Feed: No More Mister Nice Blog - AggScore: 61.4
So True.
Athenae on why Chris Matthews is Chris Matthews:
Athenae on why Chris Matthews is Chris Matthews:
HE'S A COMPLETE AND TOTAL MORON. Oh, my God, he's just such a kitchen appliance. He's a blender. Maybe a whisk. He has the wide world experience of your average two-year-old. He's just a fucking idiot. If you make it any more complicated than that you will once and forever lose the fucking thread.
Everything these people know about life outside their bubble, they have learned from TV and the movies. EVERYTHING. Tweety is picturing something he saw in a movie once, maybe, where a defendant gets up and makes an impassioned speech and the judge starts crying and everyone agrees that this man should go free to murder and terrorize no more.
He saw Inherit the Wind, maybe, and he thinks it's like that. All the time. For everything. From traffic tickets on up...
Date Published: Nov 21, 2009 - 2:00 pm
Time Is What Prevents Everything From Happening At Once.
The big question for me is "what is the shelf life of Palin and of Palinism? I think that Palin's shelf life is actually going to be rather short--longer perhaps than any other failed VP candidate in American history but short in political life terms. Palinism is another story. That will be with us as long as there is a Republican Party and a retro/angry white base for it to lean on.
The important thing to remember about Palin as a candidate for any national office is that it takes way more than for "Barkis to be willing." The Candidate proposes but the national party, the money men, and the talented managerial staff (in the end) dispose. McCain essentially failed into the nomination during the last round of Republican Primaries. That is, his other competition, each with their varying bases, finances, friends, connections and staffs canceled each other out and he was the last man standing. But at that point all the money and staff came to him. They ran a lousy campaign but his campaign managers were far from inexperienced. The first hurdle for Palin is going to be putting together an actual crack team next time around. She may be able to get the best people, or she may not.
McCain had OK people running his campaign, but they were, of course, hampered by the fact that McCain's logical voters were unexcited by him. That's why they brought Palin on. They explicitly wanted to get the well organized Evangelical Church turnout going. That's a base that's really sturdy. But is that really Sarah's base now? I'm not so sure. There seems to be a big overlap between the Tea Baggers/Dick Armey's tools and Palin's public fan base. But these are all different things. For one thing, despite Dick's best efforts, the Tea Baggers are proving to be difficult to herd and are currently suing each other left right and right of center. This, needless to say, is going to be a serious energy suck and if they can't get the problem under control the Tea Baggers as an authentic populist movement are going to be really hamstrung. Worse (from their point of view) they will become unable to organize anything at the grassroots, let alone voter registration and turn out.
Which brings us back to the actual Evangelical Churches/Mega Churches/Christian right. Are they really going to be Sarah's base? I can't tell. I've got no particular insight into this. To my mind Sarah has a problem with (some) portion of the truly right wing religious in this country. I know some women chose to vote "third party" because they did not approve of her working outside the home although they did approve, of course, of the five kids, the religiosity, and the unaborted baby. But those women tend to be extremely anti government--Sarah actually blotted her copybook further with them by claiming that she would encourage some kind of government action on behalf of special needs children once she was in the White House. Every attempt to reach out to Independents/people who don't hate and fear government was seen as a betrayal by this faction.
Perhaps that is neither here nor there. What matters for this group as a whole is the hierarchy and what they think. But are they going to throw their weight behind Palin early enough, as well as late enough, to push her to the top of the candidate field? That is going to depend on who else is running. All things being equal if they can get a respectable, responsible, handsome, male in that role they are going to prefer that. Not least because after following the last campaign they must be as aware as McCain and his team are that Sarah can't be controlled and channeled. On this blog we've been talking a lot about what Sarah's fans think, or see, but the truth of the matter is that the big money people, and the big mega church people, are as important in this mix. They, too, are watching Sarah on this unofficial campaign tour. Every misstep, every public lie, every little bit of ugliness and every piece of information is being watched. And when those guys watch Sarah at work they are going to be balancing her undeniable crowd appeal/fundraising success against the fact that they won't be able to reach any real agreement with Sarah about how the next campaign is going to be run, or how the country is going to be run. The principle fact of Palin's life is that she is extremely stupid, self interested, and unteachable. I don't say that because I don't like her. I say that because of what she says about herself and how she describes the campaign. People worked for McCain because they loved him and people are extremely forgiving of men, especially (sniff) war heroes when they are cranky assholes. They are incredibly unforgiving of women. And they are scared of them--scared of their uncontrollable angers, whims, and confusions. We need to factor that inherent sexist imbalance into the picture before we can begin to think realistically about how Dobson et al are going to approach the early funding and backing of Palin.
Which is a long winded way of saying that a few years is a long time in political life. And its a longer time in a woman's life. Palin has the unenviable task of keeping herself in the public eye, and respectably so, for two years before she even starts officially running. Of course she can do it. She is at least as well equipped as previous right wing darlings like Coulter to show up at important events, punditing, etc... And, of course, not holding any kind of public office or job means that she can freely pontificate on any topic without fear of having to put any of her theories into practice. That's all good. Its the same route Huckabee has chosen, though less successfully, to keep his name in the public's eye. But the longer she's in the public eye the more chances she and her entourage have to descend into farce, or disaster, a la Jon and Kate plus Eight--or even a la Princess Diana. Live as a Celebrity mother/sex object and die the same way. McCain bet the farm that she would serve her purpose before he ran out of electoral time. And he was wrong. Essentially she's running the same gambit--can she run out the clock on her own flaws and imperfections as a role model, political actor, and campaigner?
If she can't make it over the hump and gain the nomination for her party in 2011 what's next for Palin? Can she can continue on as a cult figure, like Ron Paul or Nader or Perot? I think she can, but not in a very meaningful way. But every year we move away from her original burst onto the stage the voting population that supports her will get older and whiter and less relevant. Will their kids be as excited by her? Because if not, appealing to Palin's popularity will, in a few years, become as mythic and strange as the recent appeals back to Reagan. The old geezers keep talking about him but most of the younger voters simply have no idea what they are talking about. She's been compared to Nixon, but she's no Nixon. She is not now, and never will be, the successful architect and manager of her own career on the national stage. She either has the backing, or she will fail. She's been compared to Buchanan and to Gingerich. There, I think, the comparison holds a bit more water. As I said before in the post "Imitation of Life" there's plenty of money to be made punditing around on the basis of having been an also ran, at least for Republicans. I can well imagine Palin having a niche market in sound bites and pundit interviews for a very long while to come. But other than bitching and sniping and lying (and I mean that perfectly analytically) she doesn't actually have much to say so if that's her goal she will end up some kind of Fox News figure with relatively little significance--she'll always say the same thing. The same people will listen to her, and the same people will ignore her. She will cease to be an important figure because she will cease to surprise or to lead.
But what of Palinism? That, I think, will be around for a long time since its just the latest avatar of anti-government, white ressentiment, christianist hand-wringing, apocalyptic, faux small town nostalgia. Because its all those things at once, and they are neither mutually inclusive nor mutually exclusive, expect to see Palinism (once it is freed of Palin herself) fragmenting and re-arranging itself around various hysterias--sometimes anti-tax, sometimes anti-gay sometimes hyper-patriotic sometimes extremely anti-government (and these are of course, sometimes the same thing). But without a polar figure around whom to dance it will not succeed so as soon as Palin is no longer sucking up the oxygen the various segments of her following will be looking for a new icon to worship.
The big question for me is "what is the shelf life of Palin and of Palinism? I think that Palin's shelf life is actually going to be rather short--longer perhaps than any other failed VP candidate in American history but short in political life terms. Palinism is another story. That will be with us as long as there is a Republican Party and a retro/angry white base for it to lean on.
The important thing to remember about Palin as a candidate for any national office is that it takes way more than for "Barkis to be willing." The Candidate proposes but the national party, the money men, and the talented managerial staff (in the end) dispose. McCain essentially failed into the nomination during the last round of Republican Primaries. That is, his other competition, each with their varying bases, finances, friends, connections and staffs canceled each other out and he was the last man standing. But at that point all the money and staff came to him. They ran a lousy campaign but his campaign managers were far from inexperienced. The first hurdle for Palin is going to be putting together an actual crack team next time around. She may be able to get the best people, or she may not.
