I think Sarah Palin hit it on the head with the "death panel" thing. Her opponents see it as demagoguery, but they keep coming around to it. They call it "end of life care," or, as Evan Thomas puts it (without uttering the dreaded Palin's name), "Although demagogued as a 'death panel,' a program in Wisconsin to get patients to talk to their doctors about how they want to deal with death was actually a resounding success."
Well, what exactly is a "program to get people to talk to their doctors about how they want to deal with death?" If that's not a death panel, what is? I guess you could call it a death group, or a death meeting, but it's all the same thing: old people sitting around with their doctors talking about buying the farm.
That's the thing about dummies like Palin. They're so dumb, they have to say things simply so that they make sense. How provincial. In the world of big thinkers, death panel will lose against program in Wisconsin every time.
In Thomas' latest piece he uses his dying and now dead mother as an example. It's tough to go after a guy when he does something like that, but at the risk of being heartless, let's look at what he says:
There is no way we can get control of costs, which have grown by nearly 50 percent in the past decade, without finding a way to stop overtreating patients. In his address to Congress, President Obama spoke airily about reducing inefficiency, but he slid past the hard choices that will have to be made to stop health care from devouring ever-larger slices of the economy and tax dollar. A significant portion of the savings will have to come from the money we spend on seniors at the end of life because, as Willie Sutton explained about why he robbed banks, that's where the money is.
The next time you're at the hospital, don't ask if they can save your life. Ask if they can make sure not to overtreat you.
Pretty much gives the whole game away, doesn't it? He doesn't say "death panel," nor does he say "rationing," but it's all in there. He is quite literally saying that the best way to bring down the cost of health care is to save money on keeping old people alive.
Palin was right. With ObamaCare there will be death panels. If that makes you uncomfortable, just call them something else. Rationalize while you're rationing. Or for the love of Pete, just learn to think of death properly. Thomas: "Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable."
He's right. Death is more than science. It's dollars and sense. Ready to do your part?
Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska comes as a bit of a surprise. I'm hoping that she didn't pull the plug in order to contemplate a run at the presidency in 2012. If that's the case, then her goose is cooked and the resignation was a move of sheer political folly: you can't quit a governorship claiming lame duck status and then ask people to elect you president. Still, I wouldn't put anything past her. When you get down to it politically-speaking, she has nothing to lose.
If she resigned because of the beating that she and her family took over the past year, then I can't blame her. I wonder how I would feel. One day I'm just sitting around running a sparsely populated state, going hunting, trying to build an oil pipeline. The next, people are making fun of my handicapped kid, calling my 14-year-old a slut, calling me a slut, scrutinizing my religious beliefs, and dragging my name through the mud at every turn. Sooner or later, you might want to sit down and say, "You know what? Screw them and screw this."
Palin was vilified for being a woman and being a conservative. If she had been in favour of abortion, she would have been fine. That is the only test of Modern Feminism: are you pro-abortion or not? If not, then 'feminists' will destroy you. Gender has nothing to do with 'feminism.' Abortion is all.
For me, the most memorable hit piece on Palin comes from a 'feminist' named Cintra Wilson. I read it from time to time just to remind myself of the hypocrisy that is rife within the halls of Big Media and Modern Feminism:
I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, "Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume -- as a vice president? That's a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it."
Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain's standing among white women to a 53 over Obama's 41). But ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions -- their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership.
Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right. The throat she's so hot to cut is that of all American women.
I am willing to bet everything I own that Cintra Wilson didn't give a passing thought to Sarah Palin before she was named as McCain's running mate. It's almost certain she had never heard the words "Sarah Palin." But when Wilson saw Palin for the first time, her first thoughts were those written above.
How's that for feminism? Having a handicapped child unequivocally proves that you're an anti-abortion crusader. Cintra's message to mothers of handicapped children: you love your politics more than your baby. And allowing your teenage daughter to have a child? Why, you're nothing more than a deranged political zealot.
Some support. Some feminism.
Wilson's arrow is just one from the quiver of Palin Hate over the past year. I wonder if I could handle that much hate, especially when it was aimed at my kids. I remember one feminist commentator saying that Palin should stop "dragging out the handicapped baby" during the campaign, and another lamenting that Palin is not, in fact, a woman. Jay Leno joked about the names of Palin's kids - one of them should be named Rifle - and David Letterman bashed Palin so often it was pathological. His last attempt, saying Alex Rodriguez had slept with her 14-year-old daughter, was just the latest in a long line of slander. Andrew Sullivan, a writer at The Atlantic, spent a ton of time and filed more than a few pieces asking Palin to release her medical records so the world could find out if her youngest child was hers or her girl's.
10 months ago, nothing. Ten months later, enough slime to fill all the buckets in America. Could you hack it?
Politics is a tough game. Politicians deserve tough questions and scrutiny. They should expect bitter jabs and gossip. But let me ask you this: tell me the names of George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, John McCain, or Dick Cheney's children. No? Can't do it? No surprise. These men are attacked for their philosophies and their political ideology.
Family, sex, and religion were fair game for Palin alone.
It's been a tawdry, disgusting, disturbing ride. Now maybe we can hop off the bus for a while. But a quick note to young, pretty girls, compliments of the media and Modern Feminism: know your place, baby, and know it well.
Politico: Governor Sarah Palin paused Friday afternoon in front of a monument bearing the Declaration of Sentiments, an early feminist touchstone.
