Instead of a bum, which is what she is, let’s face it (via):
In the Wall Street Journal’s online Political Diary, editorial-page editor Paul Gigot comments on Sarah Palin: “Ms. Palin might have been a contender. Had she finished her job as governor, devoted a year or two to learning what she didn’t know about the world and economics, built a network of support around the country, and developed a thicker skin about the media, she might now be a formidable candidate. Instead, she chose to be a media celebrity and to play hard-to-get as a candidate. The best thing she could do for her reputation at this point would be to declare once and for all that she isn’t running, and then work to support whoever is the GOP nominee.”
If I had wheels, I’d be a bus. The conceit that you can take some random charismatic grifter and, with a little elbow grease, turn her into a competent world leader is so silly I don’t know where to start. And these are the same people who tell us we need to understand a candidate’s “character”.
On to finding the next good-looking idiot who spouts right-wing nonsense.
Ben Cisco
In other words, had she been anyone other than who she is.
__
“She is who we thought she was!!”
TenguPhule
Zombie Ronald Reagan.
fasteddie9318
Gigot is such a fucking hack. Palin has lived 47 years without devoting any time to learning, and it’s made her a celebrity wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Why the hell would she change her shtick now?
The Dangerman
There is no doubt she’s a bum…
…but I still think she’s running. These proverbial shots over her bow from people like Gigot are trying to keep her out of the race; na gonna happen. There are several debates in September she has to miss before announcing.
Zifnab
@efgoldman: Beat me too it.
Gin & Tonic
All those guys, Gigot, Kristol, etc., view themselves as Henry Higgins.
Trentrunner
I think the mainstreaming of willful stupidity has been every bit as harmful to our country as the mainstreaming of right-wing radicalism.
No coincidence that they are often simultaneous.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
Then please explain Boy Blunder
Yutsano
@efgoldman: Well…Dubya had a few more cards to play than Snowbilly Snooki does. Like up to and including Poppy Bush more or less paving the way for him. And the choice of Dubya over Jeb was not accidental. Jeb is not a malleable moron. Which is why Poppy isn’t pushing for him to get in now.
MattF
Do we ask Mr. Gigot exactly what he ever did to be an expert in presidential politics? They’re all grifters.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@efgoldman:
sorry for the duplicate post – I can’t type very fast :)
smintheus
@Gin & Tonic:
“You bet’cha.”
...now I try to be amused
Mythbusters proved that you can in fact polish a turd — but not just any turd.
Suffern ACE
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, they do, without the steadfast refusal to admit that they’ve fallen in love that makes the musical so appealing. Also, had Higgins actually lost the bet, he would have had to admit that he couldn’t turn someone from low birth into a high society type…he would have had to admit that he was wrong and incompetent, and that is not something that is done. Must be Palin’s fault. Not the fact that Kristol and for that matter, McCain, lack any type of judgement and have been mostly wrong about everything…no…couldn’t be that.
El Tiburon
What efgoldman said, but let’s dive in deeper shall we.
Our current Prez has a lot of credentials – yet as a ‘competent world leader’ – he has a bit more baking to do.
Let’s face it: being a Democratic President means nominating a somewhat non-conservative crazy to the SCOTUS and tossing a few crumbs to his base. Otherwise what is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat in the Oval Office?
Beating the Titanic analogy to death: A Democratic President makes gestures of steering away from the iceberg while tapping on the breaks while the Republican steers directly for it while speeding up.
Either way Wall Street and Endless War wins. Middle-Class and America loses.
Special Patrol Group
Remember back in ‘008 when P. Gigot called out Ms. Palin for the obvious lightweight dimwit fraud of a pretender that she was then and is yet now? Yeah, me neither. As with the idiotic Iraq Invasion, I got Palin right the first time too. Unlike Dumbfuck Paul Gigot.
TooManyJens
This guy actually thinks a year or two of “learning about the world and economics” is adequate for the President of the United States. Jesus.
cleek
@Gin & Tonic:
Henry: Where are you going?
Eliza: To the river.
Henry: What for?
Eliza: To make a hole in it.
i don’t wish Palin dead, so i’d be content if she settled for making a good sized dent in her couch cushion.
Makewi
Amen. See also, Obama.
charles pierce
Hell, Paul Gigot won a freaking Pulitzer Prize for bilge like this. Why shouldn’t he think anything was possible?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Multiple people have been shot at an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nevada, according to local media reports.