McCain had OK people running his campaign, but they were, of course, hampered by the fact that McCain's logical voters were unexcited by him. That's why they brought Palin on. They explicitly wanted to get the well organized Evangelical Church turnout going. That's a base that's really sturdy. But is that really Sarah's base now? I'm not so sure. There seems to be a big overlap between the Tea Baggers/Dick Armey's tools and Palin's public fan base. But these are all different things. For one thing, despite Dick's best efforts, the Tea Baggers are proving to be difficult to herd and are currently suing each other left right and right of center. This, needless to say, is going to be a serious energy suck and if they can't get the problem under control the Tea Baggers as an authentic populist movement are going to be really hamstrung. Worse (from their point of view) they will become unable to organize anything at the grassroots, let alone voter registration and turn out.
Which brings us back to the actual Evangelical Churches/Mega Churches/Christian right. Are they really going to be Sarah's base? I can't tell. I've got no particular insight into this. To my mind Sarah has a problem with (some) portion of the truly right wing religious in this country. I know some women chose to vote "third party" because they did not approve of her working outside the home although they did approve, of course, of the five kids, the religiosity, and the unaborted baby. But those women tend to be extremely anti government--Sarah actually blotted her copybook further with them by claiming that she would encourage some kind of government action on behalf of special needs children once she was in the White House. Every attempt to reach out to Independents/people who don't hate and fear government was seen as a betrayal by this faction.
Perhaps that is neither here nor there. What matters for this group as a whole is the hierarchy and what they think. But are they going to throw their weight behind Palin early enough, as well as late enough, to push her to the top of the candidate field? That is going to depend on who else is running. All things being equal if they can get a respectable, responsible, handsome, male in that role they are going to prefer that. Not least because after following the last campaign they must be as aware as McCain and his team are that Sarah can't be controlled and channeled. On this blog we've been talking a lot about what Sarah's fans think, or see, but the truth of the matter is that the big money people, and the big mega church people, are as important in this mix. They, too, are watching Sarah on this unofficial campaign tour. Every misstep, every public lie, every little bit of ugliness and every piece of information is being watched. And when those guys watch Sarah at work they are going to be balancing her undeniable crowd appeal/fundraising success against the fact that they won't be able to reach any real agreement with Sarah about how the next campaign is going to be run, or how the country is going to be run. The principle fact of Palin's life is that she is extremely stupid, self interested, and unteachable. I don't say that because I don't like her. I say that because of what she says about herself and how she describes the campaign. People worked for McCain because they loved him and people are extremely forgiving of men, especially (sniff) war heroes when they are cranky assholes. They are incredibly unforgiving of women. And they are scared of them--scared of their uncontrollable angers, whims, and confusions. We need to factor that inherent sexist imbalance into the picture before we can begin to think realistically about how Dobson et al are going to approach the early funding and backing of Palin.
Which is a long winded way of saying that a few years is a long time in political life. And its a longer time in a woman's life. Palin has the unenviable task of keeping herself in the public eye, and respectably so, for two years before she even starts officially running. Of course she can do it. She is at least as well equipped as previous right wing darlings like Coulter to show up at important events, punditing, etc... And, of course, not holding any kind of public office or job means that she can freely pontificate on any topic without fear of having to put any of her theories into practice. That's all good. Its the same route Huckabee has chosen, though less successfully, to keep his name in the public's eye. But the longer she's in the public eye the more chances she and her entourage have to descend into farce, or disaster, a la Jon and Kate plus Eight--or even a la Princess Diana. Live as a Celebrity mother/sex object and die the same way. McCain bet the farm that she would serve her purpose before he ran out of electoral time. And he was wrong. Essentially she's running the same gambit--can she run out the clock on her own flaws and imperfections as a role model, political actor, and campaigner?
If she can't make it over the hump and gain the nomination for her party in 2011 what's next for Palin? Can she can continue on as a cult figure, like Ron Paul or Nader or Perot? I think she can, but not in a very meaningful way. But every year we move away from her original burst onto the stage the voting population that supports her will get older and whiter and less relevant. Will their kids be as excited by her? Because if not, appealing to Palin's popularity will, in a few years, become as mythic and strange as the recent appeals back to Reagan. The old geezers keep talking about him but most of the younger voters simply have no idea what they are talking about. She's been compared to Nixon, but she's no Nixon. She is not now, and never will be, the successful architect and manager of her own career on the national stage. She either has the backing, or she will fail. She's been compared to Buchanan and to Gingerich. There, I think, the comparison holds a bit more water. As I said before in the post "Imitation of Life" there's plenty of money to be made punditing around on the basis of having been an also ran, at least for Republicans. I can well imagine Palin having a niche market in sound bites and pundit interviews for a very long while to come. But other than bitching and sniping and lying (and I mean that perfectly analytically) she doesn't actually have much to say so if that's her goal she will end up some kind of Fox News figure with relatively little significance--she'll always say the same thing. The same people will listen to her, and the same people will ignore her. She will cease to be an important figure because she will cease to surprise or to lead.
But what of Palinism? That, I think, will be around for a long time since its just the latest avatar of anti-government, white ressentiment, christianist hand-wringing, apocalyptic, faux small town nostalgia. Because its all those things at once, and they are neither mutually inclusive nor mutually exclusive, expect to see Palinism (once it is freed of Palin herself) fragmenting and re-arranging itself around various hysterias--sometimes anti-tax, sometimes anti-gay sometimes hyper-patriotic sometimes extremely anti-government (and these are of course, sometimes the same thing). But without a polar figure around whom to dance it will not succeed so as soon as Palin is no longer sucking up the oxygen the various segments of her following will be looking for a new icon to worship.
Date Published: Nov 21, 2009 - 10:37 am
"DISILLUSIONMENT TAKES TIME"
In response to the previous post, ploeg says this, which is about Sarah Palin and her fans buts gets me thinking about the GOP and America:
Disillusionment takes time. Bush's poll numbers dropped steadily over the first six years of his presidency (with brief blips at 9/11, the Iraq invasion, and the capture of Saddam). Unfortunately, it took those six years for Bush to hit rock bottom, and he had a small but hard core of support even then. I wouldn't count on Sarah [Palin] following suit anytime soon, particularly since she has no responsible position at this time and can throw daggers as she pleases without having her fans call her to account.
Well, yeah -- and this is the danger of the magical thinking right-wingers (all of them, not just Palin) are encouraging right now: There's no reality test. None of the absurd proposals they make can be falsified for the next three years. And everything bad that happens in that time will be deemed the fault of Obama and the Democrats, even if (e.g., the financial crash, the wars) it's rooted in profound Republican failure, and it'll be treated as the Democrats' fault even if Republicans win back the House in 2010 (hell, even if they somehow manage to win back the Senate, though I don't see how that's possible).
Palin will never completely lose her core base of support, any more than Bush has -- 20- or 30-odd percent of the country will remain diehards. She has trouble with voters in the center largely, I think, because Tina Fey's imitation of her is so indelible; there's a negative baseline image of Palin now that's thoroughly negative, and everything she does that suggests the Fey version of Palin reinforces that negative image.
Unfortunately, there's no negative baseline image of conservatism as it's practiced these days. The crazy things right-wingers are saying don't seem inherently crazy to much of the center, and that's true because no negative idea of conservatism has taken root in the heartland, even now. (Yeah, I know that the GOP gets lousy ratings in polls, but a lot of that has to do with Bush's incompetence, which I fear isn't seen as ideological by much of the country, and with right-wingers thinking the GOP isn't wingnutty enough.)
There is a negative baseline image of liberalism, of course -- it's carefully cultivated by the right-wing noise machine on a 24/7/365 basis. Liberals, we're told unceasingly, are crazy and evil and pathetic and dangerous and scary and bent on the destruction of America. So as soon as a Democrat starts sounding too scarily, evil-ly liberal, a cloud of suspicion forms. No similar cloud forms over the crazies on the right, Palin excepted -- and she's excepted because Tina Fey made her look like the dolt she is, not because what she's saying is nuts.
I think, politically, she's toast, except among her fan base (which will largely forgive her any glitches on her book tour). But what she's saying, and what her fellow crazies are saying, isn't toast, because no noise machine discredits it.