“We anticipate no small amount of ridicule,” she read, and remarked: “Some things never change.”
I am under no illusions: the hit job done on her last year by much of the press and virtually every "feminist" has probably killed any White House hopes. But I still dig her. She went through hellacious treatment and came out with her head up.
I was rummaging through some old blogs looking for a quote when it occurred to me how quickly we forget the past. Stuff seems terribly important at the time, then a month goes by and it's like it never happened. Think Enron, Myanmar, the Washington sniper, or Hillary vs. Obama. All of that angst and angry rhetoric: poof. Gone from the conversation.
Anyway, I stumbled upon some blogs I wrote about Sarah Palin. In all of the blogs I wrote in defense of her, I never said she would be a good vice-president. In 2008, that always made my friends stop in their tracks. They would say she'd be a horrible VP, and I would say, "When have I ever said she would be a good one?" They'd pause and say, "But you defend her all the time." And I would reply, "Sure. As a woman in politics receiving unbelievably harsh treatment for being a woman, I am on her side completely."
They would shake their heads to clear the cobwebs, ignore my point, and get back to telling me about a woman's right to choose or some such.
Sad fact is, most of the friends and occasional enemies that argued with me about Palin were women. Palin really struck a nerve with the ladies on both sides of the border. So-called feminists treated her extremely badly during last year's election. That's the main reason I came out of 2008 believing I am a bigger feminist than any of my female friends. In fact, I think I'm the only true feminist among them.
In any event, I stumbled upon this blog from September 13th of last year. In it I saw a quote from Cintra Wilson at Salon, from an article she wrote on September 10, 2008.
I read it over and was disgusted by the vitriol coming from her keyboard. Back in September it simply struck me as hypocritical and lame. Now I see it for what it was: utter fear, hatred, and bigotry, by a woman towards a woman.
Did feminists really write stuff like this last year? Yes they did. Quite a lot of it, too. Like most "commentary" on Palin, Wilson's piece didn't raise any eyebrows. She wasn't dragged onto The View to explain herself, David Letterman didn't use her as a punching bag, there was no outrage and no calls for apology. It was what it was: perfectly acceptable. Looking at it now, the date suddenly seems interesting. Wilson wrote it on September 10. The anger and fear of 9/11 were long gone from her mind. So was the goodwill and solidarity of 9/12.
Here's the bit:
I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, "Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume -- as a vice president? That's a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it."
Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain's standing among white women to a 53 over Obama's 41). But ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions -- their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership.
Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right. The throat she's so hot to cut is that of all American women.
Of course, they'll never be done with Palin for being a woman. I was looking for a photo to put up with this blog and found this piece from the LA Times, dated 7 hours ago:
Newly released academic research suggests that Sarah Palin's sexiness, while great for selling copies of Vogue magazine and political buttons about the hottest governor from the coldest state last fall, may actually have hurt her vote-getting ability, which seems to be what elections are about.
AOL News also covers the story, with the headline Sarah Palin Too Pretty to Attract Voters. The First Post has it as Sexy Sarah Palin needs get ugly to win in 2012.
Researching a woman's sexiness in order to decide her political viabilty. Tell me, my dear feminist friends, what you think of that?
In other news, the Chicago Sun-Times reports, "First Lady Michelle Obama's bare arms fashion continues to fascinate and make us all realize we need to do more on upper body strength."
This is probably the most revealing news story I have seen in years. Honestly.
It's Governor Sarah Palin, in an annual ceremony that many elected officials perform before Thanksgiving Day: pardoning a turkey.
At the start of the news piece, the anchor tells you to send the children out of the room, as well as anyone who might be squeamish. He says they have tried their best to "sanitize" what follows, but that you should still be wary. He asks if you're ready, then goes to tape.
The revealing part is the second half of the tape, where Palin is interviewed by a reporter. The reporter and the cameraman know full well that behind Palin, turkeys are being killed (this happens a lot before Thanksgiving; sorry, kids). Yet they do not stop the interview to seek a new spot. Back in the studio, here are the lower-thirds used by the news channel:
TURKEYS DIE AS SARAH PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM NEWS MEDIA.
TURKEY KILLING FOWLS [SIC] PALIN NEWS CONFERENCE.
GOVERNOR PALIN NOT REALIZING INCONGRUITY OF HER WORDS VERSUS HER BACKDROP.
Where to begin?
Never before have I seen the true colours of Big City liberal wimps burn so brightly. This video should be played at the beginning of every journalism class, to show students just how out of touch and hypocritical they are supposed to be.
I remember a couple of years ago I was in England watching a documentary with a friend's mom. She's a lady from Norway, and she wanted to show me this doc on Norwegian soldiers during WWII. In the documentary, modern day soldiers were showing what the WWII soldiers' living conditions were like up in the mountains. In one scene, a Norwegian is cutting up a bird and he says, "Kids need to do this stuff. Where the hell do they think things in the shop come from? They don't even know where potatoes come from."
My friend's mom said, "Exactly."
Of course she's right. We are so far removed from real life that a choice of anti-bacterial soap is more important than knowing how to kill what we eat. When we're hungry, we go to the shop and buy a pork chop or a slab of bacon. It never really occurs to us that somebody has to kill the pig, gut it, clean it, chop it up, and send it market. We take that for granted.