According to KOLO-TV, initial details are sketchy but the shooting took place on the 3800 block of Carson Street.
At least eight were shot and the gunman was carrying a semi-automatic weapon, The Record-Courier reports. “Several people were killed,” according to the Carson City Sheriff’s Department.
Punchy
He fogot the necessary “….or two, give or take a decade or three, to learning….”.
Comrade Dread
Being President is hard. You’ve got to learn things and do stuff.
Being a media celebrity is easy. You just exploit your assets to get your name in the press and say stupid shit and you’re taken seriously by people because you represent the worst of humanity and we all love watching a train wreck.
peach flavored shampoo
This whole post is very condescending towards ABL.
ed drone
Instead of “Waiting for Godot,” I think we’re in “Waiting for Gidget.”
I just went with the Gigot name and the grifter’s waiting game Sarah is palin’ (I mean, playin’).
Ed
cmorenc
@Doug J:
They’ve already done that twice now, first Michelle Bachman, then Rick Perry. They already knew Bachman spoke too many of the wrong talking points that would scare too many voters, and so quickly went on to Perry once he jumped in, but they’re afraid that though he is more on-board with the sort of policies they really want, there’s too much moonbat in his mix that might scare off too many voters. Their preferred horse (Mitt Romney) whom they can count on to implement their wall street/chamber of commerce agenda, is struggling to gain traction with the Tea Party faction, who correctly see his character in much the same way as progressives do…a slippery untrustworthy chameleon lacking any true integrity of belief except to say whatever he thinks his current audience wants to hear. Someone you wouldn’t trust belaying you at the other end of the rope mountain climbing.
They know Huntsman has zero chance of winning the nomination, or even making a decent showing this time round. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, caught like Mickey in the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, having helped create the animated broom-helpers, but now powerless to control them.
balconesfault
@El Tiburon: Otherwise what is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat in the Oval Office?
If you don’t care whether our Federal Bureaucracy is actually trying to uphold laws and regulations … or is just functioning as a cash cow for wealthy interests and a revolving door for corporations, nothing, I guess.
Yutsano
@Makewi: You’re not even trying anymore.
@balconesfault: Ahh go on. Pure progressives gotta stay pure and all!!
Chris
Frankly, it’s not that hard to find a grifter who’ll appeal to conservatives and enough of the mushy middle to carry an election. See Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
The fact that it didn’t work for Palin is a testament to her laziness and petulance. She couldn’t even be arsed for the minimum effort to make a Reagan/Bush type of facade, and she threw temper tantrums every time Republican elites tried to dress her up enough to be seen in public. Lost cause.
RIP Sarah Palin. Onto Bachmann, Perry, and Jabba the Christie.
JPL
A song for the occasion..link
scav
The boy blunder wasn’t exactly random but more or less a hereditary charismatic grifter. La Palinista had to round all the bases but insisted on playing as though she’d started on third. Among her many other sins, I’m sure that didn’t sit well with those already in their gated-communities there.
JPL
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
I have on KNRV and they are about to hold a news conference
Chad N Freude
Way OT, but the Great Smog Betrayal continues. I just picked up an email from the NRDC whose subject is “President Obama just threw you overboard” and refers to “the President’s pro-polluter stance” and “little or no political price to pay for stabbing the environment in the back” and “selling out our family’s health and natural heritage to big polluters”.
For some reason that sounds kind of familiar.
Ogami Itto
In his capacity as WSJ editorial-page editor, Paul Gigot could simply institute a “no Sarah Palin stories” policy until she announces her (unlikely) candidacy; or he can continue to do what the rest of the mainstream media do — write endlessly about Palin’s every action and word.
She no longer matters to anybody but her cult. Let’s move on.
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
This. I think that “finding the next good-looking idiot who spouts right-wing nonsense” is a pretty good definition of Republican presidential politics these days. The problem is that they have to find their somebody close enough to election time that the average American only gets to hear the right-wing talking points but not to figure out that the person making them has no more leadership skill than any other parrot.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@El Tiburon: Well, we made it to comment 13 before someone swung at Obama.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Sorry, I meant 16, but my edit disappeared.