In response to the previous post, ploeg says this, which is about Sarah Palin and her fans buts gets me thinking about the GOP and America:
Disillusionment takes time. Bush's poll numbers dropped steadily over the first six years of his presidency (with brief blips at 9/11, the Iraq invasion, and the capture of Saddam). Unfortunately, it took those six years for Bush to hit rock bottom, and he had a small but hard core of support even then. I wouldn't count on Sarah [Palin] following suit anytime soon, particularly since she has no responsible position at this time and can throw daggers as she pleases without having her fans call her to account.
Well, yeah -- and this is the danger of the magical thinking right-wingers (all of them, not just Palin) are encouraging right now: There's no reality test. None of the absurd proposals they make can be falsified for the next three years. And everything bad that happens in that time will be deemed the fault of Obama and the Democrats, even if (e.g., the financial crash, the wars) it's rooted in profound Republican failure, and it'll be treated as the Democrats' fault even if Republicans win back the House in 2010 (hell, even if they somehow manage to win back the Senate, though I don't see how that's possible).
Palin will never completely lose her core base of support, any more than Bush has -- 20- or 30-odd percent of the country will remain diehards. She has trouble with voters in the center largely, I think, because Tina Fey's imitation of her is so indelible; there's a negative baseline image of Palin now that's thoroughly negative, and everything she does that suggests the Fey version of Palin reinforces that negative image.
Unfortunately, there's no negative baseline image of conservatism as it's practiced these days. The crazy things right-wingers are saying don't seem inherently crazy to much of the center, and that's true because no negative idea of conservatism has taken root in the heartland, even now. (Yeah, I know that the GOP gets lousy ratings in polls, but a lot of that has to do with Bush's incompetence, which I fear isn't seen as ideological by much of the country, and with right-wingers thinking the GOP isn't wingnutty enough.)
There is a negative baseline image of liberalism, of course -- it's carefully cultivated by the right-wing noise machine on a 24/7/365 basis. Liberals, we're told unceasingly, are crazy and evil and pathetic and dangerous and scary and bent on the destruction of America. So as soon as a Democrat starts sounding too scarily, evil-ly liberal, a cloud of suspicion forms. No similar cloud forms over the crazies on the right, Palin excepted -- and she's excepted because Tina Fey made her look like the dolt she is, not because what she's saying is nuts.
I think, politically, she's toast, except among her fan base (which will largely forgive her any glitches on her book tour). But what she's saying, and what her fellow crazies are saying, isn't toast, because no noise machine discredits it.
Date Published: Nov 21, 2009 - 6:12 am
PALINDAMMERUNG? NAHHHH.
The anger at Sarah Palin for leaving fans in the lurch at an Indiana book signing sure seems genuine, but I'll repeat what I said to Aimai in comments:
Don't forget the nature of deep fandom. How many big fans of Michael Jackson truly believe he molested children? Only the ones who were actually molested and their immediate friends and families, as far as I can tell. Everyone else just explained away the sleepovers and the cuddling in bed and the bedroom with the special lock system on the door. That's what the Palinites who weren't at this signing will do -- explain it away in their own heads. It must be someone else's fault! Not Sarah's! (And they'll say that even if fellow Palinites are saying just the opposite.)
The anger at Sarah Palin for leaving fans in the lurch at an Indiana book signing sure seems genuine, but I'll repeat what I said to Aimai in comments:
Don't forget the nature of deep fandom. How many big fans of Michael Jackson truly believe he molested children? Only the ones who were actually molested and their immediate friends and families, as far as I can tell. Everyone else just explained away the sleepovers and the cuddling in bed and the bedroom with the special lock system on the door. That's what the Palinites who weren't at this signing will do -- explain it away in their own heads. It must be someone else's fault! Not Sarah's! (And they'll say that even if fellow Palinites are saying just the opposite.)
Date Published: Nov 20, 2009 - 1:16 pm
Notes Jotted Down On Seeing Sarah Palin Attacked By Her Fans
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it...
That is one hell of an If...
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it...
That is one hell of an If...
Date Published: Nov 20, 2009 - 12:23 pm
Can This Ever Happen to Palin?
h/t LGM From the Colorado Independent:
Now, Carrie Prejean is a straight up fake, and Palin is (presumably) a true believer (after a confused fashion) in the cult of Sarah the conservative icon, but the belief of the believer doesn't matter. In a cult of personality, its what the cult believes that is important. Another way of looking at it is that if you want to be a spokesmodel for soap, you've got to keep your image clean or people don't want to buy your brand.
The problem for us is-do we want Palin to keep succeeding, on the theory that she can never pull more than a fraction of the GOP base and will split the party and render it electorally null. Or do we fear that she can somehow get over on a large enough portion of the country's newly minted "independents" and even delusional democrats and somehow rise to power? In the first case, I don't want to see her discredited because she does more harm than good to the GOP brand while out on the trail. In the second case, I want to see her discredited fast before Palinism becomes a successful brand of populism and she ends up in the White House. But either way, I'm not sure if there is anything--short of Doug J's brilliant "second shooter" theory (that is that Levi was simultaneously having an affair with Bristol and with Palin herself)--which could discourage all of her fan base.
Palin is a very protean figure--she's loved and admired because she is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. She represents herself as a small time, small town, girl--but these things are themselves represented as, well, representative. She represents herself as distant from a corrupted America because she's Alaskan. But Alaska is then represented as a new, authentic, heartland, identical with the real America of our dreams. Personally, she's represented as a MILF. A PTA mom. A Hockey Mom. A successful politician. A Christian. A rogue. A conventional member of the majority. Sexy/Wife. Pure/Mother. Fighter and Winner. Fighter and Loser/Victim. Most of all she represents herself as loving her fans and, through them, America. As long as her fans feel that love, they will rally to her and give it back.
I've said this elsewhere--neediness is the watchword of this decade. People feel tremendous fear, and a need to be loved, mothered and taken care of. Palin gives people a chance to feel that there are easy, obvious, solutions--common sense!, anyone can see!, you don't need no book larnin' to see that... The lure of this approach to America's various crises is obvious--people loved Bush for the very same reason. He seemed to promise them that any idiot could step into power and fix things. McCain tried the same thing--remember he offered to solve our problems in Iraq by sitting the Shi'a and the Sunni down and telling them to "cut the bullshit?" But underlying the assertion that our solutions are right there, obvious and easy to find, is a deeper assertion--mommy is going to fix things for you. People are hungry for that. Maybe they like it packaged with sexy kitten heels, or starbursts and winks. Maybe they like it packaged with Holy Virgin Mother of Trig. Or Joan of Arc. Or Kali the Destroyer. But they like it.
So will anything break the bond between Palin and her followers--or so destroy her image that new followers can't coalesce around her? I hope so. I think a Prejean style sex tape would do it. I think irrefutable proof from Levi that he or someone else had had sex with her would do it. But Sarah has already survived other forms of public humiliation--forms that usually drive women (and even some men) from the spotlight, at least temporarily. She already lost a major election. She already had her poor mothering skills put on show with Bristol's pregnancy. She already had her leadership abilities undermined by Bristol and Levi refusing to get married. She should have lost points among Evangelical and retro-Christians for her obvious marketing of her sexuality and her failure to "submit" to her husband. None of these things made a dent in her popularity. In fact all of her flaws as a mother, a woman, a leader, a governor, a candidate have only caused her fans to cling more tightly to her as authentically one of them--a screw up who, miraculously, if she makes it to the White House, will never screw up again.
It beats me what will break the tie between Palin and her fans. Perhaps, like Thatcher, even age and loss of sexual power won't do it.
Edited to add:
Spoke too soon. If these reports are correct Palin's inability to deliver on the emotional demands of her fans will bring about her downfall. The second link takes you to Rumproast and an astonishing list of angry facebook comments from devastated Palin fans. This is a new variant on the old PTA standby "if momma ain't happy, nobody's happy." If Palin isn't showering her loyal fans with love they will turn on her in a heartbeat.
aimai
h/t LGM From the Colorado Independent:
Carrie Prejean, the decrowned Miss California USA and darling of the Christian right, appears to have been scrubbed from the National Organization for Marriage website. The move comes in the wake of a TMZ interview with the man whom Prejean reportedly met through MySpace and had a four-day hotel fling with in 2007. He alleges Prejean sent a series of sex tapes to him over the next couple of years. It’s the latest chapter in the story of Prejean’s partygirl past, which keeps leaking into the public sphere, ruining what had been her budding career as a Christian-values conservative politics spokesperson.