Like the MSNBC anchorman, the majority of us are "squeamish" because we are allowed to be. We're spoiled babies. We don't have to kill or prepare our food. By the time it gets to us, all evidence of life has been removed from the plastic wrapped object in the shop window. The closest any of our kids get to blood today is when an old man at the next table is eating a medium rare steak. Even then the mommies tell the kids not to do that later in life because the USPH says everything should be cooked well done. Double-dead.
And you know what? That's fine, as far as it goes. But it's ridiculous to use real life as an insult to the governor of a state where a great many people kill, clean, and cook what they eat.
No doubt the reporter thought she had a coup with this story, rather than an amusing blooper reel, but all they managed to do was show the imbecility of the reporter and others in her profession. I have no doubt in my mind that when the Chyron operator was punching in the catchy lines to those lower-thirds, he was just back from stuffing his face with a vacuum-wrapped ham and cheese in the cafeteria.
Notice during the video that Palin looks over her shoulder and sees the slaughterhouse, then looks back to the reporter and takes another question. From the angle she has talking to the reporter, I'm not sure if she knew that the killing was in the shot, but even so she doesn't blanche, doesn't stutter, doesn't lean over and puke. She's a woman that has killed her own food. She knows that a big male turkey is called a "tom," and manages to educate Americans by telling them so. She is that quaint thing we call an "outdoor" person, as if the rest of humanity was born to be raised in a three bedroom house.
The most telling lower-third on the screen is the one about Palin's "backdrop." Backdrop, huh? You mean the world? There was a time when the chopping block was more ordinary than a telephone. Just because those days are gone doesn't mean that someone else isn't cutting off the heads of your chicken nuggets.
If you're celebrating Thanksgiving in the US this year, don't forget to give thanks to the guy over Palin's shoulder. Without him, you wouldn't be having dinner. Then think about how incongruous you are to your surroundings.
Note: one other thing about this piece was bugging me from a cameraman's point of view. There was more than enough room to move in for a close-up on Palin if he chose to. Barring that, as a cameraman, I also would have slung the headphones over the tripod handle, wandered over to the turkey man, waved him to me, and told him we needed five minutes and could he take a smoke break? This is often done without cutting an interview. You'll notice the man is looking towards the camera (people always do that) and ruining the shot. I have to believe that if he wasn't killing turkeys, the cameraman would have moved him.
During the Republican Governors Association convention today, Palin said this:
"We're hearing now more talk of additional taxpayer bailouts ... for companies, for corporations, perhaps even states now who may be standing in line with their hands out despite, perhaps, some poor management decisions on their part that helped tank our economy," she said.
Palin stressed the need for what she called greater economic "accountability and personal responsibility" while urging "conservative solutions to these economic challenges."
Good move. She knows she has to make hay out of the spotlight she's received over the past two months and not let herself be forgotten up in Alaska. She must strike while the iron is hot and become a force without McCain.
As for the other governors at the convention, it was a case of holding the lady's hat and crying about it. Anonymously.
CNN:
Some Republican governors told CNN they were not particularly happy with the way the RGA press conference was executed Thursday, saying they agreed to go as a show of GOP governors' unity, but they ended up feeling like silent Palin supporters, because it was clearly a press conference called for her.
The GOP governors spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.
One called it awkward: "I'm sure you could see it on some of our faces."
One anonymous governor called the conference "weird," and lamented that it made Palin look like the de facto leader of the Republican party.
News for you, dude: when a lady says "the past is the past," starts talking about a party message regarding the bailout, and draws a press scrum to hear her every word, she is the leader of the party. Not de facto, but in fact. Besides, how can one of these no-name guys be a leader when they're afraid to even say things on the record? An anonymous governor is a meaningless person. Meaningless people aren't leaders.
These governors are fools not to see Palin as a key ingredient in rebuilding their party. The woman received over 50 million votes as a vice-presidential candidate. That is something the party can build on, provided they aren't so blinded by jealousy that they try to muzzle her.
This is old turf for Palin. She became governor by running against a Republican. She isn't afraid to duke it out with people in her own party. The jealousy can only serve to elevate her by giving her underdog status, with a dash of sexism thrown in. It will keep her name in the papers and her face on TV. If the other governors in her party don't see that their jealousy and anonymous tips will backfire, then they are delusional.
Governor of Texas Rick Perry tried to muzzle Palin today by cutting her news conference short. She was supposed to field questions for 20 minutes, but only took 4 questions by the time Perry ended it. According to CNN he said, "We were running behind schedule."
Yeah. Sure, Rick. And if you were taking questions as the de facto leader of the party?
She is not going to be the next vice president of the United States. She has gone home to Alaska, to resume her role as governor. She's out of national politics for the near future.
Not good enough for the Republican boneheads that got pasted in the presidential election.
McCain's insiders need a scapegoat. They need to paint Sarah Palin as a hick, a slut, and an idiot. The press are only too happy to help, reporting rumor as fact, shirking their duty to give the same scrutiny to the new president-elect of the United States.
Carl Cameron of Fox News, quoting anonymous McCain insiders: There are stories that say she would look at her press clippings in the morning and throw what has been described to me as "tantrums." One of the more infamous stories that's now come out is there was a time when McCain staffers went to collect her at her hotel room and she had just stepped out of the shower and essentially met them wrapped in a bathrobe [or was it two towels? See below]. They were taken aback by that. They have suggested that she's a bit of a shopoholic and that on more than one occasion she would go out and buy clothes that to many seemed unnecessary because the campaign had already provided her with a very large wardrobe, uh, a wardrobe that famously rang up a bill of $150,000, mostly because they bought extra sizes to make sure everything fit.