ETA: I think that should be a new measurement. We’ll call it the BJ. And we can measure a blogs concern by how small the number is.
giltay
And yet the belief persists—primarily, it seems, among those whose job it is to prop up charismatic grifters, ie the entertainment industry. And with most news outlets informed mostly by the entertainment industry …
dr. bloor
When I read the title of the post, I wasn’t sure whether you were referring to Palin or Gigot. That so many media types are so exquisitely poor at reading character, in spite of their collective obsession with the topic and their access to so much data about their subjects, never ceases to amaze me. To paraphrase an administration figure in another context, these are people who get eaten by bears.
Culture of Truth
Speaking of which, today Mitt Romney will propose eliminating taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains for middle-income taxpayers as a way growing the economy and creating jobs.
Chris
Also,
The whole point of politicians, even “world leaders” in the Republican ideology, is that they aren’t actually responsible for anything. They’re just supposed to stand there, give speeches to the rubes, and carry out the orders given to them by the real World Leaders – the Captains of Industry.
The “random charismatic grifter” is precisely what they want in a leader.
Nutella
@Chris:
Well, duh! Because government is the problem, not the solution.
dr. bloor
@Culture of Truth:
Holy hell–you mean I won’t have to pay taxes on the $17.23 I made last year (that was already sheltered in a retirement account)? Damn–I’m going to go Create Some Jobs!
trollhattan
Because we are a nation partly composed of Idiots, Sarah(tm) will continue to plague our airwaves until that damn bus melts into a puddle of aluminum.
Also, too, our “Liberal Media” are innumerate.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/94604/ask-mister-math-person#comments
But how many rubes believe this to be the case? I’ve had the conversation many, many times.
Culture of Truth
Shorter Gigot:
All she had to do was fake it for 2 more years and she could’ve have gone for the big score! What an idiot…
Ash Can
@TooManyJens:
Not only that, but he’s on crack if he thinks a year or two would be enough time for a dim bulb like Palin to learn enough to be even a minimally functional national-level politician, in this or any other nation. Some people are so desperate for Palin to be as smart as they want her to be — and, as you can see from Makewi’s comment above, so desperate for Obama to be as dumb as they want him to be — that it really is pathetic.
MikeBoyScout
I sit here laughing.
Does the idiot not even care that by writing and getting this obvious drivel published he looks like an asshat to history for ever?
If only…. LOL
El Cid
Right — because if an ignorant, proudly dumb (hostile to knowledge), mean, bitter, envious figure with a record of incompetent and corrupt governance just did a bit more homework and play-acting, then, by gosh, she’d have been a serious contender to run the world’s super-power and largest economy ever in its state of among the worst disarrays in its history.
By god, that’s some fine mature political analysis right there, and so reflective of the upper-class dominated idiot-show we’ve got for political leadership in this country.
JPL
@Culture of Truth: OT,response..so if you have stock in an IRA..would that still be taxed as ordinary income?
Gin & Tonic
@Culture of Truth: Now there’s a policy I can get behind. If I hadn’t had to pay income taxes on the $800 in capital gains I earned last year, who knows how many people I could have hired?
Gin & Tonic
I see I’m not as quick as dr. bloor. Although I am wealthier.
Comrade Mary
One reason why I was so initially freaked by Palin in 2008 was that I saw video of her AK governor debate where she was soft-spoken, earnest and seemed to have done her homework. She seemed at least minimally competent for the job she sought.
And then she started shriekin’ and gulpin’ and catch-phrasin’ on the campaign trail and my heart lifted even as my ears fell off.
Of course, there’s early debate video where bush seemed pretty coherent, too.
And Doug, I believe the canonical form is “If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.”
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: ot..most talk radio hosts preach the amount of stocks held by the middle class without mentioning that when you with draw from you IRA, you are taxed as ordinary income not capital gains. He’s cutting taxes for the wealthy.
The Dangerman
@Culture of Truth:
Divide and conquer; after Mitt does it for M.I.T., well, simple fairness dictates that it be changed to apply to everyone.
spongeworthy
This post looks so laughably obtuse that I actuall;y prefer to believe this:
The conceit that you can take some random charismatic grifter and, with a little elbow grease, turn her into a competent world leader is so silly I don’t know where to start…
is a not-so-thinly disguised dig at Obama’s diehards. Please tell me you didn’t miss the glaringly obvious comparison to the Current Occupant.
