This kid is a natural.
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Posts tagged as:
Sarah Palin
Getting busier all the time, which means I dip into the media political discourse less, and more briefly than before. Oddly, this is clarifying, particularly on the Sarah Palin narrative, and the white haired Fox News audience’s blind love of her, and all she stands for. I’m not the only commentator who has noticed this anti-intellectual elitism in aging conservative Republicanism.
I just happen to have grown up with these people my entire life.
When I decided to go to college and then law school, they dismissed it, and me, as “college boy”, in precisely the same tone as Sarah Palin said we need a commander in chief not a “law professor lecturing us”. They constantly claim to be better than every single person more educated than them, based entirely on their “common sense”, which translated means having no higher education beyond high school, and refusing to get it. Laughing off global warming because it’s snowing outside? Same thing. Making jokes about not being able to say the word “vote” in English? That’s what passed for dinner table conversation.
Chest beating about law and order? These are the same people who thought prison was a sensible punishment for a kid toilet papering their front lawn. Of course they want to torture terrorists in the face of all evidence that it doesn’t work, doesn’t provide intelligence, ruins America’s reputation, and won’t land the terrorists in prison. It feels better to torture them. Positively orgasmic.
Sarah Palin is their wet dream. Palin is as willfully ignorant as they are, as proud of being ignorant as they are, plus she’s on TV, and she’s just hot enough to star in masturbation fantasies for people who were last attractive enough to have sex that hot sometime in the 1960’s.
The bad news is that these people are out there, and still poisoning our political discourse with their ignorance beyond their actual numbers. The good news?
They’re dying off.
The better news?
The generations coming after them are dominated by those “college kids” they despised, possessing the knowledge their forebears refused to even attempt to get, despite that knowledge sitting right in front of them. And those new generations have so much evidence to prove beyond doubt that the previous ignorance, through Republicanism’s manifestation of that ignorance, has led America to utter disaster on every conceivable level, that this country will finally move forward.
That is factual.
And the aging, Fox News watching, Sarah Palin orgasmic demographic that ignores the factual shrinks every, single, day. They sure make a lot of noise as they go.
The most precise measure of their dwindling influence is made in presidential elections, the most recent of which elected Barack Hussein Obama president of the United States of America, over their hysterical, paranoid, delusional objection.
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Again, apparently completely unaware of the concept of irony, Sarah Palin gives a speech in which she criticizes President Obama for using a teleprompter and reads crib notes off her hand! LOL
So.
Great.
Sarah Palin is a blogging gift that keeps on giving. I can’t wait to get to interview more supporters. My guess is the next craze will be to get Sarah to sign the palms of supporter’s hands. They, like her, are completely and totally unaware in general.
PS: My other choice for headline was “Sarah Palin gives Nashville a handjob”
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Top of the rec list. It’s happening, just as I said it would back in July.
At some point, the dollar signs which Lee incessantly throws in everyone’s face will start to dwindle. Lee came out with a bang, and in the next quarter, his numbers dropped. Next quarter, they’ll drop some more. And then the next. By the end of 2009, Lee will be on a precipitous glide path. The proverbial wad has been shot.
Brunner, however, because of her performance in 2008, has a message that has already taken hold in the national blogosphere. She is a hero for national progressives. They’ve already got her back. My guess is that by December, national progressives online will take a long hard look at what a Fisher loss to Portman in 2010 will mean for Barack Obama in 2012, and Brunner’s online haul will ignite. There is no worse story line for Barack out of Ohio in 2010 than that a BUSH ADMINISTRATION TRADE OFFICIAL won the Ohio Senate seat. Once national progressives take their look, they will start pushing Brunner. Hard.
That December “long hard look” happened, and now, it’s taking hold. The problem with a campaign relying on viral online mojo is that this viral nature is unpredictable. At the risk of patting myself on the back too hard, you can’t predict it any better than I did in July. But it wasn’t that hard to predict – Brunner’s campaign is on the launch pad in February precisely as anyone with a brain would expect it to be, and precisely as it needs to be for Brunner to win.
