in large numbers). He suggested company’s were 10% A players, then the “vital 70” (let’s call them B’s, with potential to be A’s or slip to C’s) and the bottom 20% (which in Welch’s opinion you should always be firing).
Anyhoo – amazon is a great place to buy stuff, but Bezos is a Libertarian tool IRL.
Terrier
@matoko_chan: We loose not matter who runs.
matoko_chan
@Terrier: nah, we win no matter who runs.
but Palin is the easiest to beat.
that is why Rove and Blow are trying to kneecap her.
matoko_chan
@Terrier: well..technically Rove and scarborough tried to kneecap her– Blow is just trying to take away her oxygen.
:)