“She’s just using religion to get to where she’s at right now,” Prejean’s former lover told TMZ. “Really, I mean if she was just herself and she’d just take the route of ‘Hey I just like to party and I like to have a great time and I’m hot,’ hey, that sells too. She’s just trying to sell to a different crowd right now, and I’m not buying it, and a lot of people that know her, I mean, they don’t buy it either.”
Prejean became a darling of the values-voter bloc when she told gay blogger Perez Hilton during this year’s Miss USA pageant that marriage should be restricted to straight couples.
Now, Carrie Prejean is a straight up fake, and Palin is (presumably) a true believer (after a confused fashion) in the cult of Sarah the conservative icon, but the belief of the believer doesn't matter. In a cult of personality, its what the cult believes that is important. Another way of looking at it is that if you want to be a spokesmodel for soap, you've got to keep your image clean or people don't want to buy your brand.
The problem for us is-do we want Palin to keep succeeding, on the theory that she can never pull more than a fraction of the GOP base and will split the party and render it electorally null. Or do we fear that she can somehow get over on a large enough portion of the country's newly minted "independents" and even delusional democrats and somehow rise to power? In the first case, I don't want to see her discredited because she does more harm than good to the GOP brand while out on the trail. In the second case, I want to see her discredited fast before Palinism becomes a successful brand of populism and she ends up in the White House. But either way, I'm not sure if there is anything--short of Doug J's brilliant "second shooter" theory (that is that Levi was simultaneously having an affair with Bristol and with Palin herself)--which could discourage all of her fan base.
Palin is a very protean figure--she's loved and admired because she is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. She represents herself as a small time, small town, girl--but these things are themselves represented as, well, representative. She represents herself as distant from a corrupted America because she's Alaskan. But Alaska is then represented as a new, authentic, heartland, identical with the real America of our dreams. Personally, she's represented as a MILF. A PTA mom. A Hockey Mom. A successful politician. A Christian. A rogue. A conventional member of the majority. Sexy/Wife. Pure/Mother. Fighter and Winner. Fighter and Loser/Victim. Most of all she represents herself as loving her fans and, through them, America. As long as her fans feel that love, they will rally to her and give it back.
I've said this elsewhere--neediness is the watchword of this decade. People feel tremendous fear, and a need to be loved, mothered and taken care of. Palin gives people a chance to feel that there are easy, obvious, solutions--common sense!, anyone can see!, you don't need no book larnin' to see that... The lure of this approach to America's various crises is obvious--people loved Bush for the very same reason. He seemed to promise them that any idiot could step into power and fix things. McCain tried the same thing--remember he offered to solve our problems in Iraq by sitting the Shi'a and the Sunni down and telling them to "cut the bullshit?" But underlying the assertion that our solutions are right there, obvious and easy to find, is a deeper assertion--mommy is going to fix things for you. People are hungry for that. Maybe they like it packaged with sexy kitten heels, or starbursts and winks. Maybe they like it packaged with Holy Virgin Mother of Trig. Or Joan of Arc. Or Kali the Destroyer. But they like it.
So will anything break the bond between Palin and her followers--or so destroy her image that new followers can't coalesce around her? I hope so. I think a Prejean style sex tape would do it. I think irrefutable proof from Levi that he or someone else had had sex with her would do it. But Sarah has already survived other forms of public humiliation--forms that usually drive women (and even some men) from the spotlight, at least temporarily. She already lost a major election. She already had her poor mothering skills put on show with Bristol's pregnancy. She already had her leadership abilities undermined by Bristol and Levi refusing to get married. She should have lost points among Evangelical and retro-Christians for her obvious marketing of her sexuality and her failure to "submit" to her husband. None of these things made a dent in her popularity. In fact all of her flaws as a mother, a woman, a leader, a governor, a candidate have only caused her fans to cling more tightly to her as authentically one of them--a screw up who, miraculously, if she makes it to the White House, will never screw up again.
It beats me what will break the tie between Palin and her fans. Perhaps, like Thatcher, even age and loss of sexual power won't do it.
Edited to add:
Spoke too soon. If these reports are correct Palin's inability to deliver on the emotional demands of her fans will bring about her downfall. The second link takes you to Rumproast and an astonishing list of angry facebook comments from devastated Palin fans. This is a new variant on the old PTA standby "if momma ain't happy, nobody's happy." If Palin isn't showering her loyal fans with love they will turn on her in a heartbeat.
aimai
Date Published: Nov 20, 2009 - 10:03 am
CHOOSE GRATITUDE -- OR MY OWN PERSONAL BRAND? HMMM, LET ME THINK...
I don't put much stock in the wingnut-skewed Rasmussen polls, but there's one out now that says John McCain might be at risk of a teabag purge -- according to the poll, McCain is barely ahead of talk-radio host and ex-congressman J.D. Hayworth, 45%-43%, in a potential primary matchup. (Hayworth isn't a declared candidate.)
In response to this, Bill Kristol writes:
Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin. I predict that Palin will come to Arizona next summer to campaign for McCain, will make an impassioned case for him, and will help him win. She will thereby repay McCain for his confidence in picking her last year, help keep McCain as a crucial voice in the Senate for a strong foreign policy, and get credit for being a different kind of populist conservative -- a Reaganite, not a Buchananite, populist -- than the immigration-obsessed, voter-alienating (he was ousted in 2006 in a Republican district) Hayworth.
Really? And risk damaging Brand Palin, which stands for the rescue of America from both Marxist Kenyan fascism and the RINOism of which all teabaggers believe John McCain to be the living embodiment?
Nahhh -- there's no way she's going to endorse someone against a candidate who is (or might be) identified with the teabag Cause. And as we can tell from her memoir, she's certainly not going to do anything for McCain out of gratitude for his decision to make her a star. So no, Bill -- you're wrong again.
I don't put much stock in the wingnut-skewed Rasmussen polls, but there's one out now that says John McCain might be at risk of a teabag purge -- according to the poll, McCain is barely ahead of talk-radio host and ex-congressman J.D. Hayworth, 45%-43%, in a potential primary matchup. (Hayworth isn't a declared candidate.)
In response to this, Bill Kristol writes:
Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin. I predict that Palin will come to Arizona next summer to campaign for McCain, will make an impassioned case for him, and will help him win. She will thereby repay McCain for his confidence in picking her last year, help keep McCain as a crucial voice in the Senate for a strong foreign policy, and get credit for being a different kind of populist conservative -- a Reaganite, not a Buchananite, populist -- than the immigration-obsessed, voter-alienating (he was ousted in 2006 in a Republican district) Hayworth.
Really? And risk damaging Brand Palin, which stands for the rescue of America from both Marxist Kenyan fascism and the RINOism of which all teabaggers believe John McCain to be the living embodiment?
Nahhh -- there's no way she's going to endorse someone against a candidate who is (or might be) identified with the teabag Cause. And as we can tell from her memoir, she's certainly not going to do anything for McCain out of gratitude for his decision to make her a star. So no, Bill -- you're wrong again.
Date Published: Nov 20, 2009 - 9:50 am
BUSH: THE FATHER OF TEABAGISM?
(and other thoughts on wingnut dissent)
Do Obama-era wingnuts owe a big stylistic debt to Bush? Greg T. thinks so. Here's what he says in comments:
George W. Bush was the worst president ever -- eat his dust, James Buchanan! -- but he may have inadvertently done one good thing for the Republic: make the majority of his stupid supporters (including La Palin) so full of themselves, that they aren't able to function properly in a political system where some form of compromise is required. Even if your name is Bush.
Hmmm -- maybe that's right.
Though Greg adds:
At least this would be a good thing, as long as Teabag Nation can't get away with the next step in its descent to madness: violence.
I tend to think that's the direction this is heading in, but what seems to be holding the teabaggers back is that the president and congressional Democrats haven't really done anything. (Imagine the late '60s and early '70s if we had cautious, conciliatory presidents who kept thinking about sending half a million troops to Vietnam, but never actually did it.) And it's not at all clear that the Dems are going to get anything on their agenda passed -- and I mean anything -- thanks to the obstreperousness of teabag-inclined politicians (i.e., every Republican plus Lieberman and the Blue Dogs). Even the crazies seem willing to hold their fire when none of the Signs of the Last Days, i.e., Obama agenda items, ever get to a signing ceremony.