In the meantime, Lee Fisher has spent about $1 million, and has gone nowhere. This is how Lee Fisher always campaigns – he raises a lot of money, then proceeds to flush it down the toilet. Lee hasn’t even filed yet – a lot of his money is being spent on paid staff to collect those signatures. Where the rest of the money has gone, who knows, but it hasn’t led to any traction on the ground, or movement in the polls. Lee is either treading water or going backward.
So here’s another prediction. If this momentum online continues for Brunner, and there’s no reason to think it won’t, by the end of March, she will be at fundraising parity with Fisher. To continue the momentum, Jennifer needs to keep pushing online, and start taking visible shots at Republicans.
Sarah Palin is teed up for Jennifer – I can imagine Jennifer on MSNBC saying that Palin is putting the cause of women in politics back a generation by embodying every stereotype imaginable by using a cheat sheet written on her hand like she’s a cheerleader needing to be reminded of the word “spirit”, cue the school cheer. It’s laughable, and perfect for Jennifer to punch.
Thank God Jennifer Brunner filed for this US Senate seat.
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Rahm Emanuel calls liberal groups “fucking retards” and Sarah Palin wants him fired. Rush Limbaugh calls same groups “retards” (he can’t say fuck on the radio like Howard can) and Sarah at first calls it “crude and demeaning” only to later defend Rush by agreeing with him and calling it “satire” and claiming the source of the crude and demeaning quote got it wrong.
This is, of course, not really news. We’ve long known Sarah is a vapid, hypocritical, fake ass bitch. Now we know she’s also a fucking retard who employs double standard like Rush does hyperbole.
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Andrew Sullivan is on quite a tear over Sarah Palin’s Tea Party appearance last night. I didn’t get to see the whole thing – I channel flipped between Palin and the Cavs, who were in the process of blowing a massive lead at home to the Knicks – Lebron, of course, pulled it out. What I did see of Palin last night convinces me of my Grand Theory of All Things Palin, which is the following.
Sarah Palin is nothing but an attention whore, and yes, I use that word on purpose. Palin has gotten where she is by being an empty, lazy, ignorant, vapid, and moderately attractive siren, because that’s what today’s media environment craves. Alas, she didn’t get her attention fix by becoming a broadcaster on ESPN, but she damn well was going to get it somehow. That’s the process we witness today.
Palin is eating it up, because it’s easy, and now, lucrative. This is her guiding principal in life. Apply that approach to Palin’s political future, and there really is only one path that makes sense for Palin – a doomed independent run for the presidency in 2012 which will destroy the Republican Party.
For as long as she can, Palin will do everything possible (which is to say, not lift a finger) to gin up speculation of a GOP presidential primary run in 2012, right up to the point she has to file in Iowa, NH, or any other primary state. Of course, she will not file, for several reasons. First, running for president actually requires work. Second, Palin knows she will never become the GOP nominee – the scrutiny of a major party primary process would destroy her image utterly. Third, it’s easier to play the victim if you don’t actually lose.
But more importantly, if she files for any presidential primary, she won’t be able to run as an independent, third party, perhaps Tea Party candidate for president. Palin cannot win as a third party nominee, but remember, Palin is not about governing, or actually being an elected official, she is about attention which earns her cash.
Nothing is more attention grabbing and scrutiny avoiding than a third party candidacy for president – a “Draft Sarah” movement is already teed up, and when that begins in earnest, after she plays a victim complex about being “forced out” of the 2012 GOP primary, it will be like raw cocaine into her vein. She may go through with an independent run, may not (see “this requires work” thing), but in the end, this is the path which leads to the most money and attention.
If she does get on the ballot in all 50 states, Barack Obama may carry all 50 states. If she doesn’t get on the ballot, her teabagger base will stay home in a fit of victimhood, and Barack Obama will carry perhaps 40 states. Either way, Palin’s pursuit of attention and money will never yield a Palin presidency, but will yield the total destruction of the right wing, Christianist fanatic Republicanism that Sullivan wants to see destroyed.
After Sarah Palin’s 2012 folly, it will be impossible for anyone in a leadership position within the GOP to survey the wreckage and conclude anything other than change must happen. It will be a spectacle to behold for the next several years, it will be ugly, you may have to turn away in horror, but in the end, Sarah Palin will change the Republican Party for the better, but not in the way her supporters think.
And that will be very good for our country.
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It only took 24 pages.