Nice guys. Just in case the governor had a fat butt, they bought extra sizes.
Palin didn't order the clothes. They were bought for her by the campaign before she even hit the ground in Minnesota. But she's a shopoholic bitch. The anonymous sources say so.
There's more. From Newsweek: At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel [but I thought they told Cameron it was a robe?], with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.
Well, that settles it. She's a tramp, and her dumb hillbilly husband doesn't mind people checking out his half-naked wife.
Another report from anonymous sources says that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, or which countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement. So she's a bimbo.
I heard from a few anonymous sources today. They said all of the guys working on the McCain campaign were drunk, hooked on crack, and liked to frequent red light districts in every state they visited. All of the McCain campaign's men wear ladies underwear and sing show tunes in the shower.
Go ahead. Prove me wrong. I can't divulge my anonymous sources, so good luck.
Sarah Palin has refused to comment on the attacks against her, saying that she won't comment unless these anonymous sources identify themselves. She has called them "small, bitter people." AOL news says the stories are bogus and CNN half-heartedly says it's a crock. Says Palin, "If I cost John McCain even one vote, I am sorry because he is, I believe, the American hero." She says she loves him. She hopes she can work with president-elect Barack Obama to make the USA energy independent, and show him what Alaska has to offer.
Palin understands politics is a tough business. She's honorable in defeat and holds her head high.
Sarah Palin was the best man in the election, and she will be missed.
A quick snapshot of how CNN sees things tonight. No Bias, No Bull, baby.
These are the items heading their Politics front page. Click to enlarge.
First, a whole lot of top stories to make Barack Obama look wonderful and McCain like a loser, plus a big headline saying...what? That conservatives are tweaking their tactics by putting guns to people's heads? The front page doesn't elaborate.
On the same page you'll find this cartoon by Bill Mitchell, who perfectly embodies the unbiased coverage of CNN. This cartoon is in keeping with the Halloween spirit. It shows Palin as a witch and says her best shot at national politics will arrive in 2012.
Hey, who needs an election, anyway?
Let's let Tito the Builder rough up the media a bit. Best lines: "Listen, don't pretend that we American people are stupid," and "These are to intimidate Colmes."
She's been getting stronger every day as this thing drags on. If McCain doesn't win this year, it will be interesting to see where her career goes after her term in Alaska.
"She learned how to shovel her bullshit better." - Alec Baldwin, on HBO.
"Here's a few lines from Sarah Palin [roll edited one second clips meant to make her look dumb]." - David Letterman (immediately following a different clip called "Palin Debate Recap," and immediately preceding the "Top Ten Messages Left on Sarah Palin's Answering Machine," which itself immediately preceded an interview with Brian Williams from NBC News which concentrated on...Sarah Palin).
"Which of these is not the name of one of Sarah Palin's children? Bristol, Track, or Rifle?" - Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
That's just a few bits I can remember from some late night flicking in the past half-hour. So what does all of this tell me, besides that Dave Letterman is sexually frustrated and wants to nail the Governor of Alaska?
It tells me that no matter how much Palin may be despised by the Left, she is sure getting their attention. A lot of their attention.
Interesting. If she was just a regular flake, they would insult her, ignore her, and move on with the show. If she was truly a buffoon cut from Dan Quayle cloth, you'd hear one or two jabs, and that would be it. But whenever Palin opens her mouth, the entire television universe spends days pouring over her every word. She's like some strange alien that has landed in their midst. "Bears children? Shoots guns? Has an accent? Says funny things like 'soccer game' and 'you betcha?' Hmm. Let us be wary of this beast."
David Letterman now spends almost a quarter of his show discussing Sarah Palin. He delights in replaying her saying that she is just another "Joe Six Pack," though it is Joe Six Pack that pays his salary. I wonder if he knows that, or if decades of living in a swanky New York mansion have obliterated his memories of Indiana.
I channel surfed some cable news this afternoon and watched as they flipped back and forth between "economic meldown" and "who won the debate?" Even as the economy continued to tank, Fox, MSNBC, and CNN couldn't help themselves: they had to keep returning to the topic of Sarah Palin. They didn't spend much time on Biden, beyond a standard "he did well." It was all about Palin. Naturally it was mostly negative press, but there was a constant flow of it.
The media's intense interest in Sarah Palin is shared by the public. Last night, close to 70,000,000 people watched the Palin/Biden debate. That is the highest rated VP debate ever, and it beat the Obama/McCain debate by 33%. Only two other presidential debates come close: Clinton-Perot-Bush in 1992, and Reagan/Carter in 1980 (truly mammoth, with over 80 million viewers and back when the population was a lot smaller, too).
The media bigshots virtually all agree that Palin lost the debate with Biden. There's several polls out that say the public thinks so too, by differing margins. Me, I'm not so sure. There's something about this microscopic scrutiny of her that makes me think two things. One, she is seen as a grave threat to those who don't share her beliefs, and it forces them to discuss her and more importantly think about her. Two, not everyone may like her, but they all want to hear what she says next.