Culture of Truth
@JPL: Not sure, but Reversible Mittens announced his economic team: Glenn “Inside Job” Hubbard; Gregory “What Bush Recession?” Mankiw; Jim “America Does Not Got” Talent; and Vin “Don’t Call Him A Lobbyist!” Weber.
JPL
@Culture of Truth: hahahahahhahaha
I can’t wait until he names his climate team.
Kane
Paul Gigot is not alone in his thinking on Sarah Palin. I’ve heard this media narrative repeated a number of times in the past three years. As soon a McCain/Palin lost, the talking-heads were offering the directions of what Palin needed to do to become a viable candidate in 2012. She’s done the exact opposite on all counts.
gwangung
@spongeworthy: Pathetic. Put some minimal effort into it.
El Tiburon
@balconesfault:
Do you even realize that you wrote this? Or are you in some daze?
Obama’s financial team is nothing but a bunch of Wall Street Whores and you have the audacity to write this?
You…you sir or madam have no sense of decency. Or awareness. Open your window and smell some current events.
JPL
@Kane: She might have done the only thing she knew how. She needed to cash in before her star dimmed.
El Tiburon
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Or 16. Whatever it takes.
Also, first rule of Obamaclub: Don’t discuss Obamaclub.
Makewi
@Yutsano:
I just went for the expected line. I figured Doug was fishing for it, given how nicely he set it up for me.
Ken
@The Dangerman: I suspect Mitt’s definition of “middle income” is “halfway between the lowest and highest incomes”, not mean, median, or middle quintile. Remember, we’re talking about a man who is tearing down one of his beach houses because it’s not big enough.
Amir Khalid
If I sent my cat to America, she’d make a better President than Sarah Palin. If Palin were to announce her candidacy on a Monday morning, I’d bet on the campaign org collapsing around her ears by Friday night. She would be the William Hung of presidential contenders.
balconesfault
@El Tiburon: Obama’s financial team is nothing but a bunch of Wall Street Whores and you have the audacity to write this?
Meh. I’m thinking of other agencies. Trust me – despite all the left wing vapors over the pullback on the smog rules last week, states and industries are getting far more pressure to comply with existing environmental regs than they’ve had in a decade.
I’m no fan of Obama’s chumminess with Wall Street. But that’s the only part of the bureaucracy that matters.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
That there would make a nifty tshirt!
mellowjohn
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): if only the people in the restaurant had been exercising their 2nd amendment rights.
Makewi
@gwangung:
We wish Obama would, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to. One and done.
drkrick
@Yutsano:
Incorrect. Jeb was supposed to get the nod, but he lost his race for FL governor in ’94 while GWB won in TX, which pushed him to the head of the line. Nobody in the Bush machine was happy about it, but there it was.
Linda Featheringill
@Amir Khalid: #66
Hmmm. Khalid’s cat as president. Has possibilities. [him/her?]
trollhattan
@Makewi:
Considering the Republicans will run a kitchen table and the only remaining question is whether said table will be sane or insane, I wouldn’t bet on that.
catclub
@Culture of Truth: “interest, dividends and capital gains for middle-income taxpayers as a way of growing the economy and creating jobs.”
Important if true.
If the top level of Romney’s so-called middle income is not within a sneeze of the top 1/2%, I will be amazed.
More likely – he means all the way to the top.
catclub
@Culture of Truth: Where is Phil Gramm when you need him?
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
I want to see the birth certificate.
William Hurley
@efgoldman: I’m glad to see that it took barely seconds for someone to bring the glaring, reality-based and contradictory fact known as George the Lesser (Least?) to the author’s attention. Still, even in those few ticks of the clock, the stupidity of the OP inflicted pain.
Linda Featheringill
@Roger Moore: #76
Khalid’s cat:
The long form.
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
Vault copy! And then we have to check the kerning.
jwest
Overall, I must say I’m impressed with the commentors on this thread.
Though the arrogant, stubborn ignorance that is the hallmark of liberalism is evident throughout, there are some who know deep down that Palin will be the next President. Some primordial instinct bubbling up from the subconscious has given a few here the insight to see what is inevitable.
My opinion of dirty hippies has risen immeasurably.
Joey Maloney a/k/a BadExampleMan
“A year or two” might, I say might be enough time for Ms. Palin to come to appreciate the depths of her ignorance. There’s no possible way it would be enough time to remedy it.
trollhattan
@jwest:
Sad troll is sad.
jwest
“One reason why I was so initially freaked by Palin in 2008 was that I saw video of her AK governor debate where she was soft-spoken, earnest and seemed to have done her homework.”