I picked up the book to give it another try after Thanksgiving. My annoyance with the first 15 pages had faded. All I remembered was the boredom. So, I gave it another shot.
Then, on page 22, she quoted “french writer Blaise Pascal.” I wondered if that was someone I should know from college philosophy or political science. Couldn’t recall, so I made a note to google it.
But within two more pages, when Palin supposedly quotes Plato, I had had enough. I closed the book, put the cover back on and stuck it in the corner.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know anyone who goes around quoting Plato. And does anyone seriously think Sarah Palin is one of the few who has those quotes filed away in her head? Is that supposed to make her sound smart? More likable? Blah.
Wanting to know if she correctly quoted Plato, I googled “Palin and Plato”. Funny. Andrew Sullivan wrote a post with just that title yesterday. His post links to this one by John Mark Reynolds, who is (from what I can tell) a conservative Christian writing for a blog called Evangel related to a magazine called First Things.
He actually got through the book (applause, applause!) and wrote this blog post about it called Rogue Thoughts: Chapter by Chapter on Sarah Palin. About this Plato thing, he writes:
But the ridiculous use of quotes or “big ideas” from great writers that one does not really read or know should end as well. When Palin artlessly writes: “Plato said it well, ‘Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,’” did she know the context of the quotation? Is it even in Plato? I cannot find it, don’t remember reading it, and I suspect that it is spurious. Can someone give me a reference?
It looks like the sort of thing Google tells you Plato said, but where the reference is impossible to find.
I am willing to bet at this point that Plato never said it, but if he did I am even more willing to bet that Palin and her writer are quote mining. If Plato said such a thing, it was likely in the context of the battle of each man against his lower nature. For Plato the chief battle was the inner one, but Palin uses it to reference our need to sympathize for people’s physical pain and life torments.
It is hard to imagine the Socrates of Phaedo making such a statement. So even if Plato said it (and he wrote so much it is hard to be sure), I am guessing that the context is wrong.
Why do I care? Partly, this is a live blog of my reading and I am a Plato guy so you are stuck with reading what I am thinking, but mostly because I find this kind of misuse of Plato irritating. Why do it? What is gained? Why quote mine?
So, there you go. So much for my adventure with Sarah Palin. I am going to read the rest of Mr. Reynolds’ blog post though. He wraps it up with the ten things he learned from the book.
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Imagine that. Sarah Palin’s “Bus Tour” is a big fake.
Of course it is.
While having a belated Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend at my in-laws’ house my mother in law told me a friend had seen the Palin bus behind their house parked behind a Target. The day before the Columbus signing.
Odd, huh? Then I read all the ruckus online about how Palin is not actually traveling across country on a bus doing a book tour:
It seems now that Palin hasn’t been on the bus, except for short hops between local airports and hotels and book-signing sites. Instead, as first reported by the Alaskan blog Palingates, she’s apparently been aboard UJT750, the Gulfstream American twin-jet that she first boarded at Westchester County airport shortly after noon on November 18, bound for Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the first stop on her tour.
So when Tim and I went to check out things the day after filming some book tour campers and saw the big bus pull up just before signing time in front of the Border’s, Palin most likely wasn’t even on it. She certainly hasn’t been on it the entire time on any kind of “bus tour” of the heartland. That trip from a Target down the street to Border’s must have been tough!
The sycophants get duped again! Boy, she sure has a great con going on and supporters are probably none the wiser. In fact, I KNOW they are none the wiser. I was there!
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It’s irrational to find the underside of a toe nail sexually arousing, and yet, for those so aroused, it’s addictive. It’s called a fetish.
If you understand that your fetish is just that, great. Go suck the underside of a toe nail, see if I care. If you think your fetishes are somehow rational, you are misguided. If you think your fetishes amount to a political philosophy, you’re a god damned idiot….and a conservative Republican teabagger.
Let’s start with historical re-enactment, the first, most obvious fetish of conservative Republicanism. We’ve all seen the magazines, maybe in the library or at the barber shop – Civil War Times, Military History, or whatever….the sepia-toned, luxuriously illustrated scenes of great daring do, with ads for gold pawn shops, toy soldiers, and “rare” “coins” sprinkled throughout…you could sell these morons a ticket to the moon if you wrapped it in red white and blue.