In politics, that's always a good thing. Yet there's a strange irony here. If Palin's stardom and interest continues to rise, she may become the de facto top of the ticket in people's guts if not in their heads. One has to ask: if the Republican ticket becomes the Palin ticket, will they still vote for McCain?
Here's my precursor to the Palin/Biden debate, which comes after a horrible 10 days for the Alaskan Governor:
The media have run Palin into the ground, and they're going to keep her there. Now that her poll numbers are dipping sharply, they'll keep their feet on her throat. It serves two purposes: one, teach the lady a lesson about venturing into national politics ever again. Two, make sure those poll numbers stay low so that it starts to affect voter turnout in November.
It's not all the media's fault. They certainly have attempted to destroy her, but there's no reason why Palin should be helping them out. Three TV interviews in a month? That is like begging the media to rip you a new one. Since every single word she says is going to be scrutinized beyond belief, the right strategy should not have been less exposure, but more. Lots more. Fill the airwaves with anecdotes, stories, gaffes, whatever.
Biden gets a free ride not only because he's a Democrat, but because he's a goof. He'll say any fool thing, and he does it all the time. And that's the point: "Ah, that's just Joe. What a dummy." And on with life.
Instead of being caged by McCain's staff, Palin should have been trotted out all over the place. Fifteen interviews with local papers and media, just to get her confidence up. Field some questions, and hit some minor league pitching. Then five interviews with the big boys, a few townhall meetings, and a bunch of radio spots. After all that, she might still have been called a bimbo or a fool, but at least some good would have come out of it. A positive soundbite here, a touching life story there. She also would have found out what she needed to brush up on (hint: foreign policy). The crowds alone would have made her look good: a gaffe in front of a cheering audience is not a gaffe. A gaffe in front of an adversarial press is a gaffe-gaffe.
So far, Palin's simply been led out to the woodshed once every ten days to get a thorough beating. It's starting to show. Her confidence is shot. She's trying to remember all of the things that her tutors have stuffed into her head. She's heard the criticism from the media, internalized it, and now all of her answers sound like they're coming from cue cards. Her delivery has gone to hell, and her poise is off. She's trying to be too perfect.
Palin - When She Was Palin Her handlers have set her up to fail. The woman is a country girl from a small town. That is part of her charm. She's an outsider. That is why she was selected, and what the crowds are showing up to see. Her campaign should have sent her on a whistle-stop tour of thirty western states the second she stepped off that convention hall's podium. Instead, her handlers have taken a good piece of clay and tried to mold it into something terrible: a Washington politician.
Palin has to take some responsibility for this horrible week. Her answers regarding Russia and Pakistan were embarrassing, and her Katie Couric interview was a mess. Again, she was trying to be too perfect, and came off looking like a deer in the headlights whenever she didn't have the perfect answer. Reminder: there isn't one. Trust yourself and forget the mental cue cards.
Unlike a presidential candidate, a VP pick doesn't have much time to get up to speed. Governors especially are not thinking too much about Pakistani borders. Foreign policy is always going to be their immediate weakness, at least until they get a chance to talk to people and read some books. So when a VP is tapped on the shoulder, they have to cram, and cram hard.
Palin's been cramming, but she has to get back to her roots. Don't know the answer? Fine. But rely on your abilities and at least dance like you have the answer. Or, if you're dead set on being a true Washington politician, then just say, "Interesting question, Katie." And change the subject.
They all do it. Don't know much about Iran? Start off the answer with Iran, then start talking about somewhere you're more familiar with. Maybe Russia. Maybe North Korea. Whatever, just make it a dangerous place. Financial turmoil giving you a hassle? No problem. Switch to energy consumption and saving money at the pump.
I was watching a Charlie Rose clip from last year, where he interviewed Palin. It was like watching a different Governor. Actually, strike that. It was like watching a confident Governor.
Welcome to the bigs, Palin. Get out of your slump. Like it or not, you have to start hitting curves.
"Part of what being a leader does to instill confidence is to demonstrate what he or she knows what they are talking about and communicating to people ... this is how we can fix this. When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'look, here's what happened.'"
That's Joe Biden, in a CBS interview with Katie Couric.
Problem 1: When the stock market crashed in 1929, FDR wasn't the President. Herbert Hoover was. Problem 2: in 1929, nobody was watching television. The only people that owned a TV had dibs on experimental sets that emitted a weird, orange glow the size of a credit card.
So much for instilling confidence by appearing to know what you're talking about.
Grant, in a rare DVD release, 1946
You probably didn't hear much about this latest of Biden's gaffes. It's not newsworthy because he's only running as a VP. As Slate tells it, Biden is a "harmless gaffe machine." As the LA Times notes, Biden merely "misspoke" about FDR and the history of the television set.
Misspoke. Harmless. Uh-huh.
Now let me ask you, my darling friends and readers, if Sarah Palin had misspoken in the same way, what do you think the reaction would have been to that harmless gaffe? We saw how she was raked over the coals for the Bush Doctrine. But flubbing FDR, the Great Depression, and TV?
Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.
"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.
The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply.
The disclosure Wednesday raises new questions about the propriety of the Palin administration's use of nongovernment e-mail accounts to conduct state business.
Yes, you could look at it like that. Or you could look at it as a politically motivated illegal attack, and that the hackers should be put in jail. There is no difference between hacking someone's emails and posting them to the internet, and stealing letters from a person's mailbox and printing them in a newspaper.