And if anything passes, the next step will probably just be nonviolent -- a simple muleheaded refusal to comply. Hell, there are plenty of towns in this country where they just pray in the public schools and don't care who knows it. We know the Tenth Amendment crowd thinks it can nullify health-care reform (hello, Rick Perry and Tim Pawlenty). I assume that would be the reaction to just about any big Democratic agenda item. That might keep the violence at bay for a while.
And speaking of nonviolent resistance, there's this in The New York Times today:
Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.
"{We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence," it says.
... The document was written by [Charles] Colson; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, who is Catholic; and the Rev. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, an evangelical interdenominational school on the campus of Samford University, in Birmingham, Ala....
Yeah, I know -- it's hard to imagine these pink-skinned old bastards, who usually don't do anything more vigorous than deliver a sermon at a megachurch or do VIP-box duty at the St. Patrick's Day parade, leading sit-ins and going to whatever might be the 21st-century liberal-fascist equivalent of Birmingham Jail. But I think the right will have some sort of nonviolent-civil-disobedience phase if there's ever anything to nonviolently resist, if only because of the right's deep envy of the '60s left.
I can easily imagine the right making a hero of some brave refusenik who won't participate in "ObamaCare" even though he's dying of cancer -- just as, a few years down the line, I can imagine wingnuts choosing to die rather than avail themselves of embryonic stem cell treatments. And these people will be the great heroes of the right.
What the religious leaders will do about, say, gay rights is another story. If Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed, are we going to see aging cardinals lying down in front of troop trains? And pouring blood on (computerized) military personnel records? I'm kinda looking forward to that, just for the absurdity of it.
(and other thoughts on wingnut dissent)
Do Obama-era wingnuts owe a big stylistic debt to Bush? Greg T. thinks so. Here's what he says in comments:
George W. Bush was the worst president ever -- eat his dust, James Buchanan! -- but he may have inadvertently done one good thing for the Republic: make the majority of his stupid supporters (including La Palin) so full of themselves, that they aren't able to function properly in a political system where some form of compromise is required. Even if your name is Bush.
Hmmm -- maybe that's right.
Though Greg adds:
At least this would be a good thing, as long as Teabag Nation can't get away with the next step in its descent to madness: violence.
I tend to think that's the direction this is heading in, but what seems to be holding the teabaggers back is that the president and congressional Democrats haven't really done anything. (Imagine the late '60s and early '70s if we had cautious, conciliatory presidents who kept thinking about sending half a million troops to Vietnam, but never actually did it.) And it's not at all clear that the Dems are going to get anything on their agenda passed -- and I mean anything -- thanks to the obstreperousness of teabag-inclined politicians (i.e., every Republican plus Lieberman and the Blue Dogs). Even the crazies seem willing to hold their fire when none of the Signs of the Last Days, i.e., Obama agenda items, ever get to a signing ceremony.
And if anything passes, the next step will probably just be nonviolent -- a simple muleheaded refusal to comply. Hell, there are plenty of towns in this country where they just pray in the public schools and don't care who knows it. We know the Tenth Amendment crowd thinks it can nullify health-care reform (hello, Rick Perry and Tim Pawlenty). I assume that would be the reaction to just about any big Democratic agenda item. That might keep the violence at bay for a while.
And speaking of nonviolent resistance, there's this in The New York Times today:
Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.
"{We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence," it says.
... The document was written by [Charles] Colson; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, who is Catholic; and the Rev. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, an evangelical interdenominational school on the campus of Samford University, in Birmingham, Ala....
Yeah, I know -- it's hard to imagine these pink-skinned old bastards, who usually don't do anything more vigorous than deliver a sermon at a megachurch or do VIP-box duty at the St. Patrick's Day parade, leading sit-ins and going to whatever might be the 21st-century liberal-fascist equivalent of Birmingham Jail. But I think the right will have some sort of nonviolent-civil-disobedience phase if there's ever anything to nonviolently resist, if only because of the right's deep envy of the '60s left.
I can easily imagine the right making a hero of some brave refusenik who won't participate in "ObamaCare" even though he's dying of cancer -- just as, a few years down the line, I can imagine wingnuts choosing to die rather than avail themselves of embryonic stem cell treatments. And these people will be the great heroes of the right.
What the religious leaders will do about, say, gay rights is another story. If Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed, are we going to see aging cardinals lying down in front of troop trains? And pouring blood on (computerized) military personnel records? I'm kinda looking forward to that, just for the absurdity of it.
Date Published: Nov 20, 2009 - 6:23 am
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND THEM
You've probably seen this report:
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided against running for governor, but is strongly considering running for U.S. Senate instead, sources told the Daily News.
Politico says Giuliani associates are denying the report. But here's the disturbing aspect of this:
Giuliani Would Beat Gillibrand
A new Marist Poll in New York shows that Rudy Giuliani (D)* would a formidable challenger to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and now holds a 14 point lead, 54% to 40%.
Key finding: "Even one-third of Democrats report they would back the Republican challenger, and Giuliani runs competitively against Gillibrand in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City."
To some extent, that's name recognition -- Gillibrand is still relatively unknown. But still -- a guy who's as far to the right as anyone in America on foreign policy and just about domestic issue except guns, gays, and abortion (i.e., spending, taxes, health care, supply side economics) is beating the Democrat in a deep-blue state?
Here's the thing: If 9/11 had happened in a big city in, say, Alabama or Mississippi, and the hero mayor who inspired both local residents and the nation to maintain heart and courage was a Democrat, and that Democrat subsequently ran for statewide office after spending the ensuing years publicly supporting a series of very traditional Democratic policies ... that mayor couldn't win. Not even if that mayor was "America's Mayor."
Hell, if a Democrat from Alabama or Mississippi had actually found and personally killed Osama bin Laden, and then subsequently gone around the country advocating traditional Democratic policy positions, the state still wouldn't elect the hugely popular hero.
That's the difference between right-wingers and non-right-wingers. Right-wingers vote their ideology. Too many non-right-wingers don't. All too often, non-right-wingers vote for politicians with whom they disagree on huge numbers of issues. And I'm not talking about pols who promise what non-right-wingers want and then fail to deliver -- I'm talking about pols who promise what these voters don't want, and then are elected anyway.
That's why Republicans can win in New York and New Jersey and California, but Democrats can't win statewide in the Deep South. Being anywhere near our side is a dealbreaker for them; being on or near their side isn't a dealbreaker for us.
*****
An unsurprising detail in that Politico story:
In other Giuliani news, blogger Rick Klau twitters that Giuliani was spotted today on the Acela, reading Going Rogue.
It's curious how often the names Palin and Giuliani are linked. Before Palin left the governorship, Giuliani was one of the people she called. A month earlier, she went to a Yankee game with him. He's defended her "death panels" remark -- but, then again, he defended her in '08, saying she was more qualified than Obama to be president. And as I've noted a few times, there's the curious fact that a hoity-toity magazine called Monocle mentioned her in 2007 as a possible Giuliani running mate for '08 -- why did their names get linked back then? Even leaving that out, they're pals. And they're two of a kind -- both believe themselves to be utterly lacking in flaws and both have absolutely no respect for anyone who disagrees with them. So I'm actually surprised he didn't get the book from her weeks ago.
*****
*UPDATE: Needless to say, "Rudy Giuliani (D)" is not correct. Oddly, I didn't notice that until Phil pointed it out in comments.
And Kathy points out that Alabama has a Democratic lieutenant governor. My apologies.
You've probably seen this report:
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided against running for governor, but is strongly considering running for U.S. Senate instead, sources told the Daily News.
Politico says Giuliani associates are denying the report. But here's the disturbing aspect of this:
Giuliani Would Beat Gillibrand
A new Marist Poll in New York shows that Rudy Giuliani (D)* would a formidable challenger to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and now holds a 14 point lead, 54% to 40%.
Key finding: "Even one-third of Democrats report they would back the Republican challenger, and Giuliani runs competitively against Gillibrand in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City."
To some extent, that's name recognition -- Gillibrand is still relatively unknown. But still -- a guy who's as far to the right as anyone in America on foreign policy and just about domestic issue except guns, gays, and abortion (i.e., spending, taxes, health care, supply side economics) is beating the Democrat in a deep-blue state?