The teabaggers masturbate to this. They do. They dress up in period garb, wave a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag at a tea party, then go home and roll around in fake parchment reproductions of the Declaration of Independence, cleaning up their ejaculate with genuine imitation copies of the Federalist Papers. Then they come back and do it again, this time making sure their “authentic” costume is more authentic-y, because a fellow “patriot” one-upped theirs last time by carrying antique hard tack from an encampment at Antietam which he purchased online for only $4.99.
In the early days of the country, Americans sought example for such daring-do in European history. Napoleon! This was eventually rejected by the culture, as America developed its own history. But it stems from the same fantasy instinct – someone, somewhere, at some other time, had a much more AWESOME go of it, and they looked AWESOME while they did it, so let’s play!
The second fetish of conservative Republicanism is, of course, sex. It stems from the evangelical Christian approach to sex – prohibitive, judgmental, and negative, which creates in the conservative Republican a huge amount of guilt over any sex they may want or get, however hot or un-hot. A huge percentage of them are closeted gays, the rest feel guilty if they even get a damn hard on, so they obsess over it, repressed to the point of bursting.
Add Sarah Palin (who, frankly, ain’t all that hot) and you now have the full flower of the fetish, green light that shit, baby. Conservative Republican men jack off to pictures of Palin, their wives love Palin because she appears to be what their husbands crave, and the cycle begins. The closeted gays get further repressed from being surrounded by overtly hetero fawning over some stupid pin-up, and the entire thing turns into a volcano of ejaculate erupting like a fire hose out of Mt. Vesuvius.
Upon this pile of psycho-sexual obsessive compulsive near-schizophrenic twitching, conservative Republicanism plants buzzwords. FREEDOM! LIBERTY! CONSTITUTION! The teabaggers repeat the words over and over like an incantation, all while running around with their dicks and dildos, spraying spoo all over each other, pretending they are part of a great historic political movement, filming documentaries of themselves.
THIS IS NOT POLITICAL THOUGHT.
YOU PEOPLE HAVE A PROBLEM.
The combination of these two fetishes into some “movement” will be studied by entire departments of psychology at the university level for decades to come, but it is not political. It is just fucking weird.
The good news is that this bizarre festival of period garb and sex belongs to the Republican Party. All your base are belong to you, Republicans. May they long continue their fetishism.
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This guy says he was camping out in Columbus and ended up at some other Palin book signing….we missed him. Maybe he wasn’t suited up yet. Via…who else….Wonkette.
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A friend sent me a link to a new video by New Left Media, who interviewed Sarah Palin supporters outside of the Borders bookstore in Dublin, Ohio. We saw this guy the morning of the event. He had a cameraman (nice camera) and an actual microphone and was interviewing people in line. His tactics are friendlier, but the stupidity still shines through:
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Guess who else is raking in the dough as Sarah Palin noisily returns to the national stage: her detractors. After months of trailing Republicans in fundraising, Dems raised $11.5 million in October, a record for a non-presidential year
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Get the T shirt!
When we originally went out to see what was happening at the Border’s bookstore in suburban Columbus Ohio where people were camping out to be the first in line for a Sarah Palin book signing event, we had no idea what we’d be in for. It’s always this way. What was apparent right away was that these people were literally dug in for the long haul on their support of George W. Bush and unapologetic for having helped elect him and his disastrous administration.
When Tim came up with his “you can’t have it back because you fucked it up” line, it seemed to fit so well that not even those who were being told they fucked up our country seemed to object. They only did so once they began to realize what they were being accused of and they then searched in vain to find justifications for their past support of Bush and current support of the even more vapid Sarah Palin.
One such chap was someone we dubbed “duct tape dude”, a kid who had put duct tape over the McCain in his McCain-Palin tee shirt and replaced it with “2012″. Actually admitting in public that he wanted Sarah Palin to be our President in 2012. Game on:
If case you missed it: Camp Palin Part Uno
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Boy, I love me some irony. What the hell else did they expect given her history of quitting on her home state of Alaska so that she could travel around in a custom bus taking dollars from unsuspecting sycophants?
Seriously. Palin’s little book tour appears to be like honey to stupid bees.
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