The media spin on this is going to be interesting. Note that the AP "did not comply" with a Secret Service request for copies of the hacked emails, and nowhere in the article is the word "illegal" even mentioned except by McCain's spokesman. You'd think a proper piece of journalism would highlight the crime and its possible punishment. Think again. The media no doubt believe that the emails are already out there, so what the hell. Might as well use them to see if there's any "gotcha" moments. It's also interesting to see the AP use the word "disclosure" to describe criminal activity.
I'm beginning to get quite tired of the media saying that this is an all around dirty campaign. So far, I see a hell of lot of dirt going in only one direction. Still, the irony is rich. Earlier this week, the Obama campaign made a big deal about McCain not being able to use email (he can't type because of his war injuries, but why let that ruin a soundbite?). Now it's a big deal that Palin uses email too much.
The trashing and microscopic scrutiny of Sarah Palin will continue until a) she loses the VP bid, or b) she and McCain win the election. If that happens, she'll have at least four more years of this stuff to look forward to. Lucky her.
Skip this if you're bored of politics. I'll get back to baseball, sex, and fun stuff soon. But it's the political season, so you'll have to bear with.
Here's some more ammunition to add to my theory that Palin's identity will be smashed and trashed by "feminists" far more than it will by any misogynistic man. I'm loving this. Their new transparency is absolutely beautiful.
Wendy Doninger, Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago’s Divinity School:
[Palin's] greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman. The Republican party's cynical calculation that because she has a womb and makes lots and lots of babies (and drives them to school! wow!) she speaks for the women of America, and will capture their hearts and their votes, has driven thousands of real women to take to their computers in outrage. She does not speak for women; she has no sympathy for the problems of other women, particularly working class women.
That must be a pretty interesting religion class. And wait a minute...Palin's not a woman?
I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, "Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a 'sexy librarian' costume -- as a vice president? That's a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it."
Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain's standing among white women to a 53 over Obama's 41). But ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions -- their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership.
Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right. The throat she's so hot to cut is that of all American women.
Got it. Now it is acceptable to knock a woman for her looks, ambition, type A personality, being a baby factory, and having a disabled son. Thanks for clearing that up.
I watched a video clip of The View, that strange show where 5 rich women tell the housewives of America how to live their lives.
Last week, John McCain paid the gals a visit. The group asked him about the Supreme Court (surprise, surprise, Roe v. Wade came up within 10 seconds), and Whoopi Goldberg also asked McCain if she should be worried about becoming a slave.
Whoopi asked that question because McCain says he wants Supreme Court justices that interpret the constitution the way the Framers intended. That is, not to write legislation, but to weigh the legislation against the words written in the constitution.
This is where Whoopi pounced, asking if she should be worried about "becoming a slave again." Poor McCain had to murmur that no, that wouldn't happen, but that he understood her concern. The crowd applauded. Whoopi comically fanned herself with a slip of paper and admired her own intelligence. McCain had to give her a hat tip because, though talking to an idiot, he was in the idiot's house.
The irony of Goldberg's stupidity is rich. Just as McCain finished saying that he doesn't want justices writing law, Whoopi asked if the justices will bring back slavery. It was too far above her head to grasp that 1) the Supreme Court cannot write slavery into law, and 2) even if the legislature wanted to write slavery into law, it would be against the 13th Amendment of the constitution, making the law moot. Therefore, Goldberg is in total agreement with McCain: the Supreme Court shouldn't be writing laws, and they should be interpreting it the way the Framers intended.
The 13th Amendment reads like this:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
And that's that. No slavery. If Goldberg wants to worry about new laws, she should be looking to Congress, not the Supreme Court.
The hosts of The View need a refresher course in the different branches of government. I'd be happy if they even bothered to Google it.
Whoopi also took a run at McCain for the separation of church and state mumbo jumbo, which isn't in the constitution. The Framers batted the concept around in correspondence, but they never made any specific rules about it (though most people use the First Amendment to cover the subject).
Atheists have been using the church/state argument to paint ever widening circles intended to shut Christians up, thinking that church/state is written in stone. The logical conclusion of their argument seems to be that leaders should never be religious. Untrue. What the Framers seemed to intend was that no president should also be the leader of a religious group. That is, a religion's beliefs don't write the rules. But there's a flipside: the Framers didn't want the state to tell a religion what to do either. That's the whole point of the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause. It isn't there to protect the government, it's there to protect the religious worshipper.
In any case, contrary to what the View gals want, nowhere in any US rule book is there a passage that says a president cannot say the word "God." Unfortunately, there's no rule against being forced to hobnob with daytime talkshow hosts, either.
The church/state deal is a problem for Whoopi and the gang because Palin prays. Whoopi says that it worries her. She agrees that the US may have a Judeo-Christian tradition (McCain brought up the term, which is why Goldberg used it later to sound smart), but she says that there's Muslims and Zoroastrians in America, too. When she said that, five people applauded and McCain, to his credit, said, "There's a few Zoroastrians at the back."
Church/state. Palin prays. There goes the neighbourhood.
Everybody's been lionizing Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln these days. I'm sure Whoopi thinks that Lincoln was a great man for freeing the slaves and fighting the Civil War. I believe that, too. Still, this statement from Lincoln regarding the Bible would scare the hell out of Goldberg:
"In regard to this Great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."