Here's the thing: If 9/11 had happened in a big city in, say, Alabama or Mississippi, and the hero mayor who inspired both local residents and the nation to maintain heart and courage was a Democrat, and that Democrat subsequently ran for statewide office after spending the ensuing years publicly supporting a series of very traditional Democratic policies ... that mayor couldn't win. Not even if that mayor was "America's Mayor."
Hell, if a Democrat from Alabama or Mississippi had actually found and personally killed Osama bin Laden, and then subsequently gone around the country advocating traditional Democratic policy positions, the state still wouldn't elect the hugely popular hero.
That's the difference between right-wingers and non-right-wingers. Right-wingers vote their ideology. Too many non-right-wingers don't. All too often, non-right-wingers vote for politicians with whom they disagree on huge numbers of issues. And I'm not talking about pols who promise what non-right-wingers want and then fail to deliver -- I'm talking about pols who promise what these voters don't want, and then are elected anyway.
That's why Republicans can win in New York and New Jersey and California, but Democrats can't win statewide in the Deep South. Being anywhere near our side is a dealbreaker for them; being on or near their side isn't a dealbreaker for us.
*****
An unsurprising detail in that Politico story:
In other Giuliani news, blogger Rick Klau twitters that Giuliani was spotted today on the Acela, reading Going Rogue.
It's curious how often the names Palin and Giuliani are linked. Before Palin left the governorship, Giuliani was one of the people she called. A month earlier, she went to a Yankee game with him. He's defended her "death panels" remark -- but, then again, he defended her in '08, saying she was more qualified than Obama to be president. And as I've noted a few times, there's the curious fact that a hoity-toity magazine called Monocle mentioned her in 2007 as a possible Giuliani running mate for '08 -- why did their names get linked back then? Even leaving that out, they're pals. And they're two of a kind -- both believe themselves to be utterly lacking in flaws and both have absolutely no respect for anyone who disagrees with them. So I'm actually surprised he didn't get the book from her weeks ago.
*****
*UPDATE: Needless to say, "Rudy Giuliani (D)" is not correct. Oddly, I didn't notice that until Phil pointed it out in comments.
And Kathy points out that Alabama has a Democratic lieutenant governor. My apologies.
Date Published: Nov 19, 2009 - 4:33 pm
ACORN: THE OTHER SUPERVILLAINS WITH SUPERPOWERS
We all know that right-wingers think Guantanamo terrorists are terrifying supervillains who'll put every American's life in danger if they're allowed to set foot on U.S. soil, even manacled and under extraordinarily heavy security. As it turns out, they're not the only people to whom right-wing bedwetters ascribe superhuman powers:
The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.
... The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?"
... Among Republicans, ... only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.
... In order to believe that Obama wasn't the true winner of the 2008 election, one would have to think that ACORN (and perhaps other groups) stuffed ballots to the tune of over 9.5 million votes, Obama's national margin....
Of course, right-wingers routinely ascribe superpowers to people they don't like. Bill Clinton -- who couldn't get a health-care bill passed, couldn't get gays in the military approved, couldn't retain congressional majorities, and couldn't have illicit sex without getting impeached -- was somehow powerful enough to have dozens of people killed and get away with it; Barack Obama is believed to have similar powers.
And now we have SuperACORN. (As you may also know, Doug Hoffman is raising funds with a letter claiming that ACORN stole the recent election in New York's 23rd congressional district, even though, as the local Watertown Daily Times points out, he has "provided no evidence to support his claims." I supposed he'd argue that ACORN is so powerful that empirical evidence of the deceit may not even exist.)
If there are any responsible journalists out there and they'd like to perform a public service, they should go up to NY-23 and just report on the vote-counting process -- specifically addressing the question of whether ACORN is even a significant factor in local elections, much less whether it can pump thousands of fake votes into the system while all electoral participants just twiddle their thumbs. (I don't care what Erick Erickson or Glenn Beck thinks, I just don't believe all the locals, across the political spectrum, would simply look the other way and overlook the fact that the fix was in.) Such a report wouldn't change anyone's mind on the right, but the more wingnuts whine, the more likely it is that swing voters will start to believe what they say about SuperACORN. This nonsense shouldn't be ignored. It should be debunked.
We all know that right-wingers think Guantanamo terrorists are terrifying supervillains who'll put every American's life in danger if they're allowed to set foot on U.S. soil, even manacled and under extraordinarily heavy security. As it turns out, they're not the only people to whom right-wing bedwetters ascribe superhuman powers:
The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.
... The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?"
... Among Republicans, ... only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.
... In order to believe that Obama wasn't the true winner of the 2008 election, one would have to think that ACORN (and perhaps other groups) stuffed ballots to the tune of over 9.5 million votes, Obama's national margin....
Of course, right-wingers routinely ascribe superpowers to people they don't like. Bill Clinton -- who couldn't get a health-care bill passed, couldn't get gays in the military approved, couldn't retain congressional majorities, and couldn't have illicit sex without getting impeached -- was somehow powerful enough to have dozens of people killed and get away with it; Barack Obama is believed to have similar powers.
And now we have SuperACORN. (As you may also know, Doug Hoffman is raising funds with a letter claiming that ACORN stole the recent election in New York's 23rd congressional district, even though, as the local Watertown Daily Times points out, he has "provided no evidence to support his claims." I supposed he'd argue that ACORN is so powerful that empirical evidence of the deceit may not even exist.)
If there are any responsible journalists out there and they'd like to perform a public service, they should go up to NY-23 and just report on the vote-counting process -- specifically addressing the question of whether ACORN is even a significant factor in local elections, much less whether it can pump thousands of fake votes into the system while all electoral participants just twiddle their thumbs. (I don't care what Erick Erickson or Glenn Beck thinks, I just don't believe all the locals, across the political spectrum, would simply look the other way and overlook the fact that the fix was in.) Such a report wouldn't change anyone's mind on the right, but the more wingnuts whine, the more likely it is that swing voters will start to believe what they say about SuperACORN. This nonsense shouldn't be ignored. It should be debunked.
Date Published: Nov 19, 2009 - 12:20 pm
KICK ME
Is this necessary?
Former press secretary to President George W. Bush Dana Perino was appointed as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Wednesday evening.
The board governs all government sponsored, non-military international broadcasting outlets, such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra. The BBG is a nine member, bipartisan panel.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged the Obama administration to appoint Perino.
Perino is currently a Chief Issues Counselor for the United States at Burson-Marsteller, an international public relations firm, and is a contributor to Fox News. ...
Yeah, I gather it's fairly common to name members of the opposite party to jobs like this -- but a member of the opposite party who actually attacks you in public?
October 21, 2009, 12:42PM
Former Press Secretary Dana Perino told Sean Hannity last night that what the Obama White House is doing to Fox News is something "like dictators do."
Full quote:
PERINO: Here's what I think. I think -- let's step back for a second. When you are the White House you don't just speak to the 16 reporters who are in the room. What you say at that podium really matters. What you say -- as the chief of staff or other members, the senior staff, matters to everybody, including emerging democracies around the world.
And what they see is what they see like dictators do, right? They go after illegitimate news organizations.
More:
Former White House press secretary and current Fox News contributor Dana Perino has recently contrasted the Obama administration's criticism of Fox News with the Bush administration's treatment of MSNBC, saying, "I could have taken that tack, but I thought it was not the right thing to do and I think it's mostly because it's really unproductive, it feels un-American, and it's not inspiring." However, Perino did criticize NBC, MSNBC's parent network, during her time as press secretary, asserting that NBC had "intentionally" mischaracterized remarks made by President Bush....
Granted, the Obama administration is just making Perino one member of the governing board; the head will be Walter Isaacson, formerly of Time and CNN. But contrast this with the Bush years: W first appointed as chair of the BBG one Kenneth Tomlinson, a Rove crony and right-wing ideologue who attempted to politicize the joint, as he did the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which he also chaired:
Tomlinson has also focused on deposing staff that he considers to be Democratic sympathizers....
... Under his reign, longtime civil servants have found themselves replaced by Republican ideologues.
... in the Tomlinson era, VOA management has focused far more intently on burnishing the image of the Bush administration and the Republican Party....
Tomlinson was eventually replaced by the less ideological James Glassman, and then the chairmanship was left vacant (as were four seats on the board).