You could almost smell the warm piss of fear running down the legs of liberals as they read this passage.
Comrade Mary, through a moment of intellectual honesty, has made it impossible for number of left wing zealots to sleep tonight.
Amir Khalid
@Linda Featheringill:
Alas, I don’t have a birth cert for Bianca. She didn’t have it with her when she followed me home six years ago.
Nutella
Gigot isn’t the only Palin fluffer. Here‘s Weigel in Slate yesterday:
Comrade Mary
pchrist seriously thinks that Palin is a credible candidate for president right now? Really? At least he’ll have his water sports hobbies to keep him happy for the next few years.
Alex S.
@jwest:
This is a big misconception. Liberals were never afraid of Sarah Palin. She was despised from the first day on.
Ash Can
@jwest: You know, you’re pretty funny. Silly, but funny. Try ramping up the “scary Palin” angle a little; that would make your shtick even better.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Ogami Itto: Remember when the dick whisperer had his Palin free month earlier this year? I wish they’d all take one, unless and until she gets in the actual race. They’re encouraging her political prick tease.
Hal
@Makewi:
Yes, yes. Obama and Palin are one and the same. It’s a shame some on the left have adopted the “he was only a community organizer!!!” line the GOP used for so long.
IMHO, Being a competent President has nothing to do with how long you spend as Governor, or a General or in Government at all. To me it’s about your ideas, and if you have at least some understanding of Government, Economics, Foreign Policy. I’m sure Obama is/was weaker in some of those areas than other, but what President isn’t or wasn’t.
Palin never seemed to understand much of anything related to Econ, Foreign Policy, or history, as she’s obviously shown.
Not liking Obama’s ideas are one thing. Claiming he’s a fraudulent fraudster, who is really just stupid, is an easy way to completely dismiss someone on the fly, but the evidence doesn’t support.
Elizabelle
Great blogpost, Doug.
If you were on one of the Sunday “public affairs” gabfests, I’d watch.
But you won’t be.
So I won’t.
Frankensteinbeck
@Alex S.:
Now, now, because liberals are also capable of nuance, let me inject some. No one was ever afraid that she was a powerful candidate who would kick our ass in an election. Hell, it took less than a week from her getting the nod by McCain to see what a gigantic drag she was on any ticket. We’re COMPLETELY terrified of what an incompetent president she’d be and the damage she’d do to everything she touched if she got the job. It’s just that damned few people think this is likely.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Frankly, I’d trust your cat more in any position of authority than I would the Great Northern Grifter(TM).
Brachiator
Worked for Dubya. You had to figure that the GOP would try it again.
@El Tiburon:
And so? Seriously. Wall Street is where the money whoring is. You kinda want a bunch of whores to give you input on how brothels operate. It’s like FDR appointing Joe Kennedy to head the SEC.
A certain segment of liberals and progressives need to get over their pointless insistence on purity, especially when they ignore competence and yearn for some kind of fantasy non-profit Economy Land.
And let’s not say anything about the Congress blocking Elizabeth Warren and Obama’s recent nominee for Commerce, and others who did not have a particularly strong Wall Street connection.
And let’s not say anything about the inability of the Secretaries of Commerce and Labor to contribute anything meaningful to economic and tax policy.
Mike G
It worked for them with The Chimp. Although he also had name recognition to rope in all the GOP droolers too lazy to learn a new name.
Seonachan
All of you positing GWB as a counterexample are missing a key word.
Bloix
“If I had wheels, I’d be a bus.”
The original of this is “”Az der bubbe vot gehat baytzim vot zie geven mein zayde” — if my grandma had balls she’d be my grandpa.
It’s a shame the wheels-bus euphemism has taken over.
Jado
@Suffern ACE:
Look, if you’re going to start citing evidence, we’re not going to be able to keep discussing this.
Current ConservaRepubliConfederaRealMurkin thought requires a certain…mental agility with regard to the power of positive (or negative, depending…)thinking. We find your lack of faith disturbing. If you can’t BELIEVE that it will be simply because we BELIEVE it will be, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.
And then we’ll start planning your demise, because you are a traitor to the Great White Republican Republic