Yikes. If Honest Abe were running for president today, Whoopi would rake him over the coals for that. Civil war? Suspending habeus corpus? Bible thumping? The man's a murderous Jesus-freak and a tyrant.
As for Roosevelt, here's his take. Whoopi should listen carefully: "If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross-examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office."
Gibson: Snotty, aloof, but fair. I laugh when he's Mr. Serious during his interviews, glasses perched on the end of his nose, voice just above a grumble. Then they cut to him introducing a hurricane story and - ta da! - the glasses are gone and he's as chipper as...well, as a reporter who thinks a lot of people are going to die in a hurricane.
Charlie came out of the morning anchor circuit, so he's a media goof with something to prove (and no, I'm not sticking up for Palin; I've often said Charlie Gibson's a clown). His question about Iran being an "existential" threat was weird, and his exasperated question, "You don't believe it global warming?" proved he's a jackass. That said, he asked some reasonable and tough questions. He'd never put Obama through that kind of ringer, but that's to be expected so you can't whine about it.
Palin: Surprisingly mediocre. As a warmup for the interview, I went back and watched her with Charlie Rose. It was a piece from last year. Palin at a desk, black jacket, black background. She looked and sounded comfortable. She told anecdotes with an easy manner, and she sounded firm on policy issues.
New ballgame this time around. Someone forgot to explicitly tell Palin that the national media is her enemy. No matter how many times she called Gibson "Charlie," he wasn't going to lay off. Charlie was there to get a soundbite, hammer her for being a hick and, hopefully, make her look stupid and unprepared. The soundbite they've latched onto was her saying that the US could go to war if Russia attacked Georgia, provided Georgia is a member of NATO. It was a silly hypothetical question which McCain would have handled more deftly. Instead, Palin told the flat out truth: "Perhaps." She went on to say that war would be a last resort, but that all NATO countries had to expect their allies to come to each other's aid. That's absolutely true, but we'll see if the media spin it as Sarah the Warmonger.
She was nervous. Probably had too much coaching in the last few days, undermining her regular cool and making her think that this was too big a deal, when really it was just talking to a morning news guy. From previous interviews, I know she has it in her. Tonight, she reminded me of some clients I've shot that have only been in front of a camera a few times.
She has to absolutely demand that she gets to sit at a table or desk across from the interviewer. I don't know what her handlers were thinking, but the little wooden chairs and vast open living room were a horrible idea. She looked much smaller than Charlie, like a student/professor scene, especially in the wide cutaway.
I think she'll get better as she gets warmed up to the heat of a new spotlight. Taken like that, Gibson was good for her. Trial by fire. She'll probably be ready for Biden in the debate. My advice: take the coaching with a grain of salt, and get back to being yourself.
South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate "whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”
Bong! Ring up another few thousand votes for McCain (that's the man running for President, in case the VP-happy Democrats forgot). At this rate, McCain's going to save a bundle on advertising. All he has to do is make sure a reporter is within five hundred feet of a Democrat.
Though Fowler's asinine statement does nothing to impress you with the judgement of South Carolina's Democratic leadership, for sheer stupidity nothing compares to the state's 2007 Miss Teen America entry. Here she is answering questions on education reform. Give her 15 years and she's a shoo in as the Chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic party.
It looks like Steyn has decided to weigh in on the Palin deal and how the media's treating it.
A couple of months ago, Steyn decided to take a hiatus to work on some mysterious project or other (probably a book, but maybe he's just gassed from duking it out with Canada's human rights gurus and he decided to summer it out with the wife and kids). In any case, when the McCain ticket picked up Palin, I stopped by his website for the first time in over a month because I knew he wouldn't be able to contain himself.
I was right, but Steyn's hedging. So far he's contented himself with logging on at NRO's Corner to give a few soundbites. I know what he's up to. Not writing a fullblown article allows him to pretend that he's still on a break, able to answer his wife with, "What? Nothing. Nope, still not interested in getting back to it. Huh? Oh, just an email to a friend."
After reading the first one last week, I thought, "He'll get hooked." Sure enough, three showed up on Thursday and another one on Friday, like the ex-smoker who hit the wall the night before and is now trying to scale it back. Then yesterday there were two soundbites at the Corner. Now there's two more, and Tuesday isn't even over yet.
He must really be in fits. It was all human rights all the time, and it looked like a nice, boring, easy three months until the next round in December. Then along came Palin. Moose hunting women running for office? Feminists freaking out on both sides of the Atlantic? CBC writers talking trash? British Prime Ministers picking sides? This is Steyn heaven.
So give it a rest, Steyn. Sorry, but I've got to call you out. You know you're hooked. Don't feel bad. Tell the wife you're only human. You might as well just write a full 800 worder to let us know what's on your mind. You'll feel better.
Well, well. Another lefty feminist, another violent screed against Sarah Palin.
Yes, yes, "I told you so," but this rant is a little different. It comes from Heather Mallick over at the CBC. She's a self-described feminist/author/journalist, and, unlike most of the journalists outside of China and Cuba, she is paid by the state (that's where the CBC gets a lot of its dough, in case you've forgotten).
Let's go to press:
Mallick Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol [Palin's daughter] has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?
I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don't the Palins? I'm not the one preaching homespun values but I'd destroy that ratboy before I'd let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. Palin's e-mails about the brother-in-law she tried to get fired as a state trooper are fizzing with rage and revenge. Turn your guns on Levi, ma'am.