Mitch McConnell wanted Perino on the board? I suppose this could have been worse:
Under President Bush ... McConnell ... nominated the neoconservative writer Clifford May ... his confirmation was stalled.... Since Obama’s election, McConnell renominated May, as well as former Wisconsin Republican Party chair Rick Graber, but both were refused by the White House.
Still -- is Obama going to get anything in return for this from McConnell? Or any of Perino's other pals? Thewn what's the point?
Is this necessary?
Former press secretary to President George W. Bush Dana Perino was appointed as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Wednesday evening.
The board governs all government sponsored, non-military international broadcasting outlets, such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra. The BBG is a nine member, bipartisan panel.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged the Obama administration to appoint Perino.
Perino is currently a Chief Issues Counselor for the United States at Burson-Marsteller, an international public relations firm, and is a contributor to Fox News. ...
Yeah, I gather it's fairly common to name members of the opposite party to jobs like this -- but a member of the opposite party who actually attacks you in public?
October 21, 2009, 12:42PM
Former Press Secretary Dana Perino told Sean Hannity last night that what the Obama White House is doing to Fox News is something "like dictators do."
Full quote:
PERINO: Here's what I think. I think -- let's step back for a second. When you are the White House you don't just speak to the 16 reporters who are in the room. What you say at that podium really matters. What you say -- as the chief of staff or other members, the senior staff, matters to everybody, including emerging democracies around the world.
And what they see is what they see like dictators do, right? They go after illegitimate news organizations.
More:
Former White House press secretary and current Fox News contributor Dana Perino has recently contrasted the Obama administration's criticism of Fox News with the Bush administration's treatment of MSNBC, saying, "I could have taken that tack, but I thought it was not the right thing to do and I think it's mostly because it's really unproductive, it feels un-American, and it's not inspiring." However, Perino did criticize NBC, MSNBC's parent network, during her time as press secretary, asserting that NBC had "intentionally" mischaracterized remarks made by President Bush....
Granted, the Obama administration is just making Perino one member of the governing board; the head will be Walter Isaacson, formerly of Time and CNN. But contrast this with the Bush years: W first appointed as chair of the BBG one Kenneth Tomlinson, a Rove crony and right-wing ideologue who attempted to politicize the joint, as he did the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which he also chaired:
Tomlinson has also focused on deposing staff that he considers to be Democratic sympathizers....
... Under his reign, longtime civil servants have found themselves replaced by Republican ideologues.
... in the Tomlinson era, VOA management has focused far more intently on burnishing the image of the Bush administration and the Republican Party....
Tomlinson was eventually replaced by the less ideological James Glassman, and then the chairmanship was left vacant (as were four seats on the board).
Mitch McConnell wanted Perino on the board? I suppose this could have been worse:
Under President Bush ... McConnell ... nominated the neoconservative writer Clifford May ... his confirmation was stalled.... Since Obama’s election, McConnell renominated May, as well as former Wisconsin Republican Party chair Rick Graber, but both were refused by the White House.
Still -- is Obama going to get anything in return for this from McConnell? Or any of Perino's other pals? Thewn what's the point?
Date Published: Nov 19, 2009 - 10:01 am
PALIN THROWS A RIGHT-WING GANG SIGN
From Politico:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin smacked the "lamestream media" on Wednesday for allegedly distorting what she writes in her book.
Speaking on Sean Hannity's radio show, Palin said that "some on the left, that lamestream media, they're contradicting what I wrote in the book."
Hannity jumped in to ask, "did you say lamestream media?"
"Yeah, lamestream," Palin responded....
Although it's been around for a while, this is obviously the phrase of the week -- it also shows up in passing in Bernie Goldberg's grumbling about why liberals hate Palin. (By the way, Bernie, Ann Coulter doesn't have any kids, much less five, Down syndrome or otherwise, and she goes to fancy restaurants and has probably never seen a moose in her life -- and we hate her, too.) "You lie!" is so early fall.
Yeah, "lamestream media." Oh, and I love the way Hannity makes doubly sure that we all notice this, as if he's got an arrangement to share revenue with Palin on the inevitable T-shirt sales. ("ANNOY THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA! VOTE PALIN 2012!" You know this is coming.)
I really, really want Palin to keep this up. I want her to pepper her Facebook posts with references to "NObama" and "President Zero." I want her to talk about "Dingy Harry" Reid. I want her to use all the most immature, grade-school-level shibboleths of the right (you know, stuff like "libtards") on the presidential campaign trail -- and I want her to win Republican primaries by doing so, while appalling everyone who's not in the talk radio/Fox/tea party cult.
Seems hard to believe it won't happen, really.
****
Maybe she can practice her gang patois during Phase II of her book-tour-slash-presidential-campaign, which will probably start early next year with this:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first National Tea Party convention is going to be held in Music City, with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker.
... Palin will be in Nashville for the tea party convention held Feb. 4 to 6 at Gaylord Opryland.
Tickets are $549 each....
I don't think she's going to set foot in Alaska for more than a month a year between now and whenever she loses three years from now.
From Politico:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin smacked the "lamestream media" on Wednesday for allegedly distorting what she writes in her book.
Speaking on Sean Hannity's radio show, Palin said that "some on the left, that lamestream media, they're contradicting what I wrote in the book."
Hannity jumped in to ask, "did you say lamestream media?"
"Yeah, lamestream," Palin responded....
Although it's been around for a while, this is obviously the phrase of the week -- it also shows up in passing in Bernie Goldberg's grumbling about why liberals hate Palin. (By the way, Bernie, Ann Coulter doesn't have any kids, much less five, Down syndrome or otherwise, and she goes to fancy restaurants and has probably never seen a moose in her life -- and we hate her, too.) "You lie!" is so early fall.
Yeah, "lamestream media." Oh, and I love the way Hannity makes doubly sure that we all notice this, as if he's got an arrangement to share revenue with Palin on the inevitable T-shirt sales. ("ANNOY THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA! VOTE PALIN 2012!" You know this is coming.)
I really, really want Palin to keep this up. I want her to pepper her Facebook posts with references to "NObama" and "President Zero." I want her to talk about "Dingy Harry" Reid. I want her to use all the most immature, grade-school-level shibboleths of the right (you know, stuff like "libtards") on the presidential campaign trail -- and I want her to win Republican primaries by doing so, while appalling everyone who's not in the talk radio/Fox/tea party cult.
Seems hard to believe it won't happen, really.
****
Maybe she can practice her gang patois during Phase II of her book-tour-slash-presidential-campaign, which will probably start early next year with this:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first National Tea Party convention is going to be held in Music City, with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker.
... Palin will be in Nashville for the tea party convention held Feb. 4 to 6 at Gaylord Opryland.
Tickets are $549 each....
I don't think she's going to set foot in Alaska for more than a month a year between now and whenever she loses three years from now.
Date Published: Nov 19, 2009 - 5:38 am
THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION "IS NEWSWEEK'S PALIN COVER DISRESPECTFUL?"
From a couple of her greatest admirers -- people who stood in line for hours to get copies of her book autographed in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
... Palin fans -- many who have been in line since before daybreak -- waited in lawn chairs with copies of Palin's new book "Going Rouge" near their feet....
Wyoming resident Matthew Witte said he was still a bit stunned after being interviewed by Maria Menounos from Access Hollywood. Witte figures Menounos picked him out of the crowd because he wore his U.S. Army fatigues....
The 26-year-old said he was caught off guard when Menounos whipped out the Newsweek magazine cover featuring Palin in a track suit and asked him if he thought it was sexist....
"I didn't feel it was sexist at all, it wasn't like she was in spandex," Witte said. "And with her figure she could sport spandex. I want a president that's fit. Healthcare is a big debate."
The question from Menounos amused Grand Rapids resident Mark Vainner who sat nearby.
"Why do they keep asking that?" Vainner said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if you show a guy a picture of a girl with boobs and say 'Does this bother you' the answer is going to be no."...
There you have it, straight from her fan base. This is what about her appeals to a significant portion of her base. Feel better now?
****
UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press also quotes breast man Mark Vainner in its story about the Grand Rapids signing. We learn from the Freep that Vainner has a jacket he asked Palin to sign (she agreed), one that already bears signatures Vainner has collected from a number of right-wing personalities. First autograph Vainner got? G. Gordon Liddy. Make of that what you will.
From a couple of her greatest admirers -- people who stood in line for hours to get copies of her book autographed in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
... Palin fans -- many who have been in line since before daybreak -- waited in lawn chairs with copies of Palin's new book "Going Rouge" near their feet....
Wyoming resident Matthew Witte said he was still a bit stunned after being interviewed by Maria Menounos from Access Hollywood. Witte figures Menounos picked him out of the crowd because he wore his U.S. Army fatigues....
The 26-year-old said he was caught off guard when Menounos whipped out the Newsweek magazine cover featuring Palin in a track suit and asked him if he thought it was sexist....
"I didn't feel it was sexist at all, it wasn't like she was in spandex," Witte said. "And with her figure she could sport spandex. I want a president that's fit. Healthcare is a big debate."
The question from Menounos amused Grand Rapids resident Mark Vainner who sat nearby.
"Why do they keep asking that?" Vainner said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if you show a guy a picture of a girl with boobs and say 'Does this bother you' the answer is going to be no."...
There you have it, straight from her fan base. This is what about her appeals to a significant portion of her base. Feel better now?
****
UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press also quotes breast man Mark Vainner in its story about the Grand Rapids signing. We learn from the Freep that Vainner has a jacket he asked Palin to sign (she agreed), one that already bears signatures Vainner has collected from a number of right-wing personalities. First autograph Vainner got? G. Gordon Liddy. Make of that what you will.
Date Published: Nov 18, 2009 - 2:56 pm
EVEN OUR "BOLD" OFFICEHOLDERS ARE TOO TIMID
At first glance, this seems like a very good thing:
Philadelphia Gives Homeowners a Way to Stay Put
... Under the rules adopted by Philadelphia's primary civil court, no owner-occupied house may be foreclosed on and sold by the sheriff's office before a "conciliation conference," a face-to-face meeting between the homeowner and the lender aimed at striking a workable compromise. Every homeowner facing a default filing is furnished with counseling, and sometimes legal representation.
... In some cases, deals are struck that lower monthly payments for borrowers and allow them to retain their homes. When a homeowner cannot afford the home even at modified terms, the program helps to create a graceful exit, in which the borrower accepts cash for vacating the property or signs over the deed in lieu of further payment.
It also seems like a rebuke to the caution and timidity of the Obama administration:
Those outcomes are similar to the ones produced by the Obama administration's $75 billion program aimed at stemming foreclosures.... But in Philadelphia there is one crucial difference: the mortgage companies have no choice but to participate. They have to attend the conferences and negotiate in good faith or they cannot proceed with a sheriff’s sale.
But there are some problems:
... Some suggest the city's program is plagued by the same basic defect as the Obama rescue plan: Nearly all the loans that have been modified have been altered on a trial basis, requiring homeowners to reapply for an extension of the terms after only a few months -- a process that appears rife with obstacles, according to participants.
"There's no teeth to the conciliation program," said Matthew B. Weisberg, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents homeowners in cases involving alleged mortgage fraud. "It's a largely ineffective stopgap prolonging what appears to be the inevitable, which is the loss of homes."
Still, Mr. Weisberg grudgingly praised the plan.
"It's arbitrary and unpredictable," he said, "but it's better than what anybody else is doing."
There's the failure of liberalism in what's supposed to be the post-conservative Obama era: the president's approach to huge problems is weak and watered down ... and the "cutting-edge" approach at the non-federal level is only slightly less weak and watered down.
In a better world, negotiation would be mandatory and settlements would stick -- nationwide -- and the wheeler-dealers would shut up and take it, as the inevitable price to be paid for the government's benevolent decision not to allow their entire playhouse, otherwise known as the global economic system, to go through the laissez-faire process of collapse and rebirth, which would have meant a far longer and more painful downturn, in all likelihood a full-blown depression. But the profound corruption of our political system means that supposedly liberal Washington pols search for much more direct ways to improve the bottom lines of the wheeler-dealers, bypassing relief for ordinary schmucks altogether.
"Liberal" Democrats inevitably fail in this country because, as a result of our money-drenched political culture, their main promise -- advocacy of the interests ordinary people rather than those of the powerful -- becomes impossible to fulfill. Right-wingers don't have this problem; they say they're going to help the capitalists, and they do. The trickle-down that's supposed to derive from that may never arrive, but at least they're not saying one thing and doing another. Democrats always let us down. How can they not?
At first glance, this seems like a very good thing:
Philadelphia Gives Homeowners a Way to Stay Put
... Under the rules adopted by Philadelphia's primary civil court, no owner-occupied house may be foreclosed on and sold by the sheriff's office before a "conciliation conference," a face-to-face meeting between the homeowner and the lender aimed at striking a workable compromise. Every homeowner facing a default filing is furnished with counseling, and sometimes legal representation.
... In some cases, deals are struck that lower monthly payments for borrowers and allow them to retain their homes. When a homeowner cannot afford the home even at modified terms, the program helps to create a graceful exit, in which the borrower accepts cash for vacating the property or signs over the deed in lieu of further payment.
It also seems like a rebuke to the caution and timidity of the Obama administration:
Those outcomes are similar to the ones produced by the Obama administration's $75 billion program aimed at stemming foreclosures.... But in Philadelphia there is one crucial difference: the mortgage companies have no choice but to participate. They have to attend the conferences and negotiate in good faith or they cannot proceed with a sheriff’s sale.
But there are some problems:
... Some suggest the city's program is plagued by the same basic defect as the Obama rescue plan: Nearly all the loans that have been modified have been altered on a trial basis, requiring homeowners to reapply for an extension of the terms after only a few months -- a process that appears rife with obstacles, according to participants.
"There's no teeth to the conciliation program," said Matthew B. Weisberg, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents homeowners in cases involving alleged mortgage fraud. "It's a largely ineffective stopgap prolonging what appears to be the inevitable, which is the loss of homes."
Still, Mr. Weisberg grudgingly praised the plan.
"It's arbitrary and unpredictable," he said, "but it's better than what anybody else is doing."
There's the failure of liberalism in what's supposed to be the post-conservative Obama era: the president's approach to huge problems is weak and watered down ... and the "cutting-edge" approach at the non-federal level is only slightly less weak and watered down.
In a better world, negotiation would be mandatory and settlements would stick -- nationwide -- and the wheeler-dealers would shut up and take it, as the inevitable price to be paid for the government's benevolent decision not to allow their entire playhouse, otherwise known as the global economic system, to go through the laissez-faire process of collapse and rebirth, which would have meant a far longer and more painful downturn, in all likelihood a full-blown depression. But the profound corruption of our political system means that supposedly liberal Washington pols search for much more direct ways to improve the bottom lines of the wheeler-dealers, bypassing relief for ordinary schmucks altogether.
"Liberal" Democrats inevitably fail in this country because, as a result of our money-drenched political culture, their main promise -- advocacy of the interests ordinary people rather than those of the powerful -- becomes impossible to fulfill. Right-wingers don't have this problem; they say they're going to help the capitalists, and they do. The trickle-down that's supposed to derive from that may never arrive, but at least they're not saying one thing and doing another. Democrats always let us down. How can they not?
Date Published: Nov 18, 2009 - 1:27 pm
If You Read Only One More Palin Review--Read This.
Just read the whole thing.
aimai
The most unbelievable thing about Going Rogue, by the author-function "Sarah Palin," is that it's supposed to be self-serving. The problem a self-serving narrative about Sarah Palin confronts is that it's about Sarah Palin, whose entire life, it appears, consists of worse and worse attempts to create self-serving narratives explaining away bigger and bigger fuck-ups. Going Rogue's burden is that it must claim to be the definitive, encyclopedic explanation, the final excuse, for a long history of failure begat by failure; it's an epic of failure, if you will, and if the goal here is some kind of ultimate vindication, well, it is monumentally unsuccessful. Going Rogue is, at bottom, the story of every one of Sarah Palin's projects ending in grotesque catastrophe; it is only self-serving in the sense that these catastrophes either prove benign or turn out to be some other schlub's fault. If everything I knew about Sarah Palin came from this book (and basically it does), I would say her life has been like a play in which a deus-ex-machina descends at the end of every act to bestow peace and harmony, except the deus forgot to put on pants and everyone's just standing around going "uhhhh..." and then the lights go out and the scene changes.
Just read the whole thing.
aimai
Date Published: Nov 18, 2009 - 11:38 am