If you've never read Mallick's stuff, you'd probably think she's a satirist. But you're wrong. She's simply an arrogant, shameless woman who enjoys penning hate speech. In two paragraphs of state subsidized virtriol, she's managed to call Palin a porno actress, trash her son, husband, and daughter, tell you that she would destroy a teenager and that you would to, and advises Palin to shoot him herself.
Gee, Heather. Anything else?
As it happens, yes:
American politics isn't short of smart women. Susan Eisenhower, Ike's granddaughter, who just endorsed Obama, made an extraordinary speech at the Democratic convention (and a terrific casual appearance on The Colbert Report as Palin was speaking). The Republican party has already consumed nearly all of its moderate "seed corn," she said aptly. Time to start again.
Eisenhower, a scholar and journalist, has a point. Or am I only saying that because she's part of the thoughtful demographic that I'm trying to reach here? Think, Heather, think like a Republican! The Skeptics, shall I call them, are my base, and I'll pander to them as ardently as the Republican patriarchs tease their white female marginals.
Got it. Scholar and journalist = good people. White female Republican = marginal. Bingo. Palin's a porn bimbo because she's a Republican. Scorn her, smear her family, advise destruction. Susan Eisenhower, whom you've never heard of, is a Democrat. My, how the angels sing. I will bet you anything that if there was an (R) in front of Eisenhower's name, Mallick could brew up a ton of mud to sling her way. Since there isn't, let's leave her family and bra size out of it.
But let's be frank. If Mallick wants to make appearance an issue, fine. Given a choice between Hot-Lips-Naughty-Librarian Palin and Granny-Necklace-Heavyweight-Fighter-Jaw Mallick, 9 out of 10 men pick Palin, and the other guy is in the john and can't vote. To judge by the photos, Palin has weathered the harsh Alaskan winters a lot better than Mallick has survived the Big City cocktail circuit. That, too, is no doubt a big source of Mallick's hatred for a woman she probably hadn't heard of until a week ago.
It is the left wing feminists' transparency that makes me grin. Their movement has always preached equality, but like all leftists, their view of equality is taken from Animal Farm (the book, Heather, not the porno). To paraphrase: All women are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Here's Mallick on September 5th, in The Guardian. In this piece she inadvertently gets to the root of her psychosis as a threatened snob:
My credentials are solid; Palin cannot out-hick me. Until I fled at 18, I never lived in a northern town of more than 12,000 people. My towns were full of Sarah Palins. These types are fine, such as they are, until they leave town and turn fraudulent. They label themselves "the salt of the earth". It's when they try to make that a qualification for a greater glory that things turn unpleasant.
I never claimed a higher moral standing for coming from a great big empty on the map. Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home...What is native to [Palin] is smugness, her certainty that what's good for Wasilla is good for the world in all its infinite variety. It's a variety that Palin will never begin to grasp.
Now I get it. The whole wonderful world is Mallick's playpen. How dare another hick come out to spoil all of the fun. Mallick, of course, has the wit and wisdom to interpret the world in all of its infinite variety. Palin, dummy that she is, should be at home changing diapers.
The McCain/Palin ticket is manna from Heaven. If you've been waiting for these hypocrites of equality to come out of the closet and expose what they really think, then enjoy the ride. It's going to be a long one.
I got an email from a buddy of mine, who's telling me lay off the political stuff for a while and get back to talking about important things like baseball and sex. He says politics is boring and that he doesn't want to read political screeds every day.
He has a point. But after a long summer hiatus of more or less keeping my mouth shut, I've got to weigh in on the most interesting presidential race I've ever seen (I wrote a few months back that I wouldn't be talking about the race until I saw how things shook out; consider them shook).
Here's another update from my As I Was Saying series. This is from Froma Harrop. See what you think of this little piece of high-brow journalism:
"I had dinner last night with a Republican-leaning independent who was despondent over John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She had been looking forward to supporting McCain as a fiscal conservative with a deep understanding of foreign relations. But all she could now see was that picture of Palin's pregnant 17-year-old looking defiant and stupid as she held mom's fifth baby."
Nice. A great cheapshot. Nothing like beating up on a teenager to make a professional journalist feel mighty and brave. As for me, I didn't see Palin's kid as "defiant and stupid." She just looked like a teenager watching a speech, one of the hundreds we've seen over the years in those "cut away to the family while the candidate speaks" shots. However, I've never seen a journalist actually comment on those shots in order to indict the candidate.
Harrop ends off her sharp political analysis this way: "Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate with many American families. Yes, if they're from Mars or perhaps on welfare."
I don't get it. Only Martians on welfare have problems at home? But that's the way it is now. All it took to make kids eligible receivers for the mud journalists sling is a woman on the Republican ticket.
I am screaming with laughter at how quickly and violently these journalists' views have come to the fore.
Remember, I have no problem with people picking on a politician for the issues and some parts of their own personal life (Kids? No. Hooked on heroin? Yes). It's when they go after the kids that I think it's gone too far. Journalist Nick Clooney (George Clooney's pop) said that he wouldn't have gone there in the past, and he wouldn't do it now. An editor from Time magazine was asked about Palin's kid, and he asked for another question, refusing to talk about it. That pissed me off, because it meant I might actually have to subscribe to Time.
So yes, this election might really be about